Evan Polin: The Mindset and Methods Behind Law Firm Business Development

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts Ron and Rebecca Bockstahler are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout, no more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you are in the right place. Now here are your hosts, Ron and Rebecca.

Ron Bockstahler: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the podcast about the business of law. I’m your host Ron Bockstahler, along with my co-host Rebecca, or better known as RB. In 1958, the ABA published an article that sparked the birth of a billable hour, of the billable hour, and the legal profession hasn’t looked back. This show is about what comes next. Each episode, we sit down with attorneys, business leaders, and the people who support them to talk honestly about what it takes to build a law practice that’s not just successful but sustainable. So let’s get into it. Rebecca, are you going to introduce our host today? We got a really special host today, Evan, who I just sat through his how many week class, Evan? That was a 12-week program, 20-four-week program. It was worth every minute of it. Now, in all seriousness, we’re sitting here today. We’re talking about something that most attorneys either avoid or they do it poorly, and that’s selling. And the person we have with us talking about it is the author of nobody ever. Nobody ever told me I’d have to sell. Evan’s been running those firm. He’s been doing this for over 25 years. There we go. Got a copy of the book right here. We are selling professional services the Sandler way. You got two books,

Evan Polin: right? No, it’s selling professional services the Sandler way, and then the subtitle. Nobody, nobody ever told me I’d have to sell.

Ron Bockstahler: Excellent. Anyway, Evan really just just had a 12 week rainmaker program that I was blessed to be in along with one of our new account executives, and it’s an amazing program. So I’m going to highly recommend it to anyone. And thus we got Evan on the show. So Evan, welcome to the show.

Evan Polin: Thanks a lot, Ron and RB. Thanks for having me today, I really appreciate it.

Ron Bockstahler: Let’s let’s kind of start with the hardball question. The title, the subtitle, nobody nobody ever told me I had to sell. It’s pretty honest diagnosis. How did you come to realize what that that was the core problem for attorneys, and how did it shape what Pollen Performance Group became?

Evan Polin: So, like many great ideas, it happened completely by accident. So, had a sales training franchise, worked with my father, family business for a long time. One of our best clients was a financial advisor. His top client was the managing partner of a law firm who was looking at selling, and was told that because he generated about 95% of the business for the firm, the firm really wasn’t worth anything without him. So if he wanted to retire, his firm wouldn’t be worth anything. So he brought us in to put together a training program for his associates. We went in there, and in all honesty, completely got our butts kicked. Treated it like traditional sales training. Very quickly realized that attorneys are not like traditional sales folks. So took some of those lessons, came back, reformulated the program. They had great success. So the managing partner of that firm referred us to the managing partner of another law firm, who had some of the same issues. Now that we had kind of repositioned how we had done things, understanding that most attorneys, at best, have five to eight hours a week for business development. The rest of the time, they’re actually practicing law, doing the client work. So as we went back, refigured, had great success with the next firm that referred us to another firm that referred us to another firm, and before we knew it, 60, 70% of our business were with professional services. And over the years, we continued to tweak, continued to modify, managing partners realized that again, if they wanted their firms to grow, they didn’t want to be responsible for feeding all of the males. So they would start to go and want us to work with their attorneys. And quite frankly, some of the younger attorneys realized that they weren’t going to have control over their career unless they learned how to develop a book of business, that guess what? If you’re a fifth year, sixth year, seventh year, unless you’ve got some great specialty that someone new coming in can’t possibly do, if you don’t start generating revenue, if you don’t start generating new business, then. And when the economy gets bad, when times get tough, you can be expendable. So we started working with attorneys. One who wanted to start their own firm, but knew that they didn’t have the skill set. Two were spinning their wheels. Wanted to make partner. A lot of firms are not transparent about how someone makes partner, but they are let known 789, 10 years into their career that guess what, bringing in business is going to be a part of the formula for you to make partner, for you to get bonus, for you to make more money, and if you don’t want to build 2500 hours a year, you need to do something else to bring value to the firm. So that’s really how I got started, and it evolved from there again to writing a book and to really focusing our training for attorneys, for other professional services, accountants, advisors, folks who are really selling their expertise more than they’re selling a product.

Rebecca Bockstahler: So that’s interesting. Can we go back to where you talked about you went into your first meeting with the managing partner, who I’m sure was it was a rude awakening to find out that maybe his firm didn’t have the value that he had hoped after all of those years, and so you go to your meeting and you said, “quote You got your butts kicked, and you mentioned one thing might have been that there was a limited number of hours put towards business development by the attorneys, but also what else did you notice that was so different that you walked out of that first training session feeling like it didn’t go as well as you would have hoped?

Evan Polin: So, great question. A couple of things: one, the sheer amount of time; two, the fact that in most states, attorneys can’t ethically cold call and do some of those kinds of things that folks in traditional sales and business development roles would do. Something else we’ve learned very quickly, and I can get into a little bit of my background before this, but it really helped, is that most attorneys weren’t comfortable doing it, so if we didn’t help them with the mental aspect of you need to move out of your comfort zone, you need to try to do something different, you need to reframe what business development is all about. That it’s not used car sales, but we need to be able to leverage our expertise to be able to identify problems that we can solve for our clients, before we did that mindset, people weren’t willing to try any of the tactics, any of the techniques that we gave them. So now, for a large majority of the training and the coaching that I do, at the very beginning, we start with mindset, because if we don’t get that mindset right. It doesn’t matter what tools, what tactics you put in front of someone if they’re not willing to use them. It doesn’t really matter. And a little bit about my background: my undergraduate degrees are in psychology and sociology. I’ve got a master’s degree in social work. I had a small counseling practice for a while, so I was able to take some of that expertise and repurpose it for a lot of the work that I do, and a lot of what I’ve done over time hasn’t just been training, but doing one-on-one coaching, helping folks identify what’s getting in their way, why are they stepping on their own toe, and what’s keeping them from doing the stuff that, quite frankly, isn’t that complex? It’s not rocket science, but there’s things that keep them from doing what they need to be doing to be successful. So really, starting there, and then branching out and sharing with them the different techniques, how to prospect, how to qualify opportunities. But if they’re not willing to try it, it doesn’t matter what you put in front of them.

Ron Bockstahler: Evan, let’s go back like to the first thing, like talking about the mindset walking in because you know of 1000s of attorneys I’ve worked with. Ironically, a couple days ago, I was out with one of my boat partners who’s a pretty successful attorney, and his words out of his mouth: sales. I am a salesperson because if I can’t get the client to you know close them to get the retainer, all my marketing is worth nothing. So how do you how are you attacking that mindset that I’m an attorney, I’m not a salesperson?

Evan Polin: So the mindset that we’re really trying to that that we’re really focused on is I am not a salesperson, but I am an expert and I am a help agent, and my job is to have conversations with people who may have problems that I can help, and ask the right kinds of questions to one determine if I’m the right attorney to be able to help them, and two to get them to see through the questions that I’m asking them that obviously if I’m asking them are the right questions, uncovering the right issues, that I must know what I’m talking about. Therefore, be the right person to talk to them. And what I see, I just started working with an attorney a couple of weeks ago, and the attorney was having challenges. It was pretty straightforward what the attorney was what the attorney was doing. If somebody had an issue with their license, I. Doctor, a nurse, a psychologist-that-that-that they got something issued by the state, and this person was jumping on the intake and saying, “Okay, well, this is what I’m going to do. This is the next step. This is the next step. This is the next step, and was only converting about 15% of those intakes into new clients. So we just said, “Hey, understand that. But the people that you’re talking to, they’re nervous. They don’t know what the next steps are. They don’t know what the challenges are. So let’s rather than just walk them through and tell them everything that we’re going to do and send them a retainer letter at the end, let’s ask them questions. You know, has anything like this happened before? Do they know what the challenges are? Do they know what the consequences could be if this isn’t taken care of the right way? What is their expectation of how an attorney is going to help walk them through the process within two weeks? The close rate went from about 15 to 18% to about 60-5%

Ron Bockstahler: Wow!

Evan Polin: And the attorney was sending out less engagement letters because the attorney was identifying more quickly in some of those calls. Some of the people were just looking for the absolute cheapest solution, or just looking for somebody to tell them what they wanted to hear in terms of guaranteeing an outcome, they couldn’t do that, so less engagement letters went out, and a way higher percentage of them closed without anybody having to chase them down after the fact. And that’s what I want my clients to do: is use their expertise to ask the right kinds of questions, hopefully drive some urgency in terms of uncovering for their clients. Because a lot of times their clients don’t know what they don’t know. I don’t care what kind of law that you’re practicing, unless somebody is regularly using an attorney. They don’t know what they don’t know. So by asking them the right questions, you can get that light bulb to go over their head. If you’ve built some rapport with somebody, they can determine whether or not they’re comfortable with you. You can also determine whether or not you’re comfortable with them, or if you don’t love the client, what kind of aggravation fee you want to put on top of your typically hourly rate? That’s why my fees are so high, Adam.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Well, it’s interesting though that you talk about having to teach them how to ask questions because then my thoughts went to you have individuals who are trained as litigators and asking questions, but there has to be a very different tone in questions you might be asking someone in a courtroom and questions that you’re asking a prospective client, and how do you cover any breach in that with people in your sessions?

Evan Polin: I actually back them up a little bit. So, four attorneys from kindergarten through law school. How many years have they been going to school?

Rebecca Bockstahler: A lot.

Evan Polin: Yeah, 20 plus

Ron Bockstahler: 20-seven.

Evan Polin: So, in school, when teachers ask you a question, when the law professor asks you a question, you get rewarded by having the right answer. So, very frequently, even though when they’re in court, they want to ask questions. Oftentimes, before that, they they feel that their value is by having all of the answers. So oftentimes, when they first meet with a potential client, they want to show off how smart they are. They want to show off their expertise. So rather than taking a step back in finding out what led someone to give us a call. What are they looking for out of their relationship with an attorney? What are some of the factors if somebody’s calling two or three different attorneys? What are the factors that are going to help them decide what’s the right fit for them? They’re not asking any of those questions. And the other thing I find is they feel differently when they feel like they’re selling, versus before someone becomes a client, so they really want to. They they feel under a lot of pressure. They feel a little bit nervous, so they want to kind of get across everything they know. But oftentimes the client isn’t 100% truthful with us up front, doesn’t really know what’s really important, and if they’re not asking the right kinds of questions, they may not draw those things out. So a lot of it is a mind shift from your value is really when you’re in the business development role derived more by how much information you’re getting from the other person versus how much of your expertise you’re trying to share. And again, for a lot of people, it’s hard. They have to bite their tongue. Sometimes I have clients that will get a little yellow post-it note out, write the word “shut up” on the post-it note, stick it right in the middle of their screen because they need that constant reminder not to go on and on and on and on, and try to tell a client exactly. Exactly what they’re going to do, and exactly you know exactly what their strategy is in that very first consult.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s interesting because I just heard you just say some of the most intellectual people that we have in this country freeze up or they have trouble when they’re having those initial conversations, kind of like the client intake.

Evan Polin: They they have trouble. They’re also afraid that maybe they’re going to get a question that they’re not prepared to answer. So if I just keep giving my presentation, if I just keep talking about what I can do and how I’m going to work with someone, they feel like they’ve got control. But if at the end of the day they’re doing 80% of the talking and then sending out an engagement letter-it’s like it’s glowing, going into a black hole-and they probably really don’t have a good idea about whether or not the person’s going to sign that engagement letter, what that looks like. But if they ask really good questions, they’ll be able to better qualify that opportunity, identify if that client’s a right fit for them for their firm, and know what’s going to happen once they send out that engagement letter.

Ron Bockstahler: So, are you teaching them to come in and be prepared when you’re getting that prospect call for? Here’s a script. Like, here’s the questions you want to find out. What’s the process? What are you teaching them at this? So,

Evan Polin: great question. I don’t give them a script because the other person never has the other half of the script. Not once has the other person said, “Oh, that’s the question I got. Okay, let me. So what I want to do is give folks a framework. I also find everybody’s got their own personality. Everybody’s got their own unique style. So if everybody were to get the same script, it might work for 10 or 15 or 20% but it’s not going to work for everyone. So what we’re going through with them is okay. What information do you need to uncover from them to know whether or not they’re a good client for you? What questions should we be asking? And geez, you’ve been practicing for a while. You’re probably never surprised by what the issues that your client has are, so let’s think through what are the three or four or five reasons why they might be calling you, and then let’s be prepared to ask questions in those different areas. And the other mindset mistake that I think people make at the beginning is people go in with I want to close every single opportunity. That’s not the right mindset because not everybody is qualified. The goal should be my job is to go in there, is to ask questions, is to qualify or disqualify, is to also give the other person permission to tell us if, as we’re talking, they don’t think that we’re a fit for whatever reason to give them permission to tell us no, so that nobody’s wasting their time. And guess what? If RB and I are talking, and based on what she’s sharing with me, I’m not the right fit. I’m going to come across way better to say, “Hey, RB, you know what? Based on what you’re talking about, I don’t think that we’re the right firm for you. Let me refer you to these two or three other firms that might be a better fit. And guess what? RB is probably going to remember that. And if she runs into an issue down the road where I might be more appropriate, she’s probably going to come back to me because I was able to play the role of that kind of that kind of advisor, rather than being someone who’s trying to just get her to sign the engagement letter.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah,

Rebecca Bockstahler: yeah. I guess that’s where the true part of consultative sales comes in-that it’s not always going to be about closing the deal if you’re viewing your role is that of a true consultant or advisor, as you said.

Evan Polin: Correct. My job is to solve somebody’s problems. Not everybody has the kinds of problems that I can solve.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah.

Evan Polin: Or I may not be everybody’s cup of tea. And if I can tell right away that style wise it’s just not going to fit, let me put them with somebody who might be a better fit, and and give them something that’s going to make them more comfortable, and quite frankly, save myself a lot of aggravation. My guess is everybody listening to this podcast at one time or another has taken on a client that they were sorry that they took on. If we can prevent that from happening, that’s a positive as well.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s funny. I’ve taken on many clients that I’m like, “Why did I do that? And sometimes I kept them even after I asked myself that question.

Rebecca Bockstahler: And you’re not even an attorney.

Evan Polin: I’m not even an attorney. I’m thinking through the confidence level. Like, there’s the one thing. Like, as you were talking, I started realizing I can have that confidence when I’m talking to someone, because I don’t have to have everyone I talk to, I don’t have to have. I don’t got to sign every agreement, which I know that was my old mindset: is I’m here to sign everything. But that’s really the wrong mindset. So I think that’s it’s amazing you brought that up and just had me feel I could be coughed to talk to people because I don’t have to have every deal. Right. What the the mindset that we want. Everybody to walk into a consult with is, I’m financially independent and I don’t need the business. If it’s a good fit, if I can help them, they’re comfortable with me. Great. If not, let’s figure that out in the first 20 to 20-five minutes of the first conversation and not waste anybody’s time. Versus having a call, not really being chore, following up two or three times, not getting anywhere, then being uncomfortable, wasting a lot of time, wasting a lot of effort.

Ron Bockstahler: You kind of brought this up without the title. Remember the old show up and throw up, and it sounds like that you you must see a lot of that when you’re working with some of the attorneys, and then let’s so that’s that’s kind of what you just talked about. But then there’s the 7030 rule that you talk about in your class.

Evan Polin: Yeah, the prospective client should be talking 70% of the time. If we’re talking, we’re not learning at all what their issues are, what their challenges are, what their expectations are, what they’re looking for out of who they’re going to work with, what their budget is-are they able to pay a retainer? Are they able to afford to work with us? So that’s why, rather than people having these great pitches, and by the way, the bigger the firm, the more complicated and the larger the pitch deck, we need to get much better at asking really good questions versus being prepared with this pitch, being prepared with this script. It’s about asking really good questions, and that’s going to make all the difference.

Ron Bockstahler: So, kind of talk about the difference when you let’s talk a family law firm. You got a high net worth prospect, and then you got the average Joe, right? The the quantity you bring a lot of quantity coming in, and what’s the different conversation between the high net worth and the average Joe?

Evan Polin: So typically, the different conversation is that attorney that’s working with the high net worth needs to ask questions early on in terms of what they’re looking for, asking about budget earlier on in the process, you know, sharing up front that we’re not the right fit for everyone, that this is typically what somebody’s investing with us, and this is typically why, and again trying to see whether or not that resonates with the prospect, and if it doesn’t, being able to disqualify, and quite frankly, that really high-end financial advisor should be developing strategic partnerships with financial advisors, with accountants, with attorneys who are working with business owners but not doing the trust and estates work, so that they can get more introductions where they’re going to have that instant credibility, where somebody’s not going to flinch as much at the price, versus somebody who may be doing more of the blocking and tackling the low end. They need to get really, really good at their intakes, really, really good at qualifying opportunities quickly because we don’t want to have 234, conversations with somebody where it may just be a $5,000 file. We need to be able to very quickly qualify or disqualify that opportunity. Otherwise, people are going to be working really, really, really hard. They’re going to be really, really busy and not generating the amount of revenue that they need to generate because of all of the time they’re wasting on smaller opportunities, so the smaller opportunities are good. We just need to be tighter about more quickly qualifying them, and also doing a better job asking them for referrals, introductions, other people like them, so that again, if we do good work for one person, hopefully over time that turns into two or three or four clients, based of word of mouth reputation, and asking for referrals in a professional way.

Ron Bockstahler: Interesting. Can you you got a 12 week program? Can you walk us through the steps of the program and and kind of what do you anticipate that they’re going to have they’re going to know different or do different when they come out the other end.

Evan Polin: So, great question. So the content of the program is broken into three parts. We’ve touched on some of them a little bit. Part of it is having the right mindset to be successful in business development, to be willing to try new things to get the kind of results that you want to get, the next piece which we really haven’t touched on yet, but is crucial, is figuring out what our goal is and putting together a plan to hit our goal. So a lot of attorneys I work with either have no idea how much business they want to develop, or they kind of pick a number out of the air, or maybe they’re given a number if they’re with a larger firm, but they have no idea what that means in terms of how many new clients need to come on board, how many engagement letters need to go out, how many initial intakes they need to do. So a big part of the program is. Working with people to kind of work backwards, identify what the goal is, help them figure out what that plan is, so that they’ve got a trackable plan that they can follow week in and week out, month in and month out. They can be tracking the front end activity that they’re doing and seeing whether that’s getting them the back end results, and make tweaks throughout the process, rather than getting nine months of the year and going, oh my God, I’m only at 30% of what my goal is for the year. Now I don’t have any chance of hitting it, and then giving them that plan. There’s about 20-five different prospecting things that someone could do. Most, especially attorneys, can only do three to four at a time. So based on who our target client is, how much time we have, what our budget is for business development, helping them put together that plan, and then the last piece is where we spend a lot of time teaching them a consultative approach to business development, from building a good relationship from that first conversation to making sure that somebody isn’t going to back out after they say that they’re going to work with us, and setting the expectation in terms of asking for referrals down the road. So with the 12 weeks, those big picture are the three things that we’re working on. The sessions are once a week for an hour over Zoom. The sessions are recorded, so if you’re on vacation, if you had to miss a week, or if you just want to go back and go back through the notes, there’s a link to go back and listen to the entire recording. There’s an AI overview summary. The other piece that we find is important, it’s helpful for a lot of attorneys, is we have an accountability app that all of our clients who are part of the program get where they can customize what their goals are, and it’s not replacing a CRM, but it’s a check the box. I said I wanted to ask for two referrals a week. I said I wanted to do five five intakes a week. I wanted to send out two engagement letters. I wanted to you know get one new client, and then they’re ticking off whether or not they did what they committed to do. There’s some of the materials from the program embedded in the app. So those are the primary components. There are additional components to the program that are optional if folks want. They can have six small group coaching sessions where we’re role playing the different concepts that we’ve taught. We’re doing problem solving. We’re doing strategizing, and then there’s a highest level tier where people can also take an online sales assessment. It takes them about 25 minutes, gives us a 35 page report on their strengths and weaknesses specific to business development. So again, we can tweak that coaching even a little bit more. Those folks get once a month an individual one-on-one coaching session with myself or my business partner. Again, to really hone in on their specific goals, their specific opportunities, and at the end of the program, folks should have a written business development plan in terms of exactly how they’re going to get get to what goals that they have, and have a plan of what they need to do week in and week out to make sure that they’re achieving those goals. They should have a good process from first five minutes of a call, through qualifying or disqualifying, through making sure that somebody doesn’t back out the end, a repeatable process that they can use on every call, that based on what they’re hearing from the prospect, with a very high level of accuracy, will let them know whether or not that person is going to move forward, and then there. they’re also getting the confidence in terms of asking good questions, asking for referrals, developing strategic partnerships, so that they can work smart and not just work hard to make sure that they’re achieving their goals. And just about every type of attorney should be able to see measurable results from the beginning of the program to the end of the program in terms of getting in front of more opportunities, having more new clients come in, getting referrals from more sources. But they should be able to see that measurable results, but before the end of the three-month program.

Rebecca Bockstahler: That’s interesting. So, other than your class and your course, obviously, what other business development tool do you see that attorneys kind of ignore and miss most often? That should be really high on their radar.

Evan Polin: Great question. Most attorneys either don’t have a CRM, or they don’t do a good job tracking. So once somebody comes a becomes a client, whether they’re using Clio or something else, they typically do a good job of putting the opportunity in once someone becomes a client and to manage the case all the way through. They don’t do a great job tracking. Okay, who did I have my intakes with? Where are they with in the process? When should I expect to get a decision? Approximately, and again with litigation, it may be difficult, but approximately, what what what is the case worth? And they’re not tracking those things. They will do random acts of networking, where they’ll go to a bar association or a chamber event or something here and there, but not really track what they’re doing. They’re not really tracking how frequently they’re meeting with people in their network. They’re asking for referrals. So again, having a good process to be able to do that is going to go a long way to let people know whether or not they’re doing the right things to be able to achieve their goals,

Ron Bockstahler: it’s a lot to unpack, Evan.

Evan Polin: So it it’s not easy, but the change that you see in someone when they realize that they really can take control over their practice, that it’s not you know cross my fingers and hope that enough of the right people give me a call, but really having a plan, having that plan in writing, so knowing what to execute on week in and week out, typically gives people that feeling of control, and knowing that it’s not magic, you know, wishing and hoping are not strategies, but we can really put something in place to give us control over our career. Again, whether it’s simply making partner where we are, or getting bonus based on business generation, or having the confidence to go out and start our own firm, once we feel that this is typically the number one hurdle that folks need to get over to be able to have the confidence to go out and do those things.

Rebecca Bockstahler: And do you need to treat people differently or work with them differently? If it’s maybe a young associate who is coming into a firm and just realizes from the start that they’re going to need to be responsible for this, as opposed to maybe a more senior attorney who has been relying on the reputation of the firm, maybe, and suddenly figures out that he or she is responsible for building a book of business.

Evan Polin: So, great question. Business development is not a one size fits all. So, somebody who’s been practicing for 25 years is going to have a different plan than from somebody who’s only been practicing three or four years, an extrovert, someone who loves going out, meeting people, going to events, is going to have a different plan. One of the biggest success stories we ever had was with an IP attorney who was a PhD who was good with everyone but people, but guess what? He was really detail oriented. He did great work for his clients. He was a great writer. So his strategy was getting referrals from clients he did great work with, getting referrals from strategic partners whose clients he really took care of, writing articles and himself, and having the firm proactively get those articles out there to get them him out there as a content expert, which is way different from somebody who loves being up on a stage, loves talking, loves going out to events, doing all those kinds of things. So again, there’s 20 to 20-five different things that someone could do. There’s really only three to five that somebody has time to do at any one time, so that’s where the customization comes in. That’s where the assessment can help with folks not going through that 12-week program. That’s where the one-on-one coaching can help. Actually, to Ron’s example before, I worked with an attorney in Chicago before who did trust in estates, whose smallest client was a 15 or $20,000 client. That’s going to be a different type of networking than someone who’s working with the masses and is looking to get in front of lots and lots of people. And it doesn’t have to be somebody who’s got a particular amount of wealth for them to be able to work with. Again, completely different plans, both trust and estates attorneys.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah, well, this all definitely speaks to the amount of time that you spend getting to know the people that you’re working with, so that you can help them come up with those customized plans.

Evan Polin: Yeah, it’s crucial to know what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their goals are, what their bandwidth is, and then really put together the plan based on all of those factors.

Rebecca Bockstahler: It’s interesting.

Ron Bockstahler: Well, having gone through the program, I mean, it’s a wonderful program. Got a ton out of it, and I’ve been doing sales for I don’t know a very very long time. A lot of lot of great refreshers. You know, I think some of the the key takeaways that I walked away that I forgot I haven’t been doing was you know preparing for a meeting, like what do I want to accomplish out of that meeting? I mean, I go back to my very as a young copier sales guy, you know, 40 years ago, showing up with one of those information binders was so big, and my sales major happened to me with that day, and he’s like, “You’re not going to actually go. Why is it so thick? It’s supposed to be this thick. And I go, “Oh, because.” I got everything. I’m prepared, and the client’s first thing it is looked at me is, “You’re not going to go through that whole thing, are you? And I’m like, “Ah, really? But I mean, just the program I thought went from you know understanding personalities and and how to talk to people, building that quite the the questions that you want to ask people. So this is amazing program. I think you guys do a great job. You and your partner, a lot of experience there. Other attorneys sit in that, sit in the in the training. So can’t say enough good things about it. I’m excited to see you got another program coming up. Can’t wait to get our next rep because we’re going to send all of our people through the programs. I mean, I think every attorney out there, especially you’re going on your own, yeah, you’re building the book of business. You got to learn how you learned how to practice law, but you haven’t learned how to do these things.

Evan Polin: Yeah. The question we ask all of the attorneys we work with: How many classes in law school did you have on building a book of business, and how many continuing ed courses are there on building a practice and building a book of business? And the answer is almost always zero.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, that’s it’s it’s hard, right? It’s the psychology. It’s something you got to learn. It’s something you got to be taught how to do these things. And if you’re not going out and getting the resources, if you’re not sitting through your class, you’re going to struggle. It’s going to be a long road. You can be the smartest attorney in the world when it comes to law, but have no ability to bring you build your book of business, which is going to limit you. So, Evan, last last word before we wrap it up.

Evan Polin: So I really appreciate the two of you having me on the podcast. That program is going to start on june 9, once a week for 12 weeks, 12 o’clock East, 9o’clock Pacific, and that’ll run right up until right before Labor Day. And I again really appreciate you having me on.

Ron Bockstahler: It’s great having you, Arby. You got any last words?

Rebecca Bockstahler: No, this has been informational and really interesting. Thank you for sharing your time.

Ron Bockstahler: All right, that’s all we got for today. If today’s conversation got you thinking about your own practice, I hope you take one idea and put it to work this week. We’ll put Evan’s contact information will be in the show notes, as well as a link to sign up for his upcoming class or the program he has. Reach out to him. Wonderful person to talk to and learn for. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave us a review, share it with a colleague who could use it. As always, the 1958 lawyer is brought to you by Amata, AmataCorp.com. Check them out. Thanks, Evan. It was great having you. Look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you.

Voiceover: Thanks for listening to the 1958 Lawyer. If you like the show, tell a friend, and please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to hear more about Ron, Rebecca, or Amata, go to amadaoffices.com That’s AmataOffices.com. All the links are also in the show notes.