In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Erika Steinberg discuss:
- The value of having a focused marketing plan for lawyers and firms
- Strategies for retaining and growing client relationships
- Building a personal brand using LinkedIn
- Benefits of fractional marketing for law firms
Key Takeaways:
- A written marketing plan provides focus, direction, and measurable goals, allowing lawyers and firms to avoid chasing “shiny objects” and instead focus on impactful projects.
- Lawyers often neglect past and existing clients as a source of business due to discomfort, yet these relationships often present the easiest opportunities for growth.
- Marketing activities should align with an individual’s comfort level and schedule—focusing on actions they will actually execute.
- Firms undergoing mergers or lateral hires risk losing opportunities if they do not clearly communicate how the changes benefit clients and integrate new team members effectively.
“The marketing activities that are best are the ones that you’re going to do, the ones that fit your comfort level and your schedule.” — Erika Steinberg
Got a challenge growing your law practice? Email me at [email protected] with your toughest question, and I’ll answer it live on the show—anonymously, just using your first name!
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Rankings.io: https://rankings.io/
Rainmakers Roundtable: https://fretzin.com/lawyer-coaching-and-training/peer-advisory-groups/
Episode References:
Differently Podcast by Carla Reeves: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/differently/id1546761001
About Erika Steinberg: Erika Steinberg, founder of CMO2Go, has been working with law firms to maximize their marketing for more than 30 years. CMO2Go provides senior-level fractional marketing support to midsize law firms around the United States, supporting firms as they tackle their urgent and important marketing needs.
Connect with Erika Steinberg:
Website: https://www.cmo2go.co/
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikasteinberg/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/cmo2go-inc
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: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the show. Everybody. We’ve got a great one for you today. The interview in just a moment. We’ve got before that our Q and a of the show. This one’s coming from Kevin from New York City, and he asks what do I do to make linkedin more useful in building my personal brand? That’s a great question.
I am harping about linkedin pretty much every day and Put up some really solid videos. If I can pat myself on the back on my YouTube channel. So go to Steve Fretzin on YouTube and you’ll find some really solid LinkedIn videos, but the most important thing when starting out is, is, is really to have a great profile.
That means you’ve got a banner, a professional photo, you’ve got everything laid out in a way that’s going to be super useful to you and the people that are looking at your profile, keep in mind. People are looking at your LinkedIn profile more often than they’re looking at your website, for example. So you really want to make sure that, that your, that your, your profile is like a cover of a book.
It has enough great content to draw someone in to want to keep. Reading and listening and learning more. So hopefully [00:01:00] that’s helpful, Kevin, keep up with the LinkedIn and everybody else enjoy the show.
Narrator: 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 Branson will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Branson.
Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody. Hey, welcome to the be that lawyer with breaths and podcast. I’m super excited that you’re here today. As you guys know, this show is all about helping you to be that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. And you know, me, I’m doing my best every single episode to bring you guests that are going to bring you value that you’re going to enjoy.
And today is absolutely no different. We’ve got Erica Steinberg weighing in the wings. How’s it going, Erica?
Erika Steinberg: It’s going great. Thank you.
Steve Fretzin: You ready to rock and roll? I am. All right. No pressure. But we are going to talk about some [00:02:00] really important subjects, especially, you know, starting a new year we’re in January and it’s really going to be helpful to you guys.
To hear a little bit about planning and marketing, and we’re going to get into the weeds on that in just a few minutes. If you’re hearing about my company, Fretzin, for the first time, just know we’re all about helping individual lawyers to grow. We don’t work with law firms, we just work with individual, highly motivated lawyers that want to build the practice of their dreams.
And that’s our jam. So if that’s of interest to you and you want to go beyond the content I’m putting out, you can always reach out to me, DM me on LinkedIn, or just email me at steve at fretson. com. Okay, everybody. So let’s start off with our quote of the show. And this is a real kind of short one, but I want to hear the bigger picture of it and who said it and how you felt about it.
It is. Remember what excites you and there’s an exclamation, remember what excites you. I guess I have to kind of say it a different way, but anyway but what excites you and what, and why that quote and welcome to the show.
Erika Steinberg: Thank you so much. It’s nice to be here. That quote for me. So first of all, I get that because I get these [00:03:00] emails delivered to me every weekday morning or work day morning.
And it’s called notes from the universe. And I get these messages that are encouraging and positive and just start me out on my day on the right foot every day. And they, all of these resonate with me, all of these quotes that I get or the the emails that I get this one about being excited. What are you excited about today?
Is that one really stood out for me and I’ve carried it with me. It gives me energy, you know, in every work situation, no matter what it is. Sometimes you have things, you have things that you love to do, and you also have things that you don’t love to do. And this reminds me of all of the things that I really love to do.
I’ve, you know, I’ve been working with for 30 years now and I really love it. Oh, it reminds me to find things. To be excited about every day and to look forward to every day.
Steve Fretzin: No, I love that. I love that. And so if you’re listening and you’re maybe not in the best frame of mind a, you know, sign up for that notes from the universe that might be helpful and [00:04:00] be, no, you can dwell on the negative.
You can dwell on the things you don’t enjoy and all that stuff. But, but I think what you’re saying, Erica is really think about why you became a lawyer. Think about what you do and how you’re helping your clients and the difference you’re making in people’s lives and what excites you about business development, marketing, or just, you know, Doing great work.
I think that’s kind of where we’re going with that, but everybody, Erika Steinberg is the founder of CMO to go 30 years in legal marketing. And I want to hear, you know, the background and give that out. So people understand where your pedigree and where you came from and all that jazz.
Erika Steinberg: Sure. Well, I fell into legal marketing really just kind of backwards.
I didn’t even know what it was. I was down in DC and I basically ended up growing up in big law. I was with a small firm needed a job and they said, Oh, we know this firm. It’s called Hogan and Hartson. It’s about 300 lawyers in DC. Why don’t you go there? And I started out there was mostly an admin and then made my way over to Howery and Simon, another [00:05:00] DC firm that was just.
Breaking the barriers when it came to legal marketing, they were on the leading edge, almost leading edge of marketing. It was so much fun. It was, I mean, this was the early nineties. So the field as it existed really was only maybe 20 years old. It was really just coming out. So I had the opportunity to work at a firm in how read that was.
Really pushing the boundaries with J Jaffee, who was probably the chief boundary pusher at that time and then went from powery to another firm. I spent time at Aaron Fox, also a D. C. Firm, you know, great firm moved up to New York. About 25 years ago, my goodness. Yeah. 25 years ago now. Wow. No, almost 25.
And worked with Kay Schoeller as the director of their marketing department. And then made my way over to Sidley and at Sidley, I ended up staying there for 12 years, almost 12 years. It loved that firm. And there I was a director of marketing operations. So I like to tell people that I have handled [00:06:00] probably like every level of a job within a legal marketing department.
And so some of the lawyers who I work with say to me, you’ve been in law firms longer than I have. And I’m like, at this point, yeah, it’s been years and I’ve been, I still love it. I still do it. So I started my business after leaving Sidley. So that’s been almost six years now. March will be six years.
It was my 50th birthday present to myself. So business. Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s nothing I never thought I did.
Steve Fretzin: I mean, what excites you? Well, you know, for many people, it’s, it’s gaining all that experience and knowledge in a phenomenal industry, phenomenal firms, learning everything you can learn. And then being able to say, Hey, now I can take that on the road and leverage it and build my own business and work my own hours and have my own quality of life, which is why.
So many lawyers, you know, decide eventually to go solo and start building a firm and you and I both did that in legal and I didn’t have the background like you had, but, but kind of fell into it in a different way, but ultimately, you know, it’s amazing to have [00:07:00] that, those experience you’ve had, what, I mean, what do you think is like the craziest thing about big law firm life that people that are listening that maybe have never experienced something like a Sidley would be surprised to hear?
Erika Steinberg: Well, I mean, each firm has its own personality. So, you know, so when I, for instance, when I was at Howard, the managing partner, then he ruled, you know, he was, he made a decision. Nobody questioned it. Other firms are very flat and other firms like to discuss a lot and they’re very big on collaboration.
And so, you know, you have to, each firm has its own personality. So if you’re thinking about going into big law, then, and you’re, you know, when you’re looking at some firms, ask around, ask about. What is this firm like? Talk to people who work there, see if you could find people who used to work there and ask them what it’s really like you know, it is, you know, it’s, it’s not just big law, you know, a behemoth and every firm is the same.
Each firm is very different,
Steve Fretzin: different cultures, different comps, different, you [00:08:00] know, universes. Okay. So one
Erika Steinberg: thing that’s the same about all of them, I will say, and somebody said this to me recently. And it really resonated with me said, no matter what, it’s an environment of excellence. And it really is. You are working with some of the smartest people in the world, working who are in themselves, working with some of the most, you know, doing the most interesting work for some of the most interesting and relevant companies and organizations in the world.
So you’re going to say, you know, if you can succeed in it, it is, it’s a great career.
Steve Fretzin: Really, really wonderful. So let’s take a deeper dive then into the world. Of marketing. And in particular, you know, it’s the beginning of the year and people need to start realizing. You know, yes, there’s the billable hour and that’s great.
But there’s also this thing called originations and having my own book of business and building and scaling my law firm and ultimately client development is at the heart of that and having a brand that you can be proud of that generates the leads you’re looking for. So what are sort of the [00:09:00] reasons that you would give to lawyers of why it’s important to have a written plan versus just some ideas in their head?
Erika Steinberg: Oh, my goodness. First and foremost, having a plan. It keeps you focused. That’s probably the most important thing. Marketing, I mean, to me, marketing is fun. You know, it gets exciting. You know, there’s a lot of shiny objects out there and you can chase one and then the next and then the next. But if you have a plan you have some guidelines, you have something that you can look back upon and say, okay, am I running off into this direction here or am I following my own plan?
It doesn’t take that long to do. So it provides you a roadmap really how to get from point A to point B. It also tells you where you’ve been because part of planning then is Exit, you have your plan, but then you want to execute and you want to measure as you’re going along. Because otherwise you have no idea, you know, is this working?
Do I need to course correct, you know, you know, whatever. So if you don’t have that starting point, then how do you know where you’re going and how do you know if [00:10:00] you’re following your own directions?
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. A hundred percent. And I don’t think I work, you know, with anyone that isn’t willing to put together and work with me on a plan and everybody in the lawyers that I work with, their eyes light up because they’ve been doing either random acts of marketing or they’ve been doing just like winging it for so long that the concept of having a simple, easy to follow plan is exciting to them because it really takes the guesswork out of it.
It doesn’t mean that it. That it’s always perfect from day one, but it means at least we have a direction to your point that we can go that we both agree is the right direction and then figure it out from there and like make, make the tweaks we need to make.
Erika Steinberg: Yeah, I agree. And it doesn’t take as much time as people think it takes.
I think that when people think about planning, they think about sitting in a conference room for days on end. And you come away with, you know, like a 50 or a hundred page document that then looks very pretty and sits on a shelf and nobody ever looks at it again. And it, you know, there’s no reason that it has to be like [00:11:00] that.
It can be like that if you really want it to be but it doesn’t have to be.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And I’ve looked at those plans. People said, I have a plan. My firm made me put together and I do it every year and okay. And I look at it, I go, so you mean this list of names and these conferences you’re going to attend.
That’s the plan. And they go, yeah, that’s the plan. I go, that’s not a plan. You know, those are pieces of a plan. Those are elements of a much better plan than that. So let’s talk about what goes into a good plan. That’s a great segue to how you structure a plan and what goes into it. And I’ve got my take, but I absolutely wanted your take.
Erika Steinberg: So when I work with a firm, now I work with midsize market, midsize law firm, sorry for the most part. When I work with a firm and we start with a planning process, which is where I like to start. It’s not required, but it’s where I like to start in most cases. We start with, first we back up and we talk about the firm’s mission.
How does the firm operate in the world? And a lot of firms already have a mission statement. Sometimes they haven’t looked at it for quite a [00:12:00] while, so we want to look at that and make sure that. It’s still correct for the firm. I asked them to start to think about, and I work with them about, okay, what are your marketing objectives, which are tied in very closely with your business objectives and the conversation around that usually ends up involving both, but the objectives really are your guiding lights.
What’s a direction that I want to be going in? What are, you know, what do I want to get closer and closer to with the things that, you know, the elements of my plan will get me closer to these things. And from that point, I really. It’s all about the ideas. You know, this is what, you know, planning to me, this is where it can be fun and really energizing.
So we brainstorm a ton of ideas, but ultimately it comes down to that. I kind of stopped them in their tracks and I say, okay, now we have, you know, this is where the rubber meets the road. You can’t chase every shiny object. You can’t do everything. If you could do just one marketing project this coming year, what would it be?
What’s going to have the greatest [00:13:00] impact on your firm? What’s going to have the greatest impact on your practice? What is that one thing? And we pick that one thing and I say, okay, great. You pick the first thing. If you could have two. What’s the second one and onto maybe four, I’ve gone to five before, but only with a firm that had a lot of staff and really, you know, was ready to implement out that, that, you know, at that level.
And then with the plans to a lot of people, I think stop at that point and they say, okay, so the, we have our plan. We know what our mission is. We know what our objectives are. Here’s the project. Here’s, here’s our goal. Let’s take it to the next step. What are the first steps that you need? What who’s going to do it?
What’s the timeframe? What specifically do you want to get done? So we put in those specifics. So that’s my take on planning. I find it’s very pragmatic. It’s something that I accomplish in a very collaborative process with a firm or a practice over the course of a few hours, you know, with some phone calls before and after, and then it’s very, it becomes very.[00:14:00]
doable and achievable because we’ve worked on it together. And because the lawyers themselves had said, this is going to have the greatest impact and I’ll push, I mean, for sure, I’ll push back. It’s, you know, something doesn’t
Steve Fretzin: sure. And by the way, no surprise at all that what you just shared is right in line with what, with what I’m doing for individuals, it’s, it really is.
Top down and then bottom up. So write objectives at the objectives at the top, what strategies or focus points and directions are you going to go and then breaking down the tactical actionable pieces of what needs to happen each day, who’s going to do it. What software do you need? How’s it going to, you know, and if, you know, achieve the tactics, then the strategies occur, the strategies occur, the objective occurs.
It’s like micro macro and back and forth. And so it’s not rocket science and it’s not complicated. However, having someone that has been in the trenches that understands where the low hanging fruit is, asking the right questions and ferreting out what needs to come out of the lawyer, the [00:15:00] law firm, so that we can all be in agreement on what is going to make the most sense.
That activity I think is sometimes better with somebody that on their own, like even for my business. Thanks. It’s helpful to have someone with another set of eyes looking at it because I’m in it. And it’s just hard to see things sometimes when you’re in it.
Erika Steinberg: Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely, a hundred percent. I work with other people when I do the planning for my business and that, that ferreting out of information, you know, making the connections and stuff like that.
That’s where to me, that’s where the magic happens.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. That’s
Erika Steinberg: it.
Steve Fretzin: Right on. I agree. 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 consultation at Rankings. io today. Hey [00:16:00] everybody, Steve Fretzin here. Man, I thought I was a good marketer, but maybe not. Lawyers have been approaching me asking, what’s the Rainmakers Roundtable? Well, I tell them this is a special place created exclusively for rainmaking lawyers to continue their journey of prosperity.
Our program is unique as every member has a significant book of business. and is motivated to grow it year after year. Where else does this exist? If you’re a managing partner who’s looking to get off your lonely island and talk shop with America’s top rainmakers, please go to my website, bretson. com and apply for membership today.
So the strategies that we’re talking about for a law firm or for lawyers individually, there’s dozens and dozens of things that they can do from a business development and a marketing and a branding perspective. How do we. Sort of get down to the nitty gritty and what a firm should be focusing on, because there’s just so many different directions they can go ultimately to your point [00:17:00] earlier, pick the best three, you can’t do 10 things and those random acts of marketing aren’t going to be useful either.
I’ll do a post today and next week I’ll write something and next month I’ll do this, right? That’s not getting, getting there. The goal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Squirrel. Right. You’re off. Like, look, you know, the adult ADHD in me. Right. So how do you help them identify that low hanging fruit and where they should be investing their energies?
Erika Steinberg: Well, I, I, as you pointed out, I work with firms and then within the firms, I also work with the individuals. So we identify those firm projects and then inevitably, as I’m working with the individuals, they say, what should I be doing? How can I support this? Oh, so now I need to, everybody’s telling me I need to get out there.
I need to be networking. I need to be doing this. I need to be doing that. And I always tell the people who I work with and the firms that I work with, really the individuals. The marketing activities that are best are the ones that you’re going to do the ones that comfort level and the ones that fit your schedule.
I mean, [00:18:00] people come from, you know, people have different situations at home. They have different schedules there, you know, some people love the idea of going into a big room and working the room and meeting new people. And for other people, they would, you know, probably rather, I don’t know, like drive nails into their nails like that, you know, it makes them twitch.
So there’s always something there’s, as you said, there are so many different ways to help your firm and your practice and yourself with your marketing and your business development. They’re kind of two sides of the same coin the way I see it. So there’s always going to be a way to find something that an individual can do, that a group can do that works for them from a group perspective.
Yeah. I mean, I stick with, you know, like what’s going to have that greatest impact don’t, you know, and sometimes you have to take a step back. Somebody will say, Oh, well, email marketing. That’s, you know, like, that’s where it’s at for us. Okay. You’ve sold me on that. Do you have a CRM? Well, yeah. How’s the data?
You know, [00:19:00] so some, you have to take a few steps back before you could take those steps forward.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. The one that I want to pick on for a moment is the lowest hanging fruit that I’ve identified is lawyers that have passed an existing clients. And they’re not really tapping into them. And I get why they tell me, cause they tell me why it’s not comfortable.
It’s not something that they want to do because they just got paid by these people, a lot of money. And now they’re going to what go to them and pander from our additional business, or, you know, look to get more business out of them for their firm. And what lawyers really don’t understand is that that’s where the easiest dollars are.
That’s in my take, right? Like you can go out and network and meet a bunch of strangers and. Figure out those relationships over the next couple of years, or you could talk to the people who already love you and think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. And if you have a good approach and some good language, you can get what you need from them and maybe even make it their idea.
And again, I’m teaching these sales free selling types of concepts. So when [00:20:00] doing it, it shouldn’t feel salesy. But I think the head trash that I identify is they’d rather do just about anything else other than go for where. The easy money is,
Erika Steinberg: yeah, I hear that a lot with regard to marketing in general, they say it feels icky.
I don’t like it. It’s inauthentic. And the way I try to change the calculus with that for people is I say, okay, think about it like this. You have a skill set and there are individuals and companies and organizations that need your help. They need your skills. Marketing, business development, whatever it is, it’s just a way to make sure that the people who need your help know that you’re available to help them.
And if somebody can really embody that and like, okay, I’m hoping somebody, it can change the feeling and get rid of that factor that I think though many, we hear so many people talk about.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. So I’m like, I know the top brain surgeon in the world. Not really, but let’s say I do. And I’m meeting people who are going to have a need for that type of a surgeon.[00:21:00]
And I’m just going to keep it a secret. I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I could be saving lives all the time just by referring. So I think lawyers need to understand like when they hit a certain level of experience and success and sort of prowess in their field and they’re keeping it a secret and they’re, you know, they’re like, well, my clients don’t want to refer me other people because they want me all for themselves.
That’s not really how it games play that there might be a few that feel that way, but the majority are going to be thrilled. To make introductions because quite frankly, selfishly, it makes them look good. When you refer somebody brilliant, people are happy. They are excited because their lawyer’s terrible or their situation.
There’s no responsiveness or whatever the deficit may be. So at least get the at bats and but I think it’s without the approach and without the language, it makes it a little tricky. But from a marketing for individual marketing perspective, even at a law firm, the cross marketing and the lack of cross marketing, cross selling, whatever we want [00:22:00] to call it.
And the lack of leveraging those clients, I think is, is where a lot of the money gets left on the table.
Erika Steinberg: Oh, I agree. I agree. And we’re seeing a lot of articles now about, yeah, we’ve been seeing lots of law firm mergers and we’re seeing a lot in the news lately about lateral moves. So you’ve got a lot of lateral movement and there’s even more expected for 2025.
And then, you know, so firms are making this huge investment. Lawyers, you know, individual lawyers are undertaking huge changes in their own lives to move from one firm to another. And then the, That lawyer, the group of lawyers isn’t really fully integrated into the new firm. So how do you take, you know, you’re leaving money and opportunity on the table when you, if you find that you cannot easily and quickly.
Go to your existing clients, you know, on both sides and be able to explain and give the message like this is why our Combination is better [00:23:00] than what we have before. This is how it benefits you. This is what’s going on And this is what we see going on in your world And here’s how we’ve come together because we can provide an even better service to you.
So I think that Unfortunately, we might be hearing even more of that
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you, there used to be a lot of small to mid market, you know, full service firms in Chicago. I mean, dozens. Now I can name like three, they’ve all been acquired. They’ve all been pulled together by bigger firms that want to own the Chicago market. And I get that. But it’s why I think.
Firms need to continue to drive up revenue and continue to build brand. And by the way, individual lawyers need to do the same because if you’re unhappy with that merger, and now you’re working at a big firm where you really wanted to be a part of a 50 person boutique, and that’s gave you the lifestyle that you wanted.
Now it’s gone. So what are you going to do? You’re going to move laterally and you got to have those clients in that book to [00:24:00] bring with you. Otherwise, you know, you’re talking to lawyers on a pretty regular basis that want to move, but they don’t have the book to move. And I’m hearing, you know, it’s still around half a million to a million to get, you know, interest from the mid market or from bigger firms.
So final thoughts on marketing that we haven’t covered so far. And then I also just want to hear from you a little bit about what fractional marketing is, because there’s people like yourself that are going in and really, you know, either helping the existing marketing team or even in some cases taking over, you know, for the marketing team that maybe they don’t have a marketing team.
So final tip, and then let’s get into what that fractional marketing is.
Erika Steinberg: I would say my final tip about marketing is be curious, you know, I think if you come at it from a perspective where you feel like you’re really helping, you’re, you’re genuinely offering help and you’re curious about what’s going on with your client, you know, you mentioned that some of your clients, you know, they feel like they don’t feel comfortable going to the client who they just finished up work [00:25:00] for well.
Approach it with curiosity. What else is going on? What’s keeping you up at night? What’s going on in your world? Are there any introductions I can make for you? Is there anybody who you want to meet? And I feel like that is, that’s a good mindset to go into it with because it, you know, lawyers didn’t get into.
The practice of law to, you know, market and develop business. They wanted to hear
Steve Fretzin: that every day, every day. I hear that no doubt about why
Erika Steinberg: they do it. So I like that. I like curiosity.
Steve Fretzin: That’s cool.
Erika Steinberg: Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: And then the fractional side.
Erika Steinberg: So fractional, you know, fractional basically means that you get the benefit of somebody’s experience without the price tag of hiring them full time.
And we’re seeing it more and more in law firms. It’s not just fractional marketing or fractional CMOs. But there are fractional CFOs, fractional COOs for midsize firms, small firms, you know, whatever. I work with firms at this point that are ranged from five lawyers to 175 lawyers. So it, you know, it’s a [00:26:00] huge range there.
It is a. Working with a fractional marketing team is very helpful in a few different situations. One of those was something that I really needed when I was at Sibley. If somebody’s going out on leave, or if somebody’s leaving, and the legal marketing field right now is so, there’s so much competition for talent out there that if you need to hire somebody, it could take three months, six months, and you know, sometimes a CMO search can take a year.
You don’t want to lose momentum. So a fractional solution could be plugging in somebody, you know, while the person is on lever or while you’re conducting your search. So that way you don’t lose your marketing momentum. If you find yourself saying things like, I wish that we could, or why can’t we do this, or I really wish we could finish this project, you know, we just don’t have enough people were always under the gun.
I hear from CMOs a lot. That they’re under the gun. They have they’re keeping up with the everyday work, all of the urgent requests. So when you find yourself saying that, that could be a good [00:27:00] time to bring in a fractional solution. And when there are things, you know, that important work that you always find, you know, doesn’t get done because you’re seeing to the everyday and the urgent.
So fractional solution can help them too.
Steve Fretzin: Awesome. Awesome. Great to know. And for every listening, just really important to have, you know, some people in your corner that really understand marketing so that you’re not out just there out flailing around. Again, not really realizing you’re losing years of potential good branding and marketing and business development opportunities.
So let’s move to our game changing podcast. This is one I have not heard and it’s exciting because it sounds cool. And I want to hear about it. It’s called the differently podcast.
Erika Steinberg: Yes. So I don’t listen to very many podcasts, but a friend of mine turned me on to this one. This is woman, Carla Reeves, and she has episodes, plenty of episodes where she has a guest.
And so she’ll talk with somebody about one of my favorite ones. She’s had this woman on a few times. Who is an accountant and a bookkeeper, but she talks about coming at managing [00:28:00] your money from a different perspective. And she talks about it Kelly talks about it from a very heartfelt perspective, which you don’t expect when you’re talking about bookkeeping and the energy of money and things like that.
So she talks about journaling and she perhaps guests about, you know, journaling about. Marketing and all coming at it from a different perspective. So it really, it, that one stood out for me. And then she also just has very short episodes where she’s just speaking about something, you know, something that helped her and she wants to share it with her audience.
And literally, even just the sound of her voice kind of calms me down and brings, you know, like I operate at a very, you know, elevated kind of excited level. And so sometimes I need to calm it down a little bit. And even, you know, listening to one of Carla’s episodes, like we’ll have, you know, seven minute episode, sometimes we’ll just do that for me and lower the blood pressure a little bit.
Steve Fretzin: Okay. Well, very cool on that. As we wrap up, want to take a moment to thank our sponsors. I want to, first of all, just say, [00:29:00] Hey. This is my own little sponsorship blurb, but if you’re enjoying the show, getting great value every single week, twice a week, just give us a quick review on Amazon and just let it let people know, Hey, this is something that you might be interested in or Apple, I should say.
Love that. And then of course, want to thank LawHer. Have you heard of the LawHer podcast? No, you should be, I’m going to introduce you to, yeah, you should be on it. Actually. I’ll make an introduction to you and Sonia Palmer. She’s the one who runs it, but she’s amazing. And it’s, it’s really how to raise, you know, the tides for women in law.
And she brings on top level people like yourself. So I think it’s kind of a perfect fit. So I’ll, I’ll talk to her about you. And of course, rankings IO the great marketing organization, helping out to generate leads for lots and lots of PI firms around the country. If people want to get in touch with you, Erica, they want to engage you.
They want to network with you. They want to meet you. What are the best ways for them to reach out?
Erika Steinberg: They can find me on LinkedIn, Erica Steinberg. They can also find my website at CMO to [00:30:00] go. Dot co so CMO, the number to go. co and my email is on there and connect with me on LinkedIn. I love talking about this stuff.
So I always say I’m happy to have my brain picked anytime.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Really, really great. And I just I’m so appreciative that we got connected. I think we collaborated on an ABA article or something like that we did together. I appreciate that. And I’d like to keep it going forward. So let’s you and I keep in touch and keep in the loop.
Thank you so much. I just you know, everything that you shared today I think was spot on with what my audience needs to hear moving into you know, a new year. So thanks much. Yeah. Thank
Erika Steinberg: you.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And thank you everybody for spending time with Erica today and myself on the Be That Lawyer with Fretzin podcast.
Have a great rest of the week, everybody. And hopefully again, you’re getting, you know, takeaways great takeaways like you did today. I mean, the, you know, the, the ones that are. The marketing ones that you’ll do are the ones that are the best. I mean, that line alone is worth its weight in gold today, everybody.
So that’s all I got. Take care of you. Safe. Be well. We’ll talk again soon.[00:31:00]
Narrator: Thanks for listening to be that loyal life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, Fretzin. 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