BE THAT LAWYER · 2026-06-11 · 32 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
47 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Jimmy Lai, CEO of Lyon Turner law firm, explains how he transformed LinkedIn from a resume platform into a law firm growth engine, building from zero to 45,000 followers in under two years and attributing eight direct clients to the platform. Originally from Taiwan and arriving in Oklahoma in 2012, Lai started his law practice via E2 visa sponsorship in October 2022 and grew his team to 23 people by leveraging LinkedIn strategically. Rather than chasing impressions, he focuses on relevance and content pillars - personal stories, business leadership, and authentic vulnerability - to position himself as "that lawyer on LinkedIn" for legal referrals and networking. Lai emphasizes that LinkedIn success requires clarity on purpose (client acquisition vs. personal branding), understanding your target demographic, and creating engaging content like parody posts and lived-experience narratives that encourage conversation. For lawyers concerned about professional image, he demonstrates that being yourself while staying on-brand - admitting lactose intolerance or sharing bar exam failures - drives engagement far more than polished corporate messaging. Steve Fretson reinforces that each attorney needs their own strategy: some may build large networks for visibility, others may keep 500-750 strategic contacts focused on deep relationships. The conversation covers LinkedIn as organic client acquisition, recruiting team members through personal brand, and leveraging the platform for podcast invitations and professional opportunities that a traditional introvert would rarely access.
Lai started by attending a conference where a criminal defense attorney shared getting one case per month ($10,000) through LinkedIn, prompting him to test organic social media as an alternative to paid ads. He identified clear content pillars (personal stories, business leadership, marketing), posted authentic vulnerable content like his bar exam failures and parody posts, and focused on being "that lawyer on LinkedIn" for referrals - casting a wide net initially, then doubling down on topics that resonated most.
Lai has directly signed eight clients from LinkedIn over the 20 months since starting his focused strategy on the platform, though he values three additional wins: building connections that led to podcast invitations as an introvert, recruiting team members via DMs and comments who already knew his culture, and becoming a referral connector for other attorneys.
He recommends starting by defining your primary purpose (client acquisition, personal branding, or relationships), then creating four to five content pillars (personal stories, business leadership, education, etc.) to stay focused. He emphasizes using lived experience, being your authentic self, and tying moments to business lessons rather than chasing impressions - noting that 50 impressions from ideal clients outweigh 100,000 from non-target audiences.
A five-sentence MasterCard parody post where he wrote: "Bar prep $4,000, bar exam $1,200, taking it again $1,000, failing twice $100,000, stubbornness and not giving up: priceless." The vulnerable admission of failure resonated widely with the audience.
No - Lai suggests that lawyers uncomfortable posting can start with commenting on others' posts as "mini posts," contributing value to conversations without creating original content, and focusing their LinkedIn effort on networking with a smaller strategic group of 500-750 contacts instead.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are a handful of concrete tips - commenting as 'mini posts,' hooks in the first three lines, 4-5 content pillars, and an honest admission that 45k followers yielded only 8 direct clients - but the episode is padded with Steve's lengthy personal anecdotes, ad reads, and generic platitudes about authenticity that dilute the density considerably.
I can attribute only eight clients directly that we signed from LinkedIn
sometimes the post could only have 50 impressions, but if they're being seen by 50 of your ideal target customers or ideal clients, then that's far more valuable than a hundred thousand people seeing your posts that are not in your target market
The most contrarian moment - candidly reporting that a 45,000-follower LinkedIn presence produced only 8 clients - is genuinely refreshing and rarely admitted, but the bulk of the advice (be authentic, know your goal, write good hooks, use content pillars) is standard LinkedIn-guru recycled content with no first-principles reasoning.
I can attribute only eight Ah, clients directly that we signed from LinkedIn
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
Jimmy Lai is a genuine practitioner - immigrant founder who bootstrapped a 23-person law firm from scratch using an E2 visa and grew a massive LinkedIn presence organically - giving him real credibility as an operator who has done the thing, though the firm remains small-scale and his LinkedIn ROI is modest.
by 2021, I graduated jobless with a J.D. mBA. So that's why I had to figure out something. My back was against the wall
we established a business since October 2022. We're a little over three years now, and we've grown to a team of about 23 people
The episode includes a good number of real figures - follower counts, client counts, dollar amounts tied to the E2 investment and bar exam costs, impressions data, and the $10k-per-case criminal defense benchmark - but never quantifies firm revenue, compares LinkedIn CAC against paid channels numerically, or cites external data.
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 uh, $10,000. So I thought, oh, okay, that means 120,000 a year
at that point I had close to 100,000 funds committed I could actually spent to start the venture
The host repeatedly interrupts the guest to deliver extended personal monologues - about his own LinkedIn history, the corded phone analogy, and a tangential political remark - and never pushes back on the glaring implication that 8 clients from 45,000 followers over 20 months represents a low conversion rate worth scrutinising.
I heard about LinkedIn, I don't know, maybe in 2025 and I saw right away what its potential was. And in 2026 I actually set up a, uh, uh, URL in a small business called Tech Working
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 do
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
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.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Steve Fretzin: 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@, uh, bethatlawyer.com community. And other than that, please enjoy the show.
Narrator: You're listening to Be that Lawyer. Uh, strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Pretzen will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretson.
Steve Fretzin: Hey, everybody. Steve Fretson 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. 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, uh, 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, uh, more direct me to you, uh, giving advice on things from business development, time management, and, uh, 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: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on today, Steve.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah, yeah, when I hear Jimmy. Gary, uh, are you a Seinfeld fan by any chance?
Jimmy Lai: No, I think that was a little
Steve Fretzin: bit 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 he's, 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, uh, 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: 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. I, uh. So that's why. That's my quote now on my headline. LinkedIn is my Instagram. Just actually treat it as, you know, leisure, uh, time for me. And I'm having fun.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And I, 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 trash, is another man's treasure. But I think it's like, you know, we find these silver linings and 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, uh, 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, um, Lai is the CEO of, uh, of Lyon 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: Yeah. So I'm Jimmy, and funny enough, my name is actually Home Me, but I had to change it to. I didn't change it to Jimmy, but I used Jimmy because it's easier for people to say my name. And I got this English name when I was two years old, but I'm originally from Taiwan. Came to Oklahoma in 2012. And then, uh, by 2021, I graduated jobless with a J.D. mBA. So that's why I had to figure out something. My back was against the wall. Either it was pack my bags to leave the US or figure out a way because 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 E2 visa that that allowed me to start my own business. And, um, you know, we established a 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: That's amazing. That'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: No, that. No, actually, um, I worked through that on my own. I, uh, should have hired an attorney at that time, but I was like, oh, maybe I could do it myself. 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, reviewing my packet for me before I submitted the application. It was a scary process because with the E2, you pretty much have to have your money committed. And at that point, I had close to 100,000 funds committed I could actually spent to start the venture. And it was a scary moment. Like, what if I went to the consulate in Taipei and, well, there's not a consulate, uh, 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 riding 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. Uh, you know, learned lots of things and lots of failures as well along the way.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. And how did you get into to 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, like, what got you excited about LinkedIn? Why did that become your Instagram?
Jimmy Lai: Sure, yeah. I think when people think about M. LinkedIn, they think about LinkedIn as a. 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, um, I attended a conference. And the attorney on stage, who was a criminal defense attorney, he shared that, uh, 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 uh, $10,000. So I thought, oh, 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 um, Google Ads, meta ads and SEO. So I wanted to be, 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, uh, I can attribute only eight Ah, clients directly that we signed from LinkedIn. Um, however we have ah, I would 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 is a great unlock for me. And the third win 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 graceful for, 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: Yeah, well, that's an incredible, incredible, uh, 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 I actually set up a, uh, uh, 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. 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 when back, back when they recorded phones, maybe not. Or rotary dial, you remember the 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, our phones are our babies and we get something that's our little computer. So I said that's how powerful LinkedIn is for business development and marketing. It's this incredible 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, that needs to be harnessed.
Jimmy Lai: Yeah. And I absolutely, uh, 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 LinkedIn has opened, unlocked several opportunities. Now my, my problem is trying to stay focused 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 one of the toughest part for me now is trying to stay focused on. My ultimate goal is growing up my law firm business and at the same time building all the personal brand.
Steve Fretzin: 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 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 nine?
Jimmy Lai: Eight.
Steve Fretzin: Eight. Okay. Wow. 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 it.
Jimmy Lai: I guess my LinkedIn strategy. But I always start with ask 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. Uh, 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, um, topics. And then if you speak to those kind, uh, of 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 purpose is. If you're even going on LinkedIn and going to sell roofing, then that might be a little bit harder, um, to sell roofs on LinkedIn. But if you're going on there to sell your, uh, sales, like a 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 at this point, uh, the last 365 days is showing me I have, uh, 9.9 million impressions. But, uh, it doesn't mean anything with impressions. So really, you know, sometimes the post could only have 50 impressions, but if they're being seen by 50 of your ideal target customers or ideal clients, then that's far more valuable than a hundred thousand people seeing your posts that are not in your target market and will never buy from you. However, for me now, I've used, you know, 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 furnace behind you. Be that lawyer. I'm trying to be known as that lawyer on, um, LinkedIn.
Steve Fretzin: Right.
Jimmy Lai: 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 name they're in 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. Uh, I'm able to, you know, what, uh, 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, uh, for a personal injury case. So that's something that I really enjoy, uh, doing is, um, kind of knowing what, what the purpose is. So that's what 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 pillar can be personal things. And I find that personal stories usually resonate and usually perform well. Then you can talk about, if you want to talk about business leadership, you don't want to talk about marketing, you can have those categories set up so it's easier for you to stay within that range of topics so you're not all over the place like I was in the beginning. When I first started, I wanted to try to get more E2 visa, uh, clients. So I did E2, 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 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 gotten 150,000 impressions.
Steve Fretzin: Wow.
Jimmy Lai: Uh, um, and it was, it was a parody of the MasterCard commercial where they said, 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 $4000, my bar exam was 1200. Failing the bar exam, me taking it was a thousand dollars. Failing it again was $100,000. And the stubbornness and not giving up, priceless. And that, that, uh, kind of resonated with a lot of people. So.
Steve Fretzin: But I want to, I want to stop you for a second because what you're saying people needed 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, um, 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. And 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, uh, 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 do. I mean, it's like you can't get more like, you know, not saying good or. I'm not going to say on 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, uh, think that really, really goes a long way.
Jimmy Lai: 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 the experience. And other. Another tip I want to give is, um, 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 level, that's what makes you unique. And then what I do is I tie that uniqueness, like a, 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 and, uh, comments going. Right. Knowing that LinkedIn is predominantly North American, you know, people love cheese. Uh, you know, so that kind of put Me in, putting myself out there, generated conversation.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah.
Jimmy Lai: It doesn't have to be like a, a controversy or, you know, big thing, but it can be yourself. I'm like Osintaro, I just think cheese is overrated. I eat pizza still, but I just think that there's nothing special about cheese.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah.
Jimmy Lai: So that's my opinion. But that got people talking like, how dare you? Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: So look controversial, but not, you know, religious, political or anything controversial in the sense of you're going to start a, start, uh, a war on LinkedIn. But to say that you're, you know, lactose intelligent. Cheese, 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, uh, out, have some fun and let's. And again, you, you also think about your brand and if you want your brand to be, you know, professional and stiff and upright and, and you're only dealing with top CEOs and, 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 uh, 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 uh, 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.LexReception.com partners BethatLawyer to claim your offer. That's www.LexReception.com partner foreign. Steve Fretson 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
Jimmy Lai: with
Steve Fretzin: proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings IE prides itself on proof, not promises mentality. The best firms hire Rankings IO when they want rankings, traffic in cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free consultation at Rankings IO today. So I want to ask you about, and uh, 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. Uh, 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 are. 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 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.
Jimmy Lai: 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. Uh, 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 uh, 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, uh, that, you know, if Steve is wanting to get more, you know, lawyers attention, then, you know, type in the search bar keywords that lawyers usually Search for just simply typing the word lawyer and then it will show you some of the most recent uh, 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 tip. The other tip is where so many 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, based on my experience are hooks that sparks curiosity because I think people are self centered but uh, they're also, for lack of a better word, nosy. They want to know what's going on. 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 and 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 uh, 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 $4000 and in bar exam 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 clicked see more. It was only a five sentence post but I still traveled because people were curious it could see more and they either clicked save, repost or commented on the post. So I would say, you know, the other tip would be focus on the hooks when you can and now uh, follow up with a good post. It's not clickbait if you have a hook, but your post is actually good.
Steve Fretzin: 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 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, uh, lead or I'm not getting, you know, any kind of comments or any. 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, uh, learned skill. LinkedIn, Jimmy Wright learned skill. You had to learn this stuff and make some mistakes to get to where you are now.
Jimmy Lai: Yeah, it took me about 11 months to just to get to 10,000 followers. Uh, and then, you know, exponentially growth after that once I figured out like the top of funnel strategy of making posts, you know, 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: 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, you know, I'll just put this out there. Um, you know, I have, if you go to Steve Fretson 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 contacts 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: My big mistake as, uh, 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 of the growing. And that was my. The key unlock for me. So I would say, like, first year of business, the biggest mistake was thinking that I'm the only one that can do this. And 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 other 20%, you can train or do some other things to make up for it, but they can take care of 80%. That's good enough.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And probably the most. One of the most mentioned themes of the big mistake that we do at the end of every episode is people holding on to long. I think, um, perfection and not letting go and not having systems. I mean, there's definitely something going on there. So I appreciate you sharing that. Um, take a moment. Thank our wonderful sponsors. Of course, we got pimcon coming up in October. Check that out, uh, with our friends over at rankings IO, lawyer.com. amazing directory, and of course, Lex Reception. Don't answer your phone. Uh, you should have other professionals doing it. Back to the delegation point, Jimmy, that you mentioned. People want to reach out to you, Jimmy. They want to, uh, network with you. They want to learn more about LinkedIn from you. They want to connect with you, they want to get on your LinkedIn. What's the best, uh, way for them to find you?
Jimmy Lai: Well, I mean, the answer is obvious.
Steve Fretzin: I was going to say this.
Jimmy Lai: You'll be fine. So just send a connection request. And I do have. Unfortunately, I have quite a lot of connection requests. So I would say, uh, you know, feel free to send me a DM or whenever you send a connection. Um, 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. Uh, there. And continue the conversation there. So thank you so much, Steve, for having me on. It's truly an honor because I followed you early on and, um, 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 someday, that would be really cool. So you made my dream come true. And it's that because I'm dead.
Steve Fretzin: Well, you know, it's funny, it goes both ways, Jimmy, because you're also in my Be that Lawyer community now and engaging with the members and putting up content and asking questions and things that I think are really, you know, what the Be that warrior community is all about. So I think, you know, we end up with, uh, this relationship being a win, win. And I know, by the way, when we conclude this podcast and we, well, you're going to 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 or the show's about the guest. 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 going to like, even post it on LinkedIn. It doesn't compute to me. But I know that you will. I'm pretty. I'm about 99.9% sure that you'll be promoting this on, um, LinkedIn.
Jimmy Lai: Of course I will be, yes. Yeah, like, your community is great and I will be promoting the podcast and yeah, happy to keep collaborating and having that communication ongoing.
Steve Fretzin: 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 hopefully you take it to, uh, 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 soon. Very soon.
Narrator: Thanks for listening. To Be that Lawyer life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website, fredson.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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