In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Tim Sawyer discuss:
- Mentorship and mastermind groups as catalysts for professional growth
- Universal business models shaping success across industries including legal
- Emotional authenticity as a foundation for impactful branding and client engagement
- Discomfort as a necessary stage in the journey toward meaningful progress
Key Takeaways:
- Professionals who admit their blind spots and join mastermind groups grow faster by learning from shared experiences and direct peer feedback.
- The simple model of finding, converting, and keeping clients consistently drives growth across industries, including legal.
- Lawyers who lead with authenticity—such as personal storytelling or community involvement—build trust and stronger emotional resonance.
- Intentional preparation and embracing discomfort during networking leads to better conversations, more opportunities, and long-term business impact.
“AI will not replace lawyers, but lawyers who are using AI are definitely going to have an impact on lawyers who don’t.” — Tim Sawyer
Unlock the secrets of the industry’s top rainmakers with Be That Lawyer: 101 Top Rainmakers’ Secrets to Growing a Successful Law Practice. Grab your ultimate guide to building a thriving law firm now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F78HXJHT
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Episode References:
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Mazing-ebook/dp/B004CR6AM4
About Tim Sawyer: Tim is a two-time Inc. 500 co-founder with two successful private equity exits, a professional speaker, and an expert in business sales and growth strategies. As EVP of Sales and an investor at FasterOutcomes, he helps law firms leverage AI-powered legal intelligence to drive efficiency and profitability. With a strong background in digital marketing, Tim has led high-performing sales teams and scaled businesses through innovative strategies. He is also the host of the Legal Keys podcast, where he explores the intersection of law, technology, and firm success.
Connect with Tim Sawyer:
Website: http://www.fasteroutcomes.com/
Email: [email protected]
Show: Legal Keys: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legal-keys-unlocking-time-revenue-and-results/id1791762308
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawyertim/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/faster-outcomes/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here. Be that lawyer. And listen, lawyers are always asking me number one question, what’s the secret to building a thriving practice? I asked a hundred of the best rainmakers in the world. I put their answers in one book. It’s called Be That Lawyer, 101 Top Rainmaker Secrets to Growing a Successful Law Practice and it is your new playbook for client development, business development, marketing mindset, time management.
You name it, it’s in there, chock full of goodness. Grab your copy now on Amazon and be that lawyer
Narrator: you are 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: [00:01:00] Everybody welcome back to the Be That Lawyer with Fretzin podcast and listen, we love having you, you haven’t told your friends about this show for shame. We are coming up on 500 episodes and there’s so much wonderful content here. Yeah, tim, I’m no slouch in just over five years, by the way. So we’re not talking about, a 10 year run.
This has been just over five years.
Tim Sawyer: You’re putting in the work,
Steve Fretzin: I’m putting in the work, I’m putting in the time, and the best part is. I get to meet you, I get to meet all these amazing rainmakers and experts in legal from around the world, and it’s just been an absolute blessing. And think of all the amazing content, written audio visual.
It’s just a just keeps paying off time and time again. But we’re gonna have some fun today. Absolutely. For sure. Great. Let’s jump into your quote of the show. This is interesting. I don’t, this is one that hasn’t come up on the show. I love it. You can’t steal second base and keep one foot on first.
Frederick Wilcox. So welcome to the show, Tim, and and tell us a little bit about that quote.
Tim Sawyer: So I’ve been had one job [00:02:00] quote my entire life After college, I spent 12 years working at a federal savings bank really killing myself, working hard due to circumstances. Lost a job. Two sides of that story.
I spent one year traveling the country. I spent 35 days in an RV with my three children and regrouped in life, and made a decision at that point that I would do my best to live by my own hand. Meaning not get another W2 job. And it was uncomfortable at first. Fortunately, I met somebody that was able to mentor me in things that there was nothing in my education background training that could lead me to make some of the decisions that I did.
And I just said, you know what? You gotta go for it. And at some point I had three kids at home, a wife who was a homemaker at the time. And so my philosophy has always been, can’t steal second base and keep one foot on first at some point, you just gotta go for it.
Steve Fretzin: It’s poker, right? You just gotta go all in and make a decision and live with it.
Not for everybody though, right? I think that there’s either circumstances or just certain types of people who flourish and find that they can flourish in [00:03:00] this environment and others that you know, less
Tim Sawyer: yep. It takes a minute. You have to build those muscles. It’s like anything else in life and you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Fortunately I made that decision not without trepidation or anxiety but it’s like the other story. And I forget who the explorer was, but he literally burned the ships. He said, we’re gonna get behind them. Yeah, we’re gonna take this. We’re gonna take this town over and there’s no way to leave, guys.
So
Steve Fretzin: Phil, that was like the Battle of Troy or that was something that happened in ancient times. There was
Tim Sawyer: someone coming to the Americas. Okay. Someone coming to the America, I could do better on the context, but he learned it from the Greeks or something like that. Anyway. Yeah. And so it was. Yeah, so it’s it was one of those things where I had enough of, that life where you put everything into it and it’s unpredictable.
And like you said, that’s not for everybody. I have companies with lots of wonderful people who have no interest in putting their, their ec, their economics at risk every day, and they. Enjoy getting a paycheck and have some security. And I don’t begrudge those people. Those are my best friends in the world.
Steve Fretzin: What takes off some of the pressure, Tim, that you, and this is going back to what you [00:04:00] said is you had a mentor. I think people that learn from others, that get mentored, that get coached, that have other people that have been there and done that. Help them along and share, these are the problems or these are the solutions, or these are the systems to follow.
Have such a much that’s why franchising is great for some people because you’re not figuring it out, right? You have, here’s step one, step two, and I think that people that try to go out on their own and do it on their own, they don’t leverage the village. I think that’s probably a pretty big misstep.
Tim Sawyer: A hundred percent. And it, what’s interesting is I just got back last night, a 10 day tour, went to a couple conferences, finished with one, we’ll mention the name. Real. It was a great conference in Florida, and it was primarily PI lawyers, so larger PI lawyers, there’s the ones there, but larger PI lawyers.
And what I hadn’t really understood or appreciated to this point was how much value this group puts on mastermind groups. And I’m not promoting anyone Mastermind group. Yep. But the common thread amongst the speakers and the people who had the largest law firms were going the [00:05:00] fastest was their confidence in being humble.
If that makes sense. In other words, going behind doors, locking the doors and saying, I’m gonna show you everything, the good, the bad, the ugly in my practice. And I’m gonna, I wanna learn from you. I’m a teachable human. Yeah. And I didn’t, I haven’t seen that side. I haven’t been in law forever. It was cool to see men and women who are super smart, super successful.
Yep. Say they’re the ones who always go, my business is all screwed up. It’s the person who goes, this is running like a top. I’m all set. ’cause once you lift up the curtain. Yeah. Chaos.
Steve Fretzin: Then that’s why pure advisory groups, masterminds, round tables, whatever, and I’m running four right now.
People know that I just did one this morning. In fact, we worked on our infomercials together and you get people doing that, hey, I’m a PI attorney and I do this and I do this and I do this, and that’s boring and nobody’s gonna care. And when we flipped it around and we gave each other feedback and we listened and we took notes and we ran some things through chat GBT like we did.
Like the work for each other so that people can [00:06:00] make those improvements and really stand out in a crowd. A PI lawyer that gets up and says something very different from everyone else, right? It’s like you’re separating from the pack and that’s hard to do on your own. Coming up with fresh ideas, possibly making again, the same mistakes over and over.
Other people have made ’em.
Tim Sawyer: It’s true. And one of the kind of principles that I’ve lived by in life through three startups now a fourth, is there’s something powerful. A person who’s motivated, successful, works hard, being comfortable saying, can you help me? Yeah. I think that’s one of the most powerful things, that it takes so much confidence to say to someone, can you help me?
And we don’t do enough of that, right? And so sometimes we get caught up in, I. Whether it’s ego or whatever it is, or sometimes just not being confident enough to say, be confident enough in your own skin. They say, yeah, can you help me? I think so. That’s one of the most powerful things we can do. And what’s funny is successful people, if you offer somebody a couple dollars and they’re successful and you say, I’ll pay you to do this, they’ll go, nah, I’m not interested.
But if you go to that person and say, Hey, I [00:07:00] really respect you. I was just wondering if you could help me. Money doesn’t even come up. Yeah. Ask a powerful, smart, intelligent, motivated person if they’ll help you. Still freaking drop everything.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Is asking for advice is very different than asking for business or asking for a handout.
People love to give advice. They hate handing out their time, aimlessly and for people that are looking for something for nothing. And good people will always step up and help you and that’s why rainmakers and GCs and people that. Or maybe hard to get a meeting with, but if you go at them to ask for advice, they’re more open to it.
But listen, we gotta take a step back, Tim. We jumped right into the show and we just went off like a firecracker. People gotta understand what your background is and then we can lead into our topic today. But Tim Sawyer’s the EVP of faster Outcomes. Give us a background on you ’cause it’s really deep.
Maybe not in legal, but it’s deep in business.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah. So like I said, I had one job about 13 years, whatever it was. It was in, worked for a federal savings bank. So I had a, my friend at the time who became my business [00:08:00] partner was selling his first digital marketing company. He did provide a digital marketing and CRM, so early generation, like 1997 flash websites for those who remember.
And he was selling that. He was an entrepreneur. He was 33 years old, barely graduated high school, and that business was worth over a hundred million dollars. They did very well, and he said, oh, I want to go again. So let’s go. Instead of being friends, let’s be partners. And so we started a digital marketing company and software for banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies into the teeth.
2005, 2006 going into 2008, freaking disaster. So as I was saying it, right into the teeth of 2006, 2007, which was, the largest financial crisis we’ve had in a long time. So we had to, all these wonderful contracts that we had in the desk were meaningless, so we had to pivot the entire company to local insurance agents.
So we provided software, digital marketing, sold that to private equity in 2011. Got a great exit and then pivoted immediately into elective medicine. So we took that model that we had [00:09:00] from cars, applied it in mortgage, then applied it to insurance, and then the same principles applied. Plastic surgeons, cosmetic dermatologists, med spas.
And those principles are, and I’m applying them now in legal, that every retail business has to do three things really well. They have to find. Increase the quantity and quality of traffic to their website and phone. Whether you’re cash paid me medical practice, you’re an insurance agent or you’re a car dealership, you have to find, and then you have to sell and serve, meaning you need to increase the conversion rate of that traffic and then you need to keep them.
So you have to find ways to retain them. So it’s find, sell, and serve or keep, and that model is universal along any for-profit business. And so we operated with those universal principles and once you can get someone to agree to that, then you can plug in the widgets, the gadgets, the trache, its CRM, whatever it is, and site search, whatever.
Yeah. And so that some being taught those three universal principles, I believe in running business on principles. It makes the [00:10:00] world a lot smaller, so I was able to have, we sold that to a private equity group 2020, right in the middle of Covid. To actually Jerry Jones’ private equity group. He star blue star Innovation partners.
And then we took him in thinking about what we wanted to do. My old friend, Rishi Batia, who I had worked with previously in insurance, he was our CTO, called me up and said, Hey, we’re gonna change the world in legal. Do you want to go around one more time? And I said, let me think about that because I know what that means.
And the last company I was at was running, I was 40 weeks a year on the road. So I get what that is. I just got home from 10 days and I thought about it for a little bit. He had a great mission, a great purpose, and our business model is really cool. And so I decided to go again and I’m learning quickly and these last 10 days were great.
I met so many great legal professionals went to some really cool shows. I’m, no, I’m realizing all the same principles are gonna apply. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: That was gonna be my, one of my questions was, how is business different than the business of law? And I’d like you to answer that, but also keeping in [00:11:00] mind that, you may say it’s not, there’s a mental game to this too, because lawyers are in a unique space, that is, highly regulated.
So they, and it’s a very noble profession. I don’t think anybody’s gonna argue that. So clarify that for us, how it’s different and how lawyers see it.
Tim Sawyer: So I think it’d be very different the way lawyers see it than the way maybe I see it. I’m a learning curve with that. So go, let’s go back. One business plastic surgeon, right?
A plastic surgeon takes maybe 14 years from the time they start till the time they can make a penny. It’s a lot. And some would say that’s an old profession. You could say it’s aesthetic what? Whatever you want. These are highly trained, very proud people, and they deserve it, right? Just like lawyers, they deserve the accolades that they get.
And while maybe not, maybe there’s a different bent, lawyers have a heart to serve. One of the things I would say, and high protector provider, right? A lawyer has high protective provider innately in them, right? That’s why many of them do it. It’s a calling, and but if you look [00:12:00] at insurance and you look at even financial management or plastic surgery.
There’s one of the things that have always emerged, it’s so funny. Not only the people themselves, but the folks like us in the periphery. Immediately what they start saying is you have to understand, lawyers didn’t go to business school, so they’re not, the joke amongst themselves, not me, is that they’re not great business people.
That was the same talk track with plastic surgeons. They went to school to practice, duplex. So they’re not good business people. Same with insurance agents. They went to school, it’s all the same, right? Yeah. And but they’re all in business. And what’s interesting is the, from a practical standpoint, it all depends on the why of the individual.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an attorney or a plastic surgeon or an insurance agent. What is your why? If the people can get in touch with their, why am I opening a med spot? Why do I want to have my own law firm? Why is it for a lifestyle, I could provide for my family? I can help people. I just spent had lunch with a lawyer who said this because I wanna help people.
He used to be an MT and then, but this particular lawyer. [00:13:00] It is, why is I want to help people and I want to make a profit and I want to be the largest in my community. So their why is very different than that person’s Hey, I’m cool with just me and a paralegal or a legal assistant doing my thing.
And so I think it’s very, it’s easy to say this profession is different than this profession. And there’s a, but it’s not homogenous, meaning even within the profession. So I was just at this conference where you see the people who go up and speak on stage and they show you their, 2300 cases they’re working on.
Their why is different than maybe the person sitting in the back of the room who does two demands a month, and they’re a personal injury lawyer and they’re very happy, right? They’re making money. So my approach to life, whatever it is, whatever discipline is to come up with ways through technology and processes that I can give that person more time.
To do what they love. And like I said, that could be crush your competition. Fine. That might be, you know what, Tim, I [00:14:00] want to get home early enough so that I can help with bedtime. That’s also a very noble goal. And so that’s my why. Help me understand. Doesn’t matter what business you’re in, help me understand what is it that you want to achieve more of and how can I help you get that?
And that’s my motivation. So I think there’s, again, it goes back to universal principles, right? Why are we doing this? So whether you’re a. EMT.
Steve Fretzin: But I wanna stop you for a second, Tim. Yeah. Because I, there’s an important point, and I want to dig down a little deeper. So in the marketing world, we talk about what is your why?
A big part of that is because of a quote that says, people don’t care how much so they know how much you care. Yep. And that’s a quote that’s been on the show a bunch of times. The idea is that we can figure out your why and how that impacts the community, how that impacts the client, how that impacts your team, and they buy into your why.
Then from a marketing and from a business standpoint, you’re far ahead of other people who don’t answer that question and don’t have that laid out. Is there another business application in addition to what I [00:15:00] just shared, that you have insight into? Or am I covering it in those two areas? In terms of when you say understanding, knowing your why you, you brought up that multiple time translating, so
Tim Sawyer: yeah, so translating, so it’s great that you say that because what you’ll see in successful law firms successful, again, really any business is somebody knows their why.
They can communicate that to the team and they can communicate that to the outside world. Another way of saying, if someone says, I have a unique brand. Tell me your unique brand. I’ve been in the community for 20 years. I go to, I coach, I do. They say all the same things everybody else says, from a branding perspective, understanding your why.
The more that you can get in touch with that on an emotional level, the more that you can communicate that to your team. To communicate. The more people will resonate with that, particularly in the age of social media. Being authentic. Authentic is probably the best branding tool you can use.
And if you try to fabricate or try to be something that you’re not, people will sniff that out. Right now [00:16:00] there’s just too much. It’s like not the 1950s where we had mad men running around. Advertising guys, right? Yeah. That’s Jet.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah.
Tim Sawyer: Manipulating people. That’s over. Man,
Steve Fretzin: I have to tell you a funny story.
So I had my round table and we were talking about infomercials, and one of them does employment on the plaintiff’s side. I. He like just was pounding on his desk. I sue the terrible employer. The one that’s doing that’s, not admitting to sexual harassment that’s trying to steal from my client.
Like just passionate, authentic, angry. And I was like thinking, is that unprofessional? And then the group all chimed around and said, you know what? If it is so what? Because the passion and the why and the authenticity of my friend Alex, shout out to Alex if you’re listening buddy. Was so powerful that you wouldn’t want anyone else representing you in an employment case than this guy because you could just see how much he cared and how into it he was, that he didn’t have to sit back with a suit and a tie and go, my name is Alex and I am [00:17:00] an employment attorney who does blah, blah, blah.
So I think that authenticity and that why it’s all playing a role in how people are developing. They’re businesses, but where do we go from there, Tim? What’s next? Once you know your why, people need to figure out like, how am I building up from there?
Tim Sawyer: So I’ve adopted the fine sell, keep in the legal community for I
Steve Fretzin: love and I love that by the way.
I love that. It’s, and you’re right, it is universal. We know we want to deny that it is in areas. ’cause retail, I’m not retail, right? But yeah, it’s the same.
Tim Sawyer: Talk to any super successful lawyer and he’ll start with how I find customers. Particularly on the PI side. So I like to look at it as a engage, assist and grow.
So on the engage side, it’s interesting. So I, again, I was at this a couple conventions, but this one that I was at, they had this lawyer who was super successful, man, like super successful, and he was showing his commercials and his commercials. Never say he’s a lawyer. It’s amazing. It’s him and his mom.
And his [00:18:00] mom through years of doing commercials with him. Becomes the greatest. Like all the fans love her, right? Okay. Star of the show. So he literally, just real quick, he’s got this commercial where he walks in the house and he’s got a handful of letters in his mom’s cooking. And he goes, Hey mom, I just wanna let you know we got all these letters addressed to you at the office today.
And she goes, oh, okay honey, it’s good to see you. Can you just go put in the room over there? So this lawyer who’s huge walks down this hall, and then he sees a door. The door says his mom’s name, fan mail. With a gold placard. He opens it up all this mail and she’s the style. I love it. And so it’s like he took this relationship with his mom and made a very human connection with his community.
Wow. And and then the other thing he did and he shares this stuff, is he sponsors for people to get dogs. And they, you do that for 200 dogs a year. So what this lawyer has done. Has found a very, again, if you meet the dude, he’s [00:19:00] authentic. You get it. He’s humble and he’s I just try to find ways to connect with people on an emotional level.
I’m a great lawyer. They know I’m a great lawyer, and so I want them to know me as a human, like what I do, what I believe, and to see a close relationship with my mother is a great way to convey that. And so it’s that stuff, right? It’s that makes the difference. And you could see the time and energy that he had spent.
On not crafting, but connecting. And that’s a very big difference. Connecting is very different than crafting. Yeah. And it was, I was grateful because I got to learn a lot and rethink how we engage. Yeah. And then of course, the best things that we can do in the legal communities, I am discovering the more time I spend with it, is to spend time in the community doing things that people care about.
Getting a little, again, being comfortable with uncomfortable. Not everybody is outgoing. Not everybody’s gregarious. Not everybody’s an extrovert, but you’ve gotta find the power to do that. And the perfect example I saw of that [00:20:00] was a different event I was at. They did speed networking. They took 50 chairs.
Facing this way. Took 50 chairs facing this way. These people stay in their seats and these people rotate. So what was interesting was the lawyers got a chance to meet with other lawyers and talk. How many were like, okay, this is where I’m leaving the room. What’s worse is the vendors who are paid salespeople who didn’t wanna sit at a chair and meet lawyers.
Oh my God. I’m like, you gotta get, I want to do it. No, first I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. I’m like speed dating. What is it? Yeah. And you sit down and it, but here’s the thing. I was there to meet lawyers and get customers. So to walk away from that’s me staying in my comfort zone.
And I always tell people, this circle, that’s your comfort zone. Very little happens in your comfort zone. All the cool stuff, shit that happens in your life happens outside your comfort zone. When you step outside of that and say, you know what, I don’t really wanna do this, but if I insert myself, like going, sitting, being [00:21:00] at an event and there’s a table full of people and there’s one chair and they know you sell stuff and you know they don’t want to hang out with people who sell stuff, and you go, can I sit here?
Then they gotta talk to you, right? So it’s little things like that I encourage people just to get outta their comfort zone. Try new stuff
Steve Fretzin: 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, I’m the host of the Be That Lawyer Podcast. And if you’re serious about growing your law of 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 [00:22:00] year. And the dirty little secret is that it doesn’t have to be on guts and hope alone.
There are ways to get outta your comfort zone. For example, walking into a big room full of people to network. Are you prepared with your infomercial? Are you prepared with questions? Do you have an approach of when you sit down at a table and there’s five people at a table, what you’re gonna say when you sit down?
Or how you’re gonna ask, is this seat open and nice to meet you guys? What do you do? What are you here for? How long have you been the comment, whatever it might be. You can be uncomfortable, but there’s some shortcuts or there’s some cheater sheets or whatever you can do to start to become more familiar.
But I agree with you that if you’re just staying in the world of what you know, and you’re never expanding outside of it, I don’t see how you can develop the business of your dreams or how you can develop something you can be truly proud of at the end of your life. Say, oh, I’m just, I’m dying, but I’m so happy that I never did anything exceptional.
I don’t think that’s how it plays out.
Tim Sawyer: No. And I’ve said this for decades now, that I truly believe we are all wired for growth. [00:23:00] Now, that might not be for in business per se or dollars, but we’re wired for growth in relationships. We’re wired for growth in learning. We’re wire, we are our DNA as humans is to be wired for growth.
And we either accept our humanity or we deny it. It’s different for everyone. Again, I’m not, I never say you need to go do this to be considered successful. That’s not the case. There are many talented people who do things that I can’t do and don’t wanna do and can’t do and I’m grateful for them.
But if you raise your hand and say, yeah, I want to achieve success, define it any way you want. One is you gotta get uncomfortable, gotta get outta your comfort zone. You have to be teachable and coachable. You have to have humility, grit. And I think if you do those things. You’re gonna be fine. And to your point, preparation I call it profound knowledge.
What you know in advance, you prepare for in advance. So if you’re gonna sit down and get in speed, networking, to your point, you have to know what’s your name, what’s your title, what do you do, what’s your passion, and why are you [00:24:00] here? And if you just in your brain, quickly keep that formula going.
So you sit down and it’s okay, hi, I’m Tim, executive Vice, whatever I do. I’m passionate about business. I’m a two-time Inc. 500 co-founder. That’s what I love. And by the way, my real passion is helping lawyers get more time to do the things they love. And what happened with that line? The other person never even said what they do.
They go, oh, I, could you help me with? Sure. Why don’t you gimme your name and number? Every person I sat with.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. ‘
Tim Sawyer: cause I wasn’t fumbling.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Yeah. Because this
Tim Sawyer: is a little preparation and so
Steve Fretzin: No. And also know your audience, right? Know my audience, know what are they gonna see?
What do they need? What’s on their minds? And if you can fulfill that in a 32nd infomercial or in your business model. Yeah. You know your way ahead of things
Tim Sawyer: without saying what your widget is. Yeah. Or your gadget or your thing. Everybody has a thing. But to your point, people, if I said, oh, I sell this, they’d go, okay, I sell this.
But if you say, I wanna help people, and they’re like, I want [00:25:00] help again, universal truth, right? Yeah. Find how many people in this room wanna find, serve, and keep more customers profitably in 2025 and beyond. Who’s not gonna raise their hand? Yeah. Who wants to make more money and have more fun in 2025?
Raise your hand. Yeah. You pretty much got ’em at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Haven’t said what I do, how I do it. It’s be saying, it’s
Steve Fretzin: like saying, do you like ice cream french fries or pizza? Pick one. I like
Tim Sawyer: them all. Yeah. I’m glad you say that. We happen to have an ice cream truck, piece of pallet.
They’re parked right outside. Let’s go second. You get what I’m saying? Like that? Yeah. That’s scary to, I help people and when they really, and if you, they look at you and go, you know what? I believe this guy. They’ll go, okay, what is it that you do, Tim? And there’s your invitation to say, this is what I do.
Steve Fretzin: Since we’re running outta time, take that 30 seconds and tell people what faster outcomes is, because I want, even though we didn’t get to talk about AI and a lot of the things I wanted to hit today, we only have 30 minutes. Give that 30 seconds. I wanna make sure people understand, you’re trying to help with [00:26:00] efficiency, you’re trying to help people, save money, make money, and live a better life, but doing it through automation.
Tim Sawyer: It is, and part of that is automation. And so faster outcomes is an AI powered legal intelligence platform for lawyers of all shapes and sizes. So our core platform does all the things that you would expect in the personal injury space. We can create a demand letter. We have a platform. You can upload your documents, organize your files, case lines, summaries, timelines, executive summaries, and we can produce a demand letter in 24 hours at a fraction of the cost of our competitors.
That’s number one. Same. That goes for medical chronologies. We can work on a medical chronology, make it a living, breathing document that you can talk to, chat with research. That document could be four pages, it could be 40,000 pages. We’ll help you organize that, organize those Macrons. If you ever get in deposition, you need to revisit them.
Again, it’s not just an output. You can talk to it. And then on a more sophisticated level, in 10 seconds, we have a product called Knowledge, where we’ll take all the IP in a law firm from inception every template form. [00:27:00] Research, due diligence case they’ve ever done. Put it into a single, non contaminated AI agent, and it becomes a living, breathing partner.
Steve Fretzin: Wow. Great
Tim Sawyer: for training, great for succession. And so we use what are called age agentic frameworks and that’s faster outcomes. That’s what I do for a living. Wow. But I will say, if you ask me again, what do we do, we help lawyers find more time to do the things they love. That’s what we do.
Steve Fretzin: There we go. I love it.
And the first business books I ever read and we getting to our game changing book, if you didn’t notice is Who Moved The Cheese? Who Moved My Cheese? I don’t think there’s many lawyers who know that book. Can you tell everybody a little bit about that? Why that book’s so wonderful? So Who
Tim Sawyer: Moved My Cheese Change?
The only thing that’s permanent is change. Four mice. I’m gonna get two of them. Sniff and scurry. Sniff and scurry are the ones that keep moving from cheese pile. They never get comfortable. They never stay. The other two mice, they’re nervous, they’re anxious, they find a pile of cheese and they think it’s gonna last forever, and they stay.
Sniff and scurry are always looking for the next pile of cheese. These guys [00:28:00] are always staying until the cheese is gone. Then they find themself in desperate situations. The reason I love that book is because I’m someone who’s inquisitive. I’m a forever learner, and I’m always looking for what’s the next thing to empower the people that I care about, and so who moved my cheeses?
Exactly that. There is no static state. We live in a constant state of change, and if you’re not paying attention to what that horizon looks like. There’s a good chance and literally in the book, the other two mice Get Left Behind. Yeah, left behind.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. It sounds to me like lawyers who are just billing everyone else’s hours and not getting their own clients.
But that’s just my take, so we’ll leave it at that. The world’s changing. The world’s Shaw, man. There’s the world changing and it’s scares the hell outta me and it should be worrisome to many, but we have to just adapt to your point. Like things are gonna change, they’re gonna be tough, and we gotta adapt.
Hopefully we can still visit Canada without them wanting to strangle us, so
Tim Sawyer: The final thing is AI will not, and I’m an AI guy. AI will not replace lawyers, but lawyers who are using AI are [00:29:00] definitely going to have an impact on lawyers who don’t.
Steve Fretzin: Yes. There we go. I love that. Let’s, we’ll wrap up on that.
Hey, everybody want to thank our sponsors rankings, io and PIM Con, the be that or be that lawyer, the law, her podcast. Tim, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to hear more about faster outcomes and your podcast and all that stuff, what are the best digits?
Tim Sawyer: Tim, at faster outcomes.com is my email, just TIM.
www.fasteroutcomes.com or Legal Keys podcast. You can find that anywhere. Podcasts reviewed, Spotify, SoundCloud, iTunes. Love to engage with anyone. If anybody has a question about anything that we talked about today, just shoot me an email. Happy to help. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin: I appreciate that. And we’re gonna have all that in the show notes as well.
Hey man, this was great. I. I don’t wanna apologize that we never really got into talking about ai, that I had four or five questions, but everything you shared being authentic and about the why and about what it takes to be successful in business and, looking at fine sell, keep and all that.
This is, stuff the lawyers [00:30:00] need to hear and they need to engage in and getting outta their comfort zone. So I don’t regret. A moment of our interview today in the fact that we didn’t get to AI may be a reason to have you back. So thanks again, man. This was great. This is way more fun than ai.
There we go. We’re having fun and AI can all that matters. Kiss my ass. That’s all.
Tim Sawyer: We’ll always find a way to make money having fun. That’s more elusive. Ah, I love it. All right
Steve Fretzin: thanks again. Thank you everybody for hanging out with Tim, for and I for a half an hour and really getting into some great conversations today on the Be That Lawyer with Fretzin and Podcast.
You know what we’re all about helping you to be. That lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. Take care, everybody. Be safe. Be well. We will talk again soon.
Narrator: 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 [00:31:00] important links about today’s episode.