The Real You
1:1 Long-Form Interviews with Interesting People Doing Amazing Things
In-depth discussion of people's journeys to tap into their full potential and find ways to be the truest version of themselves.
The Real You
Building Authentic Connections: EP 19 with Megan Senese on Entrepreneurship, Empathy, and Legal Marketing Transformation
What if you could build genuine relationships in the digital realm that transform your professional life?
Join me, David Young, as I chat with Megan Senese, the inspiring co-founder of Stage, who shares her journey of fostering authenticity and empathy in the world of LinkedIn and legal marketing.
Megan reveals how she amplifies underrepresented voices on her platform, using personal stories to create meaningful connections and remind us that there's a human behind every profile picture.
The story takes an exciting turn as Megan recounts the bold leap from corporate security to entrepreneurship, inspired by a spark of creativity during a Peloton ride. Discover the emotions and challenges faced when starting a business with former colleagues, and how kindness and personal connections shape their client-centered approach.
Megan and her partners have crafted a flexible legal marketing service that adapts to the unique needs of law firms and attorneys, emphasizing the power of a personalized touch.
We also explore the entrepreneurial mindset, where success is measured beyond traditional metrics and defined by personal fulfillment. Megan and I discuss the importance of recognizing individual strengths, both in professional settings and personal life, as we navigate career transitions and balance family commitments.
Dive into the world of entrepreneurship, where kindness reigns, and learn how to pursue what you love by embracing a mindset that values "I get to" over "I have to."
Connect with Megan on LinkedIn or via her website to learn more.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/megansenese/
https://stage.guide/
Welcome to the Real you Podcast. I'm your host, David Young, and this is episode number 19. This podcast discusses tapping into your full potential and finding ways to be the truest version of yourself. Today, I'm joined by Megan Sinise. She's the co-founder of a company called Stage. She's a marketer for lawyers and law firms and a business development expert. We will discuss her journey, why she started the business, how she uses LinkedIn and how she goes about building relationships with others. So, Megan, this is gonna be a lot of fun. Thanks for joining me today on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me. It sort of never gets comfortable when I hear the word expert. I think that's been totally worked out of our vocabulary when you work in law firms like no, lawyers are experts, but you're not really allowed to use that. So every time I hear it I'm always like, ooh, is that true, am I an expert? So, anyways, happy, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:So thank you A very knowledgeable business development person, love it, so, yeah, so you and I got connected semi-recently on LinkedIn and we had one call which went really well, and you booked time to come on the show, which I'm very happy about. I think you might be the only person that I see on LinkedIn. You're the most generous person, I think. With your LinkedIn platform, You're opening it up to other people to use, maybe for people whose voices are not as loud or not able to be as loud. You do all sorts of giveaways and sharing. I think it's really fascinating and I don't see anybody else do that.
Speaker 1:So I think, that's really great.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for noticing and for just bringing attention to it. I think part of the joy of having your own business is that you get to do whatever you want, and I think for me in general, there's pieces of me where I felt like I was stifled or I couldn't really share or say the things that I want to, even though I am outspoken to begin with. And so now that I'm in this position of my own power, in that I own my own business, I want to be able to extend that to others, to the to, to whatever capacity I can do. I can do so, and I've really seen my LinkedIn presence kind of grow in the last 18 months, and so it's been. It's been really rewarding to be able to give back in that way, and and then actually people even want me to show you can offer it Right.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like nobody takes you up on it and so that people actually want to to use my platform in that way. So it's just one of those pieces that add some like purpose and some passion to my, to my life, and, um, that's the one thing that, like makes me feel good.
Speaker 1:so thank you for recognizing that no, I think it's great and, like I said, I don't see if other people are doing it, I'm just not seeing it, but I don't see anybody else. Really, you know, kind of do. I think it's really it's like a really neat idea and it's very forward thinking and like open-minded of you. So I think it's really worth calling out and I'm happy that people you know, like you said, it's one thing to offer, it's another thing if you were to do it. I'm I've seen a few people you know be, you know take advantage of it. So I'm happy to see that and you know, hopefully, that you know continues. But you always seem to be doing like I don't know, like giveaways, or I know you've done meetups, you know, all that kind of stuff I have to think about the day in the life post. I haven't done that yet, but I have to.
Speaker 2:I have to think about how boring that might be.
Speaker 2:That's the point I mean.
Speaker 2:I think that's the point right is that social media gets a bad you know reputation and a lot of it is fake and everybody knows that, and I think that's another reason why my platform even seems like cringy, to kind of even say like my platform.
Speaker 2:My platform has grown in that way is because I do try to like keep it real and and authentic. And I also think that if you're going to brand yourself as somebody who is about connection and authenticity, then you have to do the same thing about connection and authenticity. Then you have to do the same thing, and our company ethos is we are helping lawyers build authentic relationships, deeper relationships where there's actual connection, and approach it with this like empathetic mindset. You can't, from my perspective, you can't be leaning all into empathy and then say something completely different on LinkedIn. You can't be leaning all into empathy and then say something completely different on LinkedIn. So those need to be consistent and that's like leaning into my authenticity as well, and so the more you do that, the better I feel and I get clients that like me and I like them and it's just way more fun.
Speaker 1:I totally agree and I think that's what I try to tell my clients that I coach on.
Speaker 1:Content is the reason why you have to tell the personal stories and even if you feel like it's completely unrelated to anything, you have to tell them every once in a while because people do business with people.
Speaker 1:So if they start to get to know you and if you can do videos and they hear your voice but it doesn't have to be that but you just tell, like you said, stories like your kids or your dogs, or travel, or your hobbies, whatever, then you start to be seen more than just the avatar, cause it can be very easy, as you spend a lot of time on any social media platform, right, you just start to see the avatar and that's how you just know everyone and there's so much more that you know is behind that. There's a real person on the other end and they have a life and struggles and challenges and all the things we all go through, and so I think, the more you can not all the time, but you bring that up enough to where people are like oh yeah, okay like they do that too, or you know and I think that's what you're talking about Like it really.
Speaker 1:It helps build the bridge to connection, whether it's just a relationship or maybe somebody that you end up working with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I often meet. I would say the majority of the way that I am meeting people now and clients is through LinkedIn. Whenever we have this kind of hesitation, or the lawyers in particular have a hesitation about sharing things in that way, I usually ask them, like just look at how we got together right Like you and I came together because of LinkedIn and it moves that sales cycle just a little bit further down the line instead of it needing to be you know 15 touch points or interactions. Maybe now it's 12 or 10 because you already know about me, so we don't necessarily need to spend that much time talking about me and we can just talk more about you, and so that's been like really rewarding and like that's how you and I got connected as well. Like you and I kind of you jump more into a connection, there's something that's attracting people together based on the content and it just makes the relationship kind of move out of strangers very quickly. So I love that piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point. So I know and we'll get into this in a bit with starting, you know leaving the corporate law job that you had and starting this current company, and that was about 18 months ago, and you mentioned that your LinkedIn kind of has you know really taken off, which coincides at that same time. Yeah, what did you do anything specific? Was it just being on the platform more? Or what do you think caused you know kind of the growth, or what do you think caused the growth?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so I can point to some specific things. About two, maybe two years or maybe even two and a half years ago, I only had 500 connections and I only connected with people that I knew and I knew for sure would accept my LinkedIn connection request. As of right now I'm just over I'm going to hit 14,000, probably this week. 14,000 connections and followers, and so I use that number not to like show off in that like I'm just this, like good social media. I use it because there are, like one, people have followed me, sure, but also I am sending connection requests. Like I don't know if all of the influencers out there are sharing that. Maybe they have people who are following them in hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily. I'm sending a decent amount of connection requests every week and they are accepting. The bigger number of followers get, the more people are likely to accept my cold requests in a lot of ways. So that's kind of just one. I just started being like all right, I'm going to start connecting now, before I even launched the business, because I was really terrified that once I became a vendor that no one would accept my request, because I sort of felt like that's what I was doing, like if there was some consultant vendor person sending me a connect I'd be like decline.
Speaker 1:They're going to sell me something. I'm out.
Speaker 2:They're going to sell me something and I don't want to hear from them, and so I was terrified of that and my LinkedIn experience is very much you only use LinkedIn for when you're job searching right, and you used it to get a new job and you definitely didn't let your employer know that you were on LinkedIn, looking at LinkedIn, scrolling on LinkedIn, and so that was always how I thought about it. And then, as we started to think about the business, as we were in stealth mode for about a year before we launched, I had to get a little more comfortable putting myself out there. So I started with like a sentence and reposting other like things right, like a sentence and a repost. And then I got a little bit more brave and and then I just kind of went for it and I went from posting like once every two weeks to maybe once a week, to then maybe every three days or you know. So I just started composting more consistently and I just started telling stories about what it's like to be a legal marketer, particularly in big law.
Speaker 2:Some firms are great, other firms are not great and I just started posting more about like business development tips, and the more I leaned into stories that people really wanted to hear and what experiences were like for me, the more people were asking me to share other stories, right?
Speaker 2:Other legal marketers would send me notes and say like, hey, it would be really great if you could talk about mental health and the and legal marketing, because we are still employed by these companies and we can't say anything. So there's a, you know, there's a very much like in some firms, a lawyers versus staff mentality, and since I was no longer employed by any of those firms, I could talk freely, and so I think not a lot of people are doing that. A lot of people are keeping it safe still because they want those big companies to hire them, and I am, of course, would love for them to hire me as well, but if it doesn't resonate with them, then that's fine. And I think that's part of where my profile has kind of took off and exploded. It's just keeping it real and giving and not expecting anything in return, and just kind of putting it out there and people can take it or leave it. So I think that's kind of what exploded for me personally.
Speaker 1:No, I think that resonates with a lot of people because it doesn't feel like you're pushing it. It just feels like you're offering it and, like you said, if they're interested, great, if they're not, great. It is not this like you have to do it this way or you have to whatever, and you're just kind of doing you and telling your lived experience. And this is what I tell people is like we all have this different lived experience, and sharing it, even if it's exactly the same, you're still. You're still processing it differently because you have different background, different upbringing. There's all these differences. No matter how similar you are or whatever, it's still different, and so yours and mine and everybody's is different, and that's why sharing is so important, because you start to see just how other people think and how they go through things and then you can learn from that. I think it's really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think, not shying away. So I think for me there's a couple of posts that stand out pretty significantly. I shared about how I had to hide a pregnancy at one of my firms for a really long time and so I wrote about that and that totally blew up in like I guess a good way, where people were reaching out. I mean, I've also had posts that have completely like flopped, if you will, and I've gotten clients from those right. Like nobody looked, nobody liked it, nobody engaged with it. But people have said one person contacted me and said hey, I saw you wrote this and I'd like to talk to you, and then they became a client.
Speaker 2:So like it doesn't matter, like I've had posts go viral and like nothing, like it didn't impact my life, nothing has changed. I'm the same person. Like the bank account stayed the same right, at least for me. So maybe I'm doing it wrong, but you know I've had flops and I've gotten clients. So I don't try to be viral, I just try to reach as many people in the appropriate area as possible, put out good stories, put out things that I think are useful. I don't know if today's post was particularly useful or not, but that's my goal. My goal is to try to adhere to those things and practice what I'm teaching my clients to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Well, they're not. I mean they can't all be hits, just like they're not all going to be, you know, flops. I mean you just you do the best you can with that post and then whatever happens happens. I've heard a lot of people say that the viral posts have done nothing. And it's nice, like it's good. A lot of people see it, you get some extra visibility, you might gain a bunch of followers and connections, but it's mostly hollow.
Speaker 1:They aren't your real target audience. When did you start thinking Because I know you worked in that space for a decent amount of time when did the wheels start turning to start thinking about starting your own thing? And I know you partnered with you have a couple of partners and you guys were at the same firm and you kind of did it together. Like, did you guys talk about it together? Did you all kind of come? Did you get there on your own and then like how did that? When you start thinking about that, how did that come to be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a year, about a year before we actually made the big like cliff dive into the deep end, um, we started started talking about the business. It was actually my partner, jen, who had the idea she was doing a peloton bike ride and, um, the instructor had said something like why not you be the ceo of your own life? That kind of like motivational, and she said the idea hit her, she, she connected with, so at this point, jen and Kathleen is Kathleen Hilton is my other co-founder they were both my bosses at this moment, and so the two of them connected and then the very next day they called me and they said we've got this idea, and so it was very much like they put it on my calendar to talk on the phone, on our cell phones.
Speaker 1:You thought you were getting fired.
Speaker 2:I was like what the hell? Is this Right? They're like it's good, it's good news, we promise, right. And so, you know, we're talking on the phone. They're pitching me this idea about what, if we could work for the clients that we love and people that appreciate us, and we could create whatever. We want to continue to work together like forever, basically. And um, I'm ever sitting here being like are you guys pitching? Are you are you pitching me? Is this a? Is this a pitch meeting? And they're like yeah, I guess it is.
Speaker 2:And so at this point we, probably only a few minutes into the conversation, and I had asked like okay, so you're asking me to come and like work for you? And they're like no, with us, like you're going to come and're going to come and work with us, we're all going to be, we're all going to be owners, we're all going to be co-founders. It's going to be split. You know three, three ways down the middle. And so I said yes, like, immediately. And they were like don't you want to maybe like think about it? I mean, I mean um, and they're like why don't you just like take the weekend Like we're, we're all like considering, like quitting our jobs.
Speaker 2:We had no clients and we wouldn't have any clients even at the launch, because it's just the nature of the business and we can't like run around and talk to other law firms when you're still employed by one law firm and, uh, like we're not gonna have any money for a really long time, we're not going to have any clients for a long time. We hope you know it won't be that long. But you know, I think I had like a straight panic attack for the entire weekend. I remember just being like hyperventilating, walking up the stairs, being like I can't breathe, I'm going to quit my job. What am I doing? You know? I think by the time Monday rolled around, I was like, yeah, no, I'm still in Because, like you guys can't leave without me. It's more the other thing like I'm coming, I'm coming with you. So, uh, yeah, we worked in stealth mode for almost almost a year, january 2023.
Speaker 2:We gave notice for all three of us on the same day. Same day, we were an entire department. You know the firm was not pleased I think that's putting it lightly. They were not happy and I think we gave notice on a Friday and then, you know, the following Friday was our last day and we had a very long tenure with this particular firm and and that was it, we launched two weeks later.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that that took some courage and maybe could have been handled a little differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it was it.
Speaker 2:I think what, for me, was the scariest part is, when I was still in house and employed by all of these firms, the messaging that I often heard from other people who were client facing.
Speaker 2:So when you're in house in the marketing department, your clients are the lawyers, and so most of the feedback we were getting at this point was or at least from my perspective, it was like it's a big, bad, scary business world out there, right, and our clients don't have time to get to know you, or they don't want to get to know us and I don't need to get to know them, because it's getting billed by the hour and we don't time for like niceties, because it's getting billed by the hour and we don't time for like niceties.
Speaker 2:And there were definitely times where earlier way earlier in my career, certain lawyers would count and I actually think I should probably write about this would count how many extra words I had used in a sentence and then tell me how much money I wasted by having them to have to read that sentence, having them to have to read that sentence, which, when I was still pretty. I'm not sure where some of this has come from, but I'm pretty sure I retorted with like do you know how much time you just wasted explaining this to me?
Speaker 1:Right, so we'll call it even.
Speaker 2:That's cool. So when we launched I really thought it was going to be like torturous, and I do think that's part of where this like I'm just going to give and I'm just going to show up as like nice as I can, because it was so shitty in a lot of ways before. And if I can give some kindness out even though it wasn't really always given to me then maybe I'll get some of it in return. Right, like I know you're supposed to just give and not expect anything, but I was hoping I put out some good, then maybe I'd get some good vibes back, and my experience has been that it's, I am sure, there. I know there are assholes out there, I know there's toxic workplaces and there's toxic clients. It just hasn't happened for me yet and I'm hopeful that if I just keep giving and being generous, that I'll just keep attracting clients who are-.
Speaker 1:No, I love that and I think isn't one of the things you guys offer. It's like there's some kind of free coaching or free training. It's like four sessions or something. Do you think that kind of helps weed out where you can kind of get a feel for them, and then you could get like some red flags going off or whatnot. Then you would say, hey, maybe they're not the right fit for us. Do you think that helps eliminate, instead of just signing and working together and then realizing that?
Speaker 2:So the free package is called Corduroy. It's for parents. It's for parents only. Essentially it's anybody who's coming back from a parental leave. We give them four free business development sessions. It's essentially the same exact package as our paid package. So it's like thousands and thousands of dollars for free. It's so much work. Every time I get someone, I'm excited, but also like shit. Whose idea was this? It was mine. It was mine when we launched. I was like I have a great idea. How about we just like give free stuff to parents? Because you know, I'm a working parent as well and I like ethos of just trying to give, attracting people, and I think that now if someone starts to like be a jerk, then I just fire them. I mean, I don't have to, I don't have to be unhappy. That's kind of the beauty. It hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. What would you say Like how would you describe what stage does? Like, what is your? I know you work with lawyers and law law firms, but like, how do you work with them? And like, what is your? Like, what would? What are your main goals for them when you?
Speaker 2:what's my day actually like, what's a day in the life? So we have a couple of a couple of different service offerings. The one that I love the most is the one-to-one service offering for lawyers and legal marketers actually, which is a new addition in the last couple of months. And there are lots of coaches out there in the world. I use the word coach because it makes sense, but I'm not a coach in that I do a lot of work for the lawyer. My goal is to take the business development in a lot of ways off their plate. So that might mean like drafting up LinkedIn posts just as we're talking.
Speaker 2:I don't consider myself a ghostwriter. I just identify stories as they're talking to me, so I'll just capture what they're saying and send it back to them and get it started In our sessions. You'll get you know, usually like a LinkedIn post, a draft outreach to a client. Perhaps you don't really know what to say. It's been a couple of months. Or the lawyer could also be saying that they want to get more visibility, in particular, trade publication. At this point, we've got some really nice relationships with Law360 and Bloomberg and the Practicing Law Institute, and those have all come through in the last 18 months and so we'll pitch ideas to those publications for that individual lawyer. So I am their entire marketing business development team of one for that individual lawyer. So it's really tailored, really custom support for whatever that lawyer needs.
Speaker 2:It might be PR, it might mean marketing, it might be business development and then setting a regular cadence for client outreach. So we're really working with them through that sales cycle and figuring out what it looks like. But for them it's what does it feel, what feels good, what's authentic to you? Instead of it, if you hate networking in a big conference space, then let's not do that. Get on a podcast, right, do one-to-one. So that's on the one-to-one side for the lawyers.
Speaker 2:On the legal marketing side there's senior professionals who might need a little extra support or career coaching and guidance, or their manager isn't just giving them the professional development or enrichment that they need. So we've been working together with some of the legal marketers and that's been really fun to give back. So that's on the coaching kind of one-to-one. And then we do like very standard, like marketing and business development, fractional services for marketing departments inside law firms or for law firms that don't have any support at all, and so for us. There's lots of consultants out there who will require a certain set number of hours to engage, and at this current juncture we do not have any minimum hours. So if you just wanted to use us for one hour a month, that's fine, we'll do that right, and so that's another kind of differentiator for us. And then we do like workshops and things like that. So it's mainly coaching individuals, support individuals, and then also fractional marketing and business development services for law firms.
Speaker 1:Nice. So is the idea. Then, if you're let's say you're working with an attorney one-to-one, is it to help grow, like their practice, like to get them business right?
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then when you're doing like the marketing team, that sounds more like you're maybe trying to help them grow their career or further advancement, because obviously, or is it business or is it marketing business for the firm, are you helping them do that as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so on the individual side, if you're a legal marketer and you're in-house and you need some career guidance or you need to just figure out how to manage your manager, you can have kind of an outside person. Sometimes just organizations aren't giving you everything that you might need or you just want to ask somebody else a question that's not in your department, right?
Speaker 2:Like how should I work with this boss who's being a jerk or won't promote me, or how much money should I ask for? So those types of things. For the legal marketers On the fractional side, it's essentially sometimes where you're filling in, for they haven't hired a person yet and they need someone to come in and do some practice management. So that might mean running a practice group for them, organizing the lawyers, doing their agendas, creating materials. So essentially, like I am an employee, but on a consultant basis for that law firm to help their marketing and business development still growing the business. So sometimes there's just so much work for the marketing teams that they can't get to it all and they need to like bring in extra resources. And that's us, we're the extra resource.
Speaker 1:Nice, I like that, so I like it. I like the versatility that you guys offer, Like it's not just one lane, one thing, like you've got several, several different ways to help, and like different touch points. So I think that's. I think that's very smart. Did you have, do you? I assume you do have some kind of marketing background? Did you have? I assume you do have some kind of marketing background? Did you always love marketing, business development, or did that kind of come later in life? Or where does that come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my entire career essentially has been marketing and business development for professional service firms. I went to college for a communications degree or corporate communications. I interned at a law firm and I hated it, which is really funny. It was so boring. And yet here I am and I started at accounting. I started with KPMG and then I had heard through the rumor mill that law firms paid more, and so I made the jump to law firms and then never left.
Speaker 1:Who cares how bad that experience was, they'll pay me more money.
Speaker 2:I heard they will pay more. And so you know, very young, very early in my career, I took that jump from KPMG into big law.
Speaker 1:And you never left.
Speaker 2:And I never left. I mean, I guess I'm kind of out but still yeah you never leave. That's kind of the running joke is that once you're in, you never leave. You're stuck forever.
Speaker 1:So it is like the firm, like the movie yeah, you get in, you can't get out.
Speaker 2:You can't get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what do you love most about it? Is it the challenge of trying to figure out the best way to position whether it's a marketing department or a lawyer? Like taking their background and skills and former cases or whatnot, and then like packaging that in the most attractive way? Is that like a puzzle to solve? Or like what do you like? What is the? What do you think draws you and keeps you like in the space?
Speaker 2:That's such a good question. What I, what I love the most is when we try a strategy and then it works. I mean that's like the simple. And then they come back and they say, particularly now in the coaching side, so the lawyer and I will come up with some kind of plan. Usually it's very simple. It doesn't have to be super complicated.
Speaker 2:I outreach, you know, I did an outreach to a client and then the client took the meeting and then I mentioned these things that you said I should, and then they took me up on it and now we're moving forward and you're like, yes, like that, I just love seeing other people kind of win and succeed like that. And that's a lot of the reason why our company is called what it's called, because we're very much behind the scenes, like whispering that, we're like the director, if you will, and then the lawyers are the actors and they're on the stage and they're performing and I love seeing them win. And so anytime you can get that really great result which it doesn't happen as often, but anytime you get the result. That's what keeps me coming back for more. Also, there's so much to do in law firms, so I'm an achiever. So anything that I can do to cross off lists also feeds just my soul, because I just like to be busy.
Speaker 1:I want more to do all the time.
Speaker 2:I just need more to do.
Speaker 1:No, I think it's interesting because I've seen a lot recently on LinkedIn. I've talked to people about the value of a coach or mentor or, like you said that, outside person, because it's very hard for us, I think, for most people, to see your strengths and what you're good at, right, so the people you're working with. It's much harder for them to go into a client meeting and say how good they are A it feels weird to be like, hey, I'm great at this, even if you are. But when someone else tells you or reflects it back to you to be like, hey, you're actually really good at X, y and Z, then you're like, yeah, okay, I am, you're right. It's much easier to then take that into a meeting and say with confidence, with more confidence, that even if you 100% knew it was true, just that outside third party, for whatever reason, carries so much weight.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you've seen it with your kids. Right, you can tell your kids something for six months. They think you're nuts. They see an aunt who they haven't seen in three years. They have almost no relationship. They literally say the same thing you've been saying for six months and then your kids are total believers. You're like, oh yeah, aunt so-and-so said this You're like, I've been literally told you that every day for six months, like what. I've never heard that. You've never said it to me before, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 2:Same kind of principle Same, and it's interesting you picked up on the strengths where you use that word. So we actually have a strengths assessment as part of our one-to-one offering, where we have a partnership with this company called Wellbeing Work and essentially, legal marketers and lawyers will take the assessment if they want to and we get their strengths. It's a Gallup Strength Finder report and there's also a wellbeing component as well, if they want to share that. And so once we find out what your five strengths are, we map them to whatever your goals are. So for a lawyer, it's going to be mapped to business development activities. So what activities are your strengths that you can say yes to and then also know you don't have to do them all?
Speaker 2:And so a lot of times what will happen is lawyers will come to us and say particularly women lawyers will come and say I'm not really good at anything.
Speaker 2:And these are lawyers who most of the time have. Not only do they have a JD and an undergrad, but they also went back to school and have PhDs and all this crazy stuff and they were the top of every single thing you could possibly think of. And so I'm like that's not true and they don't believe me until we do these strengths assessment and then we map those two business development activities so that you know you should be doing writing if you're someone who has that strength, or podcasting or and you can say no to other things that the firm is asking you to do. If it doesn't align with your strength, then you don't have to do it and it gives people more permission to say no and that's been really effective. And we do the same thing for legal marketers. Their activities are different. It depends on their goals. If they're looking to try and leave the firm or get promoted, then we map those as well. So I'm less interested now in working and improving on people's weaknesses and more interested on just accelerating people's strengths.
Speaker 1:And I think that's another shift. Yeah, that's 1000%, and I think that's a societal, societal change that needs to happen Because, like when I was growing up and in school and stuff, it was always about identifying the weakness and shorting up the weakness and there's been a shift to be like yeah, I mean, it's good to kind of know of course, some weaknesses, especially if it's something you have to do.
Speaker 1:Then you're like okay, we want to get you to a certain level of like proficiency there, but you're much better at taking like the handful of things that you're like naturally good at, or or whatever. And then let's figure out a way to use that like as much as possible, because you're just going to be happier if you're doing things you're naturally good at on a regular basis. It's just much easier to be satisfied in your work if you're always working against it. Even if you get to a very high level of proficiency, if you don't really like it or you're not naturally good at it, you're just going to keep fighting it and eventually you'll just burn out because you have to work too hard to do it. So I think that's great.
Speaker 1:I love Clifton. I've taken it twice. The first time was in 2016, just because my company offered it. I wasn't familiar with it and I got it, but I didn't really know what to do with it. I didn't really have anybody to talk to about it. They didn't offer any kind of follow-up. So I was like all right, I have these five strengths. They make logical sense to me, but it wasn't until I took it six years later in 22, and they were mostly the same.
Speaker 1:There were a couple differences, but then I was working with a coach who then we were able to kind of dig a little deeper and be like all right, let's talk about this. So I think it's great that you guys offer that and then actually, instead of just offering it, then you really take it and then, like you said, you map it and you put it into position where they can then actually do something with it. I think that's a genius. I don't know if you've been doing that the whole time. I think that's a genius idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my partner, kathleen Hilton, came up with that connection because we really wanted to be able to. I think it was just kind of fascinating to hear people saying that they weren't good at stuff. These are just like highly educated, really go-getters, and so I think there was this like confidence gap. The other thing that's really interesting with the Wellbeing at Work company is that they offer this wellbeing assessment as well, and so they our clients can do one or both of the reports, and so some of them have done the wellbeing and we'll tell you like where you, if you're thriving or struggling or just kind of surviving or whatever with like mental, physical.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of other components, but one of the things that had come up for one of my clients was their physical wellbeing was very low because they were just like busy all the time and they weren't doing anything and you're just sitting in your desk and you turn into the same shape as your chair, right, and so one of the things that we decided to do with this person and they were on board was well, okay, if you're going to do business development, could you like walk and talk right with your client? And so they decided to do that. They're just like okay, I'm going to like try to do they like to golf. So like I'm going to do golfing and I'm going to do walk and talks and grab a coffee and just like move just a little bit. It doesn't have to be a marathon, like legitimately, it could just be 10 minutes of movement, and so it's just another way to bring a more holistic approach to that one person. It's not a one size fits all, and I think that's another thing that we try to strive for.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's great. I mean, obviously you hear the stories of lawyers working crazy hours and stuff and you're just at the office all the time and just sitting is so bad for you and skipping meals and not drinking water and just not taking breaks or even just like a five-minute mental break.
Speaker 1:There's all these things that are just long-term very detrimental. So I love that you're incorporating that. And the other thing, too when you hear lawyer it's so broad, so the fact that you're doing the strengths right, there's so many aspects of being a lawyer right and so honing in. Do you want to write more? Do you want to research more?
Speaker 1:Are you a better presenter, like all there's all strategy, like there's just all these different aspects right To the legal. So it isn't just like TV, right. You just think lawyer, it's just someone getting up and talking. That's a part of it, right, but a lot of times you have three or four lawyers on one case and they're all doing these different roles of figuring out where am I best at. I think that's great. What kind of feedback do you get? The strengths, I know you said people come to you and think they don't have any, which is funny, uh, which really reinforces the whole. Like it's hard to for people to say, like what they're actually good at, even if they're really good at certain things, um, you're like nothing right, yeah, exactly not much.
Speaker 1:what is the feedback when they see the strengths and you start talking to how they apply? Do people's eyes like kind of open and light up, do they? Is it like something like something they've known? You're like, yeah, you're right, or is like, oh crap, I've never even thought about that.
Speaker 2:I think it's like all of those things. Actually, I usually ask like, how did the report or how did the findings? Like, how did you feel about your findings? And sometimes they're surprised. Other times they're like no, that actually makes sense. Or you know, when I was younger I really wanted to fill in the blank, and so it's a little bit of that.
Speaker 2:I think it takes sometimes for some of them. It takes a little getting used to and setting some new boundaries is hard, particularly when most of my clients at this point are on partner chat, so they're trying to meet partner, and at that point you're doing whatever the firm is telling you to do. And so as you're getting closer and closer, you know you have to start getting your own clients in, and now you have to go be a salesperson in addition to being a great lawyer, and so it's a completely different mind shift and a different mindset. And so I think sometimes it takes a little bit of them trying out the things that they think like now they know that they're good at. So one of them, for example, is Lerner under those under CliftonShings, and they're like, oh, I love reading case law and all this stuff, right, and that makes total sense. But what we've also done is I'm like why don't you try to learn something that's not legal, like what's something crazy?
Speaker 2:Expand your horizon, just like wild. And so someone was telling me that they started knitting, right, they really always wanted to learn how to knit, but they never really found that it was too frivolous, and so it's just incorporating some of that. It's really challenging when your whole life is locked into seven minute increments, because that's how a lot of firms are. Six minute increments are charging, and so once you get attuned to, well, that was a waste of six minutes, right. Then, like it's hard to do anything else other than just work. You're not gonna go to the bathroom if you could have made six minutes of money whatever.
Speaker 2:So it's really hard, and particularly now, even for me on the consultant side, when you start to get into this like by the hour billing, everything feels like a waste of time if it doesn't result in something immediately. So it's a hardship. And so, anyway, this client decides that they're going to start knitting and they're like, oh yes, I learned something new and I also, like, joined a knitting club and now I've met some people and I actually find it to be like really relaxing. And so there's just like multiple benefits. And this has nothing to do with business development or law, it's just something that we came up with together right, I didn't know that this person wanted to knit, that wasn't in the map. But learn something new was in the map, so that's why it's different for every single person.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great and I think it's important. No matter what you're working on or in or whatever your career or business is, you have to have outlets. You have to have something that isn't related to that, no matter what it is just to take your mind off of it and shift gears and all that kind of stuff. How have you a year and a half plus of building this business and you know balancing, you know marriage and young kids and like all that kind of stuff? Like what do you? How do you try to keep it all kind of going without going crazy?
Speaker 2:I'm like, I don't have it figured out either. I try to outsource as much as I possibly can is like, and that is just that even looks different week to week. So like I just had a cleaning service come back in, that was one of the first things to go when we we were making the family choice to launch the business Like can we afford this extra frivolous thing? And we decided, yeah, no, this is, this is a time saver for everybody in the house. So I try to outsource as many things and get things delivered, as you know, for the family logistics. But I've really been focusing on making sure that I also am giving myself a break.
Speaker 2:I'm very bad at that personally as well. Just relearning that like, or just learning in general that like I'm the boss now and I can do whatever I want, and yet I'm like the worst boss ever. Like I never let myself take a break. I'm eating over my keyboard, Like why you know I can leave and take a five minute break around the block, no one is yelling at me, and yet here I am, still in my basement. So you know it's a learning process. I don't have it figured out either, but I try to do different things and try to make time for myself, trying to date night and all of those kinds of things. But yeah, no, it's hard.
Speaker 1:It's uh, I'm really glad we get cause we got a COVID. We have a COVID dog, which I was very against. I love dogs, but I didn't want to get one, cause I knew I was going to have to do all the work and I just wasn't ready to do it. And then, you know, covid hit my wife's a teacher. My kids were all both in school and so they were just around me like all the time, every day, and I was losing my mind, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I was like I have to introduce, I need a, I need a fifth.
Speaker 2:And so I was like, let's get a dog.
Speaker 1:So we did, but little did I know like what was going to happen and like honestly, he's such a savior for me because he forces me to get up, like cause he needs to go out and I go out in the yard, like you get some fresh air and you just get off the computer and stand and then you know I try to walk a midday, you know, like a 15, 20 minute walk, which is usually when I get most of my post ideas uh when.
Speaker 1:I get away from the screens and just watching him and, you know, interacting with people in the neighborhood and stuff. So it's really helpful just to, like you said, it doesn't have to be for a long time, but right, just kind of step away yeah, yeah, uh, do you?
Speaker 2:do you keep your post ideas in your phone? You put them in your notes yeah, I have them.
Speaker 1:I probably have five or six different places. So I have notes. I have an android phone. So, yeah, notes in the phone excel notebook on my desk. Yeah, one note I have. Yeah, they're probably. I probably should organize that, as I'm saying this out loud, it should be more organized. But yeah, I just things come to me and I just, yeah, I try to capture it pretty quickly. Um seems like shower. I run without like headphones and stuff. I just you know whatever. And then the dog. I'd say those three are probably like 90% of everything I come up with is in one of those three places which are all no device. Right, like you allow your brain to stop being stimulated and allow it to just kind of relax, and then you know, things come to you.
Speaker 2:It's so hard.
Speaker 2:It's so hard because I'm like no I need to sit and work more so that more things can come to me. But yeah, the same, almost the same. I often. Sometimes we'll be like reading out loud to my kids, but we'll also be thinking about LinkedIn posts and so like that's not super present, but sometimes just even reading the like kids picture books has like sparked ideas and so for the most part I just have like a bunch of random sentences in my phone and notes and sometimes those sentences become one post and sometimes they become five different posts. It's really it's kind of a fascinating little process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. My kids are 14 and 10. My 10-year-old is he's probably the most fascinated and interested by my business and he's very. He asked like very specific questions and like he kind of wants to know like how it works and like how do I get paid and like how much money do people pay you and how much money have you made?
Speaker 1:and like is this working and what does it take to be successful? And like all this kind of stuff. It's really fascinating to hear it's just kind of see his like little mind, like because he knows it's different. He knows I'm not like working for a company. He doesn't really understand what that means, but he knows I kind of work for myself and then he's like trying to figure, he's like trying to piece it together.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:It's really truly interesting. Even even if this is an Epic failure and I have to go back and get a quote, unquote, real job, it'll still be such a learning, not just learning for me, but like learning for them and like alternate ways to do things, and you know, just have to do like the normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the normal. Yeah, this was never my plan. This was never, ever my plan, so it's. It's just, you know, kind of wild how things can shift and change and goals and milestones can all just be whatever you want them to be yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:You know, that's kind of the reason I started this podcast. I'd wanted to start a show for a while and then when I kind of made this shift about a year ago to content creation and I was always so dissatisfied with all my regular jobs when I was thinking about doing the show, that was kind of the main driver was like, as we age and mature and evolve, like we're kind of, I think, in a perfect world, we're kind of always striving just to be better, like better understanding of ourselves, better understanding of our relationships, career, work, whatever, like you're just trying to get better. You know, as you, as you go through things and, um, that's why I ended up calling it the real you, because I feel like I wore a lot of masks, you know, as a kid, you know to try to blend in a lot of different scenarios and then, as I got older, I dropped maybe one or two and now you know I'm almost 50, you know I'm probably down to maybe like five, which I think you probably have to wear them. You have to wear some all the time. There's social norms that you have to fit into right, so you're never going to be exactly the same person, like with your longtime friends, as your like associates, as your like in-laws, as like a networking event, right, those are different social things, but you want to try to be, I think, ideally like as true to yourself in as many of those as you can where you're not like having to think about like every word.
Speaker 1:So then, so that's what really got me thinking like gosh, I've had to be like, I've had to be somebody else in so many different situations. Wouldn't it be nice if I could just like be myself, like most of the time? Like what would that be like? Um, and so that was kind of the genesis to the idea. What kind of what have like, as you uh, you just recently celebrated a birthday another year older like, do you think about, like that kind of stuff, and like what you kind of want future to look like, and like kind of your own, like evolution yeah, I I have to say, since the launch of the business it's been really hard to kind of forecast or even like look kind of forward and like that far.
Speaker 2:It was way more like kind of lock step for me when I was still in the corporate life and that's also just a nature of being in big law, even though I wasn't a lawyer. There's a very nice kind of upward path for legal marketing professionals. And so now that there's really like, okay, I own this business and I wanted to make it to the one-year mark and we did, and now I'm like, okay, I'll make it to the two-year mark and we're just a few months out from that, so that feels good. I don't really know what's next. I think for so long I always thought I was going to just like it was always a salary number I wanted and a title that I always wanted. I kept getting closer to all of those things and is a privilege to be able to to and then be able to act on it, to be in a position to act on it financially.
Speaker 2:So I'm not sure, like I don't know if every year, I don't know what 40 will bring right. I don't know what 39 is. I'm only a couple of days into 39. I have no idea what that looks like, I think, for me. I just there is. I mean, there is some like topping. I have been thinking about like, all right, how am I going to top what I did last year, like what's next for me? But it's more just an individual inward look than a salary or a title, which is definitely something I was focused on for a really long time. So it's, it's. I don't know. It's very I'm not sure I have a really great answer for that actually.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's interesting. I think a lot of people, myself included, right the salary and the title, because when you're young and that's kind of beat into you, like get go to school, get a job, get the high paying job with a cool title or a prestigious title, whatever that is, whatever industry, it doesn't matter and so many people get there and then you're like what what now? Like okay, okay, I made it, I have it. It doesn't really mean anything. I don't really love this, I don't. I don't find a lot of meaning in the work, or like I feel like I could, I can do, like a lot more, and so then you're just like start looking around.
Speaker 1:You're like this is it. I made it. What next? So I think that's what causes so much of the especially internal turmoil where you're trying to wrestle with. I got to where I said I wanted to go, but now I don't actually really want to be here, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is. It is a question that I think I ask myself a lot, and so I say this sentence to a lot of legal marketers, because when you're in house, we are all very skilled at lots of different things as legal marketers, meaning that we can do lots of things and we shouldn't be doing them. And so the torturous task for me was updating lawyers' bios, and there's just this big focus for the lawyers for some reason. I'm like here's everything that I did and I'm going to send this to the client and the client's going to care, and so you're just constantly updating people's bios.
Speaker 2:And so I just had this like nightmare of me being 50, 60 years old, just like editing people's bios, and there's like a very important part of that Like don't get me wrong, but I just kept feeling like I was made to do more and I could do more. I mean I'm picking on this piece, that could do more. I mean I'm picking on this piece. That is really what like pushed me over the edge. I'm like I do not want to be 60 years old editing people's freaking bios, and every time I share the story, most people are like laughing and and I think that's where I'm like if I want to edit people's bios now, it's on my own terms.
Speaker 2:I'm choosing it, no one's forcing me to do it, yeah, so there there's that, and I think I've become such a better business developer because I had to be. Now there's what I told the lawyers when I was employed by these big companies, but there's also what I had to do for myself to get business in the door, and so, putting those two things together, I don't think I would have ever learned these skills ever. I just it's completely different just being thrown into the fire and having to make it work to feed my family yeah, the, the learning curve of starting your own thing is it's exponential.
Speaker 1:I probably learned more in the first six months when I started this than I did maybe like my entire life yeah, because you, you, because there's what you don't realize is how much there is to it, right, like suddenly, like you were only focused on kind of one aspect with a law firm. Then you start running your own company and now you're like sales and marketing and taxes and payroll and client acquisition and invoicing.
Speaker 1:Now you're like all of it. All of it. It went from one, you're in kind of one aspect of a company, Then you start your own thing and now you're all the aspects all the time, and so that's a big. That's a big, it's a big hurdle, but it forces you exponentially like, oh, I got to figure this out pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty quick, pretty quick. And I think what's also kind of ironic is that a lot of the reason why I left in general was like I just want to do the things that I'm good at and I just want to be more strategic and I don't want to get bogged down with all this other crap. And now I'm doing like I'm updating my own website all the time, right Like on the back end. So it's just, you know, it's, it's. The world is funny sometimes.
Speaker 1:Just a big old trick You're getting to choose for sure way different. Yeah, there's. There's something about, at least I think, for probably for both of us and most people that start their own thing. It's I don't know. There's something about people telling you to do it and then you are like I'll do that because I want to yeah, or or I have to, but I have to for me like not for yes, yes, yes, I get to.
Speaker 2:I get to right. Yeah, I get to exactly.
Speaker 1:Um. Well, this is great. I really appreciate all your insight and time. I love your energy. I love what you're doing. I love how helpful you are, not only on LinkedIn, but with your business and all the people that you work with. Any final thoughts, and then anybody out there that would be interested in learning more you know how to get in touch.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn or you can go to our website. We have like a, rather we have a different kind of extension, it's wwwstageguide, because you know we just like guide people, so you can find us there. But yeah, I mean just like spread some kindness I guess would be my kind of closing thoughts, like you don't have to be an asshole to do business, you could be nice.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.