In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Mandy McCormack discuss:
- Recognizing business development as a critical legal skill
- Aligning coaching with motivation and execution
- Building authentic personal branding
- Creating lasting impact through structured support
Key Takeaways:
- Marketing, planning, and relationship-building are essential for long-term career success, not optional extras. Structured coaching transforms these skills into sustainable, high-ROI practices.
- Coaching works best when goals, gaps, and willingness to act are clear. Alignment between the lawyer’s needs and the coach’s methods drives meaningful results.
- Sharing personal stories alongside professional expertise strengthens trust, deepens relationships, and attracts clients who resonate with values, not just credentials.
- Combining training, personalized coaching, and on-demand guidance enables lawyers to internalize skills, stay focused, and achieve long-term growth without dependency on the coach.
“I don’t think anybody wants to follow someone who talks the talk but isn’t walking the walk. I have to be doing those things at an incredibly high level to be able to coach my clients on it.” — Steve Fretzin
Check out my new show, Be That Lawyer Coaches Corner, and get the strategies I use with my clients to win more business and love your career again.
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About Mandy McCormack: Mandy McCormack, Esq., is the founder of McCormack Law LLC, where she specializes in estate planning, tax law, and related advisory services. She helps clients navigate complex financial and legal decisions with clarity and confidence, creating tailored plans that protect assets, minimize tax liability, and provide peace of mind. Mandy is dedicated to combining technical expertise with a personal, approachable style, ensuring that every client understands their options and feels supported in the planning process. She is committed to helping individuals, families, and business owners prepare for the future while aligning legal strategies with their goals and values.
Connect with Mandy McCormack:
Website: https://mccormacklawllc.com/
Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mccormack-law-brookfield-2
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandamccormacklaw/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568230072605
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]
And ultimately, what we want to figure out is, where’s the low hanging fruit? Where’s the easiest path to getting the business? And that isn’t to say you can’t network, right? Because you can do multiple things at the same time, especially if you start getting some of the low hanging fruit kind of working, and then you can continue expanding your network out.
Narrator [00:23]
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 [00:45]
Hey everybody. Before we get started, just a quick heads up. What you’re about to hear is a little different from the typical be that lawyer episode. This is actually my new podcast, future rainmakers. It’s an episode a show that was previously called be that lawyer Coach’s Corner, but future rainmakers is where I go deeper and more direct, focusing on real world coaching, business development, mindset, branding, what it actually takes to grow a sustainable practice. In this particular episode, you’ll hear a conversation between me and my client, Mandy McCormack, who’s amazing, and we’ll talk openly about the work that we’ve done together, how it impacted her career and her life as a lawyer, and hope you enjoy it. I know you’re going to get a lot out of it. Let’s jump right in. Here we go.
Narrator [01:27]
Welcome to be that lawyer Coaches Corner with Steve Fretzin.
Heidi Mack [01:32]
Welcome to be that lawyer Coaches Corner with Steve Fretzin, if you’re like most attorneys and you left law school without a roadmap for building a successful practice business development wasn’t part of the curriculum yet, it’s the very thing that can determine your freedom, growth and long term success. I’m Heidi Mack, and in this episode, you’ll discover why smart lawyers don’t try to figure it out alone. Instead, they partner with business development coaches using proven methods like sales Free selling to accelerate results and build the practice they truly want. I’m here with Steve Fretzin and Mandy McCormack to share their insights with you. This episode is what does a business development coach do? Welcome Steve and Mandy. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, wonderful. Well, please, please take a moment share how you two have both known each other.
Steve Fretzin [02:23]
Mandy, you want to tell the story?
Mandy McCormack [02:25]
Sure. I hung my own shingle as an attorney at the for the end of last year, and I had another attorney friend that had heard Steve speak at, I think, a provisors event somehow. And she said, Mandy, I think that you would really benefit from working with Steve now as you’re getting your own practice up and running. And so I connected with Steve and instantly knew that this was the person that could help me not only take my practice to the next level, but also just help me deal with all of the business things, the marketing, coming up with a business plan, all of the details that I’m not trained as a lawyer to handle so I could focus on practicing law, and Steve could help me with all of the rest.
Steve Fretzin [03:15]
Yeah, and my side of the story is not too different. Right away, I knew I liked Mandy, terrific person, very thoughtful. And my job was to sort of, in the first 3045, minutes, evaluate what she was looking for, what are, what her strengths were, what are some of the gaps in her business development, marketing, game, challenges that she was having in building her practice, and really identify, you know, is there a fit here? And of course, if there is, you know, what are the next steps to move this forward and continue the conversation? And in some cases, wake with Mandy, that’s exactly what happened. And then in other cases, I find that there are people who maybe aren’t quite as good of a fit because they’re not as motivated or interested, or their gaps don’t align with what I do. And I’ll try to, you know, find someone else for them that’s going to be a better be a better fit. Because really, at the end of the day, that’s what makes us successful, or will make me successful with a lawyer, is, you know, do we have a fit, and are we both motivated to grow and to get to the next level? And you know, there’s a coach and there’s a player, and the players got to play. And so I knew right away that Mandy, was that player Wonderful.
Heidi Mack [04:20]
So Mandy, you were a little broad there with you know, was there any like, just one thing that really made you eventually engage with Steve as this business development coach.
Mandy McCormack [04:30]
Steve is very knowledgeable in the legal realm. So he’s not a practicing attorney, but I was very impressed with his knowledge of the things that we struggle with as lawyers. He’s very empathetic. He was very willing to listen to what my concerns were as I was getting ramped up and up and running as a new business owner, not just as a practicing attorney and. And I knew that he didn’t just care about me succeeding as a professional, but it was more holistic than that. We needed a game plan that was going to allow me to succeed as a person in the life that I had with my business being a successful component of that. And that really, really not just sold me on Steve, but endeared Steve to me as a person.
Steve Fretzin [05:25]
Oh, thank you. Wow. All right, doing I’m doing okay so far in this episode. By the way.
Heidi Mack [05:29]
Doing wonderful. Yeah, no. I mean, Steve, is there something you know, are there other things that like you like very specific things you look for, clients that you work with?
Steve Fretzin [05:37]
Well, as I said before, it’s really about asking a series of questions to understand challenges, frustrations, concerns. And I think, you know, Mandy was, you know, I need someone to be very open and honest. I can’t, you know, figure this out if people are not telling me what’s really going on. And I think it’s like when you go to a doctor and you have all these medical conditions, and you’re looking for someone that says, You know what, I think I understand what your pains are, and there’s a path through, like, there’s a way to get healthy. And that’s what I try to do in that initial meeting, and that’s what I try to do when I work with an attorney, is then, you know, it’s like, you know, kind of understand what the diagnosis is, lack of planning, lack of process, with networking, whatever the different things are not getting in front of the right you know clients, you know decision makers, locking those business deals down without feeling salesy. And again, if those align with what I’m teaching every day, then we know it’s good. And then the other most important part is like people may want to learn lots of things, but if they’re not motivated to execute, if they’re not motivated to take action and do the work that’s involved in this big, kind of dramatic change in growth, then I’m kind of stuck. So I think I need to qualify on a level of need, and I need to qualify on a level of desire to improve and grow. And that’s really what creates a great fit between and not just for Mandy and I, but I think for any coach and any you know client that’s going to work with a coach.
Heidi Mack [07:03]
So yeah, Mandy being in you know his program right now. Like, what is it like? What are your results? What are you looking forward to?
Mandy McCormack [07:10]
So one of the things that Steve has really helped me with is giving me bite sized tools. There’s a lot of information that we get each week in our class, but then there are also bite sized pieces that I can implement along the way, and so instead of being overwhelmed with the entirety of the process at any given time, Steve has helped me focus on ways that I can reach current clients so that I can maximize what I’m offering to them, and make sure that I’m not leaving business on the table with the people that I already have trusted relationships with. He makes sure that we’re building a good, solid, continued foundation with our strategic partners, the people that we have already some sort of relationship with from the standpoint of referral sources, so we’re not out there having to recreate what we already have built. And many times, I think my brain will kind of go in a million different directions. And what is very helpful is in our one on ones, people say, Okay, that’s great. Put that on your sort of dream list that we have. But let’s refocus on what we can do now and the pieces that we can put in place now. And it’s more been more like building blocks, and because of that approach, and Steve slowing me down and refocusing on really, the pieces that I need in place before I can jump to the next thing. It’s been very effective in the eight or nine months or so that I’ve been working with. Steve.
Steve Fretzin [08:54]
Yeah and the, you know, the idea is that there’s random acts of marketing. There’s so many different ways that people can invest their time, their money, their energy. And ultimately, what we want to figure out is, where’s the low hanging fruit? Where’s the easiest path to getting the business and in Mandy’s case, when you’re an estate planning attorney and doing tax, you have a stable of clients that love you and think you’re great. And how are we leaning into those how are we leaning into the referral partners that have given us business, versus going out and meeting strangers and trying to Mandy’s point, recreate something that already exists. And that isn’t to say you can’t network, right? Like she’s joining my provisors group in the north shore of Chicago, where she’s going to be meeting a lot of new people. But that’s okay, because you can do multiple things at the same time, especially if you start getting some of the low hanging fruit kind of working. And then you could start, you can continue expanding your network out, and she’s going to develop not only, I think, a lot of new clients from provisors in this networking group, but I think some really strong strategic relationships of referral partners that can send her work on a regular basis. The thing that Mandy left out that I’m, I’m kind of. So impressed by is that there’s the business development side of the mountain and there’s the marketing side of the mountain. And I love when I can get lawyers to do both at the same time. And she sent me early on when we started working together, and she was trying to figure out what to post on LinkedIn, because that’s not something she had done or done with any kind of right and I hope I’m speaking out of turn. You tell me, Mandy, but like, without, like, really sharing like about her on a personal level, and like the her authentic self, which is the most beautiful person, right? And so she sent me this, you know, kind of long, you know, post about her dancing with her husband and ballroom dancing and and I absolutely loved, and I said, if you’re willing to put that out on LinkedIn and show your true, authentic self and what you do and what makes you happy. I think it’s wonderful. And she did it. And I think ever since right Mandy, you’ve sort of been on a good flow of like continuing to give great information about estate planning, but also about the kind of the authentic personal side of you as well.
Mandy McCormack [11:01]
Yes, Yes. Steve is very, very big on we’re going to work best with the people that recognize who we are authentically, and the way that we do that is to let them know who we are authentically. That’s not something that I think comes naturally to a lawyer especially. But I think just business owners in general, or business people in general, that was a huge paradigm shift for me, and it’s made not just practicing law more fun, because it’s true, I continue to have a closeness with my existing clients, because they are excited to learn things about me that they didn’t know before, but I’m attracting more of the people that are excited to work with me, not just because of the skill set that I have, but because they like what they know about me as a human being that makes it fun. I really, really appreciate that side of how Steve has coached me along.
Steve Fretzin [12:11]
And I published something in the it won’t come out. This won’t come out for a little bit, but a few we’ll just, I’ll just say, like, a month ago, I published an article in above the law about, you know, trying to find people to emulate, and that if I’m not doing the things in my business and I’m telling my clients to do them, well, what does that say about me as a coach, or what does that say about me as a business owner or a human being? And so I’m putting out content that is very personal. My son going away to college, talking about that, or a great fishing trip I went on, and relating it back to business. Yes, because it’s LinkedIn, and I think that’s the way to go. But the article talks a lot about how, you know, social media and business development and time management, and I have to be doing those things at an incredibly high level to be able to then coach my clients on it and feel, you know what I’m telling them isn’t something that I’m not do. You should do you should do this. I don’t do this, but you should do this right? I don’t think anybody wants to follow someone who talks the talk but isn’t walking the walk, so I I try to do that too. And then maybe that helps encourage some of my clients to get out and network or to present or speak or write or do social media more than if I just said you should go do that with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io. When they want rankings, traffic and cases other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free [email protected] today. Hey 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.
Heidi Mack [14:12]
Yeah, now seeing you guys, you know, speaking now and talking together. I you know, I want you to explain why. You know you don’t work with law firms and you like to work with individual lawyers, and I kind of think I can already see that.
Steve Fretzin [14:25]
Yeah, the story is, so look, I really did enjoy the time that I spent working with law firms. The there are two big problems with that. Number one is, you’re talking about maybe five or 10% of the population of lawyers who really are interested in business development and are actively looking to continue their growth, instead of hiding under their desk or at their desk billing hours and just focusing on the work in front of them and not realizing the importance of building their own client base or starting their own firm, or whatever it is that’s going to give them that freedom and independence that comes with having. In your own client base. And so I would work with a group of 10 or 15 lawyers at a firm, and it would be the typical 10% you know, I’d have two or three people that were outstanding, and the rest just couldn’t wait to get away from me, to go back to their desk and go Bill hours or go do just get away from because I sort of represented things they didn’t want to put on their plate for a number of reasons. And so, you know, I was getting paid a lot of money. I was spending a lot of time, a big chunk of my week, and my month was with these law firms, and I wasn’t really feeling good about the whole scenario. And everybody would walk away saying, Great contents. Love Steve, this is, it was very lovely. However, I’m driven to want to get results, not through my own efforts, but through my clients efforts and their results are my results. And so now being able to hand pick people like Mandy and others that I and I get caught. I just spoke to a guy literally a half an hour ago. I mean, this guy’s 35 years old. He has an eight, nine lawyer firm. He is an absolute rock star, and he’s done, I’m not saying he’s done nothing to do it, because he’s done a lot to do it. But it’s like, if I could get my claws into this guy, he’s coming to the class, Mandy on the 26th but I can get my claws into this guy, Christopher, and we can start unleashing his full potential, like I’m seeing so much. And he’s like, I don’t want to bill hours anymore. I just want to do business development. I was like, Oh my God, you’re exactly who I want to meet, and he runs this great firm, and so it’s like that’s so much of what I want to in, who I want to spend my time with, if I could spend my day with in Mandy, you know, the clients in the class, I mean, they’re all lovely, wonderful people. They’re all motivated to grow. They’re investing time, money, energy, and a program that involves a class, one on ones, study practice and being out there and being active at business development and accountable to come back and show me the results and show the class the results that they’re getting, it’s a big commitment. But I think for certain people, you know, it’s going to be life changing if they just can get to the point of just making the phone call to call me up and say, Hey, can we have a 30 minute conversation, because that’s where it starts. And we can’t do anything until that happens.
Heidi Mack [17:05]
So then, you know, with these relationships with Steve, you mentioned a lot the coach and player connection, you seem to do that quite often with everything. And what is that? How does that factor into everyone’s success, including Mandy here, of course, yeah.
Steve Fretzin [17:20]
I mean, I’ll start it off, and then Mandy, if you want to chime, want to chime in and add, add your two cents, would be great. The short is, look, it’s a partnership. It’s a partnership without the downside, right? And the joke and the goof I have on I’ve said on my other podcast a bunch is no ship sinks quite like a partnership. If you haven’t heard that before, it’s an oldie, but a goodie. And so I don’t know that there are lawyers that want to have me as a partner, not because I wouldn’t be a great partner, but, you know, keep control like it’s your business. You’re building it, but I want to partner with you on a level where we can work, you know, hand in glove, to help a lawyer and a business owner accomplish their dream of owning and running a successful law practice, not for a year, not for two years, but for the rest of their career, as long as they want to practice and grow and internalize the skills so they own those skills, so they don’t need to go through my training twice. You go through my training once we work together, you move into a peer advisory, you get a little more support over maybe a second year, and you know, then you’re off to the races. Okay? And so I think you know that process I described, about the fit and about qualifying who I want to work with and who’s a good fit for me is really important. And I love what we said earlier too, about people being Mandy mentioned about people being attracted to, you know, someone that is like them. And so I feel like I’m attracting, you know, this guy, Christopher, who runs this nine person firm, and Mandy and the other people in this class that I’m teaching right now, and my past clients, these are all the most wonderful, most the smartest and most ambitious lawyers from around the country, around the world, and that’s who I want to meet, and that’s who I can partner with and team up with, and that’s where the results come from. That was very long winded way of answering that question, but man, do you have anything, anything else to add to that?
Mandy McCormack [19:02]
Yeah, I think that what I’ve really appreciated as the attorney and having Steve as a coach is I can reach out to him, really at any time, whether it’s by phone or I shoot emails over to him and say, Hey, this is what I’m thinking about posting. What are your thoughts? And He’ll either give me a thumbs up or he’ll give me some things to think about, and either I’ll need to rework it, or maybe I need to shift how I’m going to get that information or that marketing piece delivered in a different way. And that makes me come across much more organized, much more planful, and I’m maximizing how I’m using the tools at my disposal, and what I have found, and I don’t even think that I’ve told Steve this yet, is the view to the outside world that doesn’t know that I have this fantastic coach that I’m working. Hand in Hand is that I have, is that behind the scenes, I have this great business machine that’s working and putting a lot of these pieces together. And no, I don’t, I just I’m getting the right kind of training at the right kind of at the right time, and Steve is helping to make sure that we’re doing it in the right way. And the benefit to that is a much more sophisticated look and feel as I’m stepping up into the marketing and business development than I would have if I was just going at this on my own.
Steve Fretzin [20:32]
Yeah, and it’s, you know, I get a question I get on a regular basis, in particular for people that I’m meeting with to talk about working together, is, what is this program? And I’m not going to go into all the details, but just to give the simplest version of it, it’s three it’s three legged stool. You’ve got a class where people from around the country, around the world, come to learn the skills never learned in law school. And Mandy will attest, like we cover a lot of ground. I mean, there really isn’t anything covered that anyone in the room can have a question out of the blue about anything and bring it to the group, and it gets handled, and we work through it, and we go through modules, and we not only learn stuff, we practice stuff, we hone the skills. The infomercials that I hear outside of the class are typically horrible. The infomercials inside of the class are all polished and continue to get repolished over and over again because they’re practicing them all the time. So the training component connects with the second leg, which is going to be a coaching component. And this is the you know, number of hours up front, an hour a month that I spend with my clients over the first year, to ensure that everything that we work on is customized to them, their personality, their area of practice, area law, area of the country, world, wherever they are. And so that type of one on one attention, I think, is really important. And then Mandy mentioned about reaching out to me. And I have, I’m on retainer with all of these clients, so if we don’t have something scheduled for two weeks and Mandy needs me tomorrow, she needs me for anything, like, she’s just gonna call me, text me, email me, and I’m pretty responsive. Like, I, you know, my clients are number one, so I’m taking my kid to college tomorrow and Wednesday, and y’all have my phone on if somebody needs me and they reach me, I’m not gonna sit for, you know, three hours with them, but you know, if they it’s just a quick five or 10 minute call and I can break away. And I’m not in the middle of literally moving him into his dorm. I’ll handle the call right, and if I can’t, then I’ll get back to them in an hour. It’s not, you know, heart surgery happening. People can wait an hour or two if they need but anyway, but the program has been proven effective for, you know, 17 years with lawyers. And again, the goal is long term sustainability for every client I work with, it’s just the best gift that I’ve ever gotten. Has been able to give this coaching and training to people like Mandy.
Heidi Mack [22:47]
Well, thank you so much, Steve for giving us your knowledge. And Mandy, thank you for sharing your experience working with Steve as well.
Steve Fretzin [22:53]
Yeah, it’s been great. And Mandy, thank you so much for coming on my new podcast and getting in, getting your first podcast experience out of the way. Now you’re going to be an old pro for the second and the third.
Heidi Mack [23:03]
Thank you. So thank you for tuning in to be that lawyer Coaches Corner with Steve Fretzin. I hope this conversation gave you a deeper understanding of the real value coaching brings to your career. When you work with an effective business development coach, it is not just about strategies, it’s about a trusted partnership that ensures a strong return on investment, not just for today, but for a lifetime of your legal career. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start growing with purpose, visit be that lawyer.com and explore if coaching is a fit for you. Don’t forget to like subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode.
Narrator [23:44]
Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.
Steve Fretzin [23:52]
Well, I hope you found that conversation valuable everybody and walked away with some real insight into what’s possible when you commit to growth, accountability and the right coaching. Mandy’s experience is exactly why I created the podcast future rainmakers. It’s a show focused on practical advice, real conversations and behind the scenes work that helps lawyers just take control of their careers, live their best lawyer life. If this episode resonated with you, I encourage you to check out future rainmakers. See what it’s all about. It’s available wherever you listen to podcasts, and maybe exactly what you need to take your next take your next step forward. Take care everybody and be that lawyer.
Narrator [24:29]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website. Fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal, business development and marketing trends, for more information and important links about today’s episode. Check out today’s show notes.