In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Tom Ciesielka discuss:
- The role of public relations and reputation management in the legal industry
- The importance of media visibility and thought leadership for lawyers
- Balancing legal ethics, confidentiality, and public exposure in marketing
- The impact of social media on modern public relations strategies
Key Takeaways:
- Media outlets prioritize availability and recognition over legal expertise—being well-known and responsive is often more important than having the best case results.
- Lawyers should integrate the PESO model (Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned media) into their marketing strategy to create a balanced and effective public presence.
- Addressing negative media coverage should be handled with a focus on advocacy, emphasizing key legal issues and potential next steps rather than becoming defensive.
- Thought leadership and PR require a long-term commitment—lawyers should expect a minimum six-month investment before seeing meaningful results in recognition and business growth.
“Your first obligation is to your client, not to publicizing your firm. That’s just the reality of it.” — Tom Ciesielka
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Episode References:
LawHer Podcast by Sonya Palmer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lawher/id1599413853
Personal Injury Mastermind Conference (PIMCON), October 5–8, 2025 in Scottsdale, Arizona: https://www.pimcon.org/
The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib: https://www.amazon.com/1-Page-Marketing-Plan-Customers-Money/dp/1989025013/
About Tom Ciesielka: Tom Ciesielka, President of TC Public Relations, has over 25 years of experience in public relations, marketing, and business development. He helps clients manage their reputation through crisis communications, thought leadership, and media coverage in outlets like The Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, and Fox News. Before founding TC Public Relations, he worked in film sales—representing Paramount, MGM, and New Line Cinema—and as marketing director for the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Originally from Philadelphia, he built his firm in Chicago on integrity, strategy, and innovation. Now in its third decade, TC Public Relations continues to refine media strategies that elevate client visibility.
Connect with Tom Ciesielka:
Website: https://tcpr.net/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasciesielka/
Twitter: https://x.com/Tomciesielka
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tcpublicrelations/
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!
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Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, before we get to the interview, wanna just take a moment for our q and a of the week. This is coming from Peter, from Chicago. He’s asking I’m meeting people for coffee and it’s a big love fest. How do I convert this into business though? Thank you, Peter, for the great question. This is the difference between winging it and having a structured process.
Sometimes when you go to coffee, you talk the whole time, you build a great relationship. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I love that it’s a love fest and that people are connecting at a, in any, a variety of levels. The problem comes in though when you leave the meeting and people say, oh, I’ll just keep my eyes open for you.
And again, that may be fine from a standpoint of longevity with that relationship. However, what I try to teach and explain to people is that you can have a love fest and try to connect each other. Is there a better way to demonstrate value and build a relationship better than actually helping somebody in some way?
Try to figure out in that coffee meeting, whether it’s through structure or not, one [00:01:00] connection that you can make for somebody that’s gonna be valuable. And I’m not saying give away your top client, that’s not necessarily the case. I. I wouldn’t do that in a first meeting. I think think about who they wanna meet strategically.
So for example, if it’s an estate planner you’re meeting with. That estate planner wants to meet an accountant, a great accountant, make that inroad is, if you feel like they’re qualified and that they’re, it’s gonna be a, it’s gonna be a good connection. And what you’re doing is you’re actually testing the waters, not only to be a giver and help connect, but see how they reciprocate and if they do reciprocate with some mutual connection how did they follow up?
How did they, you can like somebody and be friends with them. That doesn’t mean they’re a good network or that they’re gonna be valuable to your business long term. I think that’s really what we wanna do is think about how we can add value for others and help them help us to add value for us.
And test the waters a bit. And that’s gonna get you a lot more business and traction with networking other than just, again, winging it and having a love fest and moving on to the next person and doing the same over and over again. We need to have some progress with these people and figure out who we can bring in and maybe who we need to [00:02:00] release and just be friends with.
That’s okay too. So hopefully that was helpful to you, Peter. For everyone that’s about to watch the show, enjoy. We’re gonna have a good interview.
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: Hey everybody. Welcome back to be that lawyer, the show that helps you to do what Tom,
Tom Ciesielka: to help you be that lawyer. Loved by everyone in the world.
Steve Fretzin: Loved by everyone in the world. That is a fair point. Yeah. I am working a lot more internationally. I’ve got clients in Canada, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and now Israel, so it’s
Tom Ciesielka: not That’s, I thought you told me you were doing something in Africa a couple weeks.
I [00:03:00] did.
Steve Fretzin: I had a bunch of, yeah, I did a bunch of things for, I did do some work in Africa, but. Ultimately, I think by fee schedule might not be good for Africans. I don’t understand. Just saying, but I, I was happy to step in and do a presentation and offer some suggestions and all that. But ultimately we have to find that medium between the countries and the lawyers that, I.
Actually can enjoy and appreciate and also pay the bills. So there you go. Welcome to the show, Tom. You’re such a special friend to me. We’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve gotten together many times to talk shop about business development and marketing and public relations and all that.
And I’m just thrilled to have you back on the show, man.
Tom Ciesielka: Oh thank you, Steve. I always been a big fan of yours. I used to love when new articles would come out in the law bulletin. I go, why? He’s giving away the, he’s giving away the how.
Steve Fretzin: Giving away the goods
Tom Ciesielka: all people need to do, but they’re not doing.
Steve Fretzin: I think my father said to me once when I put out my first book, he was like, what are you doing? You’re giving it all away. No one’s gonna hire you. You’re giving it all away. I go, dad, didn’t you get a book on [00:04:00] golf one time? I’m like, how’d that work out for you? Books are great. They accomplish something important, but ultimately you don’t become a scratch golfer because you picked up a book on golf.
I don’t. I’m pretty sure. Listen, man, great to see you. Let’s get started with our quote of the show. I love this one. It’s here we go. Proverbs 22 1, and it’s a good name, is more desirable than great riches To be esteemed is better than silver or gold. And based on what you’re telling me, I’ve got more silver and gold than I’ll ever need it esteem.
And apparently an ego today. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on, but again, so happy to have you and tell us a little bit about why you put that quote up front and center.
Tom Ciesielka: Sure. So often, when people would say, what’s the value of pr? I say we’re helping to protect your most valuable asset, your reputation.
And, a lot of times when we’re working with clients, I often say, if you’re dealing with a crisis and this is the only thing you’ve ever had a problem with, that’s good. But if this is systemic, if this is just something that’s going on for years, repeat, I, it’s, you can’t fix it. People [00:05:00] always, they joke about you can’t, just because you put lipstick on a pig is not gonna make it look like Britney Spears or Taylor Swift.
But the point is. Your reputation is everything, and that’s what you want to treasure above all things. One of my mentors who is actually an attorney and was the best man at my wedding, so we were covered always said, when you’re looking to get clients, don’t look at a dollar sign on the forehead, figure out how you can help them.
And that’s just been something I think very valuable. And Proverbs tells us that your reputation is what matters.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And I think if you have a good name in the market for being a terrific lawyer, for being a great consultant, for getting results for people, and you protect that asset, that IP of your name and your reputation, yeah, I think that’s gonna carry a lot more.
If it’s bad and everybody hates you, but you’re wealthy, you’re not gonna be having friends and family. People want to be around you. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Hey everybody again. I’m here with my good friend Tom Salka, president of TC Public Relations, and I would love for you just to share a little bit about how you got into a public [00:06:00] relations, and then b, how you came to find the, the legal market, because I found it a certain way and I want hear how you found it.
Tom Ciesielka: Sure. The way I found it was actually I backed into it. I was working, I was doing work for another public relations agency and they happened to have a number of legal clients and I had never worked with lawyers. One of them, I’ll almost say the names, but they were big, they would be like one of those, 800 pound gorillas that’s known nationally and internationally.
A couple of them. I was like it’s about a press release. It’s about reputation management. It’s by gang of news. And I cut my teeth on working with this other, PR firm. And then as time went on friends of mine who were lawyers asked me about my work and I said, yeah, I do work with attorneys.
We handle these types of cases, whether it’s. Civil rights personal injury, med mal business litigation. And I just started getting, fell into it, so to speak, only because I’ve learned from one of the best, one of my mentors who worked with all these big PR firm, I’m sorry, big law firms.
And it was a great experience and it just been just networked my way into doing more, more with lawyers. And then you and I have. [00:07:00] Presented a number of legal associations over the years and that kind of kept the ball rolling.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. As it’s an interesting industry, especially for non-lawyers coming into it and working exclusively and in predominantly with lawyers.
And I keep telling people I was on a lovey lawyer with with my friend Lewis, and. He asked me about it. I just said, look, this is like the smartest group of people. Many of them, at least the ones I talked to, are highly motivated to grow and learn and improve. And yeah, there’s some perfectionism and there’s some risk aversion and things like that, but ultimately, I.
At least the people I’m engaging with. I don’t know that there’s a finer group of people. So again, I could, I have the choice to work in any industry. I want medical accounting, you name it. And I’ve worked in over 50 industries, but this is the one that I’ve really, I’ve been adopted into and I think I’ve adopted them and it’s been a pretty amazing fit as most people know, for me.
So there’s a confusion in the marketplace about what marketing is, what thought leadership is, what publicity or PR is. Can you kinda give us a little bit of Tom’s perspective on those terms and how [00:08:00] you see them?
Tom Ciesielka: Sure. One of the terms I like to use, and it was somebody else that coined, it’s the, the when it comes to communications and marketing is the peso model, PESO.
And paid is p is that paid? That’s P stands, in. And you probably know this, Steve, when you’re in a publication like the Law Bulletin or law 360 or any of those national publications, yeah, you might get interviewed a few times, but maybe have to also, do some paid.
So it’s integrated. And then the space that we’re focusing on today is the earned. You did something that earned you the right to be quoted in Bloomberg Law or the Wall Street Journal, or Forbes or things like that. Then, the s is the, the social, which we’ll maybe we’ll talk a little bit about later.
It is in the sense like, oh, this is, and again, with lawyers, that’s a little tricky as far as ethics and mules, different state bars and things like that. It is certainly part of the mix. And then, the owned your website, and things like that. And so for example when you asked about where this fits into the marketing, they all fit together.
I’m sure you’ve worked with lawyers where, as [00:09:00] you said, you’re the smartest lawyer on the block. Their blog on their website is, from 19, I don’t mod start
Steve Fretzin: 92, 87, or I know, yeah. Yeah.
Tom Ciesielka: I was there for part of it, but the point is that they don’t really think about, and then if I send them to a website for an interview, if they get a link back from a TV or radio or print interview online, that’s not gonna look good.
And therefore it all fits together and that’s why they need somebody at the helm sort of orchestrating, I like what you just mentioned earlier about, they’re the smartest. When it comes to marketing, that’s not what they do. I have to tell you, I know a lot of times, even with some of my best clients, I’m an interruption.
They’re in the middle of preparing, for pretrial briefings and all this other stuff going on that they need to do, and I’m saying I got this interview. It’s a Wall Street Journal. I’m busy right now. It’s oh, okay. So it’s that balance of, we’re important, but obviously their work is just as important, that’s what I’ve learned as far as, but the ones who get it is awesome. It’s really awesome.
Steve Fretzin: And my hope is that people, no matter how busy they are, have [00:10:00] learned at least to, delegate or team or, you have to be in a position as a lawyer these days to go on a vacation and not be, available every minute of every day.
I think you’ve gotta work towards that end. Otherwise, you’ve got. All your partners, dumping on you, you’ve got all your clients dumping on you, they’re calling you day and night. That’s not really the way a life should be. I get that we should, that we can’t separate ourselves from our businesses.
But I think, we also have to be, opportunistic in some way when something comes along, like Forbes or Wall Street Journal or something that’s gonna help us really boost our brands that we can take, 30 minutes to do an interview or whatever it might be. Anyway, that’s tricky, but, so we’ve.
Marketing and PR and ways of promoting ourselves. And I know some lawyers don’t wanna be self-promoting, and I think there’s a good way to do it and maybe a wrong way to do it. But the other argument I’ve heard is I don’t need to, I shouldn’t have to do any of that. I’m a great lawyer and I get great results, and that’s all I should have to do.
Tom Ciesielka: Yeah. I could tell you one thing is that the media outlets don’t necessarily go for the smartest lawyer on the [00:11:00] block. They go for the lawyer who’s available. They go for the lawyer who’s known. I remember you some years back the CNN Bureau in Chicago, the ed, one of the reporters there said, Hey, Tom, thanks for all your, the, the attorneys or professionals that you bring on when we have breaking news, but we have some folks that they’re just available and we just need ’em.
And they’re not necessarily the best experts. They’re not necessarily the ideal fit. We’re on a deadline and we need somebody in the next couple hours. And then so often my clients, especially if it’s somebody who we’re working with new or is considering our services, they can say why did that person get on?
I’m the one who got the $10 million settlement. I’m the one who, got a jury verdict and got ’em convicted and all 10 counts or whatever, and that this person’s a, I said hey, this is the bottom line. It’s about, being known in the media. That’s the value. And so if you want to, going back to your original, your question Steve is like, why do I need to do this?
Nobody, over the years, people would say, I got the biggest settlement in the state of Illinois on whatever the malpractice or personal injury. I say, you know [00:12:00] what? A lot of the media outs don’t, unless it’s a die hard legal media outlet, like the Law Bulletin or Law 360 or Bloomberg Law, who’s maybe following the docket and they know all these things.
If you’re trying to reach out into business publications. They’re not gonna necessarily know that. You gotta get the word out. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: So what then, I guess it would, I would ask, what are some of the things that you would consider and that publications that we’re talking about would consider newsworthy or interesting or something that they would want to put up on their sites where maybe somebody should put present to them?
Tom Ciesielka: I would say, you say, everything’s not worth publicizing. What is worth publicizing? And I think landmark or precedent setting cases are key. So for example, Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, that’s a big deal because even if you’re doing it in a case in Illinois or Michigan or wherever, it doesn’t matter where you are in country, that’s gonna affect the whole country.
’cause it’s a constitutional, federal issue. High profile cases. We know that if the speaker of the house at the [00:13:00] Capitol in dc he trips over a cord and breaks his leg. That’s gonna be big news. You and I walk out in the hallway and the janitor is sloppy with the the vacuum and I fall.
That’s not important. So that’s kind of something to keep in mind, like how high profile is the case or perhaps people involved in it. Human interest stories are key, so for example you have a situation where it’s a child, you know who, it was malpractice and this is a doctor that should have known better and people are caring about that and other parents are concerned about, this liability of that.
So there’s always that kind of the human interest manager option, and then consumer fraud. That affects everybody. When you think about, product liability. Years ago I was working with it was very sad. It was a parents whose a child they didn’t, there was standards for cribs weren’t what they are today.
And this wasn’t that long ago. And unfortunately it was like a pack and play or some kind of something like that, a portable crib. And the kid, the thing collapsed, choked the kid on the throat, the kid died. He was hanging [00:14:00] there and unfortunately, died. Now the good news was the parents, turned it around.
They set up a foundation. That generated a lot of publicity only because everybody could identify with, bad children’s products or baby products. And that was a good thing as far as cons. And then social justice, a lot of lawyers, particularly the larger firms, they’re doing a lot of pro bono work.
Human rights civil rights freedom of speech, et cetera. Wrongful arrest, police, whatever that is. That’s important because it shows, it’s, obviously you’re in the social justice space. It also shows the heart of your law firm that you’re giving back. And, those are some of the examples that I can think of, Steve.
Okay.
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Hey everybody. Steve [00:15:00] Fretzin here. Man, I thought I was a good marketer, but maybe not. Lawyers have been approaching me asking what’s the rainmakers round table? I tell them this is a special place created exclusively for rainmaking lawyers. To continue their journey of prosperity. Our program is unique as every member has a significant book of business and is motivated to grow it year after year.
Where else does this exist? If you’re a managing partner who’s looking to get off your lonely island in Talk Shop with America’s Top rainmakers, please go to my website Fretzin.com and apply for membership today. But then how does a lawyer. Balance the confidentiality and the acli attorney-client privilege with public relations and getting stories like that on, do they have to dance around it or do they go right for it?
Or how do they check to make sure what they’re putting up is gonna be safe?
Tom Ciesielka: This kind of goes right back to proves we talked about your reputation. Yeah. Your first obligation is to your client, right? Not to publicizing your firm. That’s just the reality of it, right? So you have to reach out to the heart of the client, [00:16:00] particularly if it’s a sensitive issue, and say, I think this is important for our cause.
Are you okay with me going more public on this? And then that’s the first place you wanna go. And then I think that, the second thing is. To make sure you’re dealing with only publicly available information. So we all know that when, when things get on the court docket or the court filings or any of these places that list the the court filings, it’s public information.
Anyone could. But here’s the problem, I always used to always joke with lawyers when I first started working with ’em. So you would gimme something called a brief to write a press release for. So I have to take your 200 pages and get it down to one page, 400 words for purposes of, pitching it, to the media.
So a lot of times you have to go, you have to help sort through that and decide, okay, what’s publicly available? If it’s publicly available, that’s okay. And then secondly, you gotta make it, you got the salient points of your case that’s newsworthy. You might have to pull it out on behalf of the reporter who may be reporting on the case because they may not have time, right?
Let’s say for example, it’s a temporary restraining order. Those things run pretty [00:17:00] quick, right? So you have to say the reason we’re doing this is because if you look in the filing. There are these five points, that’s what helps with that. And then I guess, to avoid speculation, to be careful that when you’re, you’re gonna do this and confidentiality is, a lot of times with the reporters will say what if this happens, right?
Or what if this happens? And that’s not a good thing because, now you’re sticking your neck out as opposed to thing to the facts. Keeping to the facts. With a little bit of editorializing is okay, but just remember that once you go beyond that, now you’re getting into the whole issue of, a trial, publicity, a, b, a model 3.6 and what you can and can’t say, particularly in an active trial.
Steve Fretzin: And what about clearing it up? Clearing it by the client, like the client? Do they have a say in what you decide to publicize about a case?
Tom Ciesielka: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, that you gotta start right there. Many, it wasn’t. Do you know what I mean? No. We’ve run into problems where, the I always advise our attorneys I work with, when you sign your client agreement, there has to be some statement [00:18:00] in there that talks about anything that you would go public, whether it’s the media, social, whatever that is.
There’s always like a disclaimer paragraph, not, I shouldn’t say disclaimer. And understanding that everything runs through the lawyer. And of course you do the same thing the other way. You don’t wanna mention your client’s name and say something that’s gonna, I upset them that you said something.
Yeah, I think it really starts at the very beginning. Once you have your client engagement letter, whatever that is, you have to have something that has an agreement about public communications so that, one of your ex or Twitter post or tweets, doesn’t end up in court and messed up your case.
Steve Fretzin: I guess on the other side of the coin is, should legal professionals address the negative media coverage or of a loss in court? Is there anything that they need to do to get ahead of it?
Tom Ciesielka: I agree. First of all, here’s something, this would be a quote, maybe you can make a bumper sticker out of it.
I. Don’t call it the judge who gave it bad decision A scumbag. Okay. So s
Steve Fretzin: I’ll get on that bumper sticker right away. Yeah.
Tom Ciesielka: You’re a great marketer, Steve. I don’t know, I’m a little, I could say I can pull it off. Have to [00:19:00] copyright that, and then I would say, obviously wanted to acknowledge the a outcome, but certainly focus on advocacy.
Hey, look, we’re disappointed in the verdict. You can’t get around that, but you know what, we brought up important issues. And even if we quote, think the jury got it wrong. We certainly brought up important issues, worth public exposure. Yeah. Obviously stay, I always encourage everybody to stay on the offensive, not to become defensive or we wish we could’ve done, that type of thing.
Now, if it’s relevant, you can certainly mention plans for next steps, right? But certainly if at the trial level, and you’re gonna go to the appellate court and you can go to the, maybe a state Supreme Court or maybe, perhaps even the US Supreme Court. This is not, so often the loss at the lower court level is not a big, most of my lawyers say, we knew we were gonna lose there.
This is an appellate case, they know that. And then of course, you’re still keeping the client, confidentiality, trust even with a loss. Only because the goal is not to, have sour grapes or make anyone look bad. And again, same thing with your client.
They’re gonna probably be heartbroken because Oh great, I thought we’d be [00:20:00] done. Now we have to move on, to another step. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: Okay. And we’re moving into a new age where social media seems to be not taking over public relations, but it’s certainly leveling the playing field of how information gets out that normally wouldn’t have.
And what role does that play for lawyers? How should they be balancing. Social media versus public relations and getting, interviewed versus just putting out things on social and getting that out to the world that way.
Tom Ciesielka: I think the, the thought leadership and branding is a good place to start, this I’m sure you do training on, or you probably have people do it, is, LinkedIn, I also think of, LinkedIn is the place for adults to play in social, particularly professionals.
And, I get it. I, we did crisis communications for a TikTok issue. Believe me, I don’t have a TikTok stream. I’m looking at every five minutes a 12-year-old or whatever. But, I think that’s a good place to go because that’s where you’re at. That’s where you have, LinkedIn groups, professional groups, you can certainly maximize.
[00:21:00] I think that’s a good place because a lot of times, even if you get a, let’s say you get a commentary posted, law 360 runs one of your articles or a commentary or something, gives you an opportunity to. Repackage it or point to it and leverage it in your social and it’s safe, right?
It’s a public document, it’s been vetted, it’s at a third party. It’s a good co-branding opportunity. So I think that’s really where, social comes in. Now, the one thing that gets a little tricky is, crisis communications, right? Because, and that’s interesting. You mentioned TikTok about a couple years ago we had a business, they had a former employee and I was working with their lawyer on this.
They trashed the company on TikTok and they were getting a lot of sympathy. We did the analysis and like we weren’t so concerned and, but the client, not my attorney client, but the client of the attorney. They were freaking out. They were putting all kind of disclaimers on their homepage of their website.
I saying, oh, we, we wanna be transparent. Let’s not let you know TikTok, ruin everything because of this one instance. And in the end we, we [00:22:00] prevailed. I think the other thing is with social, on the positive side, really is media amplification. And it’s, if you did have an article in a Law 360 or even a local publication like the Law Bulletin.
If you wrote a four, 600 word article, you probably got a lot of great quotes in there. Salient points, bullet points, whatever that is. Most people, with all due respect to all these outlets, they’re not gonna read the whole thing. You can put the link in there. Maybe you’re gonna do a LinkedIn, I know you do this all the time, Steve, with your articles that you publish on LinkedIn and things like that.
They’re not gonna read the whole thing, particularly if it’s a written article. And even with the video interviews, right? Obviously most of the media outlets have shorts, right? Whether it’s, on YouTube or things like that. Where you have to, give it bite-size information.
So if you were to post it on your very social hours, having that pullout quote that hopefully gets them into wanting to go through the link and then see the article. These are all kind of tactical things that you would do that, that people sometimes, often forget. And then probably the last thing I would say on social is probably monitoring public [00:23:00] sentiment on a certain issue might be your case.
It might be the topic. A lot of times when I encourage client, if they’re in, so for example, we work with a lot of medical folks or attorney to malpractice, and we might be looking for what, what’s trending on social in that particular area. Maybe it’s environmental issues, maybe it has to do with pollution or whatever.
That we encourage them to keep an eye on it because you might be next, because you provide that type of service. Let’s say, we think about, gas stations and people are concerned about what it means when gas stations have all these tanks and things underground. You have refineries and things like that with tanks underground that could leak and things like that.
So you wanna, you often get dragged into this only because you’re doing a comparable service or type of business.
Steve Fretzin: And, a timing it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but there’s a timing of how long it takes for a lawyer or a consultant or anybody to really get momentum as a thought leader and to maybe position themself properly to start drawing in business outside of the referrals that they normally get.[00:24:00]
Do you have a feeling about how long that takes or what you’ve seen maybe with some of your clients?
Tom Ciesielka: What I’ve found is if they’re not willing. Whether they do it in-house, whether they hire a public relations person in-house or an outside firm to manage it. If you’re not willing to commit at least six months, it’s not worth it.
Yeah,
Steve Fretzin: so six months of working with someone, for example, like you, to put you out there to evaluate what you’re bringing to the table and get it out there to the media to try to find how you can get placed in multiple spots over time to start drawing that momentum.
Tom Ciesielka: Yeah, absolutely. I would say, six months is a minimum.
Okay. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time. It’s like a lot of times people say, me, I would say, I don’t care. You could pay me a million dollars for a month, for general publicity. Yeah. It’d be a waste of money because it doesn’t matter. It’s just, you’re just not gonna get it done.
It’s, you’re not gonna be established, as you know this, and I’m sure this is a lot of what you’re doing in your, in with what you do when you’re helping lawyers, is people wanna work with you. Start with no, like trust. You get to that [00:25:00] trust is not a one done thing with the first, contact.
And that’s the zero to six and then maybe six to 12 months you have some general recognition, only because you’ve been, working with the media and, staying in front of them. You’re, you’ve been giving them information either about your cases or more importantly, you’re giving them information to help them not necessarily promote what you’re working on.
So for instance, things
Steve Fretzin: that are happen, things that are happening that are topical.
Tom Ciesielka: Absolutely. So if, this is funny the way, years ago I was working with another PR firm and they worked with commodities companies and one of their, and I remember I went in there and it gave me a list.
I said, I want you to talk to all the coco reporters. And I said, I thought I’ve been doing this for a long time. Is that a certain category? Is that like the news? Is that what beat is that? What. He says, cocoa, you don’t like chocolate? I go, oh.
It turns out there are actually people who, that’s all they write about is Cocoa Futures, oh my God. Okay. Thank I’ve learned, and once I had the [00:26:00] clients I had who did, cocoa Futures and News or whatever, but I would contact one of those reporters. They loved me because I would say, by the way, this is what’s going on in Brazil.
This is what’s, and then they be, we became best friends because of that. So I think that’s something that, to keep in mind that if you wanna build this thing over six months to 12 months, it’s staying in contact and giving them information that you know they need. And it may or may not be what you’re doing at the time, knowing that it’s gonna pay dividends later.
Steve Fretzin: Super interesting stuff and I feel like we could probably talk for another 30, but we don’t have it. We have a 30 minute gap and we’ve hit it. So let’s talk about your game changing book, Tom. It’s the one page marketing plan. I like the sound of that. I think most lawyers would too, that it’s not a 20 page plan.
It’s a one page plan.
Tom Ciesielka: I’ll tell you why. It kind of ties in sometimes, Steve, when you and I have talked about, when you’ve given me good counsel on business development, you don’t come and say, okay, Tom, here’s this. Here’s Warren piece of marketing.
Narrator: Yeah,
Tom Ciesielka: you go, I’ll be dead by the time I read that.
But, [00:27:00] oh, and the issue is that the one page marketing plan, it’s a book, is that literally it forces you to come up with a one page marketing plan. Who’s your audience? How are you gonna get to that? And how are you gonna work them through the pipeline Again? I’m sure this is all the stuff that you talk about, and when I work with lawyers or you work with lawyers.
It can’t be a, when people, when you ask me about how long it takes, I can’t say maybe in 10 years you’ll get in the New York Times. That’s not gonna work. The one-page marketing plan really helped me focus on, where do I go to get business? How do I get to that know trust faster and how do I go about that process?
So I always found that when I read that book, it just changed my ’cause a lot of times I’d wanna. Do one of these programs where you get like a 50 page document for your marketing and that one kind of boiled it down for me.
Steve Fretzin: It’s easier not to have it just sit on a shelf because it’s too overwhelming.
Like when people send me emails and the email is like a page of text I’m like, I can’t even handle this right now. And I feel the same way with super long 400 page books that [00:28:00] ramble on with research and they ramble on with all these case studies and it’s like, can you just tell me what to do? Can you just tell me like.
What do I need to do? How do I get this done? I’m a big picture person. Don’t gimme all the details. Just tell me what I gotta do today, tomorrow, and the next day. Listen, let’s take a moment. Thank our sponsors. We’ve got PIM Con coming up in October. If you wanna check that, I think it’s pim con.org.
And then we’ve got the la her podcast Sonia Palmer. Continue to crush it for women and check that out. And Tom, if people wanna get in touch with you, they wanna learn more about public relations. They wanna learn more about how to build their platform. As thought leaders leveraging an expert like you how do they get in touch with you?
Tom Ciesielka: Sure. We can certainly go to our website, tc, like top cat tcpr, net n et There we go.
Steve Fretzin: And you’re on LinkedIn, you’re on all the major channels and now we’ll put all that in the show notes. But hey man, thanks for coming back and I know. I feel like, you and I saw each other quite a bit for a while and then we we kinda lost touch for a year and then we come back and it’s like old times.
And I wanna make sure that after [00:29:00] today we really keep in keep in the loop with each other.
Tom Ciesielka: Yeah. Thank you Steve. I appreciate that. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: Thanks for coming on that. Appreciate you. I. Thank you everybody for hanging out with Tom and I and talking a little PR today. A little bit of thought leadership and giving you really a good, I think a really well orchestrated, feeling about what does it take to be successful and how to do thought leadership and publicity at Tom was great with that.
And this is all about helping you. Business development, marketing, time management, operations. You name it, we’ve got it on the show. Be that lawyer, everybody. Confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. We’ll talk soon. Thank you.
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 market. Trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, [00:30:00] check out today’s show notes.