In this episode, you’ll hear how an immigrant entrepreneur leveraged authenticity, storytelling, and smart content strategy to turn a resume platform into a powerful engine for referrals, hiring, and personal brand.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jimmy Lai discuss:
- Using LinkedIn as an “Instagram” for lawyers and professionals
- Immigration journey, E-2 visa risk, and launching a law firm from scratch
- Clarifying goals on LinkedIn: clients, brand, or relationships
- Authenticity, lived experience, and personal storytelling in content
- Hooks, comments, and practical tactics to grow reach and engagement
Key Takeaways:
- Treating LinkedIn as a place to learn, be entertained, and build real relationships can transform it from a static resume into a dynamic growth channel.
- Before posting, get crystal clear on whether your primary goal is client acquisition, personal branding, or relationship-building, and let that drive your strategy.
- Consistent content built around a few focused pillars and rooted in lived experience tends to outperform generic, “professional-only” posts.
- Engagement doesn’t start with posting; thoughtful, value-adding comments can be the safest and most effective way to warm up and build relationships.
- Sustainable business growth often requires letting go of the need to do everything yourself and delegating to capable people who can reliably handle 80% of the work.
“My big mistake as an entrepreneur was thinking that I’m the best at everything, and I need to do everything myself… we didn’t hit exponential growth until I was ready to let go.” — Jimmy Lai
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About Jimmy Lai: Drawing from a diverse, multicultural background and a multilingual K-12 education spanning Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Germany, and England, Jimmy has always possessed a global perspective. This unique background, combined with his experience as an international student, fueled his passion for immigration law and his desire to help others achieve the American Dream. After earning his undergraduate marketing degree from the University of Central Oklahoma—where he was honored as the sole recipient of the prestigious Top Central Man award—he went on to complete his JD/MBA at the University of Oklahoma in 2021. Rather than taking the conventional route of joining an established firm as a junior associate, Jimmy co-founded Lai & Turner Law Firm PLLC in 2022 alongside his close friend Braden Turner to “do law differently.” As the firm’s managing attorney, Jimmy has guided Lai & Turner through rapid growth, expanding its services from immigration to include estate planning, criminal defense, real estate, and personal injury, all while ensuring every client receives premier representation rooted in the firm’s core values.
Connect with Jimmy Lai:
Website: https://www.laiturnerlaw.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmylai-jdmba
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
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 [00:00]
Hey everybody, before we get to the show, just want to remind you that the Be That Lawyer community is up and running and rock and rolling. We have a lot of amazing business developer and rainmaking attorneys in there. We’ve got incredible content, courses, live events, and all kinds of ways to help you to be that lawyer. Check it out today at Be That lawyer.com/community And other than that, please enjoy the show.
Narrator [00:29]
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’s your host, Steve Fretzin. Hey
Steve Fretzin [00:51]
everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and welcome to the Be That Lawyer podcast. I’m hearing so many positive things about the show, and in particular, the guests. I think I posted on LinkedIn earlier this week, just this lovely email I got from somebody who had been listening and essentially said, hey, you know, I’ve been making some real changes in my life and in my practice, and in this show, really, the guests you’ve had on the tips that they give have really been meaningful to me. So, keep listening if you’re listening, and don’t be shy to tell other lawyers about it. We’re really trying to expand and help as many attorneys as we can around the world. And also, don’t forget about Future Rainmakers. That’s another great show that’s helping lawyers more direct me to you, giving advice on things from business development, time management, and just anything and all legal things that you want to hear from me. So, but that’s a lot about that. And got Jimmy waiting in the wings. How you doing, Jimmy?
Jimmy Lai [01:43]
I’m doing great, thanks for having me on today. It’s Steve.
Steve Fretzin [01:46]
Yeah, yeah. When I hear Jimmy, Jerry, are you a Seinfeld fan, by any chance?
Jimmy Lai [01:50]
No, I think that was a little bit before,
Steve Fretzin [01:52]
before your time. Yeah, now it’s insulting to younger people, but I absolutely love it. But there’s a guy named Jimmy, and he uses his name in the third person, so you know, Jimmy’s getting upset, and Jimmy this, and Jimmy that, and it’s a whole episode of this guy talking about himself as Jimmy, so that just setting the tone of that. You should, you probably will not be doing that. All right, let’s jump in, though. We’ve got a quote of the show, and that’s going to be your quote, and that is, LinkedIn is my Instagram. So, Jimmy, welcome to the show, and tell everybody why you love that quote so much.
Jimmy Lai [02:22]
Well, thanks again for having me. And I think what I love about that quote is that I really embrace LinkedIn as a way to not just network but to also learn from others. And you’re one of the early people that I follow on LinkedIn, and I treat my LinkedIn like my Instagram, where I’m, you know, I’m scrolling and I’m getting information, and I feel entertained by the LinkedIn home feeds, so that’s why that’s my quote now on my headline. LinkedIn is my Instagram, just actually treated as, you know, leisure time for me, and I’m having fun.
Steve Fretzin [02:56]
Yeah, and I have, you know, there’s so much negativity around social media, which I totally understand, and even LinkedIn, I’ll mention to people it’s my, you know, my happy place, and they go, ‘What, it’s a trash heap? And I go, ‘Well, I think I think, like anything in life, it’s one man’s stress is another man’s treasure, but I think it’s like, you know, we find these silver linings in the things that, you know, Instagram is also, you know, but I find on Instagram, well, first of all, really cute cat videos, just putting that out there. And then also, like, there’ll be a motivational speaker, or there’ll be somebody that gives you know a quick little story that leads to a point that’s really like, you know, an epiphany, and like, you know, that’s the kind of stuff I sort of search for. And I think LinkedIn is is at the top of the list of, you can find some treasure in that trash, but Jimmy, Jimmy Lai is the CEO of Lye and Turner, and give us a little background. How you came to be, not only as a lawyer and managing a firm, but also your passion for LinkedIn.
Jimmy Lai [03:52]
Yeah, so I’m Jimmy, and funny enough, my name is actually home name, but I had to change it to.. I didn’t change it to Jimmy, but use Jimmy, because it’s easier for people to say my name, and I got this English name when I was two years old, about I’m originally from Taiwan. Came to Oklahoma in 2012 and then by 2021 I graduated jobless with a JD and VA. So that’s why, you know, had to figure out something. My back was against the wall, either it was pack my bags and leave the US or figure out a way, because no companies weren’t hiring me, especially given my international student status. It was really hard for me to even get through the door, and luckily I found out about this E-2 visa that allowed me to start my own business. And you know, we established the business since October 2022 We’re a little over three years now, and we’ve grown to a team of about 23 people. Right now,
Steve Fretzin [04:45]
that’s amazing. It’s amazing. Did you have, like, a really super immigration attorney help you with that, or did you work through that on your own?
Jimmy Lai [04:51]
Oh, that actually, I worked through that on my own. I should have hired an attorney at that time, but I was not like, oh, maybe I could do it myself. Off, I did end up hiring a consultant who used to work at the consulate, and that person, she did a lot of e2 so she helped in the background review my packet for me before I submitted the application. It was a scary process, because with the e2 you pretty much had to have your money committed, and at that point I had close to 100,000 funds committed, I actually spent to start the venture. Yeah, and it was a scary moment. Like, what if I went to the consulate in Taipei, and, oh, there’s not a constant, but the institute in Taipei, and if they deny my visa, I wouldn’t be able to come back to the US, and all that money would have been flushed down the drain. So, law was writing on the line for me. I also was never an attorney before, nor a business owner, so I pretty much had to start from ground up, and it was a steep learning curve, you know, learned lots of things and lots of failures as well along the way.
Steve Fretzin [05:52]
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And how did you get into LinkedIn? I mean, I think I read somewhere that you went from 800 to 45,000 members in not as long like under two years, that’s a massive, massive network. What was the what, like, what got you excited about LinkedIn? Why did that become your Instagram?
Jimmy Lai [06:12]
Sure, yeah, I think when people think about LinkedIn, they think about LinkedIn as they like a resume place, a job post, and that’s how I treated it from 2012 all the way till September of 2024 that’s how I treated LinkedIn. Wasn’t really paying attention to LinkedIn until I attended a conference, and the attorney on stage, he was a criminal defense attorney. He shared that he used LinkedIn as a referral strategy, and he’s able to get, you know, on average one case per month, and one case to him was $10,000 So I thought, okay, that means 120,000 a year, just by being on LinkedIn. Let me try that, because at that point I’m already spending quite a bit of money on Google Ads, man, I ads, and SEO, so I wanted to be able to do more organic social media type acquisitions that maybe it will over, it will lower my cost of acquisition overall. If I’m able to get some organically, that was the original intention. However, over the last 20 months, yes, I’ve grown a lot of following, but I’ve only realistically I can attribute only eight clients directly that we signed from LinkedIn. However, we have, I will always say there’s three wins for me so far. One is, yeah, the direct clients is great, you know, it didn’t cost me anything to sign up that client. Two is building the connections. If I wasn’t on LinkedIn, we wouldn’t be talking today, right now. I wouldn’t be on these various podcasts. I’m an introvert, I don’t really put myself out there. Up to today, I think this will be my 15th podcast so far, so being invited to be on podcast as a great unlock for me, and the third one is recruiting, um, being able to hire great team members, and you know, knock on wood, all the team members that have come through directly from LinkedIn, not the job post, but you know, just directly through DMs, or or the comment section, these people that came and joined have all been great so far. I think it’s largely because they’ve been following my content, they know how I do business, and they’re kind of bought into the firm’s culture, mission, and vision.
Steve Fretzin [08:13]
Yeah, well, that’s an incredible, incredible, you know, transformation. I will share that I heard about LinkedIn, I don’t know, maybe in 2025 and I saw right away what its potential was, and in 2026 actually set up a URL in a small business called Tech Working, because I was going to teach LinkedIn as a technology working for you, and the thing I used to say to people who didn’t know about LinkedIn, or that didn’t realize, you know, that what a powerful tool it was. I said I want you to take your everyone take your cell phone out. Everyone, I’d have 50 people in a room, everybody take their cell phone. I’d say, all right, and I want you to take it. I want you to imagine throwing it in a toilet and walking away and going back to a corded phone. Remember, went back when they recorded phones, maybe not a rotary dial. You remember the deal back in the 1800s or whatever it was, and get out a phone book, and that’s how you’re going to do your business development, you know, as a professional, and nobody would want to do that, everybody, you know, their phones are our babies, and we get something that’s our little computer, so I said that’s how powerful LinkedIn is on a business for business development and marketing, it’s this incredible, you know, tool to get inside introductions into companies to identify and do your research to connect with people who are strategic to you. There’s all these benefits, and so I was teaching that for a little bit, and decided that it was, you know, it wasn’t something I was going to pursue full time, but it, it was. It’s always been a part of my work with lawyers, is teaching LinkedIn as a big part of what I believe to be a great, a great tool that needs to be harnessed.
Jimmy Lai [09:44]
Yeah, and I absolutely agree with that. Yeah, like LinkedIn totally changed my mind once I started getting on LinkedIn, like, wow, how I viewed it before, and now the LinkedIn has opened, unlocked several opportunities. Now my, my problem is. Trying to stay focused now, as an entrepreneur, I do suffer from signing object syndrome, and I see a lot of possibilities, opportunities for collaborations, and do this, do that, and so that’s the one of the toughest parts for me now is trying to stay focused on my ultimate goal, is growing up my law firm business, yeah, and at the same time building all the personal brand,
Steve Fretzin [10:21]
right? Right. So, let me ask you this. I know that my strategy for LinkedIn, and how I use it, is different than yours. It’s different than what you know another lawyer’s might be. I want to talk a little bit about, or just hear from you, what your strategy is, and how you believed it would work, and to get those deals in the door. I think you mentioned eight deals, or something like that, um, was eight or 988 Okay, I had it right. I’m paying attention, apparently. So, how.. what’s your strategy? I want to share my strategy, and then I want to talk through what other lawyers’ strategy should be, just so everybody’s on the same page before we get into some tactical uses of
Jimmy Lai [10:57]
- Oh, you want me to go first, or other. you,
Steve Fretzin [11:00]
you go first, man.
Jimmy Lai [11:01]
I’m
Steve Fretzin [11:01]
gonna start with you. Yeah,
Jimmy Lai [11:02]
so I guess my LinkedIn strategy, but I always start with asking when people ask me how to grow their LinkedIn, like I have. You know, I’ve learned from my mistakes and failures to get to this point, and I always ask them back, like, what’s your goal with LinkedIn? Are you trying to get more clients, or are you trying to just grow your personal brand, or are you trying to develop, you know, more connections and relationships? So, having that goal in mind would really help, because when I first started LinkedIn, I was trying to do everything, I was trying to get more clients, I was trying to do this, so it was really bifurcated and separated and not really focused, and now with the recent algorithm change LinkedIn is pushing more and more towards relevancy, instead of, you know, so they’ll look at your profile and they’ll determine whether, you know, you’re the expert on this particular category of topics, and then if you speak to those topics and categories, LinkedIn will show your content more to your kind of who your target demographic is, so really I will always say be mindful about what your purposes. If you’re even if you’re going on LinkedIn and going to sell roofing, then that might be a little bit harder to sell roofs on LinkedIn, but if you’re going on there to sell your sales like marketing sales consultancy, then you need to know who your target demographics are, and then cater your topics to those demographics, and that’s kind of how you build a relationship, and don’t pay attention to the impressions I did, though at this point of the last 365 days is showing me I have 9.9 million impressions, but it doesn’t mean anything with impressions. So, really, you know, sometimes the post could only have 50 impressions, but if there be being seen by 50 of your ideal target customers or ideal clients, then that’s far more valuable than 100,000 people seeing your posts that are not in your target market and will never buy from you. However, for me now I’ve used no hap I’ve been focused on so much top of funnel I’m casting a wide net, so that’s my strategy. I cast a wide net and I can figure out which kind of topic gets the most views or most conversations, and I lean heavily on those, so right now I’m casting more of a wider net, and my purpose now is I’m trying to be known as, and I like that birdies behind you, be that lawyer, I’m trying to be known as that lawyer on LinkedIn, right, so that’s my whole goal right now, my whole strategy is to be the lawyer, the LinkedIn lawyer, people, whenever they have legal issues, or even in there, the state that I’m not in. Yeah, but, oh, I’ve seen Jimmy all the time. I know he’s in Oklahoma, but maybe I can ask him for, like, you know, a sense of direction, like what to do about it, or if he has a contact. So that’s where the connection level comes in, like connecting with all the attorneys over LinkedIn. I’m able to, you know, one of what I’m, you know, proud of the fact that people are able to come to me and say, I have this legal problem, can you help me find someone? And then I’ll look into my, I have a referral list of, you know, attorneys that I’ve spoken to. So, most recently, I was able to refer someone out of California for a personal injury case, so that’s something that I really enjoy doing is kind of knowing what what the purpose is, so that’s how always I ask people, whenever they want to start LinkedIn, like understand what your primary purpose is, and then craft a strategy around it, and the next thing is, once you know the strategy, then have usually four to five content pillars of topics you want to talk about, and so one content builder can be personal things, and I find that personal stories usually resonate and usually perform well. Then you can talk about if you’re even want to talk about business leadership, if you don’t want to talk about marketing, you can have those categories set up so it’s easier for you to stay within.
Jimmy Lai [14:59]
In that range of topics, so you’re now over the place, like I was in the beginning when I first started. I wanted to try to get more into these clients, so I did eat two, which didn’t work, because I was also at the same time talking about all these various other things, and I tried business law. That topic didn’t really resonate, and then ultimately what worked was the authentic my me, like being myself and being able to share the wins and the loss, the vulnerable side, the personal stories. Like, just last weekend I posted a five sentence post, and that post has gone 150,000 impressions.
Steve Fretzin [15:37]
Wow,
Jimmy Lai [15:37]
and it was, it was a parody of the Mastercard commercial, where they say, like, this is how much dollar, how many dollars for this, how many dollars for that. It’s priceless. So I had a parody post of that, like, how my bar prep was $4,000 my bar exam was 1200 failing the bar exam, me taking it was $1,000 failing again was $100,000 and the stubbornness and not giving up, priceless, and that kind of resonated with a lot of people, so, but I want to
Steve Fretzin [16:05]
stop you for a second, because what you’re saying people need to pause with and understand it’s not about super lawyer, it’s not about my firm retreat, it’s not about, you know, self promotion or just straight up education. I think that education and teaching people things is incredible. I do a ton of it. I love it. It’s one of my main strategy points, but what you said about being creative in the parody post, right? Just like thinking about something creative that you can do, like I even tried taking an Instagram meme and putting it up with more of a legal focus, and that did really well, and like, and just because it’s different, it isn’t something that’s being seen over and over again, so something different is important. Then also, you mentioned about being your authentic self. I think a lot of people are concerned, or scared, or worried about what that might appear like, weakness, or or just appear to be, you know, just, you know, not as professional, or whatever it might be. When, in fact, I think that’s what we’re all looking for today. I mean, look who our president is. You want to talk about someone who just says what they’re going to say and does what they’re going to. I mean, it’s like you can’t get more like not saying good or I’m not going to say in this show good or bad. I have my opinion, but the point is, is like, like people that just like are who they are, specifically good people, I think that really, really goes a long way.
Jimmy Lai [17:23]
Yeah, so, yeah, really just being yourself, and I think that’s the unique differentiator, is just by being yourself, because only you have lived experience. And other, another tip I want to give is, I follow a guy called Matt Barker, and that’s where I really learned this from him, is using lived experience, using your lived experience to write a post, so then you know only you have lived your life, only you have experienced a certain moment, so that’s what that whole, that’s what makes you unique.
Steve Fretzin [17:51]
Yeah,
Jimmy Lai [17:51]
and then what I do is I tie that in uniqueness, like a moment into see how I can tie that to a business lesson, or how I can educate, or how I can entertain, and so you know, being myself, I’m lactose intolerant. So I took on, I was brave, and I said, “Hey, you know, I said, you know, maybe cheese is overrated, and that got a lot of controversy at comments going, right, knowing that it is predominantly North American, you know, people love cheese, you know, so that kind of put me in, putting myself out there, generate a conversation. Yeah, so it doesn’t have to be like a, a controversy or, you know, big thing, but it can be yourself. I’m like, listen to her. I just think cheese is overrated. I eat pizza still, but I just think that there’s nothing special about cheese.
Steve Fretzin [18:35]
Yeah,
Jimmy Lai [18:35]
so that’s my opinion, but that got people talking to, like, how dare you.
Steve Fretzin [18:38]
Yeah,
Jimmy Lai [18:39]
so
Steve Fretzin [18:40]
look, controversial, but not, you know, religious, political, or anything controversial, in the sense of you’re going to start a start a war on LinkedIn, but to say that you’re, you know, lactose intelligent cheese is overrated, yeah, you’re going to get some pushback, and you’re also going to get some love, so have some fun with it, but I think we’re kind of saying, you know, let your hair down a little bit, it doesn’t mean you’re unprofessional, it means just chill out, have some fun, and let’s.. and again, you also think about your brand, and if you want your brand to be, you know, professional and stiff and upright, and you’re only dealing with top CEOs, and whatever, you know, then all right, so maybe you’re not going to be as flexible, and then there’s other people that you know, like I know, like personal injury, they get crazy, you know, the the hammer and the and the beard, and I’m the, you know, one call, that’s all, like, you know, there’s all slogans, and it’s, it’s a much more chill type of of practice. Hey everybody, your next big client might call it 8pm on a Saturday night. The question is, who’s picking up with Lex reception, 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 dot lex reception.com/partners/be that lawyer to claim your offer, that’s www dot lex reception.com/partners/be that lawyer. Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and@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@rankings.io today. So I want to ask you about, and we talked a little about strategy, and I’ll just add that any attorney listening, you need to come up with your own strategy, you know. Jimmy’s adding 45,000 people, I’m up to 25,000 You may want to be safe and comfortable sitting at 500 to 750 because those are your tightest contacts and strategic partners and clients, and you want a really small group of people, and posting isn’t your thing, but networking with that group is, and that’s how you’re getting value from LinkedIn. Okay, then that’s what you’re doing. So you just really need to think about what you need for you, you know, like you said earlier, Jimmy, like think about what’s important to you and what you’re looking to accomplish with it, and why you’re investing time in it, and then do it that way, you know. For me, I’m trying to get content out to the.. I’m trying to help every lawyer in the world through my content, and some of them are going to end up as clients, and some of them, most of them are not. But that’s.. that’s okay. That’s part of my plan, is I want to try to change, you know, the way the
Jimmy Lai [22:00]
world works for lawyers, and how they, how they do business development, you know. So, what other tips and ideas would you give? We’ve got maybe time for one or two more. Sure, yeah. And I want to piggyback off of what you just said, about some people are afraid about posting. That’s another tip, is if you’re a fan of posting, start with commenting. Commenting are like mini posts where you contribute something of value you can add to the conversation, not necessarily kind of I wouldn’t recommend taking a strong stance against the original poster unless you really feel that way, but I would say like that’s how you can develop relationships that way too, not by just posting but commenting on your ideal profiles, your ideal strategic partners, and you can do that by simply in the search bar. If you don’t have the sales navigation navigator, you can use just the free version search bar and search for topics like, you know, that you know if Steve is wanting to get more in the lawyers’ attention, and you know we would type in the search bar keywords that lawyers usually search for, or just simply type in the word lawyer, and then it will show you some of the most recent posts, and you can start engaging in the comments there, and over time, once you get more comfortable with your comments, then you can turn it into your own post, so view the mini view the comments as your mini post practicing, and then once you’re ready to fully post, then you start posting on LinkedIn. So that’s one of the tips. The other tip is where somebody tips another tip that I like to use is the hooks, and really at the end of the day, 80% I would say you need to try to focus on your hooks, and the hooks that worked really well, in my base of my experience, are books that spark curiosity, because I think people are self-centered, but they’re also, for lack of a better word, nosy. Then they’re, they want to know what’s going on, the so if you can spark that curiosity within the first three lines, and the first three lines includes you can either do like text lines or one line, and then the second line blank, then third line with the text. If you can do those three lines, and you know, get people to stop the scroll, essentially like make them curious and want to click see more. So there’s like to kind of see, like when we tell story, we like to give context, but just forget about the context, go straight to the hook, like what would catch people’s attention, and you ask yourself, if I don’t know you, and if I’m reading this, would I stop and be curious about what’s next. So, I think you know, going back to that viral post I recently did, I think what worked was because I put initially, like numbers, I put, you know, bar prep was $4,000 and embarrass them was 1200 Now people are curious, what am I going to talk about? And also using the image as a hook, it got people curious and click see more. It was only a five sentence post, but I still traveled because people were curious, it could see more, and they either click save, repost, or commented on on the post. So I would say, you know, if the other tip would be, focus on the hooks when you can, and now follow up with a good post. It’s not clickbait if you have a hook, but your post is actually good.
Steve Fretzin [25:11]
Yeah, and I think that we’re, you know, we’re going back to the beginning, where I mentioned, you know, some people see LinkedIn as a big trash heap, and, and you know, yeah, there’s some salesmanship and some marketing that we’re talking about on this show, about, you know, how to post, and you know, hooks and, and things, and you know, authenticity, and driving up curiosity. Well, guess what, this is the attention generation, right? This is the attention, you know, world that we’re living in, and if you just have the standard same, you know, boring post with an image, and it’s just over and over and on. You’re wondering, like, why am I not getting anywhere LinkedIn? Why am I investing this time, and I’m not getting a return of that attention, or I’m not getting a lead, or I’m not getting, you know, any kind of comments. Or, and it’s just like you’re doing this into the ether. Well, it’s because you’re not playing the game, you know, at the highest level. If you’re going to run a race, don’t you want to, you know, finish the race or come in, in some, in place, in some way, and not just like give up after two miles, you know. So, I think this is this is where, you know, you’ve got to study it, just like business development is a learned skill. LinkedIn, Jimmy, right, learned skill, you had to learn this stuff and make some mistakes to get to where you are now.
Jimmy Lai [26:20]
Yeah, it took me about 11 months to just to get to 10,000 followers, and then you know, exponentially growth after that. Once I figured out, like, the top of funnel strategy of making posts kind of be able to travel more wide, and so, yeah, I definitely agree that it’s a process, and even for me, it took me a while to get there,
Steve Fretzin [26:40]
yeah, all right. Well, that’s, you know, a bunch of great tips on LinkedIn, everybody. And again, hopefully you’re using it in an intentional way, and that I’ll just put this out there, you know. I have, if you go to Steve Fretzin on YouTube, I have a LinkedIn tutorial. I think if you just type in LinkedIn tutorial, you’ll find it, but I cover setting up your profile, deciding on a strategy for connections using it for marketing and branding, and then, of course, business development, getting that inside connection to the GC or the CEO, whoever you want to meet through the context that know that person that you know as well. So you can always search that. Jimmy, let me ask you one final question. What’s your big mistake?
Jimmy Lai [27:20]
My big mistake as an entrepreneur was thinking that I’m the best at everything, and I need to do everything myself. In the first year of our business, we didn’t hit exponential growth until I was ready to let go, and that was so true. I was told, you know, you need to let go to grow, but I always told myself, man, that’s that’s not me, like I need to. It’s the business, is my baby. I need to take care of it. I need to be the one doing everything, but finally understanding what people were saying, you need to let go to grow, and that was my, the key outlaw for me. So I was like, first year of business, the biggest mistake was thinking that I’m the only one that can do this, and no, going past the mistake was embracing that there are people smarter than me, there are people more capable than me, and delegate to them, and even if they cannot care for the business like you do, but if they can care and do things to the 80% level, that’s good enough, the under 20% you can train or do some other things to make up for it, but you know they can take care of 80% that’s good enough.
Steve Fretzin [28:25]
Yeah, and probably the most one of the most, you know, mentioned themes of the big mistake that we do at the end of every episode is people holding on to, and I think you know, you know, perfection and not letting go and not having systems. I mean, there’s, there’s definitely right something going on there. So, I appreciate you sharing that. Let’s take a moment. Thank our wonderful sponsors. Of course, we got Pym Con coming up in October, check that out with our friends over at Rankings IO, lawyer.com amazing directory, and of course, Lex reception. Don’t answer your phone, you should have other professionals doing it. Back to the delegation point, Jimmy, that you mentioned. People want to reach out to Jimmy, they want to network with you, they want to learn more about LinkedIn from you, they want to connect with you. Why they want to get on your LinkedIn? What’s the best way for them to find you?
Jimmy Lai [29:13]
Well, I mean, the answer is obvious.
Steve Fretzin [29:14]
I was going to say
Jimmy Lai [29:15]
this, send a connection request. I do have, unfortunately, I have quite a lot of connection requests, so I would say, you know, feel free to send me a DM, or whenever you send a connection, leave, leave a quick note, so that I know that you came from this podcast, or you know, you’re an attorney that wants to connect and talk about LinkedIn, happy to connect there, and you know, continue the conversation there. So, thank you so much, Steve, for having me on. It’s really $1 because I followed you early on, and I didn’t write it down as my bucket list to be on your podcast, but it was always in my mind, like, wow, if I could be on the podcast on there, that’d be really cool. So, you made my dream come true, and it’s like, because I’m done so
Steve Fretzin [29:57]
well. You know, it’s funny, it goes both ways, Jimmy, because. Because you know you’re also in my Be That Lawyer community now engaging with the members and putting up content and asking questions and things that I think are really, you know, what the Be That Lawyer community is all about, so I think you know we end up with this relationship being a win win, and I know by the way when we conclude this podcast, and we do well, you’re gonna market it on LinkedIn, right? So you know there are people I bring on the show that don’t do really any marketing of, and by the way, it’s like the show’s about you, the show’s about the guests, and for them not to want to like market it and put it out on LinkedIn, I get, I scratch my head, I’m like, you just have like 30 minutes of gems and gold, and you’re not gonna like, even post it on LinkedIn, it doesn’t compute to me, but I know that you will. I’m pretty 99.9% sure that you’ll be, you’ll be promoting this on my
Jimmy Lai [30:50]
course, I will be. Yes, yeah, like your community story, and I will be promoting the podcast, and yeah, happy to keep collaborating and having that communication ongoing.
Steve Fretzin [31:00]
Awesome, man. Well, thank you for being on the show, and for sharing all your wisdom. And hey, thank you everybody for hanging out with us for the last 30, and you know, I mean, five to 10 tips on LinkedIn, best practices right here. And, and hopefully, you take it to take it to the computer and start putting some things into place, helping you to be that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. Take care, everybody, be safe and well, and we will talk again very, very soon.
Narrator [31:27]
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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