Book Review- Think Like a Lawyer: Act Like an Entrepreneur

 

Think Like a Lawyer: Act Like an Entrepreneur

By  Stephen E Seckler

Publication Date  3/19/2025

Sponsors  Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division Publishers  ABA Book Publishing ISBN  9781639056026 Product Code  5150537 Trim Size  6x9

Review by Ken Vercammen Esq.

Author Stephen E. Seckler, Esq., is President of Seckler Attorney Coaching. He is an award-winning coach dedicated to helping lawyers who want to achieve greater career satisfaction and success. The ABA has helped thousands of lawyers with marketing and improvement books. This book is an excellent manual to assist attorneys to renew client development. I previously wrote a book for ABA GP Solo and appreciate current updates on law firm marketing.

         The book contains many examples of self-help for attorneys.

For example, a successful rainmaker takes a lot of chances and fails often. In baseball, a superstar is someone who bats.300 (failing seven times out of ten). You can be a superstar rainmaker if you bat.050 (landing business from five out of one hundred interactions you have). This means that you will have a lot of “failure” along the way.

Really, what this means is that business development is a volume business. To be successful in generating legal work, you want to be meeting a lot of prospects over time. Some will never turn into clients; some will never even return your phone calls or respond to your emails.

 

The author explains to readers that the dollars you spend today on conferences, web hosting, lunches, graphic design, or gifts may not bear fruit right away. In fact, much of your marketing budget will never yield any results. If you want to get marketing results, think in terms of investment, not in terms of expense.  My wife would often ask me if we get business from church bulletin ads or Bar Association participation.  I explain there is typically no immediate results, like planting a fruit tree.

 

Choose the activities that give you the best opportunity to both build your reputation and your relationships with those individuals. But choose activities you like.

There is no one, right way to market. As long as you are involved in activities that you authentically enjoy and that help you build your reputation and deepen the right network, you can be successful.  

 

Lawyers are also risk averse and don’t think like entrepreneurs. I’ve heard many attorneys question the value of giving presentations when a single presentation produces no leads. However, marketing is a longer term challenge.

 

    The author points out with marketing, take some chances and understand that not everything will pan out.. The important thing is to be slow and steady. Don’t wait until your work slows down. The best rainmakers are always involved in some marketing activities. Over time, this will pay dividends. You just don’t know which of your actions will produce the results you want—and deserve. Just make sure to reevaluate periodically and drop the activities that seem highly unlikely to produce results.

 

      Reminder don’t try to do everything yourself. Get help. You may think you know how to build a website, but is that a good use of your time when you are billing hundreds of dollars an hour? Sure, you can research the latest changes to the Google algorithm, but isn’t it smarter to hire a digital marketing firm to advise you? I don’t try to do my old electrical work either.

The author points out another major mistake-Forgetting to thank referral sources. It is so easy to send a quick email thanking your referral sources for thinking of you. It doesn’t matter if the referral did not turn into a paying client. If there is a referral source who has been particularly helpful in sending you good matters, think about sending a small gift, especially at holiday time. If the matter was really not in your wheelhouse, thank them anyway and explain what types of cases would be a good fit.

The book points out Sheer Willpower is Ineffective. There is a lot of research that demonstrates that it is forming habits and not sheer willpower that leads to change. If you’re trying to lose weight, getting in the habit of not stocking high-calorie desserts in your freezer and pantry can help. Similarly, forming an exercise habit like going to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning is more likely to get you to the gym.

Writing things in your calendar can also reinforce a habit and make it mindless. So does setting reminder flags in whatever contact manager you use so that you remember to circle back to leads, former clients, and potential referral partners.

 

An interesting chapter explains Building a Law Practice is Farming, Not Hunting (It is a Marathon, Not a Sprint). Think of marketing as farming rather than hunting. You are building relationships and your reputation over time. A farmer can’t just water her crops when she feels like it. Plants need water all the time. Similarly, having a habit of engaging in marketing activities regularly is the key to your success.

Legendary ABA author Jay Foonberg Esq once taught that In Building Business Relationships, Active Listening is Key. We learn in this book part of that means listening more and speaking less. The deepest human need is to feel appreciated. When people believe that you are listening to them, they feel appreciated. This goes a long way to building the trusted relationships you need in order to generate work.

Listening to someone describe a bad experience. Being empathetic does not mean telling someone else about how you suffered the same injury, tragedy, or bad experience. When someone’s dog has just died, they don’t want to hear about how your dog died three years ago. There is something to the adage that “misery loves company,” but be judicious in sharing your own misfortune when someone raises theirs.

In the classic self-help book How to Win friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie told his readers that they should become “genuinely interested in other people.” Nearly 100 years after the publication of that book, the rules of relationship building have not changed, and this still holds true. If you want to make a lasting impression on someone, show that you are interested in them.

 

Tribalism and Networking chapter

As human beings, we are all fundamentally tribal. We like to belong, and we like to identify with groups that we belong to. Looking for these connections should be a conscious part of your efforts to build your professional network. In addition, we are wired to trust people who are “like” us.

For example, be on the lookout for:

·      Alumni of your high school, college, or law school

·      Fellow sports fans

·      People who live in the same community

·      Individuals who have worked for the same company

·      Individuals who grew up in the same place

·      People who have played the same sport

·      People who vacation in the same place

·      The parents of your children’s friends

·      People with the same musical tastes or dislikes

·      Where you went to camp (or where your kids went to camp)

·      People who share your hobbies

And what if you have the same religious upbringing or share a common set of political beliefs?                      

Persistence is Key (Within Reason), But Success in Business Requires Diversification

Relationship building does require some persistence. But there is a balance between being persistent and stepping over the line. At the same time, it is important to understand that many of the business relationships that you cultivate will never lead to actual business. You need to keep your volume of contacts high if you want to be successful. We’ll say more about that in Part 4.

When you are selling legal services, the goal is to develop relationships with potential clients and referral sources who get to know, like, and trust you. That trust takes time to build. More importantly, legal services by their nature are not needed every day. You need to be in front of your prospects and referral sources over time because it is hard to know when the need will arise. This is why when it comes to marketing, it is important to put in check your sense of urgency about everything (a quality that many lawyers share).    

So, focusing on just a couple of prospects is not a great strategy.

In baseball, batting .300 (getting a hit three out of ten times at bat) means you are a superstar.

                                                                                                           

Go for Deep Relationship Building, Don’t Just Collect Business Cards

When it comes to business relationships, quality is more important than quantity. If all you do is add names to your contact manager and you don’t do anything to nurture those relationships, you aren’t really doing business development. Having thousands of connections on LinkedIn is of minimal value if you aren’t doing more to deepen those connections.

 

The author points out Following Up is Hard For Lawyers.

In fact, many of us are reluctant to do this kind of follow-up because we don’t want to come across like a salesperson. Being persistent feels aggressive and salesy (and maybe even unprofessional). We also shy away from follow-up because we are afraid of rejection.

And not only is it easy to take it personally when we don’t hear back, sometimes we will infer ill intent or bad character on the part of the other person (they don’t want to hear from us or they are too self-absorbed to respond to us). Of course, this is simply the fundamental attribution error at play. It is hard to know what someone else’s intentions are just by observing their behavior.

If you are trying to build your practice, follow-up is crucial. Legal services are generally big-ticket items that people don’t need all the time. If you want prospective clients and referral sources to think of you when a problem arises, you need to be visible over time. One phone call or one email message will not create the ongoing visibility you need.

This book teaches Authenticity and Consistency are Key. There are many ways to make yourself memorable. Differentiating yourself from other lawyers who do what you do is a good starting point. In doing so, don’t forget to be authentic. We’ve been discussing that throughout this book. Choose a niche that you enjoy. Pursue personal interests you like. If you are the kind of person who sends birthday cards, pays condolence calls, or likes to share cartoons, do that. In terms of style, just be you! Everyone else is taken.

And don’t forget to keep it up over time. It may be 15 minutes or 15 years before someone may need your services or hear of someone who needs your services.

Even the most memorable lawyer will be forgotten if she doesn’t keep showing up. Stay the course.

 

Failing to stay in contact with former clients is a big, missed opportunity. It takes a lot of time and energy to build a trusted relationship with clients. That trust is essential in getting clients to hire you in the first place. Once that trust is built, clients are likely to think of you if they have a legal need or if they hear of someone else who has a legal need. My office in Edison NJ is one of the last attorneys who continue to send annual cards to clients- a Calendar rather than Holiday card.

Clients who know, like, and trust you are generally your best referral sources. If they were happy with your service, most clients are happy to make a referral. The reality is that the opportunity to hire you again or make a referral is episodic. That is the nature of most legal work. It could be months or years before a client needs your services again or is in the position to make a referral. In the interim, the memory of the great work you did may fade. Vercammen Law send monthly or bi monthly email newsletters.

Therefore, staying top of mind over time needs to be a critical part of your marketing plan. Knowing when and how often to follow up is an important part of that. Trusts and estates lawyers, for example, can post articles on their website on why new parents need to have a Will, set up a durable power of attorney, designate a healthcare proxy, etc. Employment attorneys can speak about how to effectively terminate an employee. Corporate lawyers can speak about traps to look out for when selling a business.

         I would recommend this 202 page book to all attorneys looking for easy ideas to improve practice and marketing without spending thousands of dollars on marketing budgets. These are many ideas to do it yourself, not having to hire expensive consultants.

ABA members only  $39     NON-MEMBERS  $49  Authors  Stephen E Seckler