You want more control, more autonomy and a greater sense of feeling over your career. So far, the path to get there has been hazy at best. People become partners and still stumble their way around. Go to coffees and lunches, it sort of works sometimes, and so you hunker down and just do your work...until you feel the heat and decide to go to some c…

In 2022, get short, fun, and new actionable missions every month to grow your book of practice, presence, and brand. Starting at just $19/month. Are you ready to get off the roller coaster 🎢 and on to the rocket 🚀? Learn more at buildyourbook.org/12in12. Open to lawyers and other service professionals from everywhere in the world. ------ Dear liste…

Every other industry has been disrupted by this paradigm. It's time for forward looking lawyers and law firms to think boldly about the future. Roy Bendor Cohen shows us how. Roy exists to provide answers to business problems using data, behavioral science and human thought. He encapsulates this mode of thinking at his firm Q Behavioural Thinking o…

If you're looking to invest more time and effort on LinkedIn, and thinking about your content, you will want to catch this episode with Robyn Addis. Robyn is a digital transformation architect at LISI. That is to say, she helps lawyers tell stories, produce content on LinkedIn, and get their digital strategy right. In this practical episode on bran…

Eric is a practitioner and also a professor of sales at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario. Each year he teaches hundreds of entrepreneurs, consultants, engineers, and new grads how to sell. Not long ago he was in the trenches (sometimes literally) closing deals with the best music festivals in the world, logging 100,000+…

Josh Calderon is running his law practice differently. He confronts the myths of being a solo-practitioner. He shares his revenue numbers publicly on LinkedIn. He gives us a playbook on how to do business development effectively even when you don't have the family connections to open door for you. Josh represents a new era of lawyers who practice w…

Sam is a LinkedIn influencer. She's one of the most sought after trainers & consultants in the world of sales and marketing. Sam started helping people with their sales challenges not too long ago and quickly built it into a leading organization. She's since then worked with lawyers at 95 of the AmLaw 100 firms. She's here on our show today to shar…

Steven Werner went to law school for his JD, but ended up with a sales career instead. Not for just legal tech companies, but directly for law firms and attorneys. He started helping attorneys book meetings with general counsels. Through his unique insights, sheer perseverance, and an ever expanding network, he soon started opening the doors for Am…

This week, we're joined by Giles Thompson from across the pond in London, UK. He's a former city lawyer turned Head of Growth at Avvoka, where they're doing incredible things in the world of document automation. We get into his story of the things he had to learn, unlearn, and is in the process of learning. These ideas include: using agile methodol…

How do you write great blog posts, LinkedIn posts, and other content that connects with your audience? Heidi Turner tells us how! Heidi has been helping lawyers and attorneys create great content for almost 2 decades! She also teaches writing at Simon Fraser University, and has worked with firms small and big, to create compelling content strategie…

The heart of sales is solving problems. Yet, attorneys hold themselves back because they often think it is about being pushy and manipulative. When it comes to asking for referrals and sales, there's a goldmine you might be missing on. In this conversation with Agnes Lan, we get into how marketing funnels and referrals can start bringing in clients…

What's the future of how law will be practiced? How will it affect you? Are you missing the silent by tectonic change happening underneath your feet? How can you prepare yourself for this change? Mitch gives us an answer. He's the author of The Great Legal Reformation, host of the Legal Innovators Roundtable, General Counsel for Aoyuan Internationa…

Are you afraid to stand out as a lawyer? Are you afraid to share your edges? Can you truly succeed in this business "being yourself"? Perhaps you've felt you have to push this part of your life down. Well, you don't. Vivek shows us how. Vivek started Jayaram Law at the height of the global recession in 2008/9. Over time, he's built it into the prem…

Have you ever found yourself trying to upgrade your "sales" skills by learning how to close? Lawyers & attorneys routinely believe that is the magic skill they're missing to get better at getting clients to sign the dotted line. Well, it turns out that the paradigm is upside down! Opening is the new "closing". Liz Wendling tells us how. Liz combine…

Do you help your client gets deal done or do you break them up? Lawyers often become deal breakers, not deal makers. Why does this happen and what can you do about it? Barry Wolfe tells us that lawyers often miss the full picture of the deal. They overvalue what's in front of them, and become blind to everything else. To succeed in this profession …

What biases exist for women in law today? How can they stand out? What is something that men need to understand about women in law? What about senior leadership? What's the balance look like for being authentic vs. putting on a facade and is that even the right gradient? In this episode, we speak with Robin Arnold. She's a partner at Blue Williams,…

Nick Arnold has 15,000+ followers on LinkedIn. He's a partner at Blue Williams. He's a father of 6 kids. He's married to his high school sweetheart who's also a partner at the firm. He has an ever-growing book of business. How does Nick Arnold do it all? In this episode of the podcast, we're getting into a great discussion with Nick Arnold about wh…

You have great ideas to grow your practice, but it just doesn't feel authentic enough. Has that ever happened to you? You want to be authentic, but you also feel this pull to use systems, plans, templates and everything else that feels "fake". You end up subtly sabotaging your own efforts. What do you do? How do you deal with the dichotomy of being…

Your time is short and you've got more to do than ever before. You know business development is important, but you just can't make yourself do it given all the fires you're fighting. Time is the cause of stress, anxiety, distraction fueled addictions, and sleepless nights. Right now, time is how you get compensated. It's all about the input. This w…

Why do your business development initiatives fail? Why do you feel burned out from these efforts? Why is branding a lot like starting a workout plan? What's the common link between a day at the spa and selling? These are some of the questions we examine on this episode. We go over the key lessons we have learned from a year of coaching lawyers and …

Laura Frederick left her job as in-house counsel at Tesla right before the pandemic to start her own firm in her 50s. As a single mom of 4 kids, she had to make this whole thing work. In this episode of the Build Your Book podcast, we learn about the lessons she learned along the way to not only survive, but thrive in this new paradigm. Along the w…

Norman Bacal is a legend in Canadian law. Norm built & led one of Canada’s most prestigious law firms. He was also one of the most successful film finance lawyers in the country. He sat on the board of directors of a Hollywood studio and represented companies like Warner Bros, MGM, Sony, and Lionsgate. Then, the firm collapsed and he re-invented hi…

Nick Cegelski gets what it takes to sell. Sales is not a dirty word to him. The heart of sales is a conversation, it is about questions. In this episode, we break down the entire client sales meeting where you as a lawyer have to sit down and convince the client to retain you. But as you'll soon discover, there is no convincing required if you run …

He's a food entrepreneur, a tech consultant, a lawyer, and just someone who thinks differently. Sukhi is an entrepreneur first who decided to choose himself and skip the line that other lawyers force themselves into. The fact is, anyone can learn to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are not born, they're made. And despite what you might think, ther…

What makes someone go from an equity partner at a large law firm to striking out on their own in a small practice? In this incredible talk, we learn from the candid Erin Durant about her adventure into building something herself. She talks about how going out on your own is less scary than people think. She gets into all the ways she prepared herse…

A teacher who becomes a lawyer. This is the story of Angela Han, an immigrant to the US who goes from feeling unwanted & unworthy to becoming someone who loves her work as a lawyer, a health coach, a life coach, and a mom. This is a deeply personal episode as Angela talks about her immigration story to the US, her turbulent start in the legal profe…

People can spend their entire lives doing work they hate in this profession. Why? The fear of a drop in income. The fear of starting from scratch. But it doesn't have to be that way. It is simple to manage around these fears. It is easier than ever to build a foundation right where you are, run small experiments, and pivot when the time is right. I…

Traditional law firms want you to stay in your lane, do your work, bill hours, and go home. This is no longer the right recipe for success, fulfillment and happiness. It is also the riskiest thing you can do for your career. In this episode, we discuss the many different ways you must choose yourself. Whether you're a solo practitioner or a partner…

Who comes out on top? The "sharks" or the takers, or the givers? Can saying "no" be a sign of abundance? Can saying "yes" be coming from a place of scarcity? The legal profession is mired in a scarcity mindset. Beliefs like there aren't enough clients, enough work, enough dollars keeps people constantly in stress, buttoned up and away from feeling …

In this episode, we continue our conversation with Aaron Baer discussing the importance of mindset, authenticity and vulnerability when it comes to business development and life itself. Please subscribe and leave a rating for us on Apple iTunes or wherever it is that you get your podcast. We discuss: Why most people burn out from doing business dev…

In this episode, we talk with Aaron Baer, Partner at Aird & Berlis, a Top Canadian law firm. He recounts his story of having to adapt quickly during the Coronavirus pandemic and how approaching business development strategically made a huge difference for him. The fact is, lawyers are like pilots. They can't fly a plane by themselves. They need a f…