In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Mark Carter discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"I've discovered the checklist for mentoring is getting advice, support, and or connections. And the advice is experiential advice." — Mark Carter
Connect with Mark Carter:
Website: MarkJCarter.com
Show: IdeaClimbing.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/mjcarterTV
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjcarter/
Twitter: twitter.com/mjcarter
Facebook: facebook.com/mjcarter
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Mark Carter 0:00
To me, I've discovered the checklist for mentoring is getting advice, support and or connections. And the advice is experiential advice. Not what do you think about this? What do you think I should do not what book did you read? What did you do when you were in my shoes?
Narrator 0:20
You're listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin!
Steve Fretzin 0:42
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. This is my announcer voice Hello. I'm here with a friend of mine. Someone I've known for quite a while and just one of the most interesting people I know, Mark Carter, he came up with a concept called idea climbing and we're going to learn all about that today. Mark, how's it going?
Mark Carter 1:02
So far? So good. Glad to be here.
Steve Fretzin 1:03
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to have you on the show and appreciate you having me on your show. You know, that was, that was a lot of fun to do. So now we're gonna, we're gonna see how that reciprocation works out.
Mark Carter 1:12
flip the script?
Steve Fretzin 1:14
Yeah, we get no script here. It's just it's all it's all working through it. But let me if you don't mind, give, give a little more background. Obviously, I did a crap job of introducing you. So do me a favor and just kind of jump in and give people a little background on yourself and an idea climbing and what it's all about?
Mark Carter 1:32
Yeah, what is it what it's all about is the short version of a long story. Two weeks before I graduated college, I read a Tony Robbins self help book. And in the book, he described, basically his lifestyle. And I was a sales and marketing manager at the time. And I said, I want that consulting, speaking, coaching, just really helping people. So I got all the same certifications that he did. And in my DNA, you would call it mentoring. Now I back then I just did it. I sought out successful people, and I interviewed them and would get actionable items, something I could do. And then I would teach what they taught me to like rotary clubs and colleges, high schools. And over 21 years, I've collected a lot of great information. And few years ago, I called it mentoring. And one of my mentors said, you're doing so much more than just mentoring. You have to call it something else. And I googled idea climbing, nothing was there filed the federal trademark on it. And what it really is, is if you have a big idea, it's surrounding yourself with peers, mentors and referral sources, collaborating together to bring a big idea to life.
Steve Fretzin 2:37
Yeah, I love it. And again, I think people that want to try to do something on their own, you know, I look, I appreciate that, that type of commitment. But the reality is that when you have the right people around you, it just makes everything work everything easier.
Mark Carter 2:51
And so many people do the lone wolf syndrome, I fell into that trap. Even though I had mentors, I was just getting advice from them. And I was cold calling and everything was on my own. Until one of my mentors is a New York Times bestselling author. After six years of knowing him, he asked me to run social media for his book launch. And I thought why was my collaborating earlier? Collaboration is the key.
Steve Fretzin 3:15
Yeah, that's really interesting. And let me ask you, just just to go back a moment, you mentioned, you know, interviewing over 21 years, all these all these successful people? Is there one or two lessons that maybe resonated that are sort of top of the list that you just keep repeating over and over? Or that you keep sharing over and over because they were just absolutely sound?
Mark Carter 3:35
As far as advice?
Steve Fretzin 3:36
Yeah, advice, or Yeah, just things that you that you picked up from from these successful people.
Mark Carter 3:41
Number one is collaborate. Okay? Never try and go alone. Never try and go alone, okay, into the common thread with almost everyone from multi Platinum musicians, to CEOs and in between, always be marketing your ideas, share them, don't hoard them, don't be afraid someone's gonna steal them, share ideas, because then people can join you and help you with the idea. Don't hide your idea, thinking somebody is going to steal it.
Steve Fretzin 4:08
Okay, so I have an idea for a program that I want to roll out for attorneys that I think is phenomenal. But I'm kind of slow down, because I'm just trying to work it out in my own head. And I haven't, you know, really, you know, figured out exactly how it's going to work or I'm going to price everything. So how do you I take this this amazing concept and surround myself with people that can help me?
Mark Carter 4:33
Well, the first thing that appears mentors and referral sources, the first thing I would do is go for go the mentor route. And that's going to be one of my defaults you'll see in the interview, is talk to lawyers and say, Look, I don't have something to sell you right now. But I'd like you to review this and then go to friends and like ask me what lawyers do know that you can set me up with Okay, I know somebody at XYZ law firm. I know this person. So go to your network. And then go to your extended network and go to the end user and get their advice on it. Let them tell you what to do.
Steve Fretzin 5:08
Yeah. So I think that's really that's really bright. Because you know, you can ask them about the pricing, ask them about the structure, what do they like? What are they not like? What feedback do they have? What would make it better? And that's going to help you actually evolve that program into something that's viable.
Mark Carter 5:24
And you're not guessing it's not I think, a lawyer with like this. It is I know, lawyers like this, because five people told me they would like this.
Steve Fretzin 5:32
Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. What about someone that has a big idea? And it's, it's potentially something that they're going to have to get funding for, they're going to have to, you know, try to figure out, like, how to how to, like, blow it out.
Mark Carter 5:47
A big idea, like, would it be in the tech space? Or what do you think?
Steve Fretzin 5:50
Sure. Let's say let's say I have an idea for an app. And of course, I don't, but let's say I do and, and so I think it's the best thing since Facebook, for example, and I'm sure it's not but or maybe it is because Facebook won't get into it. Yeah. So yeah, obviously, I can talk to end users and ask them what they think of this idea. Do I have to have them sign NDA? Before I share it or, but then what do I do next?
Mark Carter 6:15
I just and this isn't live yet. I just had this conversation with a guest on my podcast that works with startups. And as far as NDA goes, No, don't do it. It's just
Steve Fretzin 6:27
Don't have them sign an NDA, just tell them what it is
Mark Carter 6:29
Don't have them sign an NDA, because if you think about it, it's going to cost how much money to actually enforce it. And it turns people off when people that won't sign NDA could be geniuses and help you. And what my guests shared with me that he's learned over like over a decade of working with startups with marketing and sales is definitely go to your end user First, find out if it's viable, don't build with so many startups, and I would see this when I was a mentor in a startup incubator, they'd spend money, they get a little bit of funding, or you know, friends and family funding even worse yet, people close to them, they build what they thought was amazing, just to find out that their end user doesn't even want it.
Steve Fretzin 7:10
Yeah. Okay. So outside of the, you know, the mentorship or getting the advice of people that are in the that are in the space to do you have to surround yourself with to get an idea off the ground, whether there's funding or not, or whether it's, there's there's things that are just beyond I mean, again, there's lawyers that, you know, their job is to, to help people with their NDS or their trademarks, or to, to make sure that they're protected. You know, what's involved in the in taking an idea and blowing it out and actually making a reality out of it.
Mark Carter 7:42
If it's a physical product, and I include apps and physical products, like I said, Go to the end user first. And also find the end user. And then also, with funding, before you're asking for funding, you can always go to people on a more of a mentorship route. And ideally, if you don't know a VC or an angel investor, depending what route you're going to go go through friends. And one of the things that I mentioned at once, but one of the key things is do it as early as possible people wait until they have a product and then they say I want advice which can can get a sticky situation with with a VC. Because then it's Do you just want advice? Or are you really just tricking me into a pitch, be able to go to them when it's like look at I have nothing to sell you or get funded yet. That's why I want to talk to you now. God, what do you think about this? What would it take to get funding for this? Am I barking up the wrong tree? Am I in the right lane and go to them before you have anything to sell them? It makes it so much easier for them to say yes to talk to you.
Steve Fretzin 8:42
Yeah. Okay. So let me ask you something else. I know that you mentioned somewhere in the in the idea climbing that mentoring and marketing are related. And I wanted to understand what that means.
Mark Carter 8:55
What it means. And I stumbled across this on my own. I had mentors and I would get their advice. And then when social media hit a few years ago, I started doing videos on YouTube. Now I'm doing podcasts, blog posts, LinkedIn articles, and where are they? I found there's a crossover and I started doing it and went Wow, that's a good idea is if you ask somebody, if you're a college student, almost anybody will mentor you. It's easy to get a CEO to say yes to the wide eyed 19 year old you know, undergrad student, almost anyone will want to help and give back. Once you get beyond 2030 whatever and you this can be used for the college students too. Instead of just getting mentoring advice, record it and either make a blog post, record a video, if you have the technical capabilities report a podcast if you have the technical capabilities. If you don't write a blog, if you don't even have WordPress, go to LinkedIn and write an article. It's free. And that way you're asking them to share their genius with you because you're going to Share it with your community. And suddenly mentoring that would be behind closed doors like it was when I started before social media hit. I'm running at about a 99% yes rate for my podcast. And people like like I'm writing a book, I interviewed somebody who's who's taken 90 business books to the New York Times bestseller list. Wow, he cracked the code. That is somebody that I would have had to pay 100 or 1000 plus dollars to talk to him for hour.
Steve Fretzin 10:29
That isn't the something something for dummies guy is it? No, it's whoever that is, is brilliant. They got 1000s books for Dummies. That's an idea right there. Holy mackerel. Very cool. So um, what are some of the things that just understand more about what you do? And how you help people? What are some of the things that when you're talking with people that people are challenged by? And then what are you working with them on directly?
Mark Carter 10:57
It's two things. One, my passion projects are mentoring programs. And so far, we've worked with Loyola University in Chicago, Columbia University in New York, we're talking to UCLA out in California, we started talking to incubators, and then you know, the pandemic hit that went out the window. Hopefully, we'll do that when they get back. And I say a passion project. Because the 21 years of interviews, one of the things that always consistently on almost always consistently came up was people had a mentor, all walks of life, whether they call them a mentor, and advisor, someone they could bounce things off of. So what I've done is cracked the code with mentoring. Most people will say Steve is your mentor. And they mean well, but think about an undergrad or a new startup, Steve, your mentor, and they do a matchmaking some of the most software, they might have 1000s of people to match. That's where it ends, undergrad or a new startup, you could put them in a room with Mark Cuban if they don't know what to say. All they have is a fun story about meeting Mark Cuban. And we actually have an online video library and classroom where people we can get taught every step of the mentoring process, how to pick them, how to reach out to them what to do in meetings, how to have an agenda, how to follow up how to connect your mentors, we take all the guesswork out of mentoring. And it's one of my favorite things to hear when I because I always include virtual not well, now it's virtual or live office hours with the Smart Start off your college students. So they can ask me questions one on one. And it's so amazing to see them go from I don't know what to do help me to the end of the program, they're going out and finding their own mentors on their own. They're not even waiting to be matched up anymore.
Steve Fretzin 12:39
Yeah, and I'm transitioning this into a legal discussion, because I think one of the the greatest success stories that, you know, I've heard as actually my dad who I think he was paid some insane little amount of money. When he started his law, when he started working for a guy in his law practice, I don't wanna say like, $25 a week, I'm sure this was like in the 60s or something, but, but even then, like 25 a week to basically go out and try cases, it was some insane, I have to get the details, but it was like some crazy number. But what he did was he had such a good mentor and such a great learning opportunity that, you know, just after a few years, he was able to not only go out on his own, but really be sustainable for the rest of his career. My question is, in the legal profession, I think there's so many different kinds of mentors that a lawyer could could could could get. And one could be a Rainmaker at a law firm, and it could be a coach like myself, it could be a specific area of practice that you want to become an expert in. And so you can really drive a lot of knowledge working with someone who's top in their field. And so I think that the the question that I'm now putting to you is maybe specifically within that landscape, you know, what's the approach? Well, how does someone that's a third year associate that wants to become a top environmental lawyer? What what's what's their script? How do they go out and identify and then communicate and then achieve getting a mentor in environmental law?
Mark Carter 14:09
What they would do say environmental law, the first thing they're going to do is clearly define their problem. Because I don't know how to try cases is different than I don't know how to work a room is different than I don't know how to get new clients. So clearly define the problem at hand and get as detailed as you possibly can then do research through Google LinkedIn conversations within the Office, depending where it is. Find somebody who has solved that problem. If it's I need to bring a new client, who's the best biggest Rainmaker in the office. And when you approach them, it becomes you know, Hey, Steve, here's my challenge. I'm not gonna bring in a new clients yet. I'm tasked with doing that. I know that you're the top guy in the office, I'd like to talk to you about environmental law and how to get new clients. Where do you go Who do you talk to Can I get into this key for asking someone to be your mentor? I'm really big. I've never asked someone to be your mentor. Let it happen organically. So then it would be Steve, can we can I get 20 minutes on the phone? If you're in the same office, then fine. If you're down the hall, can I get 20 minutes in your office? But if you're not sure, geographically located in the same place, can I get 20 minutes? easy for someone to say? 20 minutes? Yeah, call me Friday at noon? If you just say, Can I have a meeting? That's such an open ended an hour 30 minutes an hour lunch meeting. That means an hour and a half. But it's Can I just get 20 minutes of your time?
Steve Fretzin 15:37
And I'm sorry, 20 minutes of your time? Are you getting any more specific than that? Is it 20 minutes to ask you questions about how you how you did it?
Mark Carter 15:46
How you did it, the checklist, what I found, after all the research I've done over the years, and it's so simple. To me, I've discovered the checklist for mentoring is getting advice, support, and or connections. And the advice is experiential advice. Not what do you think about this? What do you think I should do? Not what book did you read? What did you do when you were in my shoes? And the support is validation? Here's what I'm doing. You know, when I go to networking events, here's here's my elevator pitch. Am I on the right track? And the support is a validation of guests, I think you are or no, you're not you should shift gears. And then connections are which so many people miss with mentoring, at the end of the session, if you have good rapport, now that we've had this conversation, who else do you think I should talk to about this? Leave the meeting with another connection. And you're leapfrogging and you're building your network at the same time through mentoring?
Steve Fretzin 16:40
Yeah, so I think that's really great. So you're not just getting, you know, one opportunity out of it, you can be getting getting, you know, more and more. And again, continuing to learn whether it's the, the the area of practice, whether it's it's developing business within that area, practice, you know, really, really great stuff. And I try to do that on my podcast, I try to write interview people and ask them questions about what their story is, and how they did it. And I think people that are listening, if they really, you know, take in the content, they start to realize, you know, Yeah, wow, I see this person, you know, found a certain way of doing it that that I haven't even considered. And I'll give you an example. So I interviewed a gentleman, this is a top attorney in a big firm and mentioned that, you know, he was just looking at, you know, he's reading all the newspapers and staying up to date on all the current events within certain sector of law that he's in. And then when he saw the legal landscape changing, you know, got into it, started writing on it, and putting out a lot of content. And then when it hit, he was the guy that everybody was thinking about, because he was ahead of the curve. So people don't realize that that's a thing that you can, that you can you can get ahead of legal marijuana or legal, you know, a new Act that's coming through in Congress or something like that. And but but you know, that's, that's what I try to get out of these podcasts. But I think what you're saying is, people can go directly to the source and have these internal dialogues that can be game changing,
Mark Carter 18:06
completely change your career, especially with the experiential advice. Because they're telling you this is what's worked in the real world. That's one thing that people they missed the mark with mentoring is that they ask the question, what do you think about this? And that elicits an opinion, as opposed to what did you do when you were in my shoes? Yeah. Because if they if they can't answer the question, that's not it's not a bad thing. They're just not going to be the person to mentor you. That's when you ask them. Okay, I get it that you haven't done this. Who do you know, that has?
Steve Fretzin 18:38
Right. And I think the other thing you're saying, and I'm kind of coming back to to another another point you made, which is on the marketing side, that the content that can be created from these conversations is it's worthwhile. And it's, it's worth something, as we marketers know, you know, content is king. So the idea that your interview is taped, and then it's creating, he created a case study or you're creating a q&a, or you're creating a story, or an interview, something that can be published or something that can be blogged or, or your social media, you know, keep picking up in a good trend. Is that is that where you're going with that?
Mark Carter 19:13
That's exactly it. And people are also more likely to say yes, if it's going to be public facing 30 minutes of my time, if I'm a top lawyer, and a law firm, that's billable hours. If you're going to make it public facing I'm sure with your network that changes things, because now My name is going to get out there. I get people who are altruistic, I get to share my advice with possibly, you know, 10s hundreds 1000s of people. You know what, I'll make time for that. Even if it's 20 minutes, I'll make time for that. I don't have 30 minutes just to talk to you and shoot the breeze but I got I got 20 to 30 minutes if it's going to be a podcast video or something else.
Steve Fretzin 19:52
Well, here's sort of an inside idea that I've advised some of my clients on and again, if you're able To get an interview, a mentor, advice, interview, whatever we want to call it with someone that is, you know, top in their field, or maybe it's a general counsel at a corporation and your litigation attorney, and you're able to interview them? And they say yes, because it is going to be published in in all of that. Well, what else does that give you? It gives you maybe an inroad to, not to sell them business. But it begins a relationship that never would have happened. If you just said, You know, I want to meet you, right? They don't want to meet some GCS don't want to meet lawyers just to meet lawyers, right? There needs to be a reason. And if you don't have an inside connection, the next best thing might be asking for advice and, and actually conducting an interview that can be published.
Mark Carter 20:44
Well, what I'm all hopped up on right now is podcasts I spent last few years doing videos, I have a nice video library on YouTube of interviews, great podcast, or easier to do, inexpensive, easy to get edited to 20 to 30 minutes. And by getting people on them, most people will say yes to that. And what you could do if you want to use it to drive business. My podcast is idea climbing, conversations about mentoring, marketing and big ideas. People pay me for mentoring programs, marketing strategy, and bringing big ideas to life. There's no mistake there. And even though I'm interviewing other people, they're sharing their genius and they're talking, you know, 80% of the time. At the end of the day, it's my podcast, it's my brand. What I did videos, I did a whole slew of them about mentoring. That branded me people got to know what does he do? He does mentoring programs. It's not a mistake. Some people think I want a podcast and they picked something a totally random topic or sports. And it's like, well, if you're not in the sports world, it's a hobby. Pick something I had a podcast for for a quick minute called podcasting advice. And then someone pointed out to me that runs a podcasting company a very successful one. He said, our podcast isn't about podcast, because podcasters aren't our clients. Our podcast is a b2b marketing podcast, because our clients are b2b marketers. And it really hit me at I shut the podcast down, I realized why would I waste time doing this, I want to put all my time into idea climbing, and grow and build my business. And I'm meeting people. I have actually a call today with one of my past guests about how we can work together that I never would have met if I didn't say Who do you know, that's a good guest for my podcast?
Steve Fretzin 22:32
Yeah, it's really I'll tell you, I don't know if I'm on 50 episodes or something like that. But I've met some of the most amazing people I've begun begun relationships with people that that a year ago I would have said are my competitors. You know, this is the top three people in the in the you know, lawyer coaching space. And we're friends, we're, we're, you know, we're talking shop, we're calling each other we're having these offline dialogues where we're realizing we're not competitors, we're we have an abundance mentality about it. And we're actually looking to see how we can refer each other and because we do different things, and we have different skill sets. And so it's just fascinating to to think of this mentorship and idea climbing as a way of of opening up a lot of new doors that never seemed capable of opening before. That's that's what I'm finding.
Mark Carter 23:26
It definitely isn't that's why like i said i'm so hopped up on podcast is that I have a 99% this because one person was actually had a family crisis. And he said no, because of his family, which is understandable. And besides that everyone said yes. And including my first guest. As in I he knew it. The first few people knew this is Brent, this is Episode One, because that's in the title Episode One, Episode Two. Now I'm up to Episode 27. But nobody cares about the numbers. Yeah, yeah, just said yes.
Steve Fretzin 23:57
Yeah, again, it's it's in I think podcasting while it might seem that there's you know, too many people in the space I think that people are able to figure out you know, which ones are quality which ones resonate with them. And, you know, you can build an audience but more importantly, again, it's it's again, just producing content that it may be listened to, but it also might be translated or transcribed into an article, it might be something that is is you know, helpful on your website for SEO. So it's, it's so many multi multiple uses for it. But I love the idea of mentoring and marketing and how they relate and you know, idea climbing is is just brilliant, and I appreciate you, you sharing that today with with my audience.
Mark Carter 24:39
Definitely Glad to be here.
Steve Fretzin 24:40
Yeah, well, Mark, listen, we'll wrap up. And again, I just want to thank you and for those listening, you know, this is this is really important information to consider how you can take your career to the next level, how you can get more great information that you never realized was available and also build your brand. So Mark How do people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about idea climbing or contact you directly
Mark Carter 25:05
To contact me directly mark with a K Markjcarter.com that has everything on it. And if they want to go straight to idea climbing the idea climbing page, they can just type in ideaclimbing.com and that'll take them right to that page in the podcast.
Steve Fretzin 25:20
That's terrific. Well listen, I appreciate you coming on the show and Hey, listen, everybody. Hopefully this is again just another way to help you be that lawyer someone who's confident organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care and be safe, everybody. Bye Bye.
Narrator 25:37
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life Changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website Fretztin.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