What if the final piece of the puzzle for your growth was right here?
This is the second and last part of a powerful two-part conversation on Be That Lawyer Live, where Steve Fretzin sits down again with Daniel Scola, Eido Walny, and Karl Seelbach. Together, they dive deep into rainmaking, relationships, and leadership in ways most lawyers never discuss publicly. You’ll hear candid stories, real mistakes, and strategies that connect directly to your own journey. Don’t miss this closing segment — it’s your chance to take the full picture and turn it into action.
In this episode, Steve, Daniel, Eido, and Karl discuss:
- Authentic business development through personal passions
- Building and sustaining client relationships
- Gaining visibility with thought leadership
- Lessons from mistakes and missed opportunities
Key Takeaways:
- Aligning personal passions like music, car restoration, or cufflink-making with client connections creates natural and sustainable business opportunities.
- Avoiding the “too busy” perception is critical, since clients and prospects may hold back opportunities if they think you’re overwhelmed.
- Speaking engagements, timely PR responses, and consistent online presence remain the most effective ways to stay top of mind and be recognized as a leader.
- Complacency, failure to delegate, and clinging to unproductive organizations can stall growth, while being proactive ensures long-term success.
“It’s not like you have to go 100% all the time, but you should go at a nice speed. You shouldn’t rest on your laurels.” — Daniel Scola
“You gotta love it, or else you’re not going to be good at it.” — Eido Walny
“No matter how busy you may be, if you want to bring in more work… don’t talk about how busy you are.” — 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.
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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, if you’re looking to make more money without burning yourself out, I’ve launched a brand new podcast just for you. It’s called be that lawyer Coaches Corner. This is where I’m sharing real world tips on time management, marketing, client retention and much, much more episodes are up now. Go to be that lawyer Coach’s Corner, wherever you listen. And by the way, enjoy the show today. Steve,
Narrator [00:24]
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 britson, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve fretzen, Hey
Steve Fretzin [00:47]
everybody, welcome back. It’s Steve fretson. This is the be that lawyer podcast today. We got be that lawyer live. We are doing part two. I we just got done with part one, and holy crap, was it good? If you don’t mind me saying, Guys, we’ve got a live audience here. You guys, please feel free to use the chat and share what you’re thinking as it’s happening. Feel free to ask questions in the Q and A. I’ve got some questions lined up, but would love to hear what you’re asking and wanting to know out of this great panel, we’ve got Dan Scola here, you know Walny and Karl Seelbach. You can check out their bios in the show notes below, but we’re going to jump in and just get started here. And also want to just take a moment to just take a moment to thank our wonderful sponsors, of course, rankings, io, law, her podcast and legal verse, media, all fantastic fans and sponsors the show with that, let’s get into it. We spent a good amount of time in segment one talking about mistakes lawyers make. We talked about positive habits. We talked about the evolution of how you kind of came to be, and also what was your big mistake, which we’ll cover later in round two, in our second segment today. But you know, one thing that I’d love to ask you guys, and let’s start off with with Eido on this one, it’s really about finding what your jam is like. There’s so many different ways to market, so many different ways to business develop, and some are better than others for certain people in different places. So with the different strategies that are out there, what’s one or two that’s really delivered for you time and time again, that you they’ve gotten you the best results, you know?
Eido Walny [02:17]
So one of the things I tell people is you gotta You gotta love it, or else you’re not going to be good at it, right? I mean, it’s true of every facet of life. So for me as an estate planner, I try to find ways to marry my passions outside of work with my passions inside of work. And so one of the things I like to do outside of work is make cufflinks, and one of the other things I like to do outside of work is restore cars, mostly old cars. Guess who likes cufflinks and likes to play with cars? It’s people who are home run clients for me, and so those are really great people who I love to spend time with. You know, I don’t necessarily need to even push what I’m doing on a day in, day out basis, but it’s amazing how many big car shows I get invited to across the country, I get invited to Meacham auctions. I mean, these are where all of my clients live and play, and I’m not fighting to be let in. I’m being invited in. And that has been transformative to my career. It makes everyday fun. You know, I used to I tell people when I first started my practice if I didn’t know the area code of the phone calls that were coming into my office, I probably didn’t want that phone call. Now, the most exciting calls I get day in day out are from the area codes I don’t recognize. And so I attribute the sort of marriage of my passions in and out of the office together as being transformative in my rain making,
Steve Fretzin [03:41]
yeah, if you can build business doing something you enjoy and with people you enjoy. I mean, there probably isn’t. I mean, I don’t know what Dan and Karl are saying, but it’s kind of hard to one up, because that’s like the Promise Land of how to get business is just do stuff that you enjoy and it comes your way. But we’ll see what Dan has to say. Go for it. Dan.
Daniel Scola [04:00]
Well, I actually like that idea, because my, one of my passions is music, and my daughter’s a fairly well known singer songwriter, and so forth. And I meet people who are into music, and that leads to protection of IP. It just does. I mean, a lot of them have trademarks. A lot of them have copyright issues. And then they know people, and you know, that sort of, you know, sort of breeds that whole but I was going to say it’s also kind of important to find out what people’s needs are and not try to sell. I’m not selling very much. I don’t have to sell. I find out what they they know what I do, but they don’t know enough about what I do, so they tend to ask questions. If I’m interested in them, they get they usually get interested in you, and I think that’s a really nice way of communicating. Just find out a lot about it, and don’t stop there. You know, like you know something about their family, know something about their interests, know something about what they do during the day. You know, what are they passionate about? A lot of times, you’ll find enough. Commonality there where, you know, they become almost an initial not just a contact, but a friend, and then you can just then work on that, and it’s there’s nothing wrong with having clients that are good friends. I mean, that only can only help. In my
Steve Fretzin [05:15]
view, it sounds like it’s important to take notes and maybe even have some kind of a CRM or some kind of system to keep track of the information about people. So, yeah, you know what you can fit in your head and what you can’t? And, you know, I use a remarkable too. And if you guys know about this amazing device, but every note I take is in here. I’m paper free. And if I want to pull up information on you, Dan, I go to your file, I pull it up, and it helps me remember your amazing daughter who’s, you know, singing and writing, so whatever it might be. I mean, just, just think about that’s, you know, that’s a relationship building tool one on one for most people.So Karl, yeah. I mean, I think
Karl Seelbach [05:52]
I’m fairly strategic, or I think I have been over the last 10 years of building this firm in the relationships I’m trying to develop, and who I’m trying to get to know. And this may be unique to personal injury, I don’t know, but trying to identify people who control more than one client’s book of business. So in the world of personal injury, that could be third party administrators. It could be insurance companies, someone who, once they get to know you and know that you do really great job and are good communicator and stay on top of their files. They’re going to recommend you to everyone else that they know, especially if you make their job in life easier. So for what we do, third party administrators, companies like Sedgwick, liberty, mutual, Corbell, Helmsman, you know, the better job we do for them. That’s great, because then they’re going to recommend us to all of their other clients, because they know when they send us a file, they don’t have to pester us for an update. We’re proactive, you know, if anything, they’re like, oh, too much communication. You know, that’s refreshing, versus never knowing what’s going on with your cases. So I think that’s important. And the other thing that I try, I could probably do a better job of it, but I try to do a pretty good job of it, is staying top of mind, and whether that’s through social media, whether that’s through a newsletter, whether that’s through speaking engagements, some of the folks that you meet do want to work with you someday, but it may be that they don’t have anything to send you yet, and so you need to make sure that when that file finally comes across their desk, or that need comes across their, you know, email screen that they think of you. You know, for depending on what type of work that is, it could be in Dan’s line of work. It could be some people that he met that love music. Well, if they haven’t heard from Dan in two years, they may forget that he can help them with trademark or copyright issues. So you have to stay top of mind.
Steve Fretzin [07:40]
I would just add that for busy lawyers, which is most of the lawyers I work with, and know, going after the low hanging fruit like that’s one strategy that pays off time and time again. It’s five minutes at the end of a business call with a client saying, what else is going on? What else can I do for you? How are you doing? What’s going on with your daughter? Whatever it might be, and whether you’re able to make an ask, if you’re comfortable with that, or you want to learn how to do that, that’s something we could talk about, but ultimately, being curious and interested in that five minutes at the end could create business that wouldn’t happen if you just said, All right, well, we’re on it and click right. And also, just like knowing who your A and B clients are and staying really, really close with them. They’re going to be your best referral sources. And so it’s not about how much time you spend and put towards it. It could be highly targeted and focused, because time is money, and it’s, you know, kind of difficult to, you know, to spread yourself so thin. So really good stuff there great, great collaboration on that one. This one’s a little bit more about relationships. I think the three of you have done an amazing job at building relationships. And one of the one of the things you know people are concerned about is, you know, you go out and you network, and you meet all these people, and you’ve got all these relationships. But how does it turn into business? You can know everyone that doesn’t necessarily process into, you know, work coming your way. So how do you network and build relationships and develop clients and referral sources from that exercise. Dan, you want to start us out?
Daniel Scola [09:07]
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just being very upfront about what your goals are and really asking. I mean, if you’re having lunch with someone three or four times and business never comes up, they’re going to assume that it’s not going to come up, you know, you have to tell them, you know, look, I we are having a nice, you know, friendly lunch, and we’re getting to know each other, but I also have an interest in developing my business. And you can help me, and I can help you, but let’s do this. We can do more than just have lunch. We can, you know, I think you have to have you just do. And if you don’t, you’re not going to get it. No one’s going to just say, oh, you know, everybody’s busy and it takes time to give you business. They have to think about it. They’re on the line. When they give you something, they’re on the line and they’re trusting you, right? So it’s on them if it doesn’t work out, so they’re careful. About who they give business to. So I just think you have to ask, yeah.
Steve Fretzin [10:04]
And again, you know, there’s people that get trapped into what’s called the friend zone, right? You’ve got this GC that could send all this work to you, but your friends. And it’s like, how do you bring up business? You know, there are strategies that we talk about on a regular basis that help people get out of the friend zone. And again, whether you make a direct ask, maybe just ask a lot more questions and be super curious about their business number of different approaches, but you know, that’s and then maybe you figure out they’re never going to give you business and say, All right, then we’re just going to stay friends. And now I know, and there’s other places you can go, right, Dan,
Daniel Scola [10:33]
sooner rather than later, yeah. And I think offering, you know, similar kind of fact patterns and saying how you handle it sometimes, then is a nice lead into, Oh, so you’ve done something like this before? Yeah, yeah.
Karl Seelbach [10:45]
Karl, for me doing personal injury defense work. I won’t say it’s formulaic, but there’s at least some qualifiers. Like, if I’m interested in doing their work, I often need to ask them, Hey, what is the process for getting approved? I mean, a lot of these companies are fortune 500 company. So you’re not just going to randomly get assigned something. There’s hurdles to jump through, which honestly makes the ask a little bit easier. You know, Hey, Steve, I’d love a chance to work with you someday. What’s the process for getting applying to potentially work with you? And then that kind of starts the process a little bit I also, one thing that I thought of when Dan was speaking is, you know, lawyers have, most lawyers I know have a very bad habit, which is when someone says, How are you doing? How are things going at the firm? The response almost always is, oh, my god, I’m so busy. You know, I’m slammed. And so guess where I don’t want to send my work if I’m talking to a lawyer, if they tell me how busy they are, and that they’re feeling overwhelmed, I’m probably not going to send them a case. So, you know, no matter how busy you may be, and you may be really busy, if you want to bring in more work with the idea that you’re going to eventually divvy that out, right? We haven’t talked about delegation and growing teams yet. Don’t talk about how busy you are. It’s okay to say, you know, oh, you know, I’ve been pretty steady lately, and
Steve Fretzin [12:03]
try to might be using your inside voice, right?
Eido Walny [12:11]
Yeah, exactly, exactly. I love that. I love that. You know, it’s funny that Karl said that I used to be one of those people who would tell people how busy I was and realized quickly that that was a mistake, and temper down how I would respond to that question. Because I think there’s a lot of merit to the idea of, well, if that person’s so busy, yeah, I don’t want to send you more work and create problems for you. And it’s the opposite effect I wanted. And so it’s a great observation from Karl that I’ve also made in my career. You know, for me, I think different a little bit from Dan and Karl is doing estate planning. Our clients are a lot more transactional. You know, I don’t have a single big client, or a stable of, you know, 20 clients that are going to feed me. All year long. I’ve constantly got to be hustling for more clients. And so for me, you know, I’m generally working as a rainmaker with people in the financial services industry, financial advisors, bankers, insurance people, accountants, and so what I’m always looking to do, from my perspective, to get on their radars, is find things to throw their way. You know, for example, we easily could do tax returns, gift tax returns, you know, those aren’t very difficult, but for me, it’s a very easy layup referral for my accounting friends, and I’m not losing a ton of work, and frankly, it’s busy work that I’d rather not be doing anyway, but in exchange for dishing that off, now I’m on the radar for all of these accountants who, you know, if they’ve got one good estate planning client or one good probate referral that’s going to make up these 709, gift tax returns in spades. You know, same thing with the good evergreen financial advisory referral, a good bank referral. You know, it’s not that difficult. So what I try to do is get in the positive column of making referrals and show people that I’m someone who’s looking to have a reciprocal relationship, not someone who’s only looking for the take. You know, what can you give me? I want them to know that I’m a partner in this and that there’s going to be as much give as there is take, if not more. And I think for people who are in my situation, you know, that helps tremendously.
Daniel Scola [14:13]
Steve, I just thought of one more thing, sort of a call follow up to both what Karl and it was. Ito said, you know, this business about saying, you know, I’m really busy. I do not say that either, because I don’t think it’s a good idea. I wouldn’t send it to someone who’s overwhelmed, right? But what I usually say is something like, we have some bandwidth right now. You know, it’s we, it’s fortunate that we have some bandwidth. So if you in this particular area, so if you need something done, we can get it. We can, we can get it done for you. And that, I’ve found that that’s very effective.
They’re the most frustrating. Yeah,
Karl Seelbach [14:46]
let’s go Karl to have one exception to my own rule. I did have a client recently reach out, or a prospective client reach out, and they wanted to assign us 10 new cases. And we’re we really were busy and understaffed, and I. Told that lead very transparently. I can’t commit to that right now, because I’m worried that we wouldn’t be able to properly staff your cases. But let me reach back out to you. I think we’re going to be we’re hiring right now. I think we’ll be in a better spot by August. Can we reconnect then? And we just had that call last week, and it went great, and now we’ve staffed up, and we’re ready to take on some cases for that prospect. So I think there can be times when, you know, you don’t want to over commit and under deliver, but usually I don’t talk about busyness
level. One
Steve Fretzin [15:30]
of the most frustrating things I hear when I’m teaching lawyers about how to ask for quality introductions from clients that think they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread is they say, Oh, I thought you were, you know, you’re always so busy, or I didn’t think you needed any more want any more work. And the lawyer just goes like this, oh, my God. Like they can’t believe that that’s the response. They could have been getting business for five years or more, and that’s the image and what they’re putting out. So really, really important points that you guys are making 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 fretson 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. Here’s something that we haven’t really covered in great detail, and I would love to hear because there’s two sides of the mountain that I like lawyers to climb to build a law practice. One of them is the business development side, the relationships and client development and all that. The other side is the marketing side. It’s the thought leadership side. It’s what makes you the known quantity in your space. And that’s the example I’ve been giving lately. When I was in a plane crash years ago, 1996 and I had both of my arms broken. And it’s a long story, and you can see it on my LinkedIn profile if you want to hear the story, but my dad pushed a phone up to my face and said, talk to Bob. He’s your lawyer. And I’m curious, if you don’t you know what lawyer that was, Bob in Chicago for a plane crash, putting you on the spot. I don’t.
Steve Fretzin [18:11]
Okay, okay, if I say the name, you’ll know it. I think right away. Bob Clifford,
okay, yeah, no. And I
Eido Walny [18:17]
know a little bit. So I grew up in a lawyer family, so a lot of people had similar last names as mine.
Steve Fretzin [18:23]
Okay, Bob Clifford, if in aviation and personal injury, you know, in Chicago and even nationally, is world renowned in this case. So, you know, there was no other lawyer that my dad thought of or called my father my Larry, the lawyer, by the way, everybody he knew exactly who to call, and that that’s where lawyers want to be. They want to be that first call if I need an estate plan in Wisconsin, like, where am I going, right? I’m not going to search on Google, like there’s one name. So to that end, what are things that you guys are doing and that you recommend lawyers do to build up that thought leadership and really become the known person in their space? And you know, let’s start off with you, because think you’ve done an excellent job at this.
Eido Walny [19:03]
Thank you. You know, for me, you know, again, I’ve paid a lot of tuition at the school of hard knocks, but what I’ve found has worked well for us is that thought leadership, being out in front of the ship has worked tremendously well. And so we do a lot of speaking, we do a lot of writing. We have gotten to the point where we’re being sought after for interviews, and so we’re getting quoted in magazines and whatnot. And not to disparage anyone who does paid marketing and things like that. For us, it doesn’t work well, I think clients and our referral sources see the difference between a paid opportunity and a more organic one, and so when I can tell people that I was just recently quoted in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, or, you know, Fortune Magazine. That’s way different and way better for our practice than saying, Hey, did you see the ad that I’m running in Fortune magazine or the New York Times? And I try to stay ahead of all of that as opportunities, you know, there are various. Websites that you can subscribe to, for reporters who are looking for people who are experts in a field to offer quotes. If a reporter calls me, I either answer that call immediately or call them back on really short turnaround times, because oftentimes they have a very limited window to write their stories, and if they know that you’re someone who will be responsive like that. They keep going back to the well, you know, I also, I think, to Karl’s point, I try to stay very active on places like LinkedIn, so that when that client who hasn’t needed me for a really long time starts to look for an estate planner, I want to be active enough on LinkedIn that my name comes up at the top of their feed, so that window of opportunity isn’t missed because I wasn’t being proactive enough. And you know, for our practice, that’s worked really well. Fantastic.
Daniel Scola [20:48]
Dan, yeah, I think getting into, you know, public relations area is good. I got, you know, not paid advertising. I have a public relations person who I hire, and she just looks for opportunities for me to either speak or to be involved in an article, and I answer them immediately, just like Guido is saying, I mean, these people need, they have they’re on deadlines. They need to write things. And if they want to write something and use you as a quote, they need it. Then there’s going to be 100 people who will answer that within, you know, a day or so, but if you’re in there in the first couple hours, you’ve got an opportunity to be quoted, and that’s really important. So I would not go the paid route. Paid route, to me is, it’s always been a waste of money, but getting yourself out there and your name out there and the firm out there on special things, you know, whether it’s the Wall Street Journal or Forbes or London Times or whatever it is, that’s the thing to do, I think.
Steve Fretzin [21:46]
And people you know writing for publications too, like I write for above the law, and one of my legal recruiter friends asked me, said, Hey, I see you’re doing really well with them. He goes, Do you think if I shared an article with you, you’d throw it out at them? And I did, and they took him now he’s writing for them too. So you just never know whether it’s PR or it’s having a column or doing something proactive with a publication that gets some real movement. I love all of that.
Karl Seelbach [22:11]
Karl, yeah. I mean, I’ll tell you what I’ve implemented at my firm, because I think it directly addresses that we require every attorney to do at least one speaking engagement or write one article per year. And you know, some of the associates are maybe a little surprised at that when they join us, because it is truly a requirement, and part of it is, if we don’t force it, it just you put it off, you put it off, you put it off. And before you know it, five years, 10 years has gone by, and you haven’t done any speaking engagements and you haven’t written any articles. And I’ve found that back to kind of being top of mind, there’s really, in my opinion, and this is true with my software company as well, which I mentioned briefly, because it’s relevant to this. There’s no substitute for speaking engagements. There just really isn’t speaking at conferences, speaking at webinars, speaking at podcasts. There’s just no better way to get your name out there, especially if you’re speaking at a conference where the topic is directly relevant to what you do. Guess what? The audience is probably full of people who could send you business, whether that’s you know a potential client sitting in the audience, or they know someone who could benefit from your expertise. So I think speaking engagements are kind of the I consider them the no brainer. They’re the heavier lift. There’s a reason there aren’t tons of people lining up to speak. I mean, not to mention, you know, maybe fear of public speaking, but it takes some time to prepare the presentations, but I think it really does reap significant reward.
Steve Fretzin [23:38]
Love it. Love all of that. And I just want to add one thing, and that is whether you’re creating your writing, you’re doing, video, audio, podcasts, whatever it is, repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. So I spoke at the DuPage County Bar here in Chicago earlier this week. I asked, Would you send me the video of me speaking and doing my new presentation on how to build a brand and all that. Right away, they sent me that video. I gave it to my assistant, Ian, who’s hanging out on the call somewhere, and he’s going to break it up into pieces, and we’re going to repurpose it, because all of its gold, from my perspective, you know, not bragging, just saying, like, I put a lot of time into it, everything I’m sharing is valuable. Like, this is valuable. So repurpose and leverage what the content that you have to get as much juice out of the squeeze? All right, everybody, we’re back with our final segment, and I won’t start with Karl, but I will start with Ito, and this is Ito’s big mistake. All right, let’s hear what it is, and let’s hear what came of it.
Eido Walny [24:36]
So again, I’m not a big believer in making mistakes. I think everybody pays tuition at the school of hard knocks, and everything is a learning experience. But I think in terms of, again, learning experiences, there’s no right way to go about marketing. There’s no right way to do rainmaking, right? You what something that works for me might not work for Karl might not work for Dan. I’m sure we have a lot of the same habits and a lot of overlap, but there are things that we. Do based on our personalities, our practice areas that just aren’t going to work well. But I think one thing that I have fallen into this trap, certainly, and I’m sure others have as well, is sometimes you’ll think something’s a great idea, or think something’s working, and stick with it too long before you are finally willing to admit that it’s just not it’s a dead end for me, I think experientially, oftentimes, that’s with different organizations. You know things sometimes organizations are great and they’re very fruitful, and you meet a lot of people, but I’ve made the mistake of sticking with one organization in particular comes to mind as one that I never got anything out of. They are very good at taking my membership dues, but no one would ever answer emails. I never got invited to do things. I never felt like I was making contacts, but it was a prestigious organization, so I felt like I needed to stick with it. Mistake. I was also involved in another big national organization that, frankly, I just stuck with too long, and the relationships got a little stale, and I probably have just overstayed my time there and should have cycled out earlier. It’s a mistake that people make, but again, it’s a learning opportunity, something that I probably won’t do in the future, but there’s no need to stick with something you think is a great idea that isn’t being fruitful.
Steve Fretzin [26:13]
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah, it’s like, like a bad hire, right? Slow to hire, quick to fire. Like you just how long you going to hold on to a bad apple, right? You sometimes you got to just make your move. Fantastic. Let’s go to Dan.
Daniel Scola [26:25]
Yeah, I think complacency is one that comes to mind for me. I mean, when things are going really well, you tend to let the, you know, slow down on the gas a little bit. But I think that’s a mistake. I mean, it’s not like you have to go 100% all the time, but you should go at a nice speed. You shouldn’t rest on your laurels. And that goes for even the contacts you have in organizations, because people move, you know, in companies, they just move around a lot now, and they’ll take the next best job. So if your contact goes, you know, and you don’t have contacts that are deeper in the organization than that, that one contact you have a you know, the client is at risk then. So I think it’s important to not just say, Well, I know this guy so well, he’d never give him a business away. He’s always going to give it to me or whatever. That’s simply not true. He doesn’t have control of where he’s going to go. He doesn’t know. So I just said, don’t be complacent and just continue to, you know,
Karl Seelbach [27:19]
push fantastic. Karl, I mean, there’s a couple of things that come to mind. You made me think about my past mistakes, more questions, and I’m not even your wife. Yeah, I know. Thanks. So, you know, the thing that I think I waited too long to do in my career was delegate, and I think that, you know, can be very relevant when we’re talking about rain making, because, you know, one of your biggest luxuries, or maybe lack of it, is time, right? Is finding the time to do what you need to do to work on your business, as I was describing earlier. And the faster you can let go of some of those things that can be delegated, either to a vendor or, you know, hire someone to help you with things that aren’t your highest and best use, the more time you can focus on the rain making and the business development. So I waited way too long to do that. I mean, when we started my firm in 2015 I was it, I was HR, I was payroll, I was the billing person, and I kept doing that for years. I mean, we’re three to five years we had employees, and I was still the one that would buy the computer and run the HR, the payroll system. And finally, talk to a coach who said, hey, you’ve got to delegate this stuff. You’ve got to be able to grow, and you’ve got to be able to grow to a point where the business is going to run, whether you’re gone for a week or a month or six months, you know, you’ve got to build the system, and you got to be willing to delegate and let go. So that was a mistake I made in the past that I’ve since rectified, but I think it’s one that can really hold you back if you don’t delegate. Yeah, and
Steve Fretzin [28:52]
you got to look at your time and look at what your value is, right to your clients and in the marketplace. And you know, you’re doing things at 10 and 20 and $50 an hour that are all delegatable, and you’re just holding on to it like luggage, and it’s not in anyone’s best interest. So Wow. What a great panel. Thank you guys so much. I want to thank Dan Scola Italy, Karl Seelbach, for being our amazing guest today. I want to thank again our sponsors, rankings, IO law, her podcast and legal verse media don’t go anywhere. But I want to thank everybody for being with us, with be that lawyer. Live this is the place to be to get insider tips from legal industries, top rainmakers and experts, and I appreciate you all. Be safe. Be well. We’ll talk again soon.
Narrator [29:36]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. 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.