Discover why “doing great work and waiting for the phone to ring” is no longer enough for lawyers—and how problem‑focused, education-based marketing can turn unaware prospects into your best clients. In this episode, you’ll learn how to stand out in the attention economy by marketing the problems your clients actually feel, not just the services you offer.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jan Roos discuss:
- From lead generation to demand generation in legal
- Unaware vs. aware markets and client education
- Using problem-focused messaging that converts
- Content, thought leadership, and the attention economy
- Networking strategically and leveling up your rooms
Key Takeaways:
- Relying only on referrals and waiting for clients to “eventually call” is a maintenance strategy, not a growth strategy, especially as competition and noise increase.
- The biggest opportunity in many legal practice areas lies with “unaware” or misinformed prospects who don’t yet realize they have a legal problem—or that a solution even exists.
- Marketing works best when it starts by clearly naming and amplifying the client’s problem; once people recognize themselves in that problem, the natural next step is to seek a solution.
- Giving away generous education rarely replaces the need for an expert; instead, it demonstrates complexity, builds trust, and often increases the quality and value of matters that reach the firm.
- Networking is incredibly powerful when done in the right rooms with higher-level peers and connectors, but can become a time drain when spent with people who have lots of time yet little strategic value.
“The thing that will differentiate you more than ChatGPT, let alone any other attorney, is asking people a question that they don’t have the answer to, and showing them that the base of knowledge is bigger than they understand.” — Jan Roos
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About Jan Roos: Jan Roos is the Founder and CEO of CaseFuel, a legal marketing agency that specializes in helping law firms scale their client acquisition through digital advertising, conversion rate optimization, and automated intake systems. An authority on legal digital marketing, he has designed client generation campaigns for over 500 law firms across diverse practice areas. He is also an author and speaker whose works include The Legal Marketing Fastlane and Beyond Intake, providing actionable strategies to help law firm owners maximize lead conversion and grow their practices efficiently.
Connect with Jan Roos:
Website: https://casefuel.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casefuel0/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/casefuel0
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/casefuel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@casefuel0
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@casefuel
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 [00:01]
Hey everybody! Before we get to the show, just a quick reminder about the Be That Lawyer community. From my podcast to my books, this is clearly the next step for you in your growth and development as a rainmaker. Stop doomscrolling and start microlearning, connecting, and getting fresh ideas from growth-minded lawyers from around the world. Visit bethatlawyer.com/community to sign up today. Build your book, own your future, and be that lawyer.
Narrator [00:33]
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 is your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:55]
Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and welcome to the Be That Lawyer podcast. I’m just so thrilled that you’re here. We are, I think we’re coming up on like 640 640 episodes, which is crazy to just think that we’ve created that amount of content. And I’m just so proud of what we’ve done here and the people that were helping and I get, you know, fairly regular emails saying, you know, that guest really was incredible or I learned so much and that’s really the goal. I want to just provide as much as much value as I can for you. You’re going to invest 30 minutes here. Let’s make sure that you get 2 3 4 5 takeaways every show. Jan, are you ready to do that for our people today?
Jan Roos [01:31]
I’m ready to rock. I hope we can do 2 3 4 and then some, Steve.
Steve Fretzin [01:34]
Let’s go for 10, man. Can we hit 10?
Jan Roos [01:36]
Let’s go, yeah. 10
Steve Fretzin [01:37]
takeaways. Who’d have thought? Who’d have thunk it? We’re going to do our best for you folks. And of course, it wouldn’t be the Be That Lawyer without the famous quote of the show. Eugene Schwartz, one of my favorite Schwartzes. You ready for this one? Here we go. Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears, and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people and focus those already existing desires onto a particular product. All right. Jan, welcome to the show and tell us why you love that quote.
Jan Roos [02:08]
Yeah, so I think that book has been key to what I’ve seen some of the most successful law firms that we’ve worked with doing and, honestly, some of the most successful businesses in peer like, in general, do that have been able to kind of take a step away from lead generation, which I think a lot of people focus on, and onto that kind of demand generation despite what the quote what it says about demand. So the way that I kind of think about things is you’ve got this giant circle of things that people could potentially be thinking about and when you hook into the things that are there for your audience, which can be sometimes very challenging to find because you’re not your customer, that’s when you see crazy things happening in terms of stuff. And I’ll give you This is actually one of my favorite marketing stories. So there was guy who was before Eugene Schwartz by the name of Claude Hopkins. You ever heard of this guy, Steve? No, I haven’t heard of him. So he wrote this book in 1925 called Scientific Advertising, but Claude Hopkins was a genius. So he’s the reason why we’re all brushing our teeth today. And what he ended up bringing, and this is a fantastic application of that quote, he came up with the concept of film behind one’s teeth. And he said, if you feel film behind your teeth, then you need to brush. Nobody brushed their teeth in the early 1900s, but when he called that to people’s attention, that was how he ended up getting toothpaste become a household consumable that every single person, hopefully, is is using on a very regular basis.
Steve Fretzin [03:32]
And what he didn’t he what he didn’t know is that I think flossing’s more important than brushing. So he he missed out on a whole other opportunity in in flossing.
Speaker 2 [03:40]
Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [03:41]
maybe it’s hard to come up with floss back then other than maybe like horsehair or something. Yeah. Well, fantastic story, man. I love it. And and yeah, I think, you know, we are, you know, trying to understand our market and understand our prospective clients needs and desires and hopes and fears, not to use them against them, but to to figure out like, what should our deliverable be, or what should our marketing be geared towards that’s going to trigger somebody to make a decision, or get excited about something, or be afraid of something to take action to avoid it, or whatever it might be. So I think that’s that’s really brilliant. Eugene Schwartz, everybody. It’s so awesome having you here, Jan. We’ve got Jan Roos, he’s the founder of Case Fuel, and give us a little bit about how you came to be and got into legal and the whole the whole nine yards.
Jan Roos [04:28]
All right, awesome. So I got into legal, I was kind of doing general marketing stuff. My first business was in the consumer product space, and to kind of abbreviate that, I learned some really interesting things by being in two completely different markets at the same time. So sort of my hobby horse for most of my marketing career has been channel market fit. So some channels work better for certain markets, other ones work better for others, right? I ended up getting into marketing as kind of a generalist after I kind of exited my position because I was the marketing and sales guy, and then the operations and finance guy went and did his own thing, but basically, I was signing these marketing clients, and I realized that paid traffic was the thing that people got really, really excited about. And I was always kind of attracted to, you know, fancier, more complicated stuff. I was young, found that found that people just wanted the simple stuff. So I was getting these paid traffic clients, and I was told, Hey, you know, always want to get into, you know, legal, dental, plastic surgery. These are all of the things you want to be in. And I was actually working a field sales job for Santander Bank at the time, and I ended up crossing the street, and I looked up and there was a car that was about to stop short. So I bounced off the hood. Nothing bad happened, thankfully. I got a pretty nasty bruise on my knee, but that was it. But I was like, This is brilliant. I’ve got the perfect opener for my cold email, and I just cold emailed every single personal injury attorney in New York City. And that’s how I got my first client. And he was a huge He had the the record for the largest jury verdict in Kings County, which is Brooklyn. And basically, I got a shot on that for doing a construction accidents campaign for him. That was kind of my first one. And then from there, got some more PI clients, and then kind of broadened across the, you know, greater B2C legal space. And I was doing a lot of Google AdWords stuff for about five years at that point. So I kind of got to the point where we’re talking like 2019, and you know, I’ve been doing this for a really long time. We were getting incredible numbers, but it was really tough because Google was having a harder time. I just kept kept seeing the costs going up. And the other thing that really stuck in my craw was there were certain things we just couldn’t get on Google. One of the things I was always really attracted to was estate planning, just because I really resonated with the people that were getting into it. It’s kind of one of those only practice areas where you’re generally talking to people on a good day. But whenever we worked with these estate planning clients, they’re always like, Jan, like, you know, I can get a lot of probate stuff from the Google things you’re sending me, but like I can’t get these high-ticket estate planning cases. I know there’s firms that are charging $5,000, $6,000 for these cases, and everybody here is just beating me up on price and trying to ask me why can’t do, you know, the same price that LegalZoom is doing. So I got into this, I did some research, and I found that the firms that were doing this were doing a completely different model. It was all education-based. So seminars, for the most part, with direct mail filling them. So I was like, I kind of want to get in this world. Let’s see what we can do. I started signing up a couple of these firms for adjacent stuff, so it was mostly It’s a huge, different thing, but we were mostly CRM and and sales stuff for them. And then basically, this is all like January of 2020. So then, as everybody remembers, that bad stuff happened afterwards, and the guys were like, Hey, Jan, it was really cool to have the sales stuff you guys were talking about, but I need to keep my office open. The governor just told me I can’t run these seminars, so can we figure how to do that?
Jan Roos [07:29]
So it was a crazy couple months, but we basically figured out how to take the seminar model online. And then we were doing that all over the place for estate planning for about a year. And then since then, you know, we’ve gone to all kinds of different stuff: immigration, bankruptcy, you know, mass tort, pretty much anything you can name it, because it’s just such a powerful way to get in front of people that aren’t looking for you right now. And this is kind of that’s became the the whole thing I’ve I’ve really focused on.
Steve Fretzin [07:54]
Yeah, really, really awesome. And, you know, the old adage of, you know, you know, If I do great work, the business will always be there, just becoming so antiquated. And I think that there’s a real problem with lawyers, whether you’re in a B2C or B2B space, that just are great lawyers, but sometimes I feel like they’re just that the best kept secret, and they really don’t understand like waiting for people to call you, waiting for people to email you, waiting for this great thing that’s going to happen. And by the way, it does, and maybe that that’s what keeps people from doing the right things or doing what they maybe should do based on what you and I are going to talk about today. But what’s your take on on people that are just like, Hey, you know, just wait around, they’ll eventually call?
Jan Roos [08:33]
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a good strategy if you’re not trying to grow your business.
Steve Fretzin [08:37]
Hey, by the way, there are people right now that are not, like they’re they’re putting either a total break on it or a somewhat of break on it because they’re lawyers busier than all get-out right now and they don’t want to have to turn people away, which you shouldn’t do. There’s other other options. But But yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, keep going though. You’re on You’re I know you’re going to say something brilliant, no pressure. Yeah,
Jan Roos [08:56]
I like I said, if you’re not trying to grow business, it’s fine, but it’s just like this is the thing. So like you kind of have to realize it, and there’s there’s another, you know, great book. Have you guys ever read the book The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes? Another one of my favorites. So, do you remember that there’s there’s a a big diagram of how many people are in market for a given thing across services, and generally speaking, the amount of people that are in market for for legal as a I mean any other thing that they studied, this is about 3%, right? So, that’s everybody who’s going onto Google, searching, you know, your practice area plus your city, near me. That’s everybody who’s saying, Hey, do you know an attorney who does this? That’s everybody. But, you know, depending on your practice area, you can realize that these problems last for a much, much longer time, you know, especially if we’re talking for the B2B stuff, you know, knowing that you can form a company or protect your IP. These are a lot of the things that are in the important but not urgent category, and to wait for people to get these things to become urgent can be good in some cases because they’re going to try to be moving, but at the same time, you know, that’s getting them in front of all your other competition as well. So, I think it would behoove one to start looking at the the bigger picture in terms of how people arrive at these things.
Steve Fretzin [10:02]
Well, the reality is where we’re headed, and it’s it’s becoming so evident to me. Now, I’ve always been on LinkedIn, and I’ve always tried to put up good content and try to put up useful content. But what I’m seeing now is I’m seeing a group of people, maybe it’s just the people I’m connected to in the algorithm, but that are stepping up and really owning it as an influencer of ways. Like, not MrBeast style, but like, you know, they’re doing the LinkedIn influencer thing and posting every day, maybe multiple times a day. And it’s not just, you know, educational content. It’s life experiences, and it’s, you know, life and how that relates to business and things like that. And so I think, you know, if we’re thinking about if we’re talking about like this we’re now in the influencer and the, you know, attention economy, you know, you’re going to it’s going to be harder for people who are excellent at what they do to find business.
Jan Roos [10:52]
Yeah, 100%, especially when, you know, and this is the other thing too to kind of think about too, when you have the situation where you are dependent on those referrals, being top of mind is such an important thing. And, you know, there’s so many people I we I think we got a lot of mutuals that we could potentially talk about. One of these guys, I’ve had him on the podcast and you probably had him at some point too, like Marco Brown is probably my favorite guy
Steve Fretzin [11:11]
on LinkedIn. Marco’s great, yeah.
Jan Roos [11:13]
Yeah. And, you know, this guy I love seeing his stuff because it’s always really interesting takes on things. But again, I don’t live in Utah, but like if I lived in Utah and I knew someone with a family law problem, be like, oh, who could do that? Oh, yeah, Marco. It doesn’t matter if I’d met somebody else, because it’s just like he’s the guy who was on my newsfeed that morning. It’s such an important part even of the referral strategy.
Steve Fretzin [11:32]
Yeah, you’re always going to get the real the real scoop from Marco. He’s one of these guys, and there’s a lot of attorneys out there that aren’t they’re not offensive in any way, but they’re just so straightforward. Like they’re just not going to There’s no internal monologue. They’re just going to say what If you’re If you’re a law school student and you’re not thinking about business development, you’re an idiot. Like he’s just going to flat like put it out there that this is the way it is. What What’s your take on the difference between unaware and aware markets?
Jan Roos [12:00]
Okay, so this is really an important one, and I think going back to what I was saying earlier, it’s a huge problem with legal just because, you know, we’re not our customers generally, and it’s very hard to understand that people can’t know all the things that you spent, you know, years that you spent in law school, plus however many years you’ve been in your career learning. So like, I’ll give a really easy example. So like we have a situation where like we have a lot of the ads are doing super well in employment law right now. And this is kind of like a market thing, but it also exists within individuals. But like, you know, let’s compare employment law to personal injury, for example. Everybody knows if you have, you know, at least one functioning eyeball and you were raised in in the United States, that if you were in a car accident, you can call XYZ number for like, you know, you’re you’re entitled to compensation, right? What comparatively fewer people know is that if you were, you know, terminated after becoming pregnant, or if you were sexually harassed, or you were stiffed on your wages and other things, then you’re also entitled to to compensation, oftentimes on a contingency basis. But because people don’t know this, they’re unaware of it. So that’s like a market in particular where we have a lot of opportunity for this kind of stuff because there’s just so many people that genuinely don’t know. A lot of the stuff in mass tort fits into this stuff as well. Just you know, because there’s new of these things coming up all the time. And then just other more like mundane stuff, too. Like when we’re doing a lot of these things in bankruptcy, for example, this is kind of like a unaware aware market, and this is kind of where I think things become the most interesting. When we’re doing the research on this, the average person ends up filing bankruptcy takes anywhere between like two, sometimes upwards of five plus years to declare bankruptcy. But the thing is that whenever they end up filing, they all come to the same decision. But what’s stopping them from making that decision is usually misinformation. So they’re aware that bankruptcy exists, they’re unaware that it’s not going to be on public record, that it’s not going to cost them an arm and a leg, that it’s not going to mean that they can never buy a house or a car or something like that. And there’s just a lot of misinformation that people are sometimes not aware of. And again, genuinely, with an unpleasant subject, not particularly keen to research. So these are kind of the things where there’s a huge opportunity. And again, you know, going into people who do more like almost the more niche your practice, the the less you can assume your average prospect walking around knows about that, and it’s just so rich for content, whether that’s ads, whether that’s stuff you’re posting on LinkedIn, whether that’s stuff that you’re saying in a networking group, and there’s just such opportunity to get better hooks into people with that stuff.
Steve Fretzin [14:28]
Yeah, and I think there’s a difference between content creation and posting and like being visible and converting people to want to talk with you. How do you see the best marketers putting their messaging out there in a way that actually drives conversions? Because I think that’s the concern, is like I’m just going to put out content for years, and I’m not going to see the conversion of that into business.
Jan Roos [14:54]
Yeah. And I think this is kind of one of these things, I’ll go back on what I was saying with like the you know, as far as networking awareness- awareness-type stuff, post whatever you want. Post your lunch. Post your favorite kind of shoes. Post what you did for your workout. That that’s just going to get you in front of people. But for the conversion stuff, I think the real opportunity is marketing a problem. So, if we go back to that example we were talking about with Claude Hopkins and the film on the teeth, right? He marketed a problem, and the natural solution was, I need to get this stuff, and I’m going to rub it on my teeth, and like don’t have this film anymore. Every single person has a problem. You know, to give into some of the examples of, you know, what we’ve seen like, you know, and we can go through an example if if it helps, but like yeah another one that’s kind of like top of top of mind, and I did this in a recent webinar that we were talking about with Smith.ai, insurance defense, right? The problem we’re marketing is denied, delayed, or underpaid, right? If you have one of those three issues with something that you had made with a property claim, then you might be able to reach out and get some information about this stuff. So, what I would challenge everybody who’s listening this to do is what are the problems that your prospect is seeing? A great way to mine for this is pull up your intake calls, pull out your last couple consultations. What is the entry state? And this is free game for anybody who wants it. Whenever I’m doing something with a new practice area, I ask this exact question, and I don’t need to be the one to ask it. You can ask it yourself. What is the problem state? What are people coming into, what are they talking about when they’re coming into your office to help you? Because those are the decisions that led that individual to do it, and chances are they weren’t the only person who thought that. There’s a lot of people who are likely experiencing those same problems. And if we can start marketing those problems, talking about those problems, and showing people that there’s a solution, then that’s pretty much it. But a lot of these people either don’t know that there are problems or don’t want to look to solutions because they don’t think they can be solved.
Steve Fretzin [16:52]
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Jan Roos [19:10]
Well, okay, I’ll say this, with legal in particular, you know, you guys have the best situation possible, because, for the most part, there’s a license separating anyone from being able to take action
Speaker 3 [19:21]
on it. So that’s really
Jan Roos [19:23]
good. But speaking more generally, I think it’s one of those things. I think it’s always good, and this is why you’re always good marketing the problem, because, you know, we’re kind of talking about the why and the what. When it gets into the how—and again, there are people who market like this, because if you’re talking about the why and the what, and then the problems, it’s usually going to be like, here’s what’s going on and here’s why it’s happening, right? When we get to the point of where we’re talking about how to do it, that’s technically the part that they could figure out. But the other thing, too, is depending on the And again, I hope people aren’t like, you know, just from from the the purpose of having a sustainable business, I hope people are focusing on complex problems that are hard to solve. If you’re solving something that’s just like literally, oh yeah, just go to this website and fill this form out, you’re good to go, then you got bigger fish to fry. But you know, assuming that you understand the issues that you’re going to run into, there’s also people who’ll tell people everything there is to do, and there is a certain level of expertise to that that people can appreciate and just say, this sounds complicated as heck. I’m going to hire this guy to do that. The other thing that I really like, and this is kind of something I’ve done personally, and anybody who’s interested, is helping people out with the accessory stuff. So I wrote probably the most detailed step-by-step book I wrote was my last one, Beyond Intake. It’s exclusively about how to speak to prospects that are coming in outside of Google, how to do outbound, which very few law firms you run into are are good at. Look, if a firm wants to take that book and make a bunch of money with it, and then say, hey, I need some more leads to call, that works for me, right? It’s not going to kill any of my clients, because I don’t sell sales training. But like, you know, if a situation where so like it’s kind of thinking about the upstream and the downstream stuff is really kind of fun. Another thing that’s really cool too is like, you know, there’s also sort of a demonstration of expertise. Going back to the employment law stuff, one of the things that we love talking about in these presentations is what to do when people are in the situation, right? So we give them a little how-to, but here’s the thing. The better that prospect does that, the better case that they’re going to have for the attorney when they finally go to them, right? They’re not going to do it on their own, but now we’re actually increasing the the value of the case by potentially more evidence than they would have had before they ended up finding their way to the door at that employer. So that’s kind of a a cool bridge, too. When you can even think about a way where you can teach people things that are going to increase your ability to do a good job for them.
Steve Fretzin [21:41]
Yeah, I love it. And so I mean, it’s it’s really important for lawyers to to think about not only you know, staying visible and out there in front of people, networking, clients, adding value whenever they can, but then you know, being top of mind. But then that but then understanding the importance of conversion. Like you can get people to, you know, comment on your post. That’s fantastic. Congratulations. You got some you’ve some engagement. But what are you posting that someone says, you know what? I I I didn’t even know I had that problem with the the film on my teeth, or I didn’t realize I had the problem with with a bad culture or or bad, you know, employment practices, and and now I need to talk to you about it. And they so they DM you and say, Hey, I read that post, and it really resonated with me. I think we should talk.
Jan Roos [22:29]
Mhm. Yeah, I also think it’s good too because it’s like you can feel really good about this stuff, because when we’re just getting information out in the community, like you’re going to be seen as a leader, you’re helping people. Look, I hope everybody gets business from everybody who interacts and stuff, but to have those situations even if you have and again, assuming somebody is passionate about their practice area, if that results in somebody’s cousin talking to them at, you know, a Thanksgiving party at some point, and say, Hey, you you might be able to get some help with that, then we’ve made the world a better place. So, you’re a leader in your community when you’re doing that stuff as well.
Steve Fretzin [22:59]
Yeah. So, then how do you see things like moving forward? Obviously, we we’re going through a transitionary phase with, you know, marketing automation and CRM and and all these new AI tools that are coming out. How is it changing the game for lawyers to maybe for the better as it relates to content creation, engagement, conversion to get business?
Jan Roos [23:26]
Well, the other thing and this is kind of a like a another application of this too, because it’s like I think people who are concerned about losing traffic from their great Google Ads to AI and stuff, it’s all hinged on one thing, which is the client asking a question. And what this whole approach does is having you ask the client a question, and that’s the thing, because we’re able to like a lot of this stuff is ultimately like the foundation is expanding people’s understanding of a problem. If you can think of, you know, I’m I’m doing two concentric circles for the for the the the listeners on this stuff. So, if the small circle is what they know and the big circle is what what you know, you want to pull people from that that small circle into the big one, and that’s the thing. That’s thought leadership, because you can’t you’re going to be vulnerable because you’re not going to be able to answer, you know, what’s the timeline to respond to a divorce petition in Illinois better than ChatGPT will. But, you know, you can ask the question on you know, you can have the question on here are the things that can lead to a situation where you have to have a divorce, and now we’re getting people to think about those things. And not only is that something that’s going to be a differentiator within the world of AI versus Google, but it’s also a differentiator in how other people are marketing right now. Candidly, this stuff is harder. It takes more thought. Like if I think back to the headlines I was writing back in 2015 in my AdWords days, it was like, Best Construction Accident Attorney. It’s It’s so much less complicated, but when you expend a little bit of that effort to really get into your prospect’s mind and try to get those little things, the dividends are huge because nobody else wants to do this work.
Steve Fretzin [25:05]
Yeah, and the the I guess the goof is that people feel like they can be an attorney because they have ChatGPT, or they could be a sales coach because, you know, they have ChatGPT, and they could just ask those questions. And you know, I think the reality is that sort of it takes an expert and someone that that can prompt Not only prompt properly, but know what to prompt and how to prompt to get the right response. And you know, people that are amateurs, you know, like, hey, if I need to figure out how to get to something I just like had to figure out something on my Samsung TV to get an app pulled up, like that’s great. Like I don’t need someone, an expert, to come in for that. But if I’ve got a severe, you know, you know, cultural issue, or or in my in my company, or I’ve got something that that just is foreign, I mean, that there’s a lot of a lot of different moving parts. You can’t just ChatGPT isn’t the cure.
Jan Roos [25:56]
Yeah, 100%. And it’s like I think it goes from, you know, ChatGPT is never going to be able to answer unknown unknowns, and that’s what, if you know if you guys have ever been And it’s it’s worth thinking about like the experts in your life that have gotten you, you know, and I’ll give you a super mundane example. I’ve been with my barber since I since I moved to Texas, I had a barber, and I had this issue. I have like really thick hair, so when it gets it grows out, and I just look like a broom. It stinks. But this guy, and it’s a little wavy, too. So this guy started bringing out these special shears that were able And he had curly hair, too, so he understood it, right? So he was able to get it, and my hair is like And I just never knew. Look, I would never ask like, Hey, could you use the the thinning shears for curly hair? Exactly, I didn’t know. But that level of trust, I’ve been with this dude for 5 years. He left the shop. He’s doing a mobile one. I still support him in his business. The most valuable thing, the most the the the thing that will differentiate you more than let alone ChatGPT, any other attorney, is asking people a question that they don’t have the answer to, and showing them that the base of knowledge is bigger than they understand, it’s more complex, they don’t know the interaction. And it’s not, you know, like assembling IKEA furniture, which I think the less, you know, informed prospects for any field, including mine, will try to make it out that your work is, right? At the end of the day, you can’t say, Hey, it’s not that simple. You got to show them it’s not that simple. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [27:19]
Well, really interesting stuff. All right, well, we got one more question for you, and I think you know it’s coming, Jan. And what’s Jan’s big mistake?
Jan Roos [27:25]
Jan’s big mistake was taking a lot of time off networking. So I’ll give you a couple of things. Like, you know, basically, I remember when I ended up getting started, I joined a BNI chapter, and it was partially like, and I think, you know, a lot of people have probably done BNI at one time or another. And it was actually a pretty good chapter, and I was also in New York, so there was like a lot of other chapters I could visit and stuff. But I just got so burnt out because I feel like the big issue with networking, and you know, the way that I’ve come around with it is I’m back at networking, but I’m I’m just networking at a higher level. The thing that’s really like the dangerous thing about it is that the people that are the least value to you will probably have the most time to spend with you, right? So I found myself in this trap where I was doing these coffee meetings with like, you know, mortgage brokers and chiropractors and God knows who, and they never went anywhere, and I just had this hypothesis. I’m like, this is a waste of time. Yeah. But then when I got back into it, it’s you know, and you know, part of it I think is podcast is a huge pillar of of what I ended up liking to do people, and I’m just getting into better conferences and stuff and just having better conversations with people that again have less time, but it’s more valuable, and the connections are just fantastic when you can get the right people. So my revised hypothesis is networking is is bad if you’re in the wrong room, and it’s incredible if you’re in the right room.
Steve Fretzin [28:39]
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s about who, you know, where are your targets, connectors, and what do you enjoy and what level do you want to play ball at. And I think when you’re starting out a new business, a solo or or just a small business, Chambers of Commerce, BNI, I mean, they’re great sort of like starting places for for many entrepreneurs. And then there’s a point where you realize, hey, I got to kind of move upstream, and there’s other, you know, you got ProVisors and USA 500 and stuff that plays sort of in that middle market area, and you know, maybe EO, what is it called, ES
Jan Roos [29:13]
EO
Steve Fretzin [29:14]
EO right up there. And so like, you know, you got to pay to play a little bit, but there there’s a reason because as you move up, the the quality is higher and you’re going to pay more, but you’re also potentially going to get a lot more from it. So good good good way to wrap things up. Before we go any further, I just want to take a moment and just thank our incredible sponsors: Lawyer.com, LEX Reception, and of course PILMMA and and my friends over at Rankings.io. Great people, great great great programs over there. And, Jan, people want to get in touch with you and maybe share a little bit about, you know, what you’re up to and your podcast and stuff like that.
Jan Roos [29:48]
Okay, rock and roll. So, if I haven’t been talking too fast Oh, you
Steve Fretzin [29:53]
cruise, man. You’re You’re Are you sure you’re not from your what you Are you from New York, or I’m
Jan Roos [29:57]
East Coast. Yeah, yeah, I grew up in Massachusetts, but
Steve Fretzin [29:59]
Yeah, that explains it. You like to talk. You know, anybody from the people in Texas might be like, What’s your problem, son?
Jan Roos [30:04]
Yeah, seriously. Go have a drink before you go outside. But, no, if you guys have figured out what I put down, I’ve got a podcast. It’s called The Law Firm Growth Podcast. You’ve got on iTunes, Spotify, wherever. Or connect with me on LinkedIn. I There’s actually a couple of us. One of them’s an incredibly incendiary politician from the Netherlands. I’m not that one. I’m Austin, Texas Jan Roos. But shoot me a connection. I’ve been putting out a lot of content there as well and be happy to hear from anyone.
Steve Fretzin [30:27]
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I go down to New Orleans, I’ve got half my family down there. I love them, they’re crazy. And just just like, you know, slow down, Fretzin. You’re talking too fast. Leave your watch behind. There’s no time. You know, dinner’s going to happen when it happens. And
Speaker 2 [30:43]
Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [30:44]
that’s just that’s just And that’s why I only go down there once a year, once every other year, but Hey, man, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom and talking shop with me today. I think, you know, we covered a lot of ground, a lot of takeaways. And and again, when people are thinking about putting themselves out there, networking, marketing, anything you’re doing, you know, it’s there’s got to be a point behind it of how you’re going to eventually convert that to business. You don’t just want to be out there forever running around in in circles. So, appreciate you.
Jan Roos [31:12]
Thank you so much, Steve.
Steve Fretzin [31:13]
Yeah, thank you, everybody, for hanging out with us for the last 30 or so. And, you know, this is the place, and you guys got to spread the word. You know, let people know if you’re interested in business development, you want to build your book of business, you want to hear from experts and rainmakers from around the around the world, come to Be That Lawyer. We will help you build that book and own that future. To Be That Lawyer, everybody, take care, be safe and well. Talk again very soon.
Narrator [31:40]
Thanks for listening to Be That Lawyer, 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.