Turning Thought Leadership into Trust (and Clients) for Lawyers

Steve Fretzin  [00:00]

Hey everybody, before we get to the show, really big announcement for you. This is one of the most important things I’ve done in nearly two decades of working exclusively in the legal industry. It is the be that lawyer community, and it’s officially live today. This is a global platform designed to help lawyers become rainmakers, grow their law practices and take control of their careers. And it’s built for individuals just like you who want more. And it’s also for law firms who want to bring real business development coaching and training to their teams with a strong return on investment. Inside you’re going to find a massive library of content, practical courses, live events and direct engagement with rainmakers from around the world who are there to answer your questions and help you grow. Membership is only 699, per lawyer. It discounts available for groups, and for a limited time, April 15 to April 30, you will get that deal as a founding member at that special rate I just mentioned, you have two weeks take action. Be that lawyer.com/community I’ll say it again. Be that lawyer.com/community to sign up today. Hope to see you there. And by the way, enjoy the show.

Narrator  [01:11]

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, we’ll take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin, hey

Steve Fretzin  [01:33]

everybody. Steve Fretzin, and you are here with us on the be that lawyer podcast. If you guys don’t already know this, it’s all about helping you be that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. And there, you guys have heard me say this before, but it’s like, there’s sometimes when you meet somebody, you just like, everything connects. Everything gels. And just like, you’re like, are we not related, or is there something going on? Like, have we known each other our whole lives? And that just happened with Susan and I, and I’m just so excited that you’re here. Welcome to the show. Susan,

Susan Guthrie  [02:01]

Thank you for having me on. I get that feeling it was just that instant moment of like, wow, you get me. I get you.

Steve Fretzin  [02:08]

Yeah. And we couldn’t, like, get each other on our podcast fast enough, and I think that’s a sign that things are going in a positive direction. But you and I both kind of have this idea of, like, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, and being our authentic selves and just having fun in our careers, I think you emulate that very well. So well.

Susan Guthrie  [02:27]

Thank you. If we’re not having fun, why do it? I’ve gotten to that point in life,

Steve Fretzin  [02:30]

and while winging it and having fun is important, we have to go to our quote of the show, which is an old oldie but a goodie. Ben Franklin, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And so welcome to the show again, and tell us why you submitted that quote out of the millions that you could have.

Susan Guthrie  [02:45]

Yeah, well, because I have made that mistake more times than I care to admit in my own career, right? I’ve been at this for 35 years now, and started more businesses than I can count at this point, and yet I would wing it almost every single time, and have learned the value. It’s not as much of the business plan, it’s being strategic. Yes, a plan that you know strategy leads to a plan, but being strategic so that you’re not reacting, you’re planning and moving forward. So I’ve learned to live by it. Ben was right.

Steve Fretzin  [03:22]

Yes, Ben had a good idea. He’s had a he has a few good ideas from getting time,

Susan Guthrie  [03:26]

couple of nuggets of wisdom out there.

Steve Fretzin  [03:29]

But I’m the same way. I’ve always said I’m sort of a feather on the wind and adult ADHD and all of that stuff. And I think without planning and being organized the way that I have, I would have a very difficult time maintaining the consistency of my business, my the way I work with my clients, the way I prospect and market and all the things that I put out there, just it would be very difficult to do. And I I just brought in a CMO to my company named Lewis, and he’s going to even come up with even more plans and social media calendars and all these things that I sort of sometimes fall short on. So really, really important to do everybody. Susan Guthrie, principal of Guthrie consulting and media, been in this a long time, but give us your background on how you came to be.

Susan Guthrie  [04:12]

Yeah. So pretty standard start. I started out as a litigating attorney, and I did that for about 26 years, then transitioned into being a mediator, and I did that for about another 10 years, and now I take all the experience and insight that I gleaned in the many years I did all that, and I help colleagues to build sustainable and successful practices, mainly because, God, I wish I’d had someone like you or me when I was doing that for 30 years.

Steve Fretzin  [04:45]

Yeah, well, again, you know, it takes a lot of courage and open mindedness to get someone in your corner to help you. And so people that look at you and look at me and understand, look, I can do this alone and then struggle through it, or I could just try to engage with someone who’s kind of. Been there and done that, and I did that too. I didn’t come from nothing. I hired a coach who helped me double my my income in about six months. And I was, like, blown away. And it’s actually what got me excited about being a coach. I said, How do I do what you do? And he said, Well, pay me a lot more, and I’ll show you. And I did. So that’s how that went down.

Susan Guthrie  [05:16]

That’s called Scaling. That’s

Steve Fretzin  [05:18]

called Scaling, yeah, yeah. And I was sort of under his tutelage for a while for that. Well, very cool. So I mean, part of being a litigator, part of being a lawyer, and part of being any professional services, is building trust and really people feeling really good about about you and wanting and that helps with brand building. So trust is at the heart of it all. How do in your experience are like effective ways attorneys can build genuine trust with potential clients, or just in their network generally.

Susan Guthrie  [05:43]

Yeah, well, first is because I think trust is the under recognized thread that should run through all of your interactions, all of what you put out there in the world. So in your networking, as you just referenced, but also in, you know, you mentioned earlier getting a CMO when you’re putting out content in this world, you’re always trying to let people know that they can trust you enough to hire you. Right? That is the golden thread that runs through it all. Yet, a lot of people rely on things that are a little more intangible, like people having knowing them from their prior practice. As you know, I deal with a lot of professionals who are transitioning into a new type of practice. I do a lot of professionals. Work with a lot of professionals who are going from litigation or from the bench into a dispute resolution practice, and so often they think that the trust that they’ve built over the years as a either as as a jurist or as a litigator, is immediately transferable to their new role as a neutral right. And it’s not necessarily transferable. Trust needs to change, and you have to earn that trust in your new role. And I think it’s a big chasm that people have that they fail to scale. So one of my favorite ways is in thought leadership. I think that we have a very easy way as professionals these days to put out thought leadership, to put out content that lets people know we know what we are talking about in the role that we’re currently in, right? So not as a litigator, but as a neutral and that’s what you should start telling people.

Steve Fretzin  [07:30]

Well let me and let me add that it’s important as a thought leader to think about the different avenues that you can build off of. So that could be podcasting like this. It could be video clips that you put together, articles, presentations, and I think if you could find one that you enjoy and where you feel like you could be successful, that’s going to help advance the interest of you being that thought leader. And maybe you can expand on that further,

Susan Guthrie  [07:56]

yeah, well, and I think that’s a really important part of thought leadership, and one of the reasons why it is so powerful, as you point out, we have a plethora of options available to us as vehicles to get thought leadership out there, way more than 35 years ago than when I started practicing right back then it was, it was relatively limited, and the opportunities were, you know, like pulling teeth to get you know, on a panel or speak somewhere, or do something of that nature, probably get published. Now we can do it, as you said, almost at the drop of a hat, but so many professionals jump right to the thought leadership piece. They’re putting together the podcast episode or writing the article or putting out the social media post, and they forget the two initial steps, which are, what is it that you want people to know that you do? And who is it that you’re talking to about that, right? Who is the person who’s going to make the decision to hire you? And you have to go through an exercise of outlining both of those things before you then get to the thought leadership production. Yeah, I think thought leadership production sexier and more fun, right? It’s fun to go on people’s podcasts or to have one yourself. I think we both know that. It’s one of the reasons I think we enjoy doing it. People love to do that sort of thing. It’s easy to sit down and write, but if you’re writing an article to your litigation clients, not to your potential people who might hire you as a neutral your thought leadership is wastered effort, it’s not going to create that trust that will then lead people to say, yeah, She’s the person I should be hiring for this.

Steve Fretzin  [09:42]

Yeah. I mean, I like to write for the legal community in general. And I would say that the people that probably read my writings because I write for above the law, and have for a number of years now that they are generally open minded and ambitious and interested in learning and interested in, you know, the business. A side of the law, right, not just the legal stuff that they can find in other columns. And so I am writing to a community, but it’s not everybody. If there’s a million people that visit a month, you know, it’s maybe 5% that might actually want to read my stuff. I also like that it reinforces to my clients that I’m practicing what I preach, when I publish articles when I podcast, when I show them a I did this this morning with my class, a pinwheel of, you know, books, podcasts, articles, social media and how it all spins around. I think it really opened their eyes. They don’t have to do all of that, but they need to pick one and then understand how it can be repurposed.

Susan Guthrie  [10:39]

Repurposing is one of my absolute favorite things. And I tell every client that, because they look at that wheel, I have something similar, right? And they look at that and their heads explode, thinking, oh my gosh, so much effort, so much to do. And I say the same thing you just did, right? Really, pick the ones. I have a two prong for it. One, find a venue that you’re comfortable with. Find those platforms. Some people thrive on LinkedIn. Some people hate it. Some people thrive going out on podcasts. Some people are just not natural speakers, all those things. So find the ones you’re comfortable with, but you also have to find the ones where your audience is, where the people that might make these hiring decisions, those people that you want to create trust in, are going to be, and find it where your 5% as you just said, are, and then you make those decisions about what you’re going to put out. But if you put it out in a podcast, right we’re doing a podcast right now, you and I both will be able to take aspects of this podcast episode and repurpose it into LinkedIn posts, a blog article, a myriad of different things.

Steve Fretzin  [11:51]

Well, the best part is, I’m going to do that for me, and I’m going to do that for you. So the long form on YouTube, right? The video clips on YouTube that’ll then be used for LinkedIn and other social media. The transcript that gets truncated down into the Blogcast that I’m submitting to, for example, rainmaking magazine with with my buddy Scott, love the clips that could go on above the law attorney at work and I’m now on moving up to the YouTube channel of national law review is going to be for where my podcast episodes can go. So it’s not just repurposing, but it’s also thinking about you’ve got, if you have quality content, that it’s desirable for publications and people, that, if you just reach out to them or get introduced into them, the transferal of trust. So one of my friends is got a connection at a very well regarded website, and they know me, they trust me, and they make that inroad in they like my content, and that’s how these things happen. So but I think, you know, there’s the biggest challenge lawyers have, I would say is, Well, I’d say two one is getting started and figuring out what it should be. The other one I want you to touch on is consistency very difficult for them to figure it out and then stay consistent. What? How do you help your clients stay consistent?

Susan Guthrie  [13:08]

Right? And you’re right. Consistency is probably the single most important thing beyond that two prong approach. When I’m working with people, will usually have to back up and define, you know what it is that they do, what’s the burning problem they solve, so to speak, and who the decision makers are that they want to reach with that. But then when we look at what most people are doing, I call it the spaghetti on the wall approach. I bet you’ve you’ve run into that a few times, right? They do a lot. They throw a bunch of different ideas out there. They’ll write a blog one week. They’ll post for a week or two on LinkedIn, and they’re all over the place. And one of the things that I’ve had to explain to many a client is goes back to what you and I talked about a second ago, is simplicity actually is much more effective as long as what you’re doing is consistent. So if you enjoy that. You know, alcohol, less cocktail party of LinkedIn, then go there, hang out there. Do post there, but continue to post consistent content on some sort of it doesn’t even have to be a schedule. Some people like to know they’re going to do every Tuesday and Wednesday. I say to me, that’s two days. So know that you’re going to get out there two days a week do what you can do. It’s when you set these bars for yourself that are unattainable or feel like you’re spending the majority of your time promoting and not actually working. That’s when people find themselves falling behind and being inconsistent.

Steve Fretzin  [14:39]

So we to review, if you will. You know number one is, you know, understand who your audience is, where they are, what they’re watching, listening, reading, what do you enjoy that you can put together to demonstrate your value and being useful and helpful and in a thought leader. And then, how can you stay consistent and keep yourself on track to. Do it every week, and to make sure that you’re not missing, you know, six months at a time. And so I love all of that. Hey, everybody, your next big client might call it 8pm on a Saturday night. The question is, who’s picking up with Lex reception? A real person answers every call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so you never miss a lead, no matter when they reach out. No AI agents, no voicemail, just professional legal, literate receptionist representing your firm the right way around the clock and right now, be that lawyer listeners get 250 off their first month. Visit www dot lex reception.com/partners/be, that lawyer to claim your offer. That’s www dot lex reception.com/partners/be, that lawyer. Hey everybody. Steve Fretzin Here and@lawyer.com They don’t just market law firms. They help them grow from connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers, to smarter intake and industry leading events. They’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake events, growth. That’s lawyer.com Check them out today, 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 consultation@rankings.io today, let me ask you, outside of the content creation space, there’s other ways that you help lawyers build trust, I think, through some different means, like, for example, flat fee billing, or getting away from traditional models. How do you see that as a trust building exercise, as opposed to just a fee structuring exercise?

Susan Guthrie  [16:53]

Yeah, I’m really, you know, passionate about the whole restructuring to a more value based model of billing, because I found that it completely changed my practice back when I started, and that’s about 1015, years ago that I started flat fees, modified flat fees, but it goes back to trust, right? It goes back to exactly what you said. And the problem with hourly billing, which has been in the legal world, really only since after post World War Two. It’s not most lawyers think it’s been around since ancient times Mesopotamia. It has not. It’s a construct of the legal system after World War Two, because there was a huge influx of industry and a huge influx of work for lawyers. And so lawyers wanted a more simplified format for billing, but the problem with it, and we know this from client after client, is that it sets up mistrust because it rewards inefficiency, and if we think our clients don’t know that as lawyers, we’re naive. We know they know that. It’s why lawyers are the butt of every joke. Why? You know the fact that we charge so much money per hour is a conversation anytime the word lawyer comes up. That’s why we’re called sharks. It’s all of the above, and that’s one of the reasons why, as you’re building trust with clients, I’ll explain how I did it. I set up flat fees when I was doing divorce mediations, and what I would say to people in the consultation was, here’s why I do a modified flat fee approach. I know that you are going through a very difficult time, and that probably one of the things that’s causing stress in your life is the fact that this process is expensive, yet you have no idea what it will cost. So I’m trying to bring as much certainty as I’m able to to your lives right now. And the only part that we don’t know is how many sessions of mediation you’ll need. So I’ve made that as streamlined as possible. But what I do know you’ll need, I have put a flat fee on it, and I can tell you my conversion rates went up to 95% after I added that into my consultations, because they trusted that I was trying to do something that supported them and helped them.

Steve Fretzin  [19:20]

Yeah, well, it makes it’s in with what’s going on with AI, and what’s going on in the world, in the economy, I think there’s going to be some big law folks, and just generally, folks that are going to be kind of sight, you know, you know, hit on the side of the head at some point when, when the world starts shifting and and billable hours are going to, you know, start being, you know, start going away to some degree, and people are getting incredibly efficient with how they’re going to be able to do legal work and the back end stuff. So I think looking to that, are there two or three different flat fee systems, or subscription based versus flat fee, or things that you really like that you can just talk lawyers through how to make that transition.

Susan Guthrie  [19:57]

I wrote the book The flat fee playbook. Work on this topic in particular. And I really it’s not just about setting one type of flat fee. The idea is that you look at your particular practice, you sit down. And I always encourage doing this one of with one of our AI tools. They’re very helpful in in figuring out, you know, what the flow, what your workflow is, and looking at, you know, defining what your workflow looks like with a type of service offering work with the AI to do that, I’ve actually in the book, put prompts that’ll help you walk right through that so you don’t even, you know, it’s, it’s, I call it Mad Libs. You just insert the word I’ve come up with the prompt, right? It always ages me when I say Mad Libs, but that’s exactly what they look like. And then you walk through the different types of structures you might have. You might do a flat fee for certain types of work. You might do a modified flat fee, where some of it’s flat fee, some of it’s then charged by the hour. Or in others, you might do subscription, which tends to be for more open ended ongoing work, but it will help you to define the different ways you might come at it. Most people are going to have more than one fee structure, because most people have more than one service offering, and the key to it all, because most attorneys push back because they are concerned that they’re going to get caught in the trap of doing more work than they’re getting paid for, right? And that’s really scope creep. And the key to scope creep is clearly defining your scope scope, making sure that when you put a fee on something, it’s very clear what that covers and when it doesn’t cover something, how the additional fees are going to be billed. Yeah, and that’s all covered. I covered all of that in the book, in all in ways that you can walk through an AI and set that up for yourself. And then the important part is what I just described, or another important part is it’s not just a matter of setting those fees. It’s not even just a matter of putting them on your website and thinking they’ll do their magic. It’s explaining to the clients, or the potential clients, why this is a benefit to them and why you’re doing it for them.

Steve Fretzin  [22:16]

Yeah, well, I think that, and it’s just no one likes surprises, and the billable hour creates a world of uncertainty and surprises. And I know that that can’t be avoided in certain circumstances, for example, trials and litigation and such. However, anything that we can, we can take and not establish and set expectations and I know, like, I just, I’m remodeling my bathroom right now, and I know I knew right off the bat, like this could be a little higher than what it’s what I’m being quoted, but I have an idea of what it’s going to be, and if it’s a couple 1000 within that range, I’m fine, and it will be right. But if he just said, Look, we’re just going to do your bathroom and we’ll figure out what it costs later. We’ll see what’s, you know, going on behind the walls, and we’ll see what we decided should be based on, you know, a number of like, I now I’m day to day wondering, like, what’s going to happen with this bathroom? When’s it going to be done? Are they going to make it longer so that they get paid a bigger bill? Like, there’s all those uncertainties that are just that, I think, to your point, they degrade trust. They don’t help establish and create that comfort level of trust that we are looking for in relationships,

Susan Guthrie  [23:26]

exactly, and it’s at the establishment of the relationship. You are starting off in a distrustful situation where the client is already thinking, you know, you’re a necessary evil in my life. I need you. I want my new bathroom. I have a trial or a case I need to handle. I don’t really trust that you’re going to always have my best interest at heart when it comes to the fees, because I think you’ll have your best interest at heart. Yeah, and it’s really to set things up on that. Standing in a industry that’s based on trust. It’s very difficult.

Steve Fretzin  [24:02]

Yeah, and you mentioned AI earlier, and obviously everybody’s getting just beat down on ai, ai all the time, every day. However, it’s something that’s coming into the forefront in legal, not just from a time management perspective, but from a marketing and business development perspective. There’s tools that are coming out in ways that we’re using chat, GPT and Gemini and whatnot to and Claude to to get ahead on the stuff that maybe we, you know, shouldn’t be doing totally by ourselves. How are you introducing and leveraging AI to help your clients improve brand, improve relationships, build trust?

Susan Guthrie  [24:39]

Yeah. I mean, we use it constantly, and I actually enjoy helping clients use it in the marketing format, in their branding, in those types of even their business planning and strategies, because it’s a low risk use, right? It’s a use that’s behind the scenes and doesn’t affect the. Them in a way that might affect their ethical obligations, which is the number one reason why attorneys are so anti AI, or resistant to the integration of AI into practice, which is healthy and appropriate they should be, you know, concerned about their ethical obligations. But the good part about using it for things like marketing, etc. You know, doing business plans is it excels at that these are tools that are incredibly creative and collaborative and can do the work you mentioned. You’re you’re bringing in a marketing officer. Most marketing professionals these days are working interactively with AIS to do the planning, to set up the the tools I imagine you probably use AI with the podcast in coming up with, you know, breakdowns of how you’re going to use the different segments of the podcast,

Steve Fretzin  [25:54]

the transcripts, the video clips, all of that AI, the book behind me, created and crafted off of the transcripts using AI 100%

Susan Guthrie  [26:03]

exactly right and in not in a way that is detracting from the work, but is allowing you to amplify the work.

Steve Fretzin  [26:11]

And

Susan Guthrie  [26:11]

that’s what I tell clients, you know, if you can learn to collaborate with these tools and ask them to stand in roles that you don’t feel as comfortable in how many attorneys that come to you when you say, Okay, let’s talk about marketing. Do a cartwheel, jump up and down and say, yay. I can’t wait to talk about marketing.

Steve Fretzin  [26:31]

Just about everyone.

Susan Guthrie  [26:32]

No, you know the happy dance of joy that we see when we’re like, yes, we’re going to do marketing today. But when they see how these tools can actually step in and do a lot of the heavy lifting, so that when they are putting out content, when they are marketing, it’s it’s really just an amplification of their actual expertise what they do. So I’m a big fan of providing prompts to my clients, giving them frameworks so that when they sit down with these tools, especially for the new users, they are sitting down with what I call, you know, training wheels. I’ve given them the vehicle that’s going to walk them through doing this most, and I would say this is probably over 95% get very excited about the capability of what this can do for them.

Steve Fretzin  [27:26]

Is there one tool or prompt or something that you would tell them will really help them either get started or amplify their marketing that you’re doing? I’ll share one, and you share one, but one thing that you’re that you’re there’s you’re having them do to assist them. So it’s taking the heavy lifting away.

Susan Guthrie  [27:43]

So right now, the tool that most of my clients and I, I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been using it a lot lately, and I’m having a ball with it, is lovable, lovable dot Dev. It is a vibe coding program that will create websites for you, create landing pages, create apps, all of these things. And for most of my clients, we’re working in conjunction with their favorite generative AI. So whether it be chat GBT or Claude, we will sit down and work with it to come up with what we want created for their website, and then we feed that into lovable and in an hour, you have a spectacular website.

Steve Fretzin  [28:21]

Wow, that’s amazing. I love that.

Susan Guthrie  [28:24]

It’s I love lovable,

Steve Fretzin  [28:26]

yes, the one I’ve been working on lately, and I’ve mentioned this on the show maybe a couple times, I’m not, I’m not telling everybody, because they just went from like, 25 to $50 a month, like, because I ran out of credits. And I don’t even know, like, what a credit equates to, but I was automating my email. So every email I’ve ever written and every email I’ve ever gotten reviewed by the AI all internal, so not not open to the public, and then every time I want to write an email or respond to an email, it essentially creates it for me. So we’re talking about lawyers getting out of their inboxes and not having to craft email after email after email and respond that this does a lot of that heavy lifting. And so I got to decide if AI is getting better where I don’t need this, or do I need to pony up the dough and pay the extra 25 a month, which is really not that much money. Obviously, I just didn’t realize, like, what I have to maybe research what a credit equates to. But that’s been super interesting and helpful for me and not having to respond over and over and over again to the same you know, my emails differ, but this recognizes who I’m talking to, how it’s different and how I would normally respond, and kind of handles it pretty cool.

Susan Guthrie  [29:34]

No, if you found an email agent that works well and manages the confidentiality side of things that you know, the legal profession is so concerned with that’s gold, because one of the number one time suckers, obviously, for lawyers and their pain points, is that email, you know, just onslaught that we all get every day. So I’d like to know what it is as well.

Steve Fretzin  [29:56]

Well, it’s JCI, but I’m not going to commit to saying that. I. Know that it’s for lawyers, 100% confidential. I think you need to read the fine print and understand, is it internal and there’s no leaks, and there’s no way that it’s getting out, because your emails are all confidential. So for me, that’s important, but less important than maybe a lawyer, but I think part of what they have to do in order for this to be a reputable company is, have it be internal, as opposed to it being obviously, now the entire internet knows your email, and that’s not, no one’s gonna win with that. And you know, that’s no it’s a class action I’d be on. I’d like to be on the right side of, let’s wrap things up Susan with my favorite piece of the whole thing, which is, what’s Susan’s big mistake?

Susan Guthrie  [30:38]

So my big mistake was when I moved to California after practicing for 26 years in one place, and I honestly thought in my naivete that I could just pick up from one side of the country. I had a very successful firm, and I was just going to pick up and go plant myself in La Jolla, and I was going to rent out a space and hire some associates and have a firm all over again, and it was just going to be a breeze. Within a year, I’d be up and running and doing what I thought I was going to do. And I honestly thought that. I really didn’t. I knew there’d be challenges, but I did not, you know, talk about winging it. I didn’t have the plan, and so I did what you said you did. I got a coach, I got some business planning specialist, I got some strategy specialists, and spent a solid six months building something. Life came along, and a year later, I ended up moving to Chicago, so entirely, had to do it all again. But the difference between going at it sort of by the seat of my pants and with a strategy, that’s what showed me the value of strategy, and now with AI tools available to help us. You know, it’s a no brainer, so my big mistake was truly just being so naive that thinking, Well, I’ve done it once, I can do it again, yeah,

Steve Fretzin  [32:05]

well, and lawyers generally, you and everyone, I mean, you know, I guess we’d say it’s about a lot of different groups, but, you know, they want to do everything themselves, and they feel like they can do everything themselves. And that could be, you know, I’m going to do a podcast, and I’ve got a client right now who is amazing, but he’s, like, started a podcast, and he’s doing the editing, and he’s brought his son in on it’s like, how is that gonna, you know, how is that gonna stay consistent? How is that the best use of his time? It’s 100% not. I mean, I like the idea of bringing the sun and, like, my son was an expert editor, editor and video guy and all this. Like, yeah, I’d love to bring my kid in and work with him, but that’s, you know, that’s either going to be great or a murder suicide, one of the two I can’t say. All right, let’s take a moment. Thank our amazing sponsors. By the way, this has just happened in the last week. Is the launch of the be that lawyer community. So there are lawyers listening right now, read the books and know that I’m writing, and they want to be part of my community, to get my content, to attend live events, to network with my clients, to be in a community that is, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, type of a feeling. Everybody’s asking questions and sharing wins. Check it out on be that lawyer.com everybody and see if it’s a good fit for you. The pricing is going to make you smile. It’s really, really easy to get in and start a relationship with me through this community. I also want to thank Lex reception, lawyer.com and rankings, io and pimcon, all amazing sponsors of the show. Susan, people want to get in touch with you. They want to know more about Guthrie consulting and media. How do they reach you?

Susan Guthrie  [33:32]

Best way is my website. Susan E, guthrie.com always get that middle initial in there. Susan E, guthrie.com lots of resources there, access to the podcast, etc, and your episodes coming out soon, so be sure to check that out. Everyone.

Steve Fretzin  [33:48]

All right, wow, let me know, and we’ll get that out there. Thanks so much. This is as much fun as I had on yours. I hope you had on mine. And you know, I love a good pod swap when one comes along. It’s one of my joys in life. But thanks. Thank you for coming on, sharing your wisdom on how do we build trust marketing, from AI to you know, how we structure our fees? I mean, it’s all, all really, really great stuff. So thanks again.

Susan Guthrie  [34:13]

Thanks for having me,

Steve Fretzin  [34:14]

yeah, and thank you everybody for hanging out with us for the last 30 and change. You know, as my as I usually say, hopefully you got your page of notes, like I do. And you know, again, a lot of this content is going to come out on our YouTube channel, Steve Fretzin, you know, the different national law review attorney at work above the law, all channels to get this podcast and clip. So check it out there. And thanks, everybody. Be Well, be safe, and we will talk again very soon.

Narrator  [34:44]

Thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development. And marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.