In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Stephen Seckler discuss:
- How lawyers can better align their personalities with business development
- Navigating career transitions within the legal profession
- How meaningful networking creates long-term career momentum
- Leveraging authenticity and consistency to build a professional brand
Key Takeaways:
- Lawyers who struggle with traditional selling can ease into business development by focusing on small, genuine actions like reconnecting with familiar contacts and writing about subjects they care about.
- Clarifying which types of clients, cases, and activities energize or drain you is an essential first step before deciding where and how to focus your marketing efforts.
- The most productive networking conversations happen when lawyers ask clear, focused questions, such as “What’s a good introduction for you?”—and balance listening with intentional follow-up.
- Professionals can avoid wasting time in aimless meetings by preparing a loose agenda beforehand, staying focused on mutual goals, and knowing what specific outcome they want to achieve by the end of each interaction.
“You don’t have to have an entrepreneurial mindset to act with entrepreneurial intent.” — Stephen Seckler
Unlock the secrets of rainmaking success—join Steve Fretzin and four powerhouse legal experts for Be That Lawyer LIVE on August 27; reserve your spot now at fretzin.com/events.
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About Stephen Seckler: Stephen E. Seckler, Esq., is the President of Seckler Attorney Coaching and an award-winning coach who has spent over 25 years helping lawyers nationwide achieve greater career satisfaction. He works with attorneys at all stages—from those pursuing partnership to others exploring career changes or leadership roles—through programs like The Next Stage. Steve brings deep experience in legal education and recruiting, and he collaborates with both individual lawyers and legal leaders. He hosts the Counsel to Counsel Podcast, contributes to multiple ABA publications, and regularly speaks at bar associations and on legal podcasts. His book Think Like a Lawyer, Act Like an Entrepreneur was published by the ABA in 2025. A member of the Mindfulness in Law Society and ProVisors, Steve has been recognized as a top coach by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and enjoys squash, parody, behavioral economics, and singing with a rock choir.
Connect with Stephen Seckler:
Website: http://www.seckler.com/
Book: Think Like a Lawyer, Act Like an Entrepreneur: https://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Lawyer-Act-Entrepreneur/dp/1639056025
Show: Counsel to Counsel Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counsel-to-counsel-career-advice-for-lawyers/id1344814079
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenseckler/
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 [00:02]
Hey everybody, our last be that lawyer live event. Had lawyers raving. I had Dan Cotter, one of my good friends and clients, said, worth the price and more packed with nuggets of business development. We’re doing it again on August 27 featuring top rainmakers, Jeffrey Sklar Arianna, toddler Jen Lee and Ray Koenig, get real strategies that deliver results, not guesswork. You can register for $39 and grab my ebook collection for free. Sign up today at fretz.com/events
Narrator [00:39]
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, hey everybody.
Steve Fretzin [01:01]
Steve Fretzin, here and welcome back to the be that lawyer podcast. Excited to be with you twice a week, every week. It’s been a long time, and Stephen knows this, because Stephen, you have been, you are the most guested person I’ve had on this show in 520 something episodes. I think you’ve been on. This will
Stephen Seckler [01:20]
be your fourth time. Yes, and I’m incredibly honored that you are inviting me back again. Well, this
Steve Fretzin [01:25]
will be your last time, so better make the make the best or make the most. Even I are really good buddies everybody. We’ve hung out before, and we’re both lawyer coaches. We both really enjoy working with lawyers, and he has the privilege of being a lawyer, and I don’t, but that’s okay. You don’t hold it against me, right?
Stephen Seckler [01:43]
I don’t, and I’ve learned an incredible amount from you. So I’m glad you’re not a lawyer, because there’s so many things that I work on my clients with that lawyers don’t understand. So thank you. Yeah, well,
Steve Fretzin [01:53]
and I’ve learned a lot from you. And one thing in particular is a good segue into our quote of the show, you either came up with this or you copied someone, but I’m gonna give you full credit for it, because no one knows who actually came up with it, and so we’ll just say it’s you and it’s, well, I was gonna say cooperation, but that’s not your core of the show. But I love that you use that. I think you sort of coined it and made it your own.
Stephen Seckler [02:15]
Well, I think co opetition is actually something I got from you. I’m not positive I
Steve Fretzin [02:19]
didn’t come up with that. I got that from you. I’m not taking credit for that.
Stephen Seckler [02:23]
No. All right, well, we, I don’t know what the verb is, but you and I do a great job of coopetating.
Steve Fretzin [02:28]
Yes, I love that. But all right, let’s get, let’s do the actual quote of the show. And now this is a Stephen Seckler original everybody. So check it out. I’m not saying it. You say it. I don’t even remember what you told me.
Stephen Seckler [02:39]
Okay, great. So the quote that I’m sharing again, I’m not very good at citing sources, so I’ll just say I’m quoting myself. But if you want to marry somebody Jewish, don’t hang out at Catholic Singles dances, all right?
Steve Fretzin [02:54]
And the meaning of that is may be quite obvious.
Stephen Seckler [02:56]
However, it’s the starting point for all marketing. It’s like, know who you’re trying to do business with, and who are the other people who might know those people and spend time there, don’t spend time elsewhere,
Steve Fretzin [03:07]
yeah, and I think it’s really spot on in the sense that, you know, there’s a lot of lawyers who just say, Well, anybody can refer me, or they just go anywhere and do anything to get business, and they’re not really being very thoughtful about their Time and thoughtful about, you know, where the low hanging fruit is, or where they should be investing their energies. And so I think that’s very apropos for our chat today. Everybody check it out. Stephen Seckler is, you know, he’s running president of secular attorney coaching. And how long ago do we meet? I want to say we’ve met this like 10 years ago, seven years ago, maybe
Stephen Seckler [03:43]
six years ago. So I joined provisors, our business networking group in 2019 okay? And not that long after that, there was a fantastic person in my region, Ernie Brown, who said, I met somebody who you should meet, Steve Fretzin. And I was like, Well, what does he do? And he said, Well, he’s like you, he’s an attorney coach. He coaches lawyers on marketing. And at that time, I thought, I mean, I was open to it, but I thought like, Well, what do I need to meet coaches for? I want to meet lawyers or other people who might refer business to me. And since that time, you’ve proven me or Ernie has proven me wrong over and over and over again. We learned so much from meeting and working with and getting to know people that are in our field. And you and I drive in parallel lanes. You do a lot of things that I don’t do. I do some things that you don’t do. And may I just add that Ernie Brown is no longer with us, and he was just a great person.
Steve Fretzin [04:39]
All right. Well, we’ll dedicate this show to Ernie Brown for making that kind introduction and setting us off on a path of CO opetition together and helping the legal community be better. And let’s talk a little bit about your background as a lawyer and leading into helping on the career path for lawyers and coaching. And just give everybody a like a Reader’s Digest for. Version of how you came to be.
Stephen Seckler [05:01]
So the Reader’s Digest is that I even didn’t think I was going to practice law when I went to law school, I went to Northeastern we had a Co Op program. I worked at four different Co Op jobs. By the end of those four co ops, I was thinking, maybe I might want to practice law, but this was the late 1980s and the market was getting a little bit soft, and I really wasn’t feeling it. It just didn’t feel like a good fit. I love the law, I love dealing with lawyers, but it just didn’t feel like a good fit. So my the first chunk of my career was spent at Massachusetts continuing legal education, and at MCLE, I organized probably hundreds of continuing legal education programs over the course of seven years. Early in my time at MCLE in the late 80s, early 90s, the field of legal marketing was really just starting to take off, and so was the field of coaching. And so I got very interested in the practice management curriculum that we were offering, and got very interested in learning about how people sell legal services, and I come into the field, not really, you know, like any other lawyer, just having an aversion to selling. But what I learned early on was that selling legal services is not about selling, it’s really about relationship building. And from there, it’s been a journey for me. So I spent the first chunk of my career at MCLE. I left when my second child was born. Needed to make more money, opened the recruiting business, but I didn’t want to be like every other recruiter, so I decided I was going to offer coaching services. I had had some coaching and over the next 25 years, I was doing a mix of coaching and recruiting, but recruiting, honestly, was never a great fit, because, as I like to say now, cold calling is not my calling, and three years ago, I gave up recruiting entirely, and now I spent 100% of my time coaching lawyers on marketing, career transitions and leadership.
Steve Fretzin [06:54]
And it’s been a wild ride. I mean, getting to, you know, work with lawyers who maybe are having, you know, their most challenging time in their career, and working with very successful attorneys who are looking to go to the next level, it’s quite a wide range of kind of opportunities and emotions that I’m sure you’ve been involved in there absolutely.
Stephen Seckler [07:14]
So as you know, Steve, people usually come to us when there’s something that’s not going the way they want want it to. In my case, since I spend a fair amount of time working with lawyers on career transitions, they may be suffering from anxiety, depression, and as I like to say, I’m not a doctor. I’m a Juris Doctor, but I play one on soon, and basically, people are coming to us because something’s not working for them. In your case, maybe there’s somebody who has a practice and they really want to get it to the highest level possible. In my case, a lot of the people I work with, they’re just not comfortable at all with selling, but they want to get comfortable on some level.
Steve Fretzin [07:51]
Yeah, and what, what do you think is the best way for someone getting started with legal marketing, who maybe has that aversion to selling a version to business development, to get started
Stephen Seckler [08:01]
fundamentally, I think what lawyers need to do is try things that feel authentic and comfortable, so that they can get in the habit. I mean, my book, which I just published, think like a lawyer act like an entrepreneur, is kind of based on this premise, the premise being that you don’t have to have an entrepreneurial mindset to act with entrepreneurial intent. As lawyers, we’re skeptical, we’re risk averse, we have, like I said, an aversion to selling. We’re analytical. We tend to be not that social, we’re not that resilient, we don’t like rejection, so being that way makes it hard for us to act. So what lawyers can do early in their careers to get going is just try things that feel comfortable and authentic. And one of the most authentic things you could do is just start reconnecting with college friends, law school classmates, and get in the habit of building relationships. Another thing that lawyers can do to make to kind of get launched with marketing is to find something to write about, because that’s more in the comfort zone of most lawyers. We’re used to writing drafting. That’s what we did in law school. So find a topic to write about, or find a partner that wants to write about something and help them write something. So start small. Just start doing something, and don’t worry so much about the end product.
Steve Fretzin [09:17]
Yeah, one of the greatest challenges lawyers have is they get an idea about something, and you just gave them one, which is, you know, hey, go meet with the people from law school. Go meet with people that you partnered with at a firm years ago, and network with them, right? And get I, but I think a lot of it, Steve, is the how, like, what like, how do they reach out? What’s the reason for reaching out? All right, so then they get the meeting. What are they talking about the meeting? So let’s take a few minutes and just work through some language and some steps around maybe how to determine who you should meet with, and then how do you reach out to them?
Stephen Seckler [09:51]
The starting point, in my mind, in any marketing exercise and figuring out what your plan is, is to try to figure out who are the clients that you. Like to do work for and what kind of work would you like to do for them? Once you figure that out, then you could start figuring out what’s the right dance. Who are the other service providers that are serving those clients? Again, a lot of the people that I work with who are earlier in their marketing journey, and it may not be a lawyer, may not know early on in their career what they want to focus on. So one thing that a lawyer can do is start paying attention to what types of work give them energy, what types of work drain them, what types of clients energize them, and then what types of activities energize them, and what types of activities drain them. So one of my go to comments to a lot of my clients, is, if you don’t like golf, don’t play golf. You know, golf’s a great way to meet CEOs and other executives, but it’s not a great way to meet CEOs and other executives if you either don’t play golf or you don’t like golf, because, as you know, you’re going to make a million excuses not to go out on the golf course. So doing what feels authentic, figuring that out, but there’s a lot of trial and error early on. So the first thing is to try to start figuring out, who do you want to be, what kind of work do you want to do, and then what kinds of activities feel authentic. That’s really the starting point. Okay?
Steve Fretzin [11:13]
And I would just add that, let’s say that you have a database of 500 people. You may want to go through that database and figure out, like, Hey, who do I feel really comfortable with? Like, who do I know well enough where I could sit and have a coffee or a lunch, ask advice about marketing, building business, that you know that they’re a successful networker and that they would sort of hold your hand because you’re new, and network with you and try to put you in the but to your point, you need to know who you want to meet. If you don’t even know who you want to meet, that’s a problem. Want to meet, that’s a problem. But if you’re an employment attorney and you know that HR people are a big part of your target, then you know meeting with people to say, Hey, I’m really looking to meet HR consultants and people in HR plaintiff side employment and connectors like that, and see if you can walk away from a launch with two or three introductions being made on your behalf, and also asking, How can I help you? And even though you’re new, you know, still thinking about others and at least putting an effort out to try to make a connection for someone else. But that’s going to help at least get some movement and some traction going for someone that is uncomfortable with marketing and business development networking, but at least you’re meeting with people who like you and care about you and want to see if they can help you. And I think that’s maybe an add on to what you said, as far as a starting point.
Stephen Seckler [12:30]
Yeah, you make a really good point that if you’re working at a law firm and there are people who might be able to mentor you a little bit internally or through a Bar Association externally, those people are generally happy to show you the way. I mean, most of us, after we get to a certain stage in our career, we’re happy to share with people how to avoid all the mistakes that we’ve made in our lives.
Steve Fretzin [12:54]
Yeah, I think a lot of the frustration too, are lawyers who have been doing it for 10 years. And there’s a saying, do you have, you know, 10 years of experience networking? Or do you have one year of experience 10 times you know? And it’s the inability for people to learn a process or learn from experience where they keep having the same meetings over and over again that are maybe ineffective and not leading to anything. And so what are you coaching them on to help them continue to get improvement over time?
Stephen Seckler [13:26]
Well, again, it’s, you know, a lot of it is just practicing and getting out. But I mean, having a sounding board could be really helpful. And that sounding board could be a colleague of yours who’s trying to do the same thing. It could be somebody who’s more senior, who has been there and done that. Maybe it’s going with a partner or a colleague to a coffee or a lunch and seeing what they talk about. A lot of it is also being prepared, getting you know, taking the opportunity to learn as much as you can about the person who you’re going to be getting together with. But most importantly, I think really, it’s exercising your listening skills and really trying to be a great listener. And if you could just do that and listen and ask good questions, and as I say in the book, listen to understand, rather than listen to respond. So as lawyers, we’re often oriented towards, you know, the other attorney in a deal or in a litigation matter says something, and you’re thinking about, how can you respond to that when you’re trying to build relationships? Though, what you really should be doing is thinking about how you could understand what the person said, so rather than trying to counter punch what the other person is saying and make an alternative argument. Building relationships is not about arguments, it’s about getting to know each other. So if somebody says, my dog died, you don’t say, Oh, my dog died. Which, by the way, I have a former boss who used to do that all the time. Yeah, a lot of dogs. You have a lot of dogs.
Steve Fretzin [14:56]
Every time I know he had a lot of dogs. Every time he told the dog story dying, he. Had a dog that just died?
Stephen Seckler [15:01]
Exactly No. So it’s like asking, well, oh, wow, you know what happened? How old was the dog? It’s really digging in deeper to learn about other people, making the focus be on the other person, because that’s how you’re going to find out and learn about what somebody needs. And very often, it’s not a legal need. It might be. They’re looking for an accountant, they’re looking for a painter. They’re looking for a recommendation of a good movie. If you don’t ask questions and listen and ask follow up questions, you’re never going to find out what people need. And if you don’t find out what people need, you can’t help them. If you can’t help them, they’re not going to trust you. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [15:42]
hey, pi attorneys, if you’re serious about scaling your firm, there’s one event you can’t afford to miss. Pim con 2025 happening October 5 through the eighth at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Pimcon isn’t your average legal conference. It’s an experience. Learn how to take your firm from good to goat with some of the biggest trailblazers in the PI space, including yours truly, as we share our elite marketing and brand building strategies. Tickets on sale [email protected] that’s p i m, c o n.org, or just hit the link in the show notes. Your climb to the top starts at PIM con 2025 let’s go from good to go. Hey, be that lawyer friends. If you’re looking for smarter ways to grow your law practice and want to stay ahead of the curve in legal tech, business and strategy, then it’s time to check out legal verse media, the go to hub for lawyers who want more. This international platform connects you with global thought leaders through articles, podcasts, webinars and interactive forums that are shaping the future of law, explore everything with a free 14 day trial, including early access to tools peer discussions and a chance to build your brand as a thought leader. Don’t wait. Visit legalverse media.com and register for membership today. Hey everybody, it’s Steve 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. I think you bring up, you know, really important point that people think networking is about, you know, just relationship building and just, you know, getting to know, you know, hey, I’ve got, you know, kids, and I’ve got dogs, and I’ve got this and I’ve got that, and I like to vacation here and there, and you do too. And I think that’s a part of it, right? We want to find content. Common Ground. We want to find things that we can talk about. You know, dating a Jewish girl, whatever it might be like, we want to do that. But I think there’s also learning about each other’s goals for the future, learning about our business, our respective businesses. This is a business, coffee or networking, meaning we’re having it’s not just a personal thing. And I also know, like I know in Chicago and in the East Coast in particular, like, if we could get it all locked down in an hour, that’s better than having to schedule a separate business coffee on top of the one we just had. So if we can somehow put them together and spend some time learning about each other personally, and then, to your point, asking questions about the business and what they’re looking to accomplish. I mean, what are one or two questions that you find yourself asking because you’re a pretty heavy duty networker yourself, when you’re meeting with someone and shout out to provisors, right, coaches and consultants, group, etc. What are some questions that you like to ask in a networking coffee?
Stephen Seckler [18:38]
Well, let me first say that I think one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned from you is to be more focused at networking meetings. So we have these provisors meetings, then we have what we call troikas Afterwards, where we’re set up with two other people, and to just bring up the the notion that we’re going to use this meeting, we’re going to have some chit chat, but let’s talk more specifically about how we can help each other. And I don’t know. I mean, I think a really good question to be asking is, you know, what’s a good introduction for you? Because if you just ask that question that simply, then you may very well find a way to be helpful to somebody in the short term. But I think, you know, again, the thing that I’ve learned the most from you, Steve, is to not just have these meetings go on and on. And I bring this up all the time when I’m having these troikas, or when I’m meeting people through provisors, I’m always thinking of you.
Steve Fretzin [19:29]
No, well, that’s very nice. I appreciate that. And, you know, I guess at the end of the day, and I start off my networking handbook talking that, you know, hey, no one has wasted more time networking than I have. Like, I put it right out in front because I used to meet everybody, and these meetings went on for two hours. They went on for three hours. I remember driving over an hour to get to an Amway meeting. I didn’t know it was an Amway meeting. Nothing against Amway, a multi tier marketing type of scheme or whatever. But. I was trying to just, you know, meet with people and try to network, and I had no real focus or real understanding about my time and how valuable it was and how focused I needed to be. So really, I think sometimes it’s those mistakes and it’s those slip ups that if we can just, like, debrief what happened, or we can just think about our time, and how do we become more strategic with it, whether it’s setting up game plans for troikas, which is, I think, what you were alluding to, establishing some ground rules about how we’re going to network to get the best use of the time, or the questions we ask to try to understand what’s the best introduction, or who’s the best introduction for someone, so that we can dig into our network actually leave the meeting with connections being made, versus really nice to see you, Steve. I’ll keep my eyes open, which is what a lot of people get frustrated about. They don’t realize that it’s not meant to be a blow off, but it is because nothing’s going to come of it most of the time.
Stephen Seckler [20:54]
And I think that a lot of times why lawyers don’t do that is because we don’t want to come across as salesy. Yeah, you know, it feels kind of salesy to start cutting to the chase about, you know, it starts to sound a little bit transactional, even though you’re not just trying to get something from somebody. Really are genuinely trying to be helpful. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to meetings. I do it a way less now myself where I know I want to talk to somebody about whatever it is, doing a presentation on something, or seeing if I can, if they can introduce me to somebody. And then the conversation goes on and on, and then they say, you know, it’s like, 30 minutes. And like, Well, I’m really sorry. I got a 530 you know? And I’m like, Oh, okay. And then the 30 minutes went by. I had my opportunity, and I didn’t get to the point that I wanted to make. And I think a lot of lawyers do that too, because they don’t want to come across as too overbearing. So it’s having a plan in advance, as you very well lay out in your books, so that you know when you get there, at least in your mind, what you’re hoping to accomplish. Not that it’s all about just what you can get, but at least knowing what you want to accomplish, so that you don’t spend the whole meeting, the whole conversation, just talking about, you know, the Red Sox game or whatever. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [22:10]
I mean, I think there’s an element of, again, the personalization and the connectivity, the finding common ground that can then open up for us to build enough relationship and trust to say, Hey, Stephen, you know, look, we could probably talk about, you know, the Boston Red Sox for hours, but I know how valuable your time is. Would it be okay just to set a little bit of a game plan for the rest of our time? I’d like to learn more about the business side of things, and I know we only have a limited amount of time. Is that okay? You say yes, and I don’t think that’s salesy. I think that’s something that everyone appreciates, and because it’s permission based, it’s not something I’m pushing on you. And so this is the idea behind business development as a process, versus just showing up and hoping for the best, and why it can be so much more effective at getting people results for their time. I want to wrap up, we have a little more time, but I want to wrap up with a question about something I’ve observed in you that I’ve been impressed by for a while now. Number one is, obviously, you’re networking and you’re developing business, and you’re helping lawyers while you’re doing that, you’re also on LinkedIn, and you’re putting out the brand, and you’re building up the marketing side, and I think you do a very good job of bringing out the authentic Stephen Seckler, whether you’re selling a book, whether you’re just putting out about, you know, something that’s going on in your life. Talk about the balance of business development and personal branding in the way that you do it, in the way that you talk to lawyers about it.
Stephen Seckler [23:41]
I think a lot of lawyers spend too much time on reputation building with too much time spent on writing speaking. But those activities reinforce your relationships, because once you’ve spoken or once you’ve written an article, now you have something to let people know about or send to people. I in terms of authenticity, I really enjoy trying to come up with new ways to say the same thing. So there was a writer in the 70s. I don’t remember when he stopped a tennis writer, Bud Collins. And this guy was an incredible journalist. And he just, you would think, like, how much can you possibly say about tennis? This guy was unbelievable. He always found a new angle. So I love
Steve Fretzin [24:21]
an angle with tennis. Nice, yeah, so I
Stephen Seckler [24:26]
love trying to come up with new angles. You know, it’s like, I just have written about using. I’ve written about my trips to the dentist and wanting to avoid another deep cleaning, and how I started using, you know, a water pick every day, because it really would prevent me from having to get another deep cleaning. But really, what I was writing about was that marketing is something that you should do day in and day out. I was writing an article about careers and how when people come to me and they just don’t have the slightest idea what they want to do next, and they’re really feeling stuck and depressed as. You know, there’s a segment of the bar that feels that way. I use the analogy of dim sum. When you go to a dim sum restaurant, you could taste lots of little things, and you don’t have to really commit to them. In the same way when you go to the Cheesecake Factory, like an enormous plate of something, yeah, and there’s no way out except maybe a take home box, right? So I probably lean a little bit more heavily on the side of doing my podcast, writing, speaking, but I do try to I choose. I do try to do relationship building as much as possible. And what I would say is there’s got to be a good, healthy mix. But most importantly, whatever you’re doing to build your reputation, to build your relationships, it needs to be authentic. And so for me, those things are all authentic. You know, I really like going to providers meetings. I like having coffee zoom meetings. I really enjoy writing and posting on LinkedIn. I like speaking. So, you know, I do all those things, and the sum total of it is that I’ve been able to build a coaching practice. But, you know, it didn’t come naturally to me. I still think like a lawyer, and I’m still pessimistic, and I still go
Steve Fretzin [26:08]
from occasionally curmudgeony, oh, definitely curmudgeon.
Stephen Seckler [26:13]
My wife suggests something, and my automatic reaction is, like, really, that’s like, my first, you know, go to but then I I’ve learned to push myself beyond that and say, like, Okay, well, what am I really trying to accomplish here? Yeah, and so I’ll be like, well, I sent out an email, I didn’t get a response, or I sent out a proposal, and the person promised me they would get back to me, and they didn’t. And instead of going dark, which I’ll go dark, I’ll say, Okay, well, I suck, and I did something wrong, I’ll be like, Okay, well, a, maybe it ended up in their spam folder. B, maybe they’re just too busy, or C, maybe I just wasn’t a good fit. And then I start to focus on my actions, which is working on building other leads, because, you know, as you know, in selling, there’s a lot of failure, and lawyers are not accustomed to that, and they don’t feel comfortable with it, but that’s what I work on with my clients. Just keep it moving. You don’t have to think. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest entrepreneur to act that way. And so that’s why I wrote the book.
Steve Fretzin [27:11]
And the best failures we have are the ones that we learn from. And to that end, what’s Stephen’s big mistake?
Stephen Seckler [27:18]
Well, I I have a lot of big mistakes. One of my favorite posters is a picture of an aircraft carrier sinking, and it says on the bottom of it, it could be that the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others, yeah. So I would say I don’t know that this was like a fatal error, but I did. I think I stuck with recruiting for too long. Yeah, you know, it was never a natural fit. I had some very good years and some not so good years. And fundamentally, recruiting is really about selling. I mean, in this in the more formal sense, you know, you’re just trying to put a lot of you’re trying to you’re making a lot of introductions, you’re reaching out to a lot of people. It’s more like traditional sales, yeah, which is a really bad fit for my personality. I took everything personally. And you know, all I ever hoped for was that the candidate would live one day past the refund period. And it just never felt natural. Yeah. So it was great when I got those big commissions, and it was not so great when, you know, the candidate went with another firm. Or, you know, the worst ones were like, I see that somebody I’ve been speaking to and prospecting with has now moved to, you know, they’re like, Oh yeah, I’m not really ready right now. And then a month later on LinkedIn, I see they’ve moved. I’m like, oh, you know, congratulations. What happened? They would say, Oh, well, yeah, I got a call from a recruiter in Florida, and I was like, Oh, who was it? Can’t remember their name. And I’m like, Oh, my God. So this person ended up working with a recruiter who they had, like, no relationship with. So if there was a mistake, and I don’t think it was a big mistake, it was sticking with something that just wasn’t natural and authentic for me for a long time now, had I become an executive recruiter, and I was being paid on a retained basis, where I was going to get paid no matter what, and the company was paying me to get the best absolute candidate, and I was being paid to go deep and really learn as much as I possibly could about the company, and learn as much as I possibly could about the candidates that probably would have been a better fit. But I never really was able to land that type of work, and I was stuck doing contingent recruiting, which is throwing a lot of you know what against the wall and hoping something will stick. So that was my big life mistake. Okay, all right,
Steve Fretzin [29:34]
and you just published a book, think like a lawyer, act like an entrepreneur, which I love, because not only did I read it, and I think I wrote a blurb for you, but I also believe wholeheartedly that whether you’re at a big firm or you’re on your own, it’s you Inc, right. You’re the business underneath that umbrella of that big firm or whatever, in your production and how you set up your career is sort of just as important as practicing law you want. Just give a quick shout out about the book, and what the big takeaway is from people that want to grab that book from ABA, right?
Stephen Seckler [30:06]
Yeah, the ABA published it. If you go to my website, secular.com there’s a discount code on the front, on the on my homepage. So first of all, I want to say that I so appreciated you doing a blurb for that book. It was really heartwarming to me, somebody who I really know, like trust and respect, that gave it a thumbs up. I think the biggest thing about writing that book that really surprised me was how impressed people are with the fact that you’ve written a book. I mean, you’ve written several books, so you already know this. People are just really impressed with the fact that you’ve written a book. So the book grew out of the fact that I’ve been writing articles for many years, and I never wanted to write a book. In fact, I never thought I had anything original to say. But I’ve been writing for the last five years or so articles for a publication, for the ABA, well, several publications, but one in particular, the GP solo e report, and the editor, Rob SALKIN, kept giving me really positive feedback on the writing, and I was like, Huh? So one day I just said to him, Do you think there’s a book here? I don’t know why I said it even and he said, like, yeah. And so then it became like a labor of love, because really, this book is about my own journey in a lot of ways. I mean, most of the book is just sort of practical tips, checklists, things to make a lot of what we’re talking about easily operational. But really the theme around the whole book is that I grew up in a household when my father was a math professor, all I heard was that all business people are operators, and my mother was a school psychologist and was anxious about everything, literally, and I did not grow up feeling like business was in my blood. So after 30 years of trying to get myself to a point where I could build a business of my own, I’ve come to realize that it’s actually a lot of fun, and it does it is consistent with my personality. I like meeting people. I’m not trying to sell people hard sell. And in fact, what I like to say is, like, the book is like my final project. I don’t know if I’ll ever write another book again, but it’s just proof to myself that I can go out and self promote to some extent, and feel good about it, like I will never tell anybody. This is a great book. I’m happy to say it’s a good book, you know, but I’m just not comfortable saying it well,
Steve Fretzin [32:21]
that’s but I think that’s part of your personality, though, is you’ve always been very humble, and I think you would rather have other people tell you how wonderful it is, then have to say it yourself, which I think plays with your ego properly. And I’m the same way, like I you know, I can say this is great, or that’s great, but it’s always better when I have a guy I talked to today, listen to you sitting on the beach, listen to two of the two episodes of Be that lawyer podcast. And started writing things down. It wasn’t necessarily my ideas. It was ideas he was getting from the guests I had, but he wrote my name down, and we had a conversation today about possibly working with one or two of his attorneys at his firm. And he just said, it was great. It was great, it was a great interview. It was great content, wonderful wonder. I’m glad I’m helpful. I’m glad it’s out there. And same thing with you. But I think you and I podcasting, books, articles. I mean, I think we are out, yes, to pick up some clients and help people individually, but I think you and I both have a very good sort of vibe about the industry that we we’re putting out stuff that can help everybody and that can help, you know, the industry just get better at this, and these skills that are sort of, you know, big question marks. Listen, man, we have to wrap up, give a little speech at the end there. But let’s take a moment. Thank our sponsors, legal verse, if you’re interested in international articles and getting information from around the globe about what’s going on in legal check out. Legalverse media.com We’ve got pimcon coming up in October at the Phoenician in Scottsdale. I’ll be on stage with a couple other podcasters doing the deed of educating people on podcast best practices. And of course, law her Sonia Palmer cranking it out with her amazing podcast Stephen. People want to get in touch with you, grab your book, talk with you about your services. What are the best digits?
Stephen Seckler [34:05]
The best way to reach me is to just go to my website, secular.com, S, E, C, K, L, e r.com. You could sign up for a free marketing career or leadership consult. You could find information about my book, links to my blog and links to my podcast and many articles that I’ve written,
Steve Fretzin [34:21]
yeah, well, you are the man. I’m just so happy to have you back on the show. I’m happy that we’re friends. And shout out to provisors and let’s just keep everything rock and roll, and we got a lot of lawyers to help, and not a lot of time.
Stephen Seckler [34:32]
Well, thank you so much, Steve. I so appreciate and I so appreciate the information that you’re, you know, generously sharing with all of us, including your co op potatoes, all right.
Steve Fretzin [34:42]
Well, thank you, my friend, and thank you everybody for hanging out with Stephen and I for a little bit here today. You know, talking about the fundamentals of business development and marketing and getting started and taking real ownership that you are the business and you are the entrepreneur. So think like a lawyer, act like an entrepreneur. Resonates very. Very well with this show. And, you know, keep listening. We got a lot more episodes to come, and we’ve got, if you’ve missed the first 500 and plus, go back and check them out. You can check out Steve’s previous, you know, three before today. And I know it’s going to be helpful for you to be that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care. Everybody. Be safe. Be well. We’ll talk again very soon.
Narrator [35:23]
thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fretson.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.