What if you could finally understand what it really takes to grow as a lawyer beyond just practicing law?
In this first part of a special two-part Be That Lawyer Live, Steve Fretzin brings together Daniel Scola, Eido Walny, and Karl Seelbach for a candid conversation you won’t hear anywhere else. You’ll be pulled into their stories, their struggles, and the strategies that shaped their careers in ways most attorneys never talk about openly. As you listen, you’ll discover how much of this applies directly to you, wherever you are in your own journey. This episode isn’t just about hearing from successful lawyers — it’s about helping you see what’s possible for yourself.
In this episode, Steve, Daniel, Eido, and Karl discuss:
- Challenges lawyers face in business development and rainmaking
- Importance of consistent habits and time management in client growth
- Role of personal passions, networking, and authentic connections in practice-building
- Lessons learned from mistakes that shape long-term legal careers
Key Takeaways:
- Many lawyers struggle with rainmaking because they aren’t taught marketing skills, and mentorship or coaching is often the turning point in learning business development.
- Time-blocking, using a CRM, and accountability partners are crucial for keeping business development efforts consistent and measurable.
- Combining personal passions (like car restoration or music) with client relationships creates authentic connections that naturally lead to new business opportunities.
- Asking directly for business and following through on promises builds trust, while overpromising or relying on others’ client relationships can backfire.
“Not overpromising is a really important one for me… you’ve got to deliver what you say.” — Daniel Scola
“There are two things that this firm can never and no one can ever take away from you. That’s your knowledge base and your contact base.” — Eido Walny
“Clients aren’t going to remember every case you handle, but they’re never going to forget how you make them feel.” — Karl Seelbach
Check out my new show, Be That Lawyer Coaches Corner, and get the strategies I use with my clients to win more business and love your career again.
Thank you to our Sponsors!
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About our Guests:
- Daniel Scola is the Managing Partner of Hoffmann & Baron, LLP, focusing on patents, trademarks, copyrights, and global IP protection [LinkedIn | Website].
- Eido Walny is the founder of Walny Legal Group, a nationally recognized estate planning and asset protection practice [LinkedIn | Website].
- Karl Seelbach is the Managing Partner of Doyle & Seelbach, specializing in personal injury defense and legal technology innovation [LinkedIn | Website].
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:00]
Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin here, and if you’re enjoying be that lawyer you’re going to want to check out my brand new show. Be that lawyer Coaches Corner with Steve Fretzin. It’s just me sharing strategies and systems lawyers use to gain more freedom, control and independence in their careers. We’ve already got episodes live, so check it out. Be that lawyer Coaches Corner. Give it a listen today on all major channels and enjoy the show.
Narrator [00:26]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin, Hey
Steve Fretzin [00:48]
everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. Live. We are here twice a week, every week, to help you be that lawyer, confident, organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Every once in a while, I’m blessed with not just one guest, but three amazing guests, and we’ve got an absolute winning show for you today with the be that lawyer live panel. This is the rainmakers dream come true, three top players, all in my book, 101 top Rainmaker secrets to growing successful law practice, sharing all their best tips and secrets and ideas on how to grow a successful law practice and become a rainmaker. And this will be a two part series. This is part one, and so we will do our best to intro those the panelists in a minute. If you’re kind of meeting me and fretsen for the first time, and I see a number of the people live here know me pretty well, some of our clients and all that, welcome and please feel free to use the Q and A. That’s how we’re going to go. In addition to the questions I’ve prepared, we want to answer your question, so if you have a question, put in the Q and A, and I’ll either get to it in real time, or we’ll knock it out at the end. But I wanted to just tell you to please participate as much as you’d like with Q and A. All right, I’m Steve Fretzin. I’m the host for today and the host of the be that lawyer podcast. And for those who don’t know, I do coaching and training for highly motivated, ambitious attorneys around the world who want to dramatically grow their law practices. I also run currently, four Rainmaker roundtables for lawyers who are already killing it and want to participate in a group with other lawyers and share their wisdom and be able to share secrets and ideas and tidbits. And I do bring in a ton of great guest speakers as well. So that’s enough about me. Let’s meet our amazing panel today. And let’s start off with Daniel Scola, Dan, as we call him, managing partner of Hoffman and Baron. Welcome, and if you would just take 30 seconds Introduce yourself.
Daniel Scola [02:32]
Yeah, hi. Glad to be here. I’m the managing partner of Hoffman and Barron, and my background originally was in the sciences. Our firm does strictly intellectual property, so it’s patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, that sort of thing. You know, I’ve been doing this for quite a long time, over 30 years, and I really got into the practice because my dad was an inventor, and I saw his invention get stolen, and I thought, you know, that’s kind of an interesting thing. How does he, how do you protect that? And then I ended up, you know, finding a way. So that’s why I got into IP. But I was in corporate practice for a long time, and I went the opposite way. I was inside Council, and I went and started the private practice route. So, yeah, we have three offices. And, you know, just strictly IP.
Steve Fretzin [03:19]
You ever see that movie with Greg Kinnear about? Oh yeah, the intermittent wipers, it got stolen. Oh, my God, that’s so
Daniel Scola [03:27]
yeah, no, I know. I know. I know. Well, I can’t watch that movie. It’s very difficult.
Steve Fretzin [03:33]
It’s like, it’s like watching divorce story. Just can’t. You can’t through it. It’s so horrible.
Daniel Scola [03:37]
Yeah, yeah. I’m not sure I would have agreed with a lot of the decisions. That’s the big a lot
Steve Fretzin [03:41]
of bad decisions. Well, lawyer up. That’s the first decision you make when you’re an inventor, for sure. Well, thanks for being here. Let’s go to Eido. Eido Walny, everybody is the founder Managing Partner of Walney Legal Group. Welcome and introduce yourself, please.
Eido Walny [03:55]
Thanks, Steve. So my name is Eido Walny. I’m the founder Managing Partner of Walny Legal Group. We’re a boutique estate planning shop based out of Milwaukee, but with the national scope, my clients range from sort of everyday people to celebrities, professional athletes, doctors, multi generational, wealthy people. On the side, I make cufflinks, I restore cars and do all sorts of interesting things.
Steve Fretzin [04:18]
Yeah, the entrepreneurial spirit is not lost in you, right? Nope. And speaking of entrepreneurs, Karl Seelbach, everybody is the founder of Doyle and seabock and also the founder of scribe. So welcome Karl, and please introduce yourself. Yeah.
Karl Seelbach [04:32]
Thank you, Steve, for the warm welcome. Karl Seelbach, based in Austin, Texas. I am one of the founders of Joel and silbach. We started in 2015 with just two of us, and we’ve grown that to almost 40 people and counting. And we do personal injury defense. So we defend a lot of different companies, restaurants, retailers, grocery stores, shipping, logistic companies, lot of different verticals. We defend them across the state of Texas on personal injury cases. And then in as my second job, I guess technically, I am one of. The Founders subscribe and do a lot of speaking for them, a lot of product development work. It is a software company that’s changing the way that attorneys capture and analyze depositions and other forms of legal testimony. And then my third job is a part time volleyball dad. So you know, I’m at volleyball games all the time. It feels like two daughters who keep me very busy. But those are kind of my three, truly, my three passions right now in life, you ever run into Ken Levinson here in Chicago? I haven’t, but we have a Chicago tournament this coming season. I think you should
Steve Fretzin [05:31]
get together. His son is playing collegiate volleyball. Travels all around the country to watch his son play. And really amazing. Yeah, very, very cool. Good stuff, good stuff. All right, everybody. Well again. So happy that you’re all here. I want to take a moment to thank our sponsors. Rankings, io, amazing company. If you’re looking to grow and leverage your website and leverage your marketing to the fullest, check out. Rankings. IO, the law her podcast with Sonia Palmer, really putting out great content, particularly for women and that are looking to grow their law practices and get ahead and legal versus media. Check that out as well. It’s an international flair to a legal publication online. So check that out. And with that, we’re going to jump in and get started. We’ve got a lot to cover today. I’m like a big problem solution guy. That’s kind of my jam and my flow. So I always want to start with problems. Let’s start off with Eido on this one. And just generally speaking, why do you see lawyers struggling with business development and marketing and making it rain? Why is that such a challenge for lawyers in the past and even today?
Eido Walny [06:31]
I mean, I think if you’re not a natural marketer, where are you going to learn these skills? Right? So we are generally successful. People who did well in college, did well in law school, some people like Dan had other careers before this. But you know, if you weren’t in a marketing role, how are you supposed to learn marketing? I mean, I remember, even when I started my career at a big law firm, one of the gripes of the junior partners was, you know, you’re told as an associate, just go work hard, you know, don’t worry about anything else. And then one day, you’re promoted to the point where now you’re supposed to be a rainmaker, and they say, Okay, now start getting clients, and you have no idea how to approach that, and it’s as if they expect you to just flip a switch and be able to do it. And that’s just not how it works. I think a lot of lawyers just aren’t naturally good at it. Some certainly are. But if you don’t have a background in it, or you don’t have a natural talent to it, it’s a skill that you’ve got to really work hard at and develop. And I think that’s why a lot of lawyers struggle with it and get frustrated and sometimes stop doing it.
Steve Fretzin [07:30]
Yeah, before I started my podcast a couple years before, I went around and I interviewed managing partners around Chicagoland, and they bang the table and say, You got to get out there. Gotta get out there. And I was like, this is unusable content. Get out there. Like, that was not gonna help anybody. Everyone knows you got to get out there. Like, come on, man, get give me some details. Dan, you want to take it from here, and then we’ll wrap up with Karl on this one.
Daniel Scola [07:52]
Oh yeah, sure. I agree with Eido. I think especially the younger people, they’re not used to really speaking to people. They text, they email, they do a lots of behind the scenes communication, but even getting on the phone is not as comfortable for them, a lot of the younger people, that’s what I find. So one of the things I’m thinking of doing is requiring them to join something like Toastmasters, where they have to get up and speak on a regular basis, and they have to give some kind of presentations during the year. That’s one of the requirements that I’m putting in place. So, you know, hopefully it will work.
Steve Fretzin [08:25]
It’s become a real challenge. I mean, I text with my son. He’s a teenager at Colorado State now freshman year, and his texts are ridiculously bad, like I have no idea what he’s talking about, and phone call is actually better, but texting, it’s like I have to call him to find out what does text mean? So the communication with the kids today is definitely a challenge, so I appreciate you bringing that up.
Karl Seelbach [08:45]
Karl, yeah. I mean, for people that are interested in rainmaking who aren’t already rainmakers, especially, you know, maybe Junior associates and things like that, I think you have to seek it out. It’s not just going to magically happen. And if you’re not at a firm that helps cultivate it, hey, ask them. It may just be that you need to be a squeaky wheel, and you need to ask for people to invite you to whether it’s a biz dev pitch, whether it’s a client retention event, you have to get in there and see what it’s like. And you can learn through osmosis, but it’s also good to just learn by doing. And I think a lot of firms sometimes, you know, give it lip service. I think others will actually support the attorney in developing if you seek it out and ask for it. And you know, it’s one of the things that at my firm, I always tell the associates, and we try to do this with every time we’re pitching a client or meeting with a client, we try to loop in an associate. Hey, let’s invite this associate so they can see what this is like, so they can experience it firsthand. So I think you know, if you’re not getting that type of support, and even after you’ve asked for it, you probably should consider looking elsewhere, because that’s the only way you’re going to learn is you need a mentor. And so my advice would be, get a mentor, get someone to help guide you along the path.
Steve Fretzin [09:53]
I mean, it’s really at the basics of it, like become a student of the game. Find a mentor. Find someone that’s successful. Doing it, emulate them, spend time with them, grab a book. I don’t know if you know. I’ve got a few other people do too. Watch some videos, listen to podcasts, like there’s content to get you on the right path. It may not get you all the way there, but it starts getting you in the right mindset that this is an important part of the law. You didn’t sign up for it. I’ve yet to talk to someone say I can’t wait to be a lawyer so I can go sell legal services. It never happened. 1000s of lawyers I’ve met never no one’s ever mentioned it to me. So it’s not a real thing, but it is part of the business of law. So I appreciate you guys sharing that one of the concerns that lawyers have is that, you know, time and so, you know, rainmakers don’t just do business development. They build it into their daily lives. They build it into their law practices and Dan, let’s start off with you. What’s one habit that helps you stay consistent with business development and has led to much of your success?
Daniel Scola [10:51]
I tend to group things during the day. So if I have phone calls to make, I group them and I have, you know, emails or documents that I have to draft, I sort of group it in as best I can so that I can leave some time to just do follow up calls on people I’ve met. For example, I just came back from in a large conference in Japan where intellectual property people from all over the world go. And I go to three or four of these conferences a year. Now, I see the same people a lot of times, but I still follow up with them, even though I know them, and then I meet some new people, and I follow up with them. You have to leave a little bit of time every day to do that, and then that gets you in the time you know the mind frame to do it. And if you don’t do that, you don’t get the relationship long term. Like I cannot see people for three or four years even, and we have a relationship because I’m staying in contact with them. It’s just a thinking of you. Thing doesn’t have to be giving legal advice. It’s just a connection because people want to work with people they like, and they know even more than you know the highest, most competent person in the world. If they don’t like you, they’re not going to work with you.
Steve Fretzin [11:56]
Yeah, absolutely. Here’s something interesting about Japan. I interviewed a lawyer who practices in Japan. And you know how, like, in the US, when we want to ghost somebody or blow somebody off, we just say, I’ll think about it. That’s like, a common thing that we say to, like, blow people off in Japan, they go, That sounds difficult. And when you hear that in Japan, if you’re trying to sell anything, like, No, you’re pretty much out, like, it’s not going to happen. So little Japanese culture is there picked up.
Daniel Scola [12:23]
There’s one that I when I can’t get anywhere on a negotiation, let’s say I had, I had litigation in Japan. What I do is I use the Society of guilt is very important over there to them, you know. And they’re very much, you know, careful about respect and all that. And, you know, if you can plug into their cultural norms a little bit. Yeah? Use that, you know, as part of it. And the other thing is, just when they nod their head, that has nothing to do with agreement, that just means I heard
Steve Fretzin [12:51]
you, okay, I heard you, yeah, I’m nodding as I hear really, yeah.
Daniel Scola [12:56]
That doesn’t mean they agree. You think, oh, I got an agreement going like this.
Steve Fretzin [13:00]
I have this locked up. No, right? Well, I hate to hear what happens when they go like this. They shake their head trouble. But let’s go to Karl. Karl, what’s one habit that helps you stay consistent with client development and just produces over and over again for you?
Karl Seelbach [13:16]
Yeah. I mean, look, time blocking, I think is super important. And Dan alluded to it. I once had it kind of put to me this way, most attorneys tend to live in reaction mode, and we’re always working for the business. Right for those of us who bill by the hour and do a halfway decent job of our legal work, there’s plenty of work, and so we could bill, you know, 40 plus hours every single week, and not carve out and protect the time to work on the business. So I think of it as you can always work for the business and work on the cases or matters or whatever you’re doing, but you also have to work on the business, which literally means take a step back and see the forest from the trees and start to identify where do you need to invest time and effort in growing your practice? So to me, I try to block every Friday, I will say I’m still getting, trying to get better at it, more disciplined at it, but Friday, or at least half of Friday, tends to be the time that I take a step back. Don’t worry if I don’t Bill three or four hours that afternoon, and just focus on the business as a whole. And then the other piece of advice I would have is you got to track it. You got to learn a CRM. Most attorneys roll their eyes when they hear the word CRM. Doesn’t have to be HubSpot or something like that. It could just be a task manager, but you really do have to track it. You know, who are your leads? Have you met with them? You know, you sometimes going to need to meet with them more than once. You know, have you pitched them? If so, what’s the status and follow up. I mean, if you don’t track it, it’s not going to happen. So those would be my kind of two pieces of advice would be, make the time, preferably weekly, at least once a month. And two is, document it, and maybe even get an accountability partner, someone to hold you accountable along that journey.
Steve Fretzin [14:51]
Wow, love it. Spot on. Man, I appreciate that. I don’t I mean,
Eido Walny [14:55]
I find it hilarious that the three of us have never met, have never talked to each other, have come. Completely different practices and have all the same habits. You know, I come in in the morning. You know, usually it’s my least efficient time of the day. You’re still a little bleary eyed trying to get a hold of the day. You know, while I’m having my morning coffee, that’s when I will blast out some emails, short emails, right to a lot of my good contacts. How have you been happy birthday? Saw you in the news, just little things to keep those relationships warm. I think to Karl’s point, a lot of people make the mistake of saying, you know, I’ve met this person now they’re in my list of contacts. That’s not good enough, because think of all the people you know. Think of all the people they know. You know, it’s a lot of people, and so to stay warm, to stay on the top of their radar is really important, and sometimes all it takes is a little short email to connect with them, to warm up that relationship. Maybe it sparks a lunch. Maybe it sparks Hey, I was thinking of you. I’ve got something for you. I can’t under overstate how important that is. The other thing I try not to do that’s maybe a little bit unique is I try not to eat alone. You know, if I’m going out for lunch, I’ll try to grab someone and say, Hey, are you available? Try to block it out in advance on someone’s calendar, everybody’s eating right? And so if you have an opportunity to chat with someone and spend a little extra time with them in a very disarming environment, I always and oftentimes frankly, we won’t even be talking about business. We’ll talk about family. We’ll talk about the kids and sports and things like that. You know, again, you work with people you want to work with. We always think of ourselves as unique service providers, but but really, a lot of us become commodities to a lot of the people we work with, and so to be that special person with a warm relationship with our referral sources and other contacts is the reason they come to us and not the next person.
Steve Fretzin [16:46]
Yeah, really, really, brilliant, everybody. So appreciate that with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm, rankings.io, prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality, the best firms hire rankings.io when they want rankings, traffic and cases, other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free [email protected] today. Hey, be that lawyer friends. If you’re looking for smarter ways to grow your law practice and want to stay ahead of the curve in legal, tech, business and strategy, then it’s time to check out legal verse media, the go to hub for lawyers who want more. This international platform connects you with global thought leaders through articles, podcasts, webinars and interactive forums that are shaping the future of law. Explore everything with a free 14 day trial, including early access to tools peer discussions and a chance to build your brand as a thought leader, don’t wait. Visit legalverse media.com and register for membership today. Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you, and let’s make this your breakout year. Everybody has their evolution of how they become a rainmaker. It doesn’t happen overnight. There might be a breakthrough moment, an aha moment. It might be an evolution over time. Let’s stay with you. Ito, how did it happen for you? What was either your breakthrough or your evolution that led to where you are today?
Eido Walny [18:32]
I mean, I remember. I remember it very, very specifically. So my first day of work at my big law firm, when I was just starting my legal career, was September 4, 2001 so I had a really great first week, and my second week started out a little rough. So in the craziness post 911 one of the things that my firm did was assign us mentors, and I had an interesting mentor. I actually just recently reconnected with him, and I don’t remember virtually anything he told me, except for one particular conversation that I remember clear as day. We were sitting in my office not long after 911 and he said, Listen, this firm can take everything away from you, right? They can take away your office, your salary, your assistant, they can walk you right out the door. There are two things that this firm can never and no one can ever take away from you. That’s your knowledge base and your contact base. And so to have a good, long legal career, you should always work on those two things, because those will always belong to you and those will always be marketable. And literally, from the next day forward, I always work every day to chip away a little bit about learning a little bit more about my craft and trying to meet people, to the point where I’ve now become a hub of meeting people and connecting people. But I mean that started out literally from almost zero when I came to Milwaukee, I knew one single person, and now I’ve become one of the people who you turn to when you need a sort of unique contact, really. And. Anywhere in the country, and that was done starting from that mentor’s advice, and I’ve worked on it for 25 years now.
Steve Fretzin [20:06]
Well, it goes back to what was mentioned earlier, about get a mentor like buying people that are doing it and that can give you that kind of sage advice, and understand that if you’re surrounding yourself with other service partners or people, and nobody’s got any you know, motivation. That’s you know, that maybe that might be okay for now, but maybe not for the future. Karl, you want to chime in on this?
Karl Seelbach [20:29]
Sure, happy to. So I tell two stories here. The first one will be really short. So when I started at a law firm, someone recommended the curmudgeons guide to practicing law, which I’m very for. I don’t know who recommended it, but I read it, and I was a really young associate at the time, probably first year, second year, and I took the advice to heart. And there’s a lot of concepts in the book, but the one that is relevant to this is treat your nameplate on your door as your own shingle, and really treat your partners as your clients. And that is the way I practice law. When I was at Winstead, I treated every partners as though they were a client. And I think that helped set me up for success. You know, how did the rainmaking ultimately happen? I had a bad exit, and what I mean by that is trek, and I left Winstead in a way that I would have I regret, and we ultimately lost a major client as a part of that exit. So when we left, we only had one client, one case, and my wife was pregnant at the time, and so, you know, there was a fire in the belly. There was sleepless nights, but there was kind of a literal need to go and develop business to, you know, pay the bills. And so I don’t think anything gets you much, much more motivated than that. And so ultimately, we just started working our rolodexes, so to speak, and we that was pre covid, and so we would drive and meet with anyone in our network who would listen, and we weren’t afraid to make the ask. I mean, there’s a way. I think some lawyers like, Oh, you don’t want to ask for business. You know, they think that that is maybe not the right approach. I disagree. You have to be willing to make the ask at some point. Maybe it’s not the first meeting, but in several of those leads that I was kind of working through, I would say, You know what? Get us, send us one small case. I want to show you how we handle cases and the level of quality and communication you’re going to get from our team. And I’m confident that we’re going to knock it out of the park for you and a lot of those people ultimately said, yes, they found one small case to send us. We did exactly what we said we were going to do, which, by the way, is probably the one piece of advice that will get you more business in general, do what you say you’re going to do by when you say you’re going to do it. And you know, the rest is history. And we’ve grown it to 30 to 35 institutional clients at this point.
Steve Fretzin [22:40]
Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Dan,
Daniel Scola [22:43]
yeah. So I’d like to take off on this business about, you know, first, I’ll just tell you a story to begin with. So I started inside Council, and I went the other way to outside council. And when I was inside Council, I saw a lot of mergers and acquisitions. I was in big pharma, and what I learned from that is that they would consolidate, and they would, you know, they didn’t need this apart the department anymore, because they had just, you know, acquired someone. And I thought you only have your wits and your knowledge. That’s it. Nobody cares about you in a large, large corporation. I mean, you’re just part of the cog in the in the wheel, you know. So I decided to leave, and the first thing I did was I had a lot of contacts, because I had done a lot of things with other companies. I just visited those contacts. I had done business with them. Maybe with they were on the other side, maybe they weren’t. And just to take off on what Karl said just recently, I would ask them for business. I mean, you know, I had the good fortune. They had seen some of my work, and I had been, you know, involved with them. But you know, if you don’t ask, you’re not, you’re not going to get it, especially with foreign clients. And we do an international practice. So if you’re, you know, you got a language barrier to begin with. You have some cultural barriers. You have to be expressly, you know, very clear with everything you do there. So if you need business, and I say, Listen, we have a reciprocation going on right now, but, you know, we need you to send more cases because, you know, it’s three and a half times, you know, in our favor. So let’s think about how we can do this. Yeah, gotta ask.
Steve Fretzin [24:16]
Yeah. I’ll share real quickly as well, and then we’ll wrap up with the final question for this segment. I thought I was the bee’s knees. I was the top sales guy in a franchise organization, and hitting my numbers and making great money, and I thought everything was great. I was introduced to a coach, and this coach just ripped me apart, and not in a bad way, in a way where he was just able to see things about what I would he asked me a ton of questions, and really fared. It out, what was I doing, and how was I, you know, executing, and everything else. And he just identified all of these things that he could improve. But I had an outdated sales model that I was chasing after ghosts, that all this stuff that, you know, filling your pipeline doesn’t equate to success, right? It equates to being busy. You. And I just I learned so much from this coach that it got me into coaching, you know, 22 years ago, and I never looked back. I knew right away that what he did for me is what I wanted to do for others. And I don’t think I would be in this place, in this position with you all and in my career without that coach, and without understanding that sometimes it’s hard to see the label from inside the bottle, and lawyers need to understand, having a mentor, a coach, being a student of the game. These are all things that are going to change, potentially change your life forever if you make that move. Okay, this is a segment we’re going to do twice. We’re going to do it this time, and then we’re going to do at the end of the next segment. And it’s one of my favorite things to ask. So you have to have two prepared. I didn’t. You have no idea what I’m about to ask you. It’s called X is someone’s big mistake. So in this case, it’s gonna be Karl’s big mistake. So this is a segment where you share a mistake you made and how it made you better, stronger, faster, and you would appreciate the mistake as and as opposed to, you know, being, you know, angry about it, what would be Karl’s big mistake? Okay, I
Karl Seelbach [26:03]
get to go first with the surprise question. Well, I’ve kind of already alluded to it, so I’m going to go back to something I mentioned and maybe expand on it. Didn’t think I would tell a failure story on this.
Steve Fretzin [26:14]
Well, you might actually be telling two. I’m just Yeah.
Karl Seelbach [26:17]
So okay, so you know one mistake that I made, that I really did learn from is when I left the world of big law, where I learned a ton. I had a great time at Winstead, but when I left there, I was relying on someone else’s relationship and assuming that when we left to open up our own shop, that the client would come along. Because from my from where I sat, you know, the attorney I was opening the firm with had worked with this client for a long time. You know, I assumed the relationship was rock solid and that they would come along once we open up our own shingle. That turned out not to be the case. And so the mistake, as I look back, the mistake I made, was I was making bets on my career, pretty significant ones, based off of someone else’s relationships. They weren’t my own relationships. And so one thing that I’ve really strived to do over the last almost 10 years, or 10 years now, since we started the firm, is I really want to be in every client relationship. I want to get to know them. I want to be the one sending them gifts, trying to take them to dinner, whatever it may be. I want to create a meaningful relationship with the client, so that I’m more than just a name and an email address and a firm who does good work. There’s a lot of firms out there that do good work, so you have to do something to you know, what’s the best way to put it? I think clients aren’t going to remember every case or matter you handle for them or every trial you handle for them, but they’re never going to forget how you make them feel. And if you can do things in the relationship that really highlight that you value them as a person, and you hear them as a person, and they don’t have to be expensive things, I’ll just give one example. We had a client who we insisted for file review. Hey, we’ll put you up in a hotel. You don’t have to drive around trip from Houston to Austin. That’s a lot of time. Lot of time on the road. And she said, No, no, my dog, I’ve got a small dog at home. I’ve got to drive there and back, you know, I just, I can’t spend the night. So I told my firm administrator, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to make her a goodie bag for her road trip back. It’s going to be some things for her, some coffee, some, you know, snacks for the road, and then we’re going to put together a care package for her dog that she cares so much about. And so as we finished the file review, we gave her this package that she was not expecting. Probably didn’t cost more than $50 to put it together, and it had just a really big impact on her. You could tell she was she was really touched.
Steve Fretzin [28:41]
Absolutely brilliant. I love that. Those are my favorite stories, right? And again, I think client loyalty at you know, is a myth. If it’s just great service and fair price, that’s what it used to be, right? And now it’s what are you doing so far above and beyond just the matter and the work, right? Great story. Thank you, Dan. Dan’s big mistake. Let’s go,
Daniel Scola [29:02]
Okay, I think, well, I can think of several of them. Let me just give you the
Steve Fretzin [29:07]
opposite problem that Karl. Karl’s like trying to go around, and you’ve got dozens.
Daniel Scola [29:12]
Well, I think I would say that not over promising is a really important one for me. I mean, every client wants to know, well, what are my chances of this happening? And how do I, you know, am I going to win this? Am I going to get forward? What’s my outcome going to be? And I think learning how to give them the real story in a way which they can understand, and it doesn’t turn them into Oh, woe is me kind of attitude, so just, you know, being honest, but also don’t over promising. And it’s not an easy thing to do, because you want to be very positive. You want to give them, you know, some hope, and you know that directionally, they’re going to be okay. But it’s really easy to over promise, and then you got to deliver what you say. Like, I think Ito said early before if you say you’re going. To do this, and you better be sure, when you say it, that that’s what, in fact, you’re going to do. So that’s probably the biggest one.
Steve Fretzin [30:08]
Appreciate that. Hey, Karl, I think I thought of one for you. It’s putting a miniature donkey in with a bunch of baby goats if no one knows what we’re talking about. But that just sounded insane. But that that might be another one of Karl’s big mistakes. We’ll share that later, you know?
Eido Walny [30:23]
So I don’t really believe in the concept of mistakes when it comes to marketing. So there’s a tuition to be paid at the school of hard knocks and doing things and learning from things that maybe didn’t work out quite the way you thought they were going to work out. Is it really a mistake? Right? Nobody looks at marketing or rainmaking as a perfect trajectory, straight line. You’ve got to learn what’s going to work for you. You’ve got to make missteps along the way to learn that that’s not going to work or I should have done something differently. One thing that I that comes to mind immediately along these lines is, you know, I’m an okay public speaker, probably pretty good in the grand scheme of things, and I’ve always pushed myself to get out in front of new markets and new people. And you know, there’s rarely an opportunity that I’ll say no to. Early in my rainmaking adventure, I was offered a pretty tremendous speaking opportunity at a national conference in front of 1000s of people on a topic that I wasn’t super familiar with and of course, I am someone who rarely says no. And I said, Sure, I’ll do that. And I probably wasn’t ready quite for that opportunity. It went off fine, but there were things that I said that, you know, even probably 15 years later, still resonate in my head as I wish I had said that a little bit differently. I wish I had gone about this a little bit differently. I wish I had refined the topic a little bit more narrowly so I wasn’t sort of rushing through things. But again, that experience, because it still resonates in my head 15 years later, has made every single one of my speaking opportunities since then 1000 times better. And now I’m known as a pretty good national speaker, and I attribute maybe that misstep to allowing me to do that. If I didn’t have that misadventure, I might not be where I’m at in terms of national speeches. And so again, that was a tuition that needed to get paid at the school of hard knocks.
Steve Fretzin [32:16]
Wow, the three you, I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate you. You know, sharing your wisdom and your stories, and I know the people listening are loving it as much as I am. And with that, we’re going to wrap up this first segment. Thank you all for the live audience. Thank you the panel. Don’t go away. We’re coming back with part two in just a moment. But I just want to tell everybody, look, this show is all about helping you to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker truly take to heart the lessons learned in this podcast and in our live show today, because you know, these are the things that are going to make or break you know you in the future, and how you approach and think about yourself as the business, in addition to what you need to learn and do to be successful today and in the future. So with that, thank you, everybody. They have a great day, and we’ll talk to you soon. All right, thanks everybody.
Narrator [33:07]
Thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal, business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.