In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Christopher Anderson discuss:
- Urgency and intentionality in how professionals approach time and life decisions
- Operational and structural challenges faced by small and large law firms
- Personal clarity and value-driven goal setting in legal careers
- Misalignment between perceived business needs and actual areas for growth
Key Takeaways:
- Many law firms suffer from an inefficient cycle of over-marketing when caseloads are low, followed by frantic hiring when they surge, resulting in chronic instability.
- The most common and damaging mistake lawyers make is hiring help in areas they enjoy, rather than where they truly lack capability, such as fixing the “butterfly stroke.”
- True work-life alignment comes from clearly defining three things: how much income you need, how much time you’re willing to trade for it, and what you’re trying to accomplish personally and professionally.
- Holding on to underperforming team members not only hurts your business but also deprives them of the opportunity to thrive elsewhere, and it’s often best addressed through a third-party assessment.
“Too many people just go after the money, and then they realize, okay, I’m trading time for money. So the more money I want, the more time I trade, and that leads to misery.” — Christopher Anderson
Unlock the secrets of the industry’s top rainmakers with Be That Lawyer: 101 Top Rainmakers’ Secrets to Growing a Successful Law Practice. Grab your ultimate guide to building a thriving law firm now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F78HXJHT
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About Christopher Anderson: Christopher T. Anderson is a lifelong entrepreneur and attorney with a deep passion for helping law firm owners build practices that align with their goals, values, and vision. With nearly 30 years of experience, he draws from both wins and lessons learned across his ventures—including New Leaf Family, AndersonDodson, and Sunnyside Services, where he remains actively involved.
Known for testing every strategy on his firm before advising others, Christopher combines business acumen, legal insight, and a pilot’s clarity of focus to help law firm owners take control of their time, teams, and trajectory—on their terms.
Connect with Christopher Anderson:
Website: http://www.sunnysidelaw.com/
Email: [email protected]
Show: Un-Billable Hour: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/un-billable-hour-business-management-strategies-for/id335971413
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawfirmbusiness/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/sunnysidelaw
Twitter: https://x.com/LawFirmBusiness
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewLeafFamily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newleaf.family/
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, before we get to the show, want to share that we have now 47 five star reviews on the be that lawyer book, 101 top Rainmaker secrets to growing a successful law practice. Matt Martin, thank you for shooting this five star review, a nitro boost of knowledge, he says. Steve Fretzin, be that lawyer is like someone hooking up an IV drip of experience in legal vertical into your arm and letting you just chill. There are conversations with 101 professionals from the litany of industries, all of which have insights to offer to someone building a firm. There are top attorneys like John Morgan, and there are also legal marketers, burnout consultants and everything in between. The format of the book, which is a bunch of short conversations, generally, just a few pages, makes incredibly digestible and easy to read. It basically strips these concepts down to essentials and presents them in a manner that’s very easy to pick up and read for short period or to binge and tear through the whole book at once. I just am so thrilled and happy that that’s exactly what the book was supposed to do, and that’s exactly what the book does. If you love this show and you want to get down and dirty with a book that’s going to give you all the great hits all in one place, check it out on Amazon and be that lawyer.
Narrator [01:17]
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.
Steve Fretzin [01:40]
Hey everybody. Steve Fretzin here, and this is the be that lawyer podcast. We’ve been cranking out top notch quality podcast for just over five years, over 500 episodes. If you’re new and you want to go back and check out some good ones, just flip through and see what topics ring your bell. If you’re someone that’s been listening for a while, don’t be shy. You can tell others about it. It’s okay, and of course, don’t be afraid to leave us a good review or give us a thumbs up, or whatever’s going on on your phone right now. But we’re gonna have some fun today. We’re gonna really learn some great stuff. I’ve got a phenomenal guest, if you would agree with that, Christopher, is that okay?
Christopher Anderson [02:13]
Well, I’m already concerned with the fact that you have a string of 500 quality episodes, and here we are ready to just kind of like ruin that record. But okay, yes.
Steve Fretzin [02:22]
Yeah, let’s get going quality down into the pit of despair right away. No problem. I have a good feeling about today. I’ve been on your show a couple times, and, you know, quite frankly, I’m interested in getting to know you better as well as, you know, kind of sharing all the knowledge you have in your brain with my people. So we’re going to take a deep dive today on a couple levels, but let’s take our first step, and that is always starting with our quote of the show. And this was provided from you to me, and here we go. There is one simple thing wrong with you. You think you have plenty of time. So that’s was it Don Juan.
Christopher Anderson [02:55]
That is Don Carlos Castaneda says the author, Don Juan is the character in the journey to East one. If I pronounce that right, i, x, t, L, E, N, but that one really grabbed me when I read it, and it’s been misattributed by several people to the Buddha and to others, but it’s customate us. But that one thing, I think would change most people’s lives, and it’s part of a much bigger quote, which we won’t do here, but it’s and a bigger story, which is that I recommend everybody read it, journey to Islam, Carlos, castanedas, I think it’s in the public domain, so, yeah, but it’s really powerful.
Steve Fretzin [03:30]
So, but what’s your take on it specifically? I mean, there’s the reason that it resonates with you.
Christopher Anderson [03:34]
Yeah. So the take I have, and I think it’s the one I recommend to others, is that we, we all go through life acting as if we’ve got plenty of time. We that contributes to a lack of urgency, to a you know, that’s where procrastination comes from, to a lack of clarity and thinking right when the truth is that I don’t, you know, I don’t some of your listeners, I’m sure in their 20s. Some are in their 30s. I’m in my 50s now. Some of your listeners are probably in their 70s. And that doesn’t matter, right? It’s tomorrow’s not guaranteed for anybody. And in a world where we don’t know what’s coming around the bend, where we don’t know what’s guaranteed, waiting for a result, waiting for something to happen, waiting for life to change the economy, to change the weather, to change is not is it’s waiting for something that you’re never guaranteed to see. Yeah. And so if you don’t think you have plenty of time, then you take action. And that is the solution to everything. And so that’s what it means to me. It means just waking up every day realizing I don’t have plenty of time. This needs to have if this is going to happen, if it’s going to be up to me, it’s going to happen now, and it’s a real mind changer. If you approach life that way, it’s not a pessimistic approach either. Like, I don’t want people to think like, wow, that’s really fatalistic, almost nihilistic. No, not at all. Because if I don’t think I have plenty of time, I make movement and. I have time for the next movement, and I can move myself forward, my team, forward, my clients, forward, the world forward. And it, it is really advantageous.
Steve Fretzin [05:10]
Yeah, I agree with that. And I mean, about a month ago, I wrote an article about a close friend of mine and a client who just recently passed from a glioblastoma, not to bring the, you know, that energy down in the room, but, but it hits the point that at 53, years old, you know, this guy didn’t know what was coming. No one would have ever guessed or known that it was coming. You know, here’s a finely tuned machine, amazing, you know, lawyer, amazing father, and he just, it all gets taken away. So to your point, you know, we can’t just, you know, expect that it’s happening. And you know, I’ve been through near death experience. A lot of other people have too. And, you know, it shouldn’t take that for people to wake up and realize, hey, we’ve got to make the most of this thing called life. And how many times we go around the sun and all that jazz.
Christopher Anderson [05:50]
Yeah. And it’s a glioblastoma. I mean, it just like I’ve got another client who’s actually facing that same exact thing, yeah. And it is, it comes, you wait, you know, you fall, you have a seizure, like out of the blue, and your life is changed forever. And so, you know, maybe if we treat life from that perspective all the time, yeah, it’s better, but yeah, it shouldn’t be like you said, don’t I don’t want to bring it down. I don’t think it’s bringing it down. I think it’s bringing it up. It says this is a message of life. Yeah, this is a message of living life every day.
Steve Fretzin [06:20]
Yeah. Well, check out my I wrote an article about it in above the law last month. If you guys want to read about that experience I had with him, and then what my takeaway was from it, and what I recommend people do to live their best life and live in the moment and look ahead. But let’s look back. Actually, Christopher everybody. Christopher Anderson is the CEO of Sunnyside services, host of unbillable hour, and I’d love for you to give a little bit of your journey leading up to where you are today, and so people can understand where you’re coming from.
Christopher Anderson [06:48]
Sure, yeah, it’s not a typical journey. And I’ve always since the time I was a kid, I’ve known I had to learn life’s lessons the old fashioned way, the hard way, and but I’ve made it my mission to try to help others not have to. So I’m a lawyer like you said. I’ve started, operated, sold several law firms. I currently operate several law firms because one of the reasons just being that I really believe before I inflict my musings on my clients, I like to try them out for myself and the ones that fail, which many of them do, I only inflict on me and and then the ones that succeed, I get to share. So I’ve been, you know, spent a career doing that. I was a, started my legal career as a public prosecutor in New York City. I’ve also been a public prosecutor in Georgia. I run software companies. I’ve run large multinational lawyer advisement businesses, and now I run Sunnyside, which is a boutique lawyer advisement business as a law as well as running our law firms and such. But so that journey has taken me through and allowed me to weave the lessons through a lot of different worlds. So in other words, for instance, I have taken a lot of the software engineering concepts that I [email protected] and American lawyer media and LexisNexis, and woven them through how to run a law firm right? I bring lean agile into running law firms. I bring a lot of concepts about how to run businesses efficiently into running law firms, and then, of course, the law firm running experience into the same thing. And I find that it’s an odd alchemy, but that’s proven to be super successful for myself and super successful for a lot of the clients that I have the pleasure of helping every day.
Steve Fretzin [08:40]
Yeah, yeah. Was, Is so is there? Are there specific struggles and challenges that you continue to see lawyers and small law firms have, and if so, what are they?
Christopher Anderson [08:51]
Yeah, particularly in small law firms. I mean, the big challenge, like the one I work with my clients through every day, is the the yin and the yang of I don’t have enough work. I don’t have enough people. So and a lot of law firms kind of live in that cycle where they suddenly don’t have enough work for their team. So they engage in some marketing and some sales, and they really light the fire and they put out to the marketplace the excellent service that they’ve got to give, and the work comes in, and before they know it, they’re out of team. And so they then sort of put the marketing and the sales on the back burner and focus on getting some more quality team and or unfortunately, sometimes any warm body will do team, yeah, yeah. And then so then they build that up, the business gets less efficient market or new client work starts to decline, and the cycle repeats. And so that, to me, that roller coaster is one that I really try to help folks with by modeling their growth, modeling the. Changes of their business, and trying to get recruiting, trying to get marketing, both into a steady state where they’re each feeding off one another and being a virtuous cycle, in the words of Alan Greenspan, dating myself, rather than this roller coaster that that a lot of law firms go through. So I think that’s definitely one of the repeating themes for people I work with.
Steve Fretzin [10:21]
Well, so like, I have no experience building a house, right? I don’t know enough about foundation. I don’t know enough about the materials. I don’t know how to build it. I’ve never done it before, but I’m going to just go and try to build a house, right? So, right? There’s a gap in skills that most lawyers have between lawyering, which they can become very strong at doing, and then there’s the business side. And I think that’s where, you know, you and I come in. But I think in this example that you’re giving, there’s processes and systems and education that is missing.
Christopher Anderson [10:50]
Yeah, well, missing it’s, yeah, it’s completely absent, right? And the funny thing, Steve, is, it’s not just small law firms, right? So, yes, you know we talk. I know you do talk to small law firms, we remind them like they need reminding that law school didn’t teach them anything about running a business. They know, right, but and you know, lawyers sometimes like to pride themselves on not being numbers people. They Well, I went to law school so I didn’t have to do math. That joke, which doesn’t help but look at larger law firms. I mean, it just drives me nuts. You get large law firms with lawyers that are very successful lawyers. They rise through the ranks. They become rainmakers. They learn how to sell. Yay for them. That’s bully. And then they get elevated to management. They suddenly become the director of a practice area, or a vice president or the managing partner like, what about that skill set throughout the rest of their career? Qualify them for that role? And a lot of those firms don’t send them to business school. Don’t send them to folks like you, to get those underpinnings and that, you know, it’s, it’s a hubris that really afflicts a lot of law firms. I’ll tell you. I mean, I know this was a short question, a long answer, but I work mostly with small law firms from time to time, a lot of practice group or like whatever, from a larger law firm hires me to come and do a talk, do a motivational thing, do a workshop. And what I find is like for it’s sort of like when you become a senior in high school. Like all the seniors were all this shit.
Steve Fretzin [12:24]
They were the cool kids on campus, right?
Christopher Anderson [12:25]
Yeah. And then you get into these larger law firms, these M law 100 firms, and like, oh, it’s the same old, same old. They are having the same exact problems as a small law firms. They are having the same struggles, the same dysfunctions just repeated many, many, many times because it’s a large law firm.
Steve Fretzin [12:42]
Yeah, it’s, I found the same thing kind of coming up in sales. They would take the top sales person who produced the most work and this, oh, you should manage people and train them to do what you do. And they don’t. They don’t know how to train, they don’t know how to manage. They don’t know how to people can’t be that person, right? Like the rainmakers at these big firms, or at the small firms, they expect their associates to, like, listen to what they say and do what I do, and nobody can pull it off because they’re unique in their system and the way that they approach things or their personality or whatever it is that made them successful. In fact, one of the most frustrating things that happened to me when I first started interviewing managing partners and rainmakers, I had one guy banging on his table, and I was asking him, you know, what do you know, what are you teaching young associates about business development? And it’s, you got to get out there. And I then I’d say, like, so, you know, no, you just got to get out there. I was like, okay, so totally unusable information, is what you’re saying.
Christopher Anderson [13:36]
Right? Yeah, where’s there? How do you get out what’s the personality you need?
Steve Fretzin [13:40]
That’s what I did, right? So it should work for associates to get out there. Yeah, join a bar, Joe, you know, join a board. Okay? Mean, there’s so much to unpack there, and so much coaching and training and information that needs to be instilled in these younger attorneys, because they they’re just lost in the woods. Like, hey, go into the woods and go figure out how to eat and find water. Okay, you know it’s out there. Water, food is out there. Well, that’s you got to watch some survival shows.
Christopher Anderson [14:10]
Yeah, at least. And then, and then you make it in a freight or something, yeah, right. And then you got to realize, you know what? That’s not the be all, end all. Some associates, some partners, can be just really good at what they do. It’s okay, right? It’s okay to be the technician. It’s okay for that to be your life, and for you to generate a lot of billable hours and to help a lot of people by being a great technician. And meanwhile, you’ve got other people who might be mediocre technicians, but are really amazing at educating the potential client base to understand how the firm, how the technicians sit in the back room over there, can really change their lives, and it’s okay. That’s from my perspective anyway, to bifurcate those roles, to say it’s okay for you to be you and for him to be him, and for her to be her. And let’s figure. Out of business that takes advantage of every each contributors talent.
Steve Fretzin [15:06]
Well, I want to put a warning label on that. And you’re not wrong that there are lawyers that are going to be excellent practitioners, that are necessary and needed and wanted and appreciated, that are going to go through a 30 year career unscathed without a book of business, without managing anything, just being a great lawyer. However, right if we’re thinking about control, freedom, independence, in a career where things are always changing and evolving, a firm being bought, merging a practice group, leaving and what, where are you, and all the different variables that come into play. And we’ve obviously talked about this on the show, and you know this very well, Christopher, that you know having your own clients is also critical. Again, is it necessary for everyone in the world? No, if everyone just went out and made it rain now, who’d be doing the work? So there’s going to be a balance of that. I think we just lawyers need to at least understand both sides of that coin.
Christopher Anderson [15:59]
Absolutely, and I don’t. I don’t, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But like you said, the rainmakers, they always need the technicians, too. And, yeah. And quite honestly, to build your book of business, this is the interesting thing. To build the book of business to become the go to lawyer in an area, there’s not one path to that, like your lawyer that said, Just get out there. Well, for some lawyers, that’s the way. Just get out there. Be, you know, join boards, be on Kiwanis, be on Rotary, do the ABA thing. And, you know, for the extrovert lawyers, and that’s you’re building a network. That’s one way. There are others you could teach. You could be a thought leader in your area in ways that are not the same as going to all those extrovert activities. There’s introvert ways to do it, too. And, yeah, building your own personal client development plan is essential. It just doesn’t need to look the same for everybody.
Steve Fretzin [16:51]
100% and you know, I work with introverts and extroverts quite a bit in all these different practice areas, and every one of their plans looks different because, to your point, everyone’s built differently. Everyone like going to a 200 person, you know, drink fest is not for everyone, right? Some people are going to thrive in that environment. Some people are going to be in the bathroom crying, you know, in a stall. So, you know, where do you fall? And then in a can you learn skills to overcome the challenges that you have, or should we just avoid it and look at other at other opportunities that might just be as fruitful?
Christopher Anderson [17:25]
Yeah, exactly, exactly right.
Steve Fretzin [17:30]
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 in cases, other law firm, marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free [email protected] 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. So let me ask you this. I mean, lawyers are consistently challenged by the pressures and demands of the job, having a family business development, growing a firm, whatever they’re involved in. How do they either stay balanced? Or, I know that there’s a word realistic, like, how do they keep you like things realistic in their world?
Christopher Anderson [18:39]
The Well, first of all, we’ll go to realistic as a pet peeve term of mine, and we’ll go to that in a second. But the question was about balance, yeah, and I think my first reaction to that is that it’s an illusion. There’s no such thing, you know, there’s no balance between the guard, dark side and the light. What there is is priority, what there is, values, what there are, I guess our values, what there are are, or what there is, I will go back to, is what there is, is a clear definition of why you’re doing this, whatever it is you’re doing. And I like to break it out into three areas. Triangles are a big thing with me. You know you need to feed your family and put a roof over their heads. Whatever your family is. Your family might be you. Your family might be you and a cat. Your family might be a traditional nuclear family. Your family might be a non, traditional, non nuclear family, whatever you have a role, probably in providing for that family. And you may not be the only one with that role, but you have a role, and so you should be very clear with yourself and with your family as to what you intend your contribution to be to live life the way you want to live it and the way they want to live it. What does that look like? And this is a lesson I do with many, particularly younger lawyers who haven’t done that. They just go out there. They heard law is a way to make good money, and so they’re out there trying to make good money, but they’ve never defined what they want out of life, and clearly define that. So that’s one two. Who do you want to help? Like, what change do you want to make in the world? What are you doing with your career? What’s the point? And you clearly define that. And then three is to clearly define what else you want to do. So in other words, how much time are you willing to give to the pursuit of the business? Do you want also to be a church leader? Do you also want to be a ski instructor? Do you also want to be a whatever else?
Steve Fretzin [20:51]
You have limited, limited answers to that.
Christopher Anderson [20:55]
Do you have other interests in life, and how much time does that require? So how much time do you want to give to the business? So you answer those three questions, how much financial resources is the business supposed to provide for me? How much time do I want to give it in exchange? And what am I trying to accomplish professionally and personally through that business? Defining those three things clearly for yourself and then communicating them will then set the framework for what you’re for what you’re for all this client business and business development we’ve been talking about. And the interesting and fun thing is, is that they are independent choices. And just because you say, oh, I want a million dollars a year out of the business, and I only want to give the business 30 hours a week, those are not incompatible decisions. And I want to change this or change that. Those are all three compatible decisions. They are the foundation of a plan. Then to accomplish those.
Steve Fretzin [21:47]
Right? It goes backwards. Then you take that, and then you work backwards to figure out the solution for the million a year, 30 hours a week, whatever you’re looking for out of it.
Christopher Anderson [21:58]
Yeah, but too many people just go after the money, and then they realize, okay, I’m trading time for money, so the more money I want, the more time I trade. And that leads to misery. It’s not a lack of balance. It is a lack of definition.
Steve Fretzin [22:16]
Well, when you said the word priority, which I agree that word is really important, we have to prioritize. And also, by the way, get our family, you know, on board with that. Because if my priority is to build a multi million dollar firm, and there’s going to be, you know, a lot of hours in learning and growing and developing, is my family and is the people that support me? Are they behind that, or are they fighting me every bit of the way?
Christopher Anderson [22:40]
Yeah. And the key to that, as far as I’m concerned, is in clearly defining one of the things you have to define for them is their return. What is their return on the investment that they make through you? Because they have a stake in your time. They have a stake in your energy. They have a stake in your presence, in their lives, and to the extent they’re willing to trade some of that, the return they’re going to get on that investment needs to be absolutely crystal clear to them as a promise.
Steve Fretzin [23:13]
Awesome. Hey, I want to wrap up on something in that is you and I have both been podcasting for a while, and I’d like to just hear, is there one, either reoccurring theme or one really important takeaway that you’ve gotten from all the lawyers you’ve interviewed that you could just share and just say, Hey, this is something that I heard that really, you know, I keep hearing over and over that really resonated with me, even if it was a single thing that you heard.
Christopher Anderson [23:36]
It’s hard, right? With all the lawyers we talked to and, you know, all the podcasts and all the different things that come up, I think for me, like, the theme I would take away from my podcast is looking at what’s popular, like, which, I forget how many episodes we’re up to, but it’s got to be close to 1000 what’s popular, what’s not, what do people tune into? What do people tune out of? And then look at what the real problems are, and look at that disconnect. The marketing shows are by far the most popular sales close behind, but marketing so popular, and that’s not the problem of most firms. And so what’s going on out there is that people go out and look for vendors or people to help them with their business, and where do they go and spend all the money marketing, marketing vendors, paid, search, SEO, Billboard like people to help them spend marketing dollars. Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t. That is important, but that’s not what they need most of the time. Like I’m looking at what the takeaway is, right? It reminds me my son, I have a I have a son who’s about to graduate high school now, but you know, from age five to age 14, he swam competitively. And one of the things I always remember is like he was terrible at butterfly, absolutely terrible at butterfly. He was a really good backstroker. And pretty good breaststroker, decent crawl. If he were one of the lawyers, he would be out there in the world looking for backstroke coaches, right? Because it’s what he liked to do. It’s what he succeeded at. And so he would hire backstroke vendors and whatnot. What he needed was butterfly coaches. And you know, that would have made him a more well rounded swimmer and probably still be swimming. And so my takeaway is that people need to talk and explore what is actually holding their business back, where their business is actually struggling, and have someone else tell them, suggest to them where they need the help. Yeah, and it may not be where they prefer to play.
Steve Fretzin [25:44]
Yeah, the reoccurring theme also, and I think it fits in well with what you’re saying is, you can’t read the label from inside the bottle. And most, right? And most lawyers and law firm owners, they’re trying to just, kind of, you know, just trying to bang on the glass to see what’s on the other side. And they’re just trying to, like, imagine what’s on the other side, but they don’t really know. I think people like you and I, and I guess hundreds of other, maybe 1000s of other consultants, and by the way, find the right one, like vet, refer like, get referred to the vendor. If vendors are calling you or you’re just Googling them. I mean, you need to do a good job of vetting to protect yourself, because there’s a lot of good actors, there’s a lot of bad actors, but ultimately, they’re going to be in a better position to identify your gaps and identify that it is the butterfly, in fact, that we need to work on, and not the backstroke. So, yeah, great stuff in last segment I want to do new segment is, what’s Christopher’s big mistake? What’s something that happened in your life and your world that you learned something really important from.
Christopher Anderson [26:41]
Gosh, it’s a lesson I can’t seem to learn. That’s the one I want to use. It’s the one that keeps showing so the way I’m learning it is actually, is protecting myself from it by leveraging talent outside myself to help and that is letting people go who aren’t working out for the business, and not just people, other things too, but like my partner often puts it this way, I am an amazing buyer. I can spot assets. I can spot opportunities like nobody’s business, and I am really good at acquiring them and bringing them into our business. And that includes people, talent, people I really want to work with. I’m a really bad seller, and so like, yeah, the repeating theme is like that once someone’s in my business, or once we’ve adopted a system or whatever, letting it go is really hard for me, and I keep things too long. I keep people too long. And the sad part about it is not just its effect on the business and keeping you know, a player who’s turned out to be a B or a C player in the business for too long, but I’m actually keeping that person from their genius. They’re not bad people, like I’m lucky enough that I haven’t really associated any bad people, just wrong fits. But so as long when I keep a wrong fit around. I’m hurting the business, but I’m hurting them because they are a genius somewhere. They are a great fit somewhere. And again, going back to the quote we started the show with, the only problem is, you think you have plenty of time if they’re a great fit somewhere, they need to get to it, and I shouldn’t hold them back. So that’s my constantly relearning lesson that I would suggest to everybody else. So what have I done? I’ve appointed other people the determiners of people who are struggling and not meeting their potential with us, and even though I might still be the one who pulls the trigger, because I do believe in that personal touch, I get other people to tell me it’s time.
Steve Fretzin [28:37]
Yeah, I 100% agree, and I love the takeaway that we think we’re hurting somebody by letting them go, right? We’re firing them and letting them go, and that’s a bad thing, and shame on us when your point is, hey, there’s a whole other world out there for them, where they can be successful somewhere else, where they’re not being successful here, and we’re actually keeping them from that success by holding on to them, because we think that’s what is best you know, for them or how we feel about it, I just love that takeaway. In fact, Christopher, I have to compliment you. I have a page of notes I you keep seeing me look down. I’m writing notes furiously on my remarkable two tablet, which I love, by the way, not only what are great video clip segments, but also many of the takeaways about defining what you want in life, who you’re helping, what else you want to do, like all these things that you’re sharing that I think lawyers need to really, you know, take a lesson from you that you’ve been there, done that, and there’s a lot more on the other side, if we just, you know, focus on prioritizing what’s important and all that kind of stuff. So really, really great. Before we wrap up, though, have to thank our sponsors, who I love, pimcon, coming up in October with my friend Chris dryer. We’ve got the law her podcast, if you’re want to check that out with Sonya Palmer. And of course, if you are interested in a killer book that is from this show, of all the best tips and tricks and ideas from the rainmakers, we. Interviewed, you’re going to want to pick up be that lawyer. 101 top Rainmaker, secrets to growing a successful law practice, best seller on Amazon. And we’ve sold a ton of books. We’ve got five star reviews across the board. So don’t be shy and again, great gift you know, for anyone that you think would like to is an aspiring Rainmaker, Christopher, if people want to, thank you. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to hear more about Sunnyside. Services. They want to check out your show. What are the best ways for them to find you?
Christopher Anderson [30:26]
Yeah, two great places to go. Check out the UN billable hour, un dash billable hour on the legal talk network. And you can even be a part of the show every third Thursday at three o’clock. We’re live with an Ask Me Anything segment and or they can contact us at Sunnyside law.com and we glad, or me personally, at Christopher at Sunnyside law.com Facebook, Insta, what’s the other LinkedIn? Of course, yeah, yeah, no, we’ve actually kind of not so much anymore, okay, but LinkedIn for sure. So yeah, reach out. Got questions about this show. Got questions about how awesome Steve’s book is. Got questions about anything you know, Carlos castanedas, just give me a ring.
Steve Fretzin [31:05]
Oh, amazing, amazing. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Appreciate you sharing your wisdom. Appreciate the pod swap and how we’re, you know, kind of helping each other out and putting out great content. So just, you know, and I’m just happy that we’re able to do this, and I do feel like I know you better than be and that’s a good thing.
Christopher Anderson [31:21]
It is indeed. Yeah, it brought me up. Here we were, my kids are graduating high school, and they they’re getting fascinated with 80s movies, and so just when you said that, it made me think of get to know me from sorry, I like but anyway, it was really pleasure being on your show and getting to know you as well, Steve.
Steve Fretzin [31:40]
Awesome. Thank you, and thank you. And thank you everybody for hanging out with Christopher and I for, I don’t know, 32 minutes, something like that. 33 guys. It’s all about what you’re doing today and how you’re looking to the future, and not, you know, just letting time pass. Make the most of it. Be that lawyer. Everybody confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care. Be safe, be well. We will talk again soon.
Narrator [32:00]
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.