Why Past Clients May Be Your Law Firm’s Best Growth Strategy, with EJ Stern & Katherine Wilson

Episode Notes

Transcript

Bernadette Harris:

Hi, I’m Bernadette.

Zack Glaser:

And I’m Zack. Welcome to the Lawyerist Podcast, one of the many ways that we help lawyers build healthy firms, better businesses, and more sustainable lives. Today, Stephanie talks with EJ Stern and Katherine Wilson about client relationships in your law office. So Bernadette, a couple days from when this podcast drops, I am headed in the air to Las Vegas for 8:00 AM’s second annual conference. And 80 AM is MyCase, Case Pier, DocketWise, all of those, that family of products for their conference called Kaleidoscope, which is in Las Vegas, September 22nd to 24th. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be interesting. I love going to these conferences. I love going to these conferences.

Bernadette Harris:

Yeah. I think conferences in Las Vegas, it’s a hit or miss. It kind of depends on if you like that energy or not.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s been a while.

Bernadette Harris:

When I think about conferences, I always have somewhat of a conference strategy. I go into the conference and it’s like, I want to walk away with two new things because sometimes at conferences you can be drinking from a fire hose. And so I want to make sure that I at least walk away with just two good ideas. That’s usually my max. What about you?

Zack Glaser:

I like that. Two good ideas is good. I was actually just talking to my wife about bringing one of those plawed cards to a conference and just turning it on, but that’s just going to increase the fire hose, right? If I just record everything for my notes. So I like, let’s look for two specific things. That’s nice.

Bernadette Harris:

Otherwise, you’ll come back with so many ideas and you won’t do anything. That’s why I usually say two is my number.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay. So when I’m in Las Vegas, September 22nd to 24th, I’m going to look for two things from 8:00 AM that I can bring back and share with our Lab community. But if people in our community want to go to Kaleidoscope, they can use the promo code Lawyerist26 and get a $99 pass, which can be used. If you go onto their website, go to the Kaleidoscope, go to register, you’ll find that $99 is a significant deal. So I don’t know what we did to get this deal, but go, go, go, go use it. Lawyerist

Bernadette Harris:

26.

Zack Glaser:

And we’ll put that in the show notes in a link. Yeah. And now here is my conversation with Maddy Martin and then Stephanie’s conversation with EJ and Katherine. Well, hey, Maddy Martin from Smith AI. It seems like I see or hear or bump into you everywhere these days. I was just at Iltecon, you were at Iltocon, and before we started recording, we were talking about it. Man. And for those that don’t know, Ilticon is International Legal Technology Association Conference that is huge at this point. There was a lot going on. What were your thoughts on that?

Maddy Martin:

My thoughts were that it was certainly opulent and I think

Zack Glaser:

I – Opulent, yes. I

Maddy Martin:

Think that word is appropriate having sat for quite a while in Harvey’s booth, if you could even call it a booth. The home. It felt like an entire office floor. Actually, it felt like an art gallery because they had art hanging on the paneled walls. And I was really impressed with the level of conversation around implementing AI in these large law firms like AmLaw 100 firms. But as someone who primarily works with small and slightly mid-size firms, it was a bit of a shell shock to see the expenditure and the investments that are being made in case work without so much conversation around governance and the safe application of these tools. So it felt a little bit very heavy on the marketing and a little reckless, but a beautiful setting for sure.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. I mean, it was opulent, I think is the right word, but frankly, it did make me think about, because AI was the word there, AI, AI, AI. And it did make me think about folks like SmithAI. I’m going to segue this into you guys, but it did make me think about folks like SmithAI because this is something y’all have been incorporating artificial intelligence into the platform obviously since the beginning of SmithAI. And it makes me think about what are we missing in some of the basics? When we get out there, the research is sexy. The doing the Law is sexy. This is going to write you memos. This is going to tell you what the judge is going to decide on this. And I’m going to say that’s kind of fantasy at this point, or at least really difficult to do. But I think of somebody like SmithAI where it’s like, well, here’s a chunk we can bite off.

Here’s a thing that we can deal with. And I think specifically sales, sales, marketing, intake, we can actually bite that off. We can actually use artificial intelligence in that.

Maddy Martin:

We can. And we have been behind the scenes since the very beginning at SmithAI. Before we had AI receptionists on the front end actually handling calls, we had human receptionists whose calls were being monitored and graded with recommendations being made by the AI, with call summaries being written by the AI. So we were shaving time off of the human investment in each call and we were improving every next call and only at the point where the AI was good enough to actually put it on the phone directly with a caller who might be a new lead or existing client or judge or court staff, et cetera. Did we feel like the time has really come for AI and humans to work together on that call, executing it live, not just AI in the

Zack Glaser:

Backend.

Yeah. There’s a certain responsibility that goes to implementing the AI there. And I wanted to highlight that again, SmithAI has been doing this stuff for implementing AI, using AI for a significant amount of time. But I think that a lot of times we don’t think about intake and marketing in that AI or at least it’s not sexy to us as lawyers because, and you and I were talking about this before we got on air, because sales is a bad word in a lot of law firms. Sales is a dirty word in a lot of law firms, and I think that’s problematic.

Maddy Martin:

It is problematic. And I’m going to try not to take this conversation too much with the sexy metaphor, but there was a lot of things that I think certain attorneys would call taboo at Elticon. And there’s a little bit of a peep show vibe with AI right now that’s happening where it’s like, “Ooh, are we allowed to do that? Are we allowed to play in that realm?” And to me, where SmithAI sits, yes, I want to change intake into sales. Let’s just call a spade a spade. It’s not a dirty word to call it a sales funnel. Intake is your sales funnel, right?

Zack Glaser:

Right.

Maddy Martin:

And

Zack Glaser:

We need to admit that.

Maddy Martin:

Yeah. You got to admit it so that you can inspect it, right? I mean, you can’t inspect anything that you haven’t actually documented and defined. So I think it’s funny and ironic that we still find calling intake sales taboo when in my mind, especially after seeing this overt sexiness, if we want to call it, of AI at Elticon, in my mind, that is way more taboo and risque than intake as a sales funnel. I mean, that is textbook. That is type A school Marm. It is pretty routine and not at all taboo, but yet we treat it as if it’s taboo still, which is curious to me.

Zack Glaser:

It is. And where I’m kind of getting at with this is from your first statement of we were using AI in the background to make sure that our calls are getting better, that we’re iterating, we’re iterating, we’re making this. If you think about this process as sheer intake, as an intake process, then we won’t inspect it as much. And if we release the tabooness from it and say, okay, this is a sales funnel and the benefit of AI in that sales funnel, yes, there’s a benefit of having AI be the one that is talking to the client. Sure. Again, that’s kind of that next level sort of AI. But the real, real benefit is what SmithAI has been doing for a long time of how do we make that sales funnel better? How do we iterate in there? And if we don’t admit that it’s a sales funnel, we’re not going to get the benefit of what is at this point almost routine AI.

This is easy AI. I mean, I don’t want to say easy AI, but this is AI that’s been kicked around. It’s been around the block.

Maddy Martin:

I think what you mean is accessible, right? It seems

Easy to implement. It doesn’t seem intimidating, right? Right. When I think about intake, I think about a one directional process. I think about an assembly line. It feels like a manufacturing process to me. And when I think about a sales funnel, I think about steps, but I also think about loops to catch fallout at each step. So for example, you book an appointment, well, you have fallout of no-shows. How do you prevent the no-shows? You send a calendar invite and you send reminders at a certain cadence leading up to the appointment. And if there is a no-show, you immediately chase that lead and you follow through on that original qualification that if they’re worth booking an appointment with your firm, they are worth chasing to make sure that they show up to that appointment. I mean, we could spend an entire hour talking about that one little step of the intake process, AKA your sales funnel.

There are so many loops within those leaks in the sales funnel that you can bring the lead back around, back into the flow. But when I think about intake, I don’t think about those loops. I think about a manufacturing process where, and this is often what happens at the firm, let’s say there’s an outlier. I’m thinking about chocolate candies. There’s one that’s malformed and it got through the last step. All right. Well, there’s a little robotic arm and it swats that bad one out because the laser

Zack Glaser:

System

Maddy Martin:

Told us it’s not square, right? Right. Well,

Zack Glaser:

It

Maddy Martin:

Goes in the trash. It doesn’t get looped back around to be reformed because it’s got all the right elements of that chocolate candy, right? So that’s the difference between intake and sales. It’s the same manufacturing line, but the way that we interact with it to salvage things that might get tripped up is different.

Zack Glaser:

And in my brain, I love that. And I think of the opening that I love Lucy, date myself a little bit there, where she’s eating the chocolates that are bad. But I love that because as I think about this, I can use AI there in a very, very safe way of helping me, even just helping me build the process to loop that back in, to bring that candy or at least all of that back into the beginning and reform it. I love that. Well, like you said, Maddy, we could probably have an entire hour conversation on just this area. Indeed. But if people want to dig into it a little bit further, where can they find you? Where can they find SmithAI?

Maddy Martin:

So you can find me on LinkedIn, just search for Maddy Martin. And for SmithAI, you can visit smith.ai, that’s our website. And we do offer both AI and human receptionists, either or both for your law firm’s needs. And we would be happy to chat with you about your current sales funnel and how we can optimize those new leads coming into your firm to give you the best potential clients you most desire to work with.

Zack Glaser:

Love it. Well, once again, Maddy, thank you for being with me and for talking to our listeners about Smith AI and sales funnels instead of just intake. Thanks again.

Katherine Wilson:

Well, hello, Stephanie. Thank you for having us. My name is Katherine Wilson and I’m the co-founder of Fractional Law Firm CMO.

EJ Stern :

And I’m EJ Stern, the other co-founder of Fractional Law Firm CMO. We help law firms large and small, increase their revenue, generate greater business, and also of course, elevate their brand in the marketplace.

Stephanie Everett:

Love it. Well, hello to both of you. I am super excited to have you on the show today because I mean, first of all, you’re just both fun people. We should just say that.

EJ Stern :

Well, sorry are you, Stephanie. We always love chatting with you.

Stephanie Everett:

I know. And Atlanta Peeps.

Katherine Wilson:

Yay. ATL.

EJ Stern :

Next day coming up.

Stephanie Everett:

Exactly. Yeah. We were actually going to a conference. It’s funny. I always see my Atlanta legal tech friend or friends in this space at conferences, but I think I was actually at the Atlanta airport headed to a conference when I ran into EJ in the security line and we were like, “Awesome. We always have to leave town to see each other.” Not good. Well, today I thought what we talk about is something that feels so easy and yet, I don’t know, maybe we just don’t put enough time to it, which is kind of this idea of client nurturing. Now we did the hard work to get the clients. How do we nurture them so that they send us even more work or send us their friends who we can then do work for?

EJ Stern :

Right. Absolutely. Clients are often the greatest referrals and the nurturing process is so critical as we look to expand the relationship. So I think you’re right. I think we often overlook it. We aren’t asking for feedback like we should. I think 70% of law firm clients want to be asked for feedback, but less than 30% actually get asked, which is really interesting. And those clients, especially for smaller firms, can be your most epic referral sources and can really help drive your brand forward. So I think the nurturing process is something we really need to spend as much time and effort in as we do sort of cultivating the relationship and building the business case to bring them in the first place.

Katherine Wilson:

And I think that many firms, if they look at their client list from year to year, sometimes they don’t even realize that clients who aren’t nurtured, they end up ghosting their firms. They just slowly, quietly disappear. And it’s not until you do that reflection and say, “Wait, why haven’t I heard from that person? It’s been two years.” That can be a shock when we go back and look at that.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah. You guys said something interesting that 70% of people actually want you to ask for feedback. Say more about that. I think that would probably, like you said, EJ, that would shock people. It’s shocking me right now. Really? Because why? They want to, not because they want to upset you, right? Hopefully not.

EJ Stern :

Right. No, it has nothing to do with that in fact. But I think law firms have this initial feeling either, oh no, I know what my clients think and feel and we’re on the pulse or on the flip side. I don’t want to ask because I don’t want to find out. And it’s a massive fallacy, quite honestly, because the more knowledge we have, the better we can serve and service that client and retain and grow that client as whether it is as a client itself or as a referral source helping sort of be a raving fan for you. And some of that fear is, well, what if I get bad feedback? What do I do? Or who do I have to break the bad news to on my small team? And I think those things are fixable, but we’re too afraid to ask or we assume we know what’s best for the client.

Clients love to share good news and bad news because they want to partner with you and they want to grow something. And so if it’s fixable because you’ve already established the trust, you know that they already like you, then they want to take the effort to fix it, but they’re not just going to knock on your door one day and say, “By the way, this really sucked for me.” You have to ask that proactively like, “Hey, what’s going well? What could we be doing better?” And there’s a way to frame it such that you put the client at ease to share it. You show that you’re valuing their perception and that you really want to sustain and grow that relationship long term. This isn’t just a blip one and done, but it’s something that you’re trying to develop a partnership with.

Katherine Wilson:

And Stephanie, you are an attorney and I’m a former attorney. And I think a lot of this goes back to how you are trained as lawyers. We are trained to always want to be right. It’s part

Zack Glaser:

Of

Katherine Wilson:

The law school ethos is you always have to have that right answer right when you’re called upon. And so I think there’s just something innate for lawyers who are very high achievers to almost resist any type of negative feedback and to also feel like they should always know what their clients need, to EJ’s point. So you’re also going against that nature of that type A people who tend to be lawyers to open that up and have that vulnerability to where you’re opening yourself up to maybe some negative feedback or to admit to your client that maybe I don’t know everything that’s happening within your world, right? That can be a little scary.

Stephanie Everett:

All of this is resonating with me. And maybe what I was also thinking about was clients can’t always control the case, right? They can’t control their facts necessarily. If they’ve already happened, they certainly can’t control the law, but they might still want to, if they like you, they might want to help you be better. It’s like you said, how do you create that partnership, that trusted advisor relationship, even beyond what you’re doing for them legally where they could say to you like, “Hey, can I give you some advice?” If I asked for it and somebody got to be like, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about this. Here’s how you could really make this a little bit better.” Then they feel more invested maybe in you and in your working relationship.

EJ Stern :

That’s exactly right. And recent research out of BTI is that clients at the end of the day are more concerned about their experience with their counsel than the outcome, which is really interesting. It’s not all about winning because there’s some cases you’re not going to win, but the outcome could be better than otherwise. It’s sort of the journey that you’re along. And so if we rethink, obviously the goal is to be successful in those cases, but we can’t win them all. Inevitably the facts are stacked against us sometimes. But thinking in terms of, I want this to be the best experience, I want them to view me as a problem solver, I want to help my clients and help them develop and grow and their business to develop and grow, it makes all the difference in terms of that experience.

Katherine Wilson:

Right. I think that the trusted advisor, if you are the attorney, you’re the person that they call when they have a problem, but if you’re the trusted advisor, you’re the person that they call to brainstorm with and to talk about their nine other problems that they may have. And so you’re transcending that transactional, I help you with this one problem and really becoming a resource for them both personally and professionally.

Stephanie Everett:

It occurs to me that probably a lot of people sort of handle this kind of work through surveys like forms because it feels easy and let’s be honest, it’s less personal. Maybe it takes some of the sting out if they do want to say something. But what I hear both of you talking about is an opportunity for engagement, for conversation, for relationships. So do you have recommendations of the best way to kind of capture and ask the questions and get people to actually give you what you want to know?

Katherine Wilson:

I think there is a strategy behind how you approach this feedback. So looking at your client base, there may be some where it’s perfectly appropriate to send a survey, but for those top clients, those large clients, regular clients or large referral sources, that personal one-on-one, whether you send the managing partner of the firm to show that this is a very important relationship, whether it’s the lead attorney, depending on the size of the firm, and then whether you have a third party actually collecting that feedback. Sometimes we’ve been in situations where we’ve been that third party because they really want a neutral ground to approach, maybe it’s a very large client with lots of touch points, maybe there’s a sensitive issue going on. There could be various reasons why you would want a third party to do that feedback for you. But I think looking at the client themselves and what are you trying to accomplish, what are you trying to head off, what are you trying to grow, and then what is the right vehicle for getting that feedback?

It could be multiple avenues.

Stephanie Everett:

I think these are good reminders. Look, we know this stuff, but then we got to make the time to do it and pick up the phone and call people, which maybe then even shifts to kind of maybe where I think we should go next, which is what are some of those common missed opportunities that lawyers often forget on how they can stay connected to those past clients and keep that relationship going over time?

EJ Stern :

A warm and easy one is LinkedIn. We love LinkedIn. I actually just had a call with Debbie on this topic because we both agree it’s just such a critical tool. It’s so easy to stay top of mind with your contacts and your clients and just to see what’s going on in their life and in their world. It’s sort of a micro touch point, if you will, but statistically you need seven to 10 meaningful touches across a year in order to stay top of mind. And so I think really anything that gives an opportunity, whether it’s grabbing lunch, finding what your common passions are and investing in them. A great article came out a few years ago from an in-house counsel at Motorola, and she had previously been in a big law firm and she said, “It’s not breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktails or golfing that gets me.

It’s really helping me shine, thinking about ways to help develop me professionally and personally, seeing me, figuring out what I’m interested in in a truly authentic way. What restaurants, what movies, what books, so that if you come across something, those small things, it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. It can be little things that made you think of that person that you sort of send a book or invite them to a dinner or to a concert are really impactful. Other things that get, I think, overlooked so often is you have clients that have kids. We all have kids, right? And even if you wanted to do something, even if you were extreme extrovert, we’re tied down at the end of the day and need to go spend time with our kids and want to spend time with our kids. Well, many of our clients are in the same boat, so find ways to connect with and invite the kids along.

If you bring kids to Disney on Ice or fill them up with a ton of sugar at a movie theater, they will never forget your name and you will always be beloved. And then just figure out what they’re passionate about and show up in a meaningful way. If they’re running a sort of breast cancer foundation or a big 5K on a certain project that’s really meaningful to them, be present or acknowledge that and say good luck or make a donation. Those little touch points are easy and are often overlooked.

Katherine Wilson:

And I think along with the specific actions and ways that you can really enhance a relationship like EJ was speaking to, also broadening who is it that we’re speaking to in general? So when we have past clients, if a matter closes, are they forgotten? Are we still keeping in touch with them? I mean, even if you’re in a space where maybe they’re not going to be contacting you again, multiple divorces, they are a great referral source. So how are you staying warm with those past clients? How are you treating your referral sources? If they send you a great piece of a great matter, are you sending a gift? Are you staying top of mind with them? Looking at with clients and referral sources, who has changed companies? Where have they gone? Looking at alumni. If you’re at a firm that is large enough to have an alumni base, where are they going?

Are you keeping up with them? So looking more broadly than just at the perspective client, maintaining those relationships all through your network and staying on top of the changes that are happening in their lives is important.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah. I love this. I love all the ideas. And EJ, you gave us a bunch. I’m curious, just to kind of go in a wacky direction, have you guys heard. Because we talk a lot about gifting or how to keep top of mind, and so is there a favorite one or two examples that you both have of something wackadoo? What’s something that you were like, “Oh,” but then you’re like, “You know what? That’s pretty cool. That’s different.” Because I think we all kind of hear, I don’t know, it just gets tired. Oh, we’re going to do that again. So I love Disney on Ice, but what would you add to the list of crazy things you’ve seen but that are good and work?

EJ Stern :

Yeah. I mean, I think there are all kinds of things you can do and anything is accessible nowadays, right? The internet, Amazon, all the things are wonderful things. You want wackadoo? Okay. Pause this for a second. Let me find it. I don’t know if I should share this. I don’t know what it is. I sent it to a client. Oh. I won’t read it, but she was having a really, really rough go. And so I sent her this great little candle. Ah. My last fuck. Oh, look, it’s on fire.

Katherine Wilson:

Yeah. Nice. We send little dumpster fire little guys to people that we’re working with just to say, “Hey, we’re there in it with you.” I think anytime you can put humor and a common interest, those are always going to be the best, right?

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah. I don’t know. I went a different direction in my head, so I’ll share a couple. I was at a conference recently and this firm actually, I didn’t even know this thing existed and now I’m getting ads for it, so you know how that works. They did a thing at their firm where they gave away free gas because there’s these gas pump. I know. Now there’s these big trucks and if you have a business and you don’t want to have to go to the gas station, these trucks will come to your business and fill up your cars and your vehicles. So it’s like a gas station on wheels. And so they brought these trucks to their law firm parking lot and gave away. I think people had to sign up, but the first 99 cars got a free tank of gas. I was like, okay, that’s pretty cool.

As far as events go, that’s different. I hadn’t heard that one before.

Katherine Wilson:

At my best friend’s firm, they take a group of women to the Kentucky Derby every year and they get a. What’s the person who makes professional hats? What are they called?

EJ Stern :

Haberdashian, something like that.

Katherine Wilson:

Mollner maybe. And so they have those fascinators, the super fancy hats. They make a custom hat for each woman who’s going to the Kentucky Derby. It is so cool. It is such a unique gift and something so memorable. And of course, they’re thrilled by it.

Stephanie Everett:

I had a team member, she just went to a conference and made her own scent. That seems to be very popular now where you can make your own perfumes. I’m not a perfume person, but she was very excited about this, so

EJ Stern :

That’s cool. We did have a client event last year where they did that. They had these cool bespoke candles that were sort of broken wine bottles and choose your scents. I think they’re looking at this year doing a custom charm bar, something different and fun, but that’s interactive that really allows people to choose their unique flair, if you will.

Katherine Wilson:

During the pandemic, there were so many wacky Zoom meeting or Zoom events. So we had magicians, we had escape games, virtual escape games. We had mixology where we shipped everyone cocktail hits and they made cocktails with a mixologist online. That was a particularly difficult time when everyone was getting Zoom fatigue and you’re really trying to capture that audience. That was a wacky time.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah. But good to remember, hey, reach back into those things that we were doing because people are craving connection and it still exists today. It was really apparent during the pandemic, but we still want that human connection. I think just remembering that our clients are people at the end of the day and finding interesting ways to connect with them. I know I took us down the wackadoo path, but even yesterday I got a note card in the mail. It looked like it was handwritten. I know it was not. It’s fine. I still opened it because I was like, “Oh, the note card stood out from all the junk mail that I get.” It was actually one of my sorority sisters and she was like, “Hey, I saw you published a book. Congratulations. That’s amazing. How do you do all these things?” But what a nice little gesture and so simple and easy.

And we forget the power sometimes of the handwritten note card, even if a machine hand writes it.

Katherine Wilson:

Yeah. I think that’s a great point because right now we haven’t dived into AI, but with all the AI slop that is being put out there, the craving for authenticity and the hangover that we do have from COVID, people are not getting on the plane the way that they used to. So you can really make a huge impact by doing the face-to-face meetings, having the personal touches. We’re just not to the level that we were pre-pandemic. I totally agree that people are craving connection. They’re craving authenticity, especially in face of AI.

EJ Stern :

I think if you have a client, a really large significant client that has a particular passion, lean into it. We worked with an environmental partner whose top client was in the Midwest, and every year they would go and spend 48 hours in New York and go see Broadway shows together because that was a shared passion they had. That went a long way to giving them FaceTime together, despite this very disjointed world we live in, something that the client was really excited and passionate about that didn’t have as much access to in her hometown and an excuse to hang out with your buddy that also happens to be a huge champion of yours. I think any opportunity like that is a good thing.

Stephanie Everett:

All of this is just reminding us. We often focus so much of our money and attention on bringing those new clients in and it’s like you did that hard work and now you’re investing in them as people, keeping that connection going because that’s easy and money well spent. Agreed. I love all this. Look, listeners, everything we just said, it takes time. It takes attention. You have to be intentional about doing this, but it is worth it and it will pay off.

Katherine Wilson:

One thing that always impressed me as a young lawyer starting off in my first year is when I looked to the name partners at the firm I was working with, their clients were their best friends. They went hunting with them, they went on trips with them, and that’s such a gift is to work every day with people that you’d like. As we move up in our career, to be able to hopefully work with those people and cull your clients down to the types of people that you want to work with and to become their true friend and therefore their true advisor, that’s really the goal. It’s that relationship building with people that you want to work with, and so therefore they like and trust and want to work with you.

Stephanie Everett:

I love all this. All right. Of course, we’ll put your website and your information in the show notes and your LinkedIn. Go follow. We just talked about how important LinkedIn is. EJ and Katherine are posting great tips pretty much every day on LinkedIn, good reminders. I think I now quote EJ, I’ve been using that gym one. So if you didn’t know, she put on LinkedIn probably a year ago, if you don’t go to the gym. Marketing, business development’s like going to the gym. So you could miss a couple of days here and there, probably won’t notice. But if you stop going to the gym for four, six months, you’re going to really see a difference. And I tell that to people all the time now and I credit you and they’re all like, “Oh yeah, that’s good

EJ Stern :

To remember.” I’m so touched and honored.

Stephanie Everett:

Thank you. But you forget, sometimes we’re out there putting this stuff out and we’re like, “Oh, we’re posting.” And then you think, “Is anyone ever reading this? Does this even matter?” Yes, because I stay connected with EJ and Katherine every day through LinkedIn.

EJ Stern :

Yeah. And it’s so interesting because 70% of people on LinkedIn are lookers. They’re never going to react, engage, respond. And then one day you’ll be somewhere and run into someone and they’ll say, “Oh, I just loved your post on X or Y, or I referred you to someone because you stay top of mind.” I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in the low engagement on LinkedIn or the number of eyeballs, but every eyeball makes a difference and it’s sort of a cumulative ad because no one’s sitting around saying, “Ooh, I hope I get sued today or get divorced today.” But when that does happen, they usually go down to their top three to five people that they know, like, and trust. And it’s often who is top of mind when the opportunity arises? LinkedIn’s a great tool for that. And

Katherine Wilson:

That’s a really good reminder that you may be sick of your content, but the people looking at your content have not seen everything that you’ve posted. They are not sick of you. So keep hitting your main points that you want to make, the main things that you want to be known for, keep at it because it’s working.

Stephanie Everett:

Love it. All right. Thank you both so much for being with me today. I always walk away. I always learn something and I have a good time, so I appreciate you both.

Katherine Wilson:

Thank you. We love connecting with you too.

EJ Stern :

Thank you so much.

Continue Reading