What does it take for lawyers to become the person others think of first? This episode explores a practical approach to personal branding built on relationships, useful content, and consistency.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Tim Semelroth discuss:
- Talent alignment in marketing and trial work
- The “Three Ls”: Lists, LinkedIn, and the Lectern
- Strategic follow-up with referral partners
- Finding an authentic content style
- Consistent posting and content repurposing
Key Takeaways:
- Put people in roles that match their strengths instead of expecting training alone to create enthusiasm.
- Build a focused contact list and prioritize the relationships that generate the most meaningful referrals.
- Share what you know with people just a few years behind you; you don’t need to wait to be recognized as an expert.
- Make your marketing useful to your audience. Position yourself as a guide, not the hero of their story.
- A sustainable routine of posting, commenting, and reaching out can keep you visible over time.
“[They] don’t want a Luke Skywalker; they want a Yoda. People who are paying attention to you online, they’re not looking for a hero. They’re the heroes of their story. They want you to be a guide who can help them solve whatever’s going on in their lives.” — Tim Semelroth
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Episode Reference:
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About Tim Semelroth: Tim Semelroth is a partner at RSH Legal (Riccolo, Semelroth & Henningsen, P.C.) and a board-certified trial attorney dedicated to representing injured Iowans and their families in complex personal injury, truck accident, and wrongful death cases. He holds board certifications in both Civil Trial Law and Truck Accident Law from the National Board of Trial Advocacy, making him the first lawyer in Iowa to earn board certification in trucking accident law. A past president of the Iowa Association for Justice and former chair of the Iowa State Bar Association’s Litigation Section, Tim also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. He earned his J.D. with high distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law after graduating summa cum laude from Drake University.
Connect with Tim Semelroth:
Website: https://www.fightingforfairness.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsemelroth/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
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Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
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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 [00:01]
Before we jump in today’s show, if you’ve been listening to the podcast or reading any of my books, the Be That Lawyer community is clearly the next step for your growth and development as a rainmaker. Learn proven strategies, connect with ambitious lawyers just like you, and put new ideas into action. Check it out at bethatlawyer.com/community. Build your book, own your future, and be that lawyer.
Narrator [00:30]
You’re listening to Be That Lawyer: Life-Changing Strategies and Resources for Growing a Successful Law Practice. Each episode, your host, author, and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here is your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:52]
Hey, everybody! Steve Fretzin here, and welcome to the Be That Lawyer podcast. Tim, you know we’re here twice a week, every single week. We’ve been doing this for like six seven years we got 600 plus episodes. Is this your second time on the show or third?
Tim Semelroth [01:06]
It’s my second. Well, actually, I was part of a panel. All right, we’re holding it. Okay, well, great. So I’m almost there to the Five Timers Club. I’m in the smoking jacket, right? Yes,
Steve Fretzin [01:17]
there’s a special room we put you in, and of course, there’s a lock you never can get out, but anyway, that’s a different story. You know, everybody needs to have a lock room for for people. Anyway, that got dark quick. So listen, we’re gonna have some fun today. I am just such a fan of of yours and the way that you’re building your brand and how you’re really embracing things that many attorneys don’t embrace. And so I want to get into the deep end with you on that, but let’s of course take that one little step back. Now, John Morgan, big player in your space, and he was our 500th episode. If you haven’t heard John on the on the Be That Lawyer podcast, go back and listen to 500. But I got to be honest with you, I don’t know what the hell this quote means. So I’m I’m curious to hear your take. It’s you cannot send a turkey to Eagle School, I kind of can guess what that means, but I’m not sure. So anyway, welcome back and tell us what the heck that means.
Tim Semelroth [02:08]
Well, it’s really a management piece of wisdom, and you know the the reality is that you somebody is going to be who they are, and so maybe somebody is good in front of a jury. Well, you know, you can only do so much, right? You know, if they’re a Turkey, you can send them to all the training in the world, but they’re never going to be the world’s best trialer. Yeah. Likewise, in a marketing standpoint, you know, you have people who are great at marketing, and then you have people who you can give them every piece of training. You know, you can have them listen to every episode of your podcast, Steve. And the the bottom line is, because their heart isn’t in it, they’re never going to be great at it. And so the lesson for me is when you identify those people in your firm who are good at marketing or who like marketing, you know those are your eagles, and you just have to do whatever you can to let them soar and not get so caught up in the people who it just isn’t an interest for.
Steve Fretzin [03:18]
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s so true, and I mentioned this on my last show. I had an interesting gentleman on talking about MSOs, a guy named Frederick, and really cool, interesting stuff. And you know, I used to work with law firms. Like I’d come into your firm or other firms, and I would you know take on 1015, 20 lawyers at a time, and everyone loved it. So that’s like a positive. From like, all right, I’m glad everyone loved it. The problem is, out of like 10 people, maybe two did it right. So you got eight people that took in the content and said this makes sense, and then did nothing with it or very little with it. And then maybe it maybe 10 years later, over 10 years, they did something with it. But there are two people like that that showed up with a pencil out, ready to go, and they just couldn’t execute fast enough on what they were learning. So you know, again, you can lead the horse to water, but you can’t, you know, make it drink, and that’s also going to be a good lead into, you know, talking about branding today. But I think people need to know your story, that you know, the short version of it, of course. But you know, Tim Semelroth, everybody, senior trial attorney at RSH Legal, many times on the show, and and give everybody a little a little hint on how you came to be.
Tim Semelroth [04:20]
Well, I am born and raised in Iowa. I joke that I made it all the way across town. I’m living in my hometown. I’m married to my high school sweetheart, and I came back after doing a judicial clerkship and started with the firm with with two trial lawyers doing plaintiffs work, and fast forward 28 years, and we now have the largest injury and disability firm in the state of Iowa with offices in in three different cities and almost 18 lawyers, and so that. That’s why that quote from John Morgan speaks to me. Is that you know I put all kinds of opportunities in front of the attorneys that that work for me to market themselves, build their brand. But the reality is, is that if they if they don’t have a heart for it, if they don’t enjoy it, they’re not going to do it, and that’s fine. You know, it’s my job as a leader of the firm to you know to help people become the best lawyers they can be. And some of them will be marketers, and some of them will not.
Steve Fretzin [05:30]
Yeah, it’s just it’s just a reality. And unfortunately, what’s what I’m seeing is you know the splitting apart, the fracturing of lawyers who are leaning into business development and branding and LinkedIn and things and and and the results that they’re getting and the books that they’re building and the people who are just committed to keeping their head down and being a service partner and for some of them it’s going to work out. I just can’t I can’t lie to people. There are service partners that are going to be important and necessary and and they’re going to be fine. And there’s a number of service partners that are just aren’t, and and whether it’s AI taking their jobs or it’s the fact that that you know they’re you know a 50 year old attorney that can be replaced by a five year old five a five year in you know associate and it doesn’t require maybe as much pay who knows but I can tell you 40s and 50s are when people are coming to me it’s not necessarily the early the early folks and not the later folks. So, so why like why do you see it as such a critical thing? And you’ve done an incredible job at this. I mean, I don’t know anyone that’s branding themselves better in Iowa in particular, and I think nationally too, by the way, than you. And so when I have someone like you on Tim, like I get excited because I want to hear like how like how did you like? What was your epiphany that this was important?
Tim Semelroth [06:44]
Well, it actually starts back 25 years ago. So I had been working for a few years, carrying you know the the founders’ bags, going to court, you know, doing whatever tasks, you know, write this brief, argue this motion, and apparently John Riccolo, the founder of our firm, decided that it was ready to give me a case, and so he came into my office. This is back when we had paper files, puts put five files on my desk, and says, “You’re in charge of these now. I was so proud. I was so excited. He walks out, and then I start reading the cases, and this one has a liability problem, and this one causation is pretty iffy, and this one there’s not really much in terms of damages. And I walk into John’s office, I’m like, hey, there must have been some kind of mistake, you know. And I start going through all the the shortcomings in all of these cases, and he just kind of leaned back, and he looked at me, and he said, “Tim, if they were better cases, they’d still be on my desk. And and that is when I learned the lesson of what lion share means. And I think a lot of people use that term to mean a lot, but what it really means is the lion gets his pick, and everybody else gets the scrap.
Narrator [08:10]
Yeah,
Tim Semelroth [08:10]
and so I decided at that moment that if I wanted to work on good cases, I needed to be a lion.
Steve Fretzin [08:17]
Yeah, and it’s it’s it’s just incredible to me that there are lawyers that have this epiphany in that moment, and then don’t take the next step. Right? They don’t flip that switch that says, “I’m not gonna, you know, I’m just gonna keep carrying the bags, and I’m gonna keep, you know, taking the scraps and all of that. Because I think the reason is, is there’s two main reasons, three main reasons. Number one, you didn’t learn any of this in law school, so it’s all new stuff. Number two is it’s it takes effort, like it takes effort and time to like build a brand and to build business and to go out and network and do the things that others are doing that you’re not, and you know, and you figure it’s going to take away all this time from your family or from the billable hour. And third is it’s just hard, you know. This isn’t an easy road, and so what’s the easier road? Well, just keep my head down and keep working and billing hours. Well, that’s okay now, but you know we had 2008 show us something else, and we may have 2000 or 2027 show us something different. So then, what did you do to get started? So you had that epiphany, and then you’re like, all right, now what do I have to do next?
Tim Semelroth [09:16]
Well, I became a student of marketing, and I started to identify what were the things that I could do that would cause people to send me work, and and and from a personal branding standpoint, it really comes down to what I call the the 3l’s. And so, L number one is a list. I had to start making a list of everybody who I was working with because those are the people who hopefully know, like, and trust me. Okay. The second L, and and this is much more a few, quite a few years down the road, is LinkedIn. Link. In is this amazing platform to stay top of mind with other lawyers, and that’s where the best cases come from. I mean, that’s the the statistics in our firm make that absolutely clear. Our best cases come from referrals from other lawyers, and then and then the third L is the lectern, and and that is taking the opportunity to speak to lawyer groups. You know whether it’s you know in person CLEs or it’s webinars or it’s doing podcasts like that. And and what I found is those things act as a flywheel. The the more I speak, the more people who are on my list, the more connections I make in LinkedIn, and when I’m doing all three of those things, that’s when the referrals start rolling in. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [10:50]
In in in by the way, the three things you mentioned are again, you know, they’re they’re things most lawyers just aren’t leaning into, and maybe we just spend a little bit more time on each of those as we kind of cut through here, so we were just talking earlier about lists and the idea that you you know you have 100 people in your life to follow up with 100 people is challenging. So wouldn’t it mean and and it’s not that that some are better humans than others, although it might be true. We’re not saying that from a standpoint of your business and referrals and and you can’t spend time with 100 people, but maybe there’s 10 where you’ve gotten like 80% of your business from 10, right? And then you’ve got another 20 that have given you some things, and you’ve got you know good potential to grow. And then maybe there’s everybody else. So shouldn’t there be an A, B, or C list of who you’re like? I’ve got my clients, and I’ve got my top referral partners. Those are my A’s, right? So, what should I be doing for them? Maybe different than the C’s who are down, kind of down the road a bit.
Tim Semelroth [11:51]
Absolutely, and that’s that’s a lesson I hear from you again and again as an avid listener of your podcast. And it’s really important. Yeah, you want to keep track of everybody who is referring you cases, but that is not a one and done thing. You got to pay attention to you know are are they consistently sending you cases, and if they are, and if they’re good cases, then what can you do for them? Yeah, and and so you know whether it is you know, taking them out to to dinner. Whether it is sending them gifts, you know, just to remind them that you’re around. Whether you know any of those things. But you’re right. There’s only so much time in the day, and you have to be strategic about how you are interacting with your list,
Steve Fretzin [12:40]
yeah. Couple thoughts on that from the highest level time. You know, are you visiting those clients? Are you taking them out for dinner? If they’re sending you millions of dollars, or or half a million, or whatever the number is, and you’re not like spending time with them, is that you know is that a concern, or is it just having just regular Zoom check-ins if they’re far away, to just to just say, hey, how are you, and what can I do for you, and how have you been, and how’s little Jimmy doing with the soccer practice or whatever it might be, there’s inviting them to come to events. There’s inviting them to be on a panel, to be on a podcast, to you know get them in front of people, sending them handwritten thinker. So there’s there should be a list of things that you that you’ve thought of or that you’ve done your research. And the nice thing is, you can hear it from me or Tim, and and you are. You also could go to freaking ChatGPT and just say, look, I need 10 great ideas for how to stay in touch with my clients who in this area of law, and it will just tell you what they are. You don’t have to be a rocket science to know this stuff now.
Tim Semelroth [13:43]
Well, it’s sort of like you know, if knowledge were all it took, we would all have six pack abs, right? Right. But it’s the follow through is what we need to be able to do, and and that’s where you know the secret weapon for me recently has been a virtual personal assistant because if you have somebody who is not in your legal workflow, because cases come up, depositions come up, you know, fires come up, but if you have somebody who is working for you who is helping make sure that you touch those bases with the people who are important. That’s a game changer.
Steve Fretzin [14:24]
Yeah. Yep. 100% Hey, everybody. Your next big client might call at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. The question is, who’s picking up? With LexReception, 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 receptionists representing your firm the right way around the clock. And right now, be that lawyer listeners get 250 off their first month. Visit www.lexreception.com/partners/be that. To claim your offer, that’s www.lexreception.com/partners/b.lawyer. Hey, everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and at 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 at Rankings.io today. And I want to skip LinkedIn and come back to it because I think what we really want to talk about is how do people decide what content to create? So it could be speaking, it could be writing, podcasting, it could be you know posting on social media. There’s a lot of different ways to go. How did you figure out what was right for you, and and how do you like when you talk about branding? Like how do you help people figure out what they should do?
Tim Semelroth [16:20]
Well, I am a teacher at heart. My mom was a teacher. My wife was a teacher. I’ve got a sister that’s a teacher. I’ve got a daughter that’s a teacher. So that comes to me naturally. So I’m an adjunct at the University of Iowa College of Law. I’ve been coaching mock trial for 30 years at the high school and middle school level, so all of those things-it’s that is a natural element for me. And though it was funny, I I I put a transcript of a recent CLE speech that I gave into Claude, and I asked it to analyze my presentation style, and it said, you know, you’re really more of a trial lawyer than a teacher. You have a you have a what a paraspect
Steve Fretzin [17:08]
to you?
Tim Semelroth [17:09]
Yeah, they’re like you have a perspective that you are you are trying to sell, and you’re convincing people with evidence. But but anyway, so I that fit in really naturally, and and there are lots of things that I’m interested in in the practice of law. Whether it’s like you know early on it was well, how do I become better at cross examination, or you know eventually as my practice evolved to where all I do now is truck accident cases. You know how do I do a deposition of a safety director at a in a trucking company? And so, what the great thing about speaking on topics like that is you get to do a deep dive, right? Like you get to not only look at what you’ve done in the past, but research what other people are doing, and and and so that’s that’s how I find a lot of the topics that I like to present on, but but here is the message that I give to people because people oftentimes I get pushback, particularly from my students, where they say, “Well, sure, that makes sense for you. You’ve been doing this for 28 years. You’ve got the trial track record, and what about me? And I said, “You know what? We are all experts to people who are three years back on the trail, and so if you are a if you’re an associate, then you have the best, most current advice for new hires at your firm how to succeed. You know, if you are a if you if you just got hired, but you are a law clerk. Well, you have great advice about how to get get a clerkship. You know, get a judicial clerkship. If you’re in law school and you’re a third year, you have great advice for first years. And so that don’t wait for anybody to anoint you as an expert. Just start sharing your hard-earned advice with the people who are just a couple years behind
Steve Fretzin [19:07]
you. Yeah, and I think you’re spot on with that. And you got to be you. You be you. Don’t try to be Tim. Don’t try to be me. You be you. It doesn’t mean that you can’t follow people, listen to people, watch people, and emulate things that you like. I heard someone do you know a quote of the show at some point, or what’s your favorite book? And I put that in my show. I’m not stealing. I’m you know I’m just leveraging an idea. It’s that person’s not the first that ever came up with what book do you like? Give me a break, right? So we just we we want to figure out what’s working for us. I would add two things. Number one is you know know who your targets are. If you’re in in personal injury and you know that you’re looking to reach other attorneys, maybe be on other attorney shows, right? Or if you’re looking to you know reach out to chiropractors or or people that are in the healthcare world, nurses, doctors, and that’s where you’re going to get referrals from. Well, then there. There are shows that are specific to them, or there’s publications that they read that you may want to try to get into. For me, above the law was a great pick because I went from a local Chicago paper to a more international national rag, and so, but so know who your targets are. Number two is what can you enjoy? You know, if you enjoy social media, lean into it. If you enjoy video, lean into it. If you don’t like any of it, then the next question is, what can you stomach? Because me walking down the street with a selfie stick makes me want to throw up. I can’t stomach that for myself. I just can’t. If people told me I’d make a million dollars walking down the street with a selfie stick, I’ll say. I think I’ll be okay. Like I’m going to figure it out another way. On the other hand, if somebody said, “Steve, you can do really well podcasting with guys like Tim and other experts that have a lot to share, all in. I’m all in. I love podcasting. I love talking with Tim and others, and I can do this all day long. And then we get the content, the video, the audio, and then Tim, talk us through repurposing. How do we leverage the speaking, the writing, the video, the podcast? How are we leveraging that?
Tim Semelroth [21:11]
Well, I’ll tell you exactly what I do with it. And again, it’s a flywheel thing. So what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to get referrals from other lawyers. I want everybody to know that I’m the lawyer that you call in Iowa. So step one is I am I’m telling stories on LinkedIn that I think will be entertaining, interesting, or helpful to other lawyers. Okay, I am then watching how those are performing, which ones are are getting reactions, which ones are being reposted, then what we do is I’m taking the best of those, not just from me, but from other lawyers in my firm, and we are turning that into an e newsletter, where we are repurposing the stories that we told in LinkedIn, and it goes into a newsletter that’s going out twice a month to the lawyers on our list. But then the third step is, and this is unique to Iowa, right? Is that I’m a member of the Iowa State Bar Association, which means that I can buy the list of the 6000 lawyers in Iowa who are members of the Iowa State Bar Association. Everybody who is on that list gets a one-page print newsletter once a month, which is basically the best of the LinkedIn posts that we do. And and and it’s interesting because we started exactly as you said. You have to have a target market. You have to have a goal in mind. Be interesting, helpful to other lawyers. That transitions very easily, and each of those different media reaches another person. Somebody you know likes reading newsletters, you know, in their emails, some people like getting them in their inbox. Some people are on LinkedIn, but it’s very rare that I have people respond say, “Oh my gosh, I see all three of it. It’s like they, it’s like, “No, I really like your newsletter, or “I I love your posts on LinkedIn.
Steve Fretzin [23:16]
Yeah, the flywheel really goes to demonstrate the power of content creation and what you do with it. So you might just write an article that isn’t being published anywhere, right? But you maybe you publish it on LinkedIn or you publish it on Substack or your blog or whatever, and then maybe that article can be broken up into three different social media posts, and now you’ve got three weeks of posts there. You also have like like this podcast, right? So we have the podcast audio, which goes on all the podcast channels. We got the video, long form, short form, on all social channels, and then we get a transcript of this that gets truncated into the to the articles that go into a publication like Rainmaking Magazine, which it does, or into a book like the “Be That Lawyer, 101 top brain makers, secrets, etc. etc. So, lawyers that worry about social media and posting, a lot of it comes from not having any either fresh ideas or not having the content that allows for them to be comfortable posting, knowing that they should.
Tim Semelroth [24:18]
Yeah, and big plug for your book. You know, it was it was amazing to watch you put that together because it it really is. It’s the culmination of of you know your years of podcasting, and now it’s something that you know people don’t throw away books. Yeah, you know they it sits on their shelf, and so you know I can I can wave at you every morning if I want
Steve Fretzin [24:41]
- Yeah. No, thank you. And it’s a in you know it was an incredible collaboration because we were able to collectively repurpose something that was that was magical that where there was two to three to four great takeaways just like from this like we’re we’re doing now there’s going to be takeaways from this that people can utilize. And put into practice. Well, what if you had 100 of those, 101 of those, right? Where every chapter had two or three things that you could learn that aren’t help you be better, be smarter, work. You know, work in a way that’s going to help you grow. So I I love every aspect. Now the question is, can I pull that off again? And and do I want to go through that? I don’t know. That’s a that’s a we’ll call that a work in progress. But I guess that where I wanted to take this, by the way, was Tim and I are telling you like you need to get out there and you need to to produce content or do something active, or just post on LinkedIn regularly. But but the other piece of this that he’s sharing in in in 25 years of this and me doing this for over 20 is consistency. Can you speak to that. Why consistency is such an important aspect of of branding?
Tim Semelroth [25:45]
Well, because people are living their own lives and they are not paying attention to what you’re doing. And so, if you are not a frequent guest in their inbox, in their mailbox, in their social media feed, they will forget about you. Yeah, and every lawyer who’s been doing this for any amount of time can tell you about running into a past client on a street corner and making small talk and realizing that they had something come up in their lives within the past year or two that you could have helped them with, and and and they just didn’t even think to call you, and it’s because once you’ve solved their problem, once you’ve represented them in that case, they will forget you, and it’s it’s humbling, but it’s an important thing that you need to to to realize because it’s that consistency. You want people to say, “Gosh, I see you everywhere.
Steve Fretzin [26:43]
And the other myth to that we want to add to this, to to sort of dispel, is that it has to be me bumping my chest. I’m super lawyer. I’m greatest lawyer. I’m best dancing lawyer. I’ve got the cool cat, cutest cat lawyer. Whatever it might be, that it isn’t about your accolade. Now, if you want to post something about a huge win for a client, mix it in. But I think you said it very clearly earlier. You’re you’re a teacher. You’re here to educate. You’re here to entertain. You’re here to get real, be authentic. And I think that’s where we need to instruct lawyers that you know this is the attention economy. And while we are trying to get attention, let’s do it in a way that feels good. We can be the silver lining through the gray mass of shit or crap or whatever we want to say that is social media because we’re doing it right. So be be you know be be the future of what social media could and should be, and so talk to that a bit.
Tim Semelroth [27:35]
Well, I mean, you just brought up like one of the biggest mistakes that I made my career, and that is, and and I made the same mistake in the courtroom that I did online. And you know, I tell people about my first trial. I you know, I had wanted to be a lawyer since I was in junior high, and so the first chance to try a case on my own was was you know something that I’d been looking forward to for years, and I tell people I wanted to try it in the worst way possible, and that is exactly what I did, and and and I did because I made it about me. I made it about you know how eloquent I was, and how hardworking I was, and how you know how brilliant my questions were, and and that is a losing recipe in the courtroom. Likewise, my first website, my first website was all about me. You know, it was it was my resume, and it was my wins, and you know, it was all you know, 10 things that are great about Tim’s firm, and again, that is a losing recipe online. As the the the line I like is, jurors don’t want a Luke Skywalker, they want a Yoda, and and I think the same applies for you know people who are paying attention to you online. They’re not looking for a hero. They’re the heroes of their story. They want you to be a guide who can help them solve whatever’s going on in their lives.
Steve Fretzin [29:14]
Yeah. So when you think about you know content creation or or just posting on LinkedIn, number one, be consistent. Do it once a week or at least, and do it for a year. And to Tim’s point earlier, look at what’s going on. Look at the response and the reaction. If you’re doing things that aren’t getting the algorithm to take you seriously, or that are not putting out in front of your people, make changes. Like, don’t just stay the course with something that isn’t working. Right. That’s the definition of insanity: is doing that same thing over and over again, expecting something different. So sometimes I’ll do just text, and it’ll be about you know a personal experience that I’m having or that went through. Sometimes it’ll be business related. I just posted something, and it’s funny because I got a new Rivian r2, and I. About it, I think it got 16,000 views already in a day or two. Now, some people are like, “Well, Steve, you’re bragging, or “Actually, I use the image and in the point of me getting a car not to brag, but to actually tell a story about why we do what we do. It’s it’s not just the car; it’s the trip I want to take with my beautiful wife. It’s sending my son to college without him worrying about debt, right? It’s about having the retirement plan so that I’m not working into my 80s, although I probably will. What the car represent? And some people got it and they they commented in that fashion. Other people were like, you know, you know, I hate that. You know, what an ugly car or whatever. Okay, that’s your opinion. But the point is, is like mix it up between authentic you mistakes you’ve made. Be real, and then maybe also educate. I love the idea that I can I can throw some education in there too and mix it up a bit. Any any final thoughts on that?
Tim Semelroth [30:54]
Well, the posting is just part of the recipe. Yeah, and you know my good friend Tony Albright taught me this, and that is, you know, each week, you know, you want to be making 10 thoughtful comments on other people’s posts, yeah, because that’s going to mean a lot to them. That is going to cause them to to think about you. You want to you want to do five direct messages to to your you know to contacts every week. Now I understand you know the DM box in LinkedIn is a cesspool, right? But you know it’s a way to reach out and just say, hey, you know when are we getting together next time, or or hey, you come. I’m coming into your town in a couple weeks. Are you free? And then, if you do that, you can really have a meaningful presence on LinkedIn with just one post a week, as long as it is a as as long as it’s real. It’s not, you know. I here’s you know, here’s five reasons why I’m the greatest, but you know it’s that it’s you know your experience in buying a new car. You know I posted about a you know a line I used in a presentation to the ABA solo and small firm section this week about AI that that got a laugh, and you know and so it’s it’s things like that, but that that recipe, which is is the you know Tony Albright special, you know 10 comments, five direct messages, one post a week, that is that is completely sustainable. And I tell you, you do that for a year, and people are gonna say, “Wow, I see you every time I open up my LinkedIn.
Steve Fretzin [32:42]
Yeah, I love it. I love it. And use your use your life. Like I’m watching. I know this is crazy to say, but I’m watching going tearing through Walking Dead. All right. Now I I I explain very clearly like this is not my thing. Like faces being eaten off, people not my thing. But the human experience within that situation is definitely my thing. So I wrote a post about on LinkedIn. I’m writing an article that’s going to be published in Above the Law pretty soon, and so it’s just something that popped into my head. And so you said something to me. I wrote it down. It’s we are all experts compared to people three years back in the trail. That’s a LinkedIn post that’s going to go up today or tomorrow, and I’m going to name you in it because you said it, and I’m going to talk about what that means and how we maybe young lawyers need to think about that they are really far ahead and they do know a lot more than than the common person, and we need to use that. So everything that happens in your life that you is not worthy, maybe it is worthy. You just need to give it a chance. So with that, I’m going to turn to what’s Tim’s big mistake?
Tim Semelroth [33:41]
Well, I shared that with you. Spilled the beads
Steve Fretzin [33:43]
earlier. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Semelroth [33:45]
Making making a trial or making a about you know making your marketing about you. But you know, I’ve got plenty of mistakes. So so here’s another one for you: not having a plan when you go on social media is is is a huge mistake. I the first time I decided I wanted to be active on LinkedIn, I just said, “Oh, well, I can do a post like that. I can do a post like that, and I tried to do 100 things to everybody. Ultimately, I realize that what do I want people to think of when they see one of my posts on LinkedIn? I want them to say, “Hey, that’s Tim. He’s from Iowa. He’s a lawyer, and he does truckling cases. And and so, if you look at my profile, that message comes through in my picture, in my you know, in my description, in my my profile head headline, and so that is what I want people to keep coming back to. If if people remember that, then I’m winning. Yep,
Steve Fretzin [34:57]
I love
Tim Semelroth [34:58]
it.
Steve Fretzin [34:58]
I love it. Also, I want to just. Mention if you’re if you’re totally opposed or you don’t know what to talk about or how to get started on LinkedIn, there is a tool that I’ve been using and I’m using it primarily to test it out for my clients. But I’ll give it to you and I’ll put the link in the show notes. But it’s called Stanley AI, and essentially you chat with it like it like you chat with anybody on your phone, and it it will actually create the post and you tell it about you what you want to write about talk about anything that happens to you it then creates the draft you approve the draft and then it actually posts it for you as an agent so if we’re talking about using agents now this one’s pretty pretty much an agent and when it goes in and executes but you approve everything so I’ll put that in the in the notes for everybody but if you just need a place to start, I think you get a two-week free trial. So give it a shot. I think you might like it, everybody. Tim, amazing! Thank you for coming back on the show, sharing your wisdom. I know you’re just a master at branding. I see you everywhere, and I certainly, you know, do my best to try to think of you when I when there are personal injury attorneys that that I think will be good for you to meet that are not in Iowa. But you’ll come back again soon. I would love to. All right, all right. We’ll have you back. Thanks, man, and thank you everybody for hanging out with us. Oh, I forgot to thank our sponsors. Oh crap! Of course, Lawyer.com, rankings.io, and LexReception. I didn’t forget about you, folks. I love you, and also check them out. Check them out in the show notes and check out their links. It’s another way of delegating and getting things done in a better, faster way. Also, Tim, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to be connected with you as as the Iowa lawyer they use and choose. What are your digits?
Tim Semelroth [36:34]
So definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. But I am so proud right now. We just rolled out a brand new website that I think does a better job than anything I’ve ever done in explaining what we do and who we help, and so that@fightingforfairness.com’s. And so go to fightingforfairness.com. It it just launched this latest version just launched this month.
Steve Fretzin [37:02]
Oh my God! All right, I’m going to check that out. I I love looking at new fresh websites. I’m actually in the process of re redoing ours, and and I’m always and I’m going to be I’m going to be poking around a lot of good websites to see what’s new and what everyone’s what everyone’s doing. All right. Well, thank you again, and thank you everybody for hanging out with us for the last 30 and change. You know, this is where you build your book, own your future, be that lawyer, be safe and well. Talk again real soon.
Narrator [37:30]
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 important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.
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