How to Understand the Legal Aspects of Your Business – In Just 7 Minutes with Jeremy Streten

Resources/Links:

• Learn more about the Law and its relation to Business through this link: www.jeremystreten.com/mti

Summary

Are you a business owner that is stuck with an event that needs legal assistance?

Have you been an entrepreneur for a long period of time but is still stagnant with the state of your business?

Do you manage your business on your own and you’re bothered by the countless possibilities of conflicts you’re not sure how to resolve?

Jeremy Streten is a successful entrepreneur and lawyer applying his passion and experience to help entrepreneurs succeed in their business so that they can live the life that they want to live.

He collaborates with lawyers from different countries – especially the US, UK, and Australia – as he works and writes books to help lawyers and business owners in dealing with the legal aspect of their businesses.

In this episode, Jeremy talks about the legal aspect of people’s businesses and the common mischief entrepreneurs experience as they manage work. Here, he shares his ideas on how to prevent a problem within your business and how helpful a legal advice would be in terms of knowing the legal aspect of what you do.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 1:18 – Jeremy’s ideal client: “My ideal clients for The Business Legal Lifecycle are actually other lawyers, because they can help their clients.”
• 2:18 – The nature of the problem Jeremy helps to solve: “So for the lawyer, we help find the blind spots that their clients don’t know that they’re missing, and that’s what we do for the business owner client as well. We find the problems that would otherwise arise if they didn’t get that advice.”
• 3:10 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Jeremy: “So, for the lawyer, what we find is the lack of work, and they’re constantly finding new clients. For the business owner, it’s really just a lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of not knowing what’s going to happen.”
• 4:23 – Jeremy’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “So for the lawyer, I’ve got a very specific action they can take and that is to pick their top 10 clients. Who are the top 10 clients by revenue that they like working with? Pick up the phone and have a chat to them. If you’re a business owner listening to this, pick up the phone and call your lawyer and have a chat to them about what’s going on at your business and find out what other opportunities there might be for them to help you.”
• 5:51 – Jeremy’s Valuable Free Resource: Check out Jeremy’s website: www.jeremystreten.com/mti
• 7:16 – Q: What’s the block that most lawyers have in getting that repeat work? A: “It’s really because they’re focused on doing the work. Most lawyers are great technicians – they’re great at getting in there and doing the work. Their block is that they don’t even spend time getting the work in, and they think ‘sales’ is a bad word – they think that they don’t want to do that, but really, it’s necessary for their business.”

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Law is too reactive, we react to problems. And we want to change that to make it proactive so we can actually find the problems before they arrive.” -Jeremy Streten Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:09
Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland, beaming out here from little castaways beach in Queensland, joined today by Jeremy Streten. Jeremy, I believe you’re not too far away from here. Welcome, Sir! Where are you hanging out?

Jeremy Streten 0:22
Well, thanks for having me, Tom. And I’m in Brisbane, just down the road from where you are.

Tom Poland 0:32
We could just throw a stone and hit your window, well, if you can throw a stone for an hour and 45 minutes. For those of you who don’t know Jeremy, he does a lot of work in North America, but also here in Australia. The UK as well. He’s a successful entrepreneur in his own right. He’s also a lawyer, and he applies his passion kind of at the intersection of those two things – helping entrepreneurs succeed in their business so they can live the life they want to live. Beautiful. Oh, I like that idea. So, Jeremy, this is predicated, I think, upon getting legal aspects of a business correct, right? So, the subject that I want to grill you on in the seven minutes we’ve got is, “How Do Entrepreneurs Understand the Legal Aspects of their Business,” and in a legal brief, in seven minutes. That’s your challenge. Our seven minute starts now. Tell us please, first of all, who is your ideal client?

Jeremy Streten 1:18
My ideal clients for The Business Legal Lifecycle are actually other lawyers because they can help their clients. So, The Lifecycle is a movement that we’ve started to try and change the way that people get access to legal advice, and we help small and medium-sized businesses to really understand what they’re missing in their business from a legal point of view, and what they need to do to solve that. But when you ask the ideal client, it’s really the lawyer, because the lawyer can actually help their client. And my goal is to make legal advice accessible to all SMEs around the world. I can’t do that on my own and with my business, so partnering with lawyers can help us do that.

Tom Poland 1:50
So your direct client will be other lawyers, and the end user client – again the beneficiary of that advice – is going to be the entrepreneur. Does that sound about right?

Jeremy Streten 2:00
That’s right. The individual can take our advice and do our stuff. However, they still need a lawyer to implement it.

Tom Poland 2:08
Okay. So question two, six minutes left, tell us about the nature of the problem that you solve, please.

Jeremy Streten 2:19
So for the lawyer, we help find the blind spots that their clients don’t know that they’re missing. Law is too reactive. We react to problems, and we want to change that to make it proactive so we can actually find the problems before they arrive, and that’s what we do for the business owner client as well. We find the problems that would otherwise arise if they didn’t get that advice. So what that does is it helps the lawyer credit better business and really fills a pipeline of work for them and helps their clients at the same time.

Tom Poland 2:46
So, to use a medical analogy, it’s like, “Let’s make sure that cancer doesn’t happen rather than trying to treat the cancer once you got it.”

Jeremy Streten 2:52
Absolutely.

Tom Poland 2:55
So, save a world of pain. So tell us, what are some of the typical symptoms that one of your ideal clients might have – that kind of noticing what’s going on the legal practice or if it’s an entrepreneur, what’s happening where they go, “Okay, I need to go to Jeremy’s website and find out some more about this.”

Jeremy Streten 3:10
Yeah, no worries. So, for the lawyer, what we find is the lack of work, and they’re constantly finding new clients. We talk about the fact that it’s six times cheaper to get repeat work from an existing client and find a new one, and that’s so true in law as well. And so this helps them to get more work, and the symptom is the lack of work and the lack of repeat work for the same client and just having to find new clients all the time. And for the business owner, it’s really just a lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of not knowing what’s going to happen. A lot of people get through life without getting much legal advice, but then it happens, and then it all comes down like a ton of bricks. It’s really just fulfilling that lack of knowledge.

Tom Poland 3:49
And I would imagine that relative to waiting till after a ton of bricks has come down, it’s exponentially less expensive and less stressful to preempt that, right? So, save yourself a world of pain. So, let’s go to number five, we’ve got four minutes left. Give us one valuable free action – I’m going to stretch you here – that the lawyer, who’s your ideal client, could take that’s going to help them a bit. And also maybe the entrepreneur. It’s not going to solve the problem but it’s going to take them a step in the right direction.

Jeremy Streten 4:23
Yeah, so for the lawyer, I’ve got a very specific action they can take and that is to pick their top 10 clients. Who are the top 10 clients by revenue that they like working with? Pick up the phone and have a chat with them. It is amazing how just having a chat around what’s going on in their business will elicit problems that you can go and solve as a lawyer, and it’s something that a lot of people miss, and just by having those conversations, you can pick up work and pick up things that you never thought that you had to do. The other thing about that is that people love talking about their business, and most SMEs, or most small to mid-sized business owners, they don’t get to talk about that with their family and their friends because they’re not in that space. And if you’re the person picking up the phone and calling them, then you’re going to really figure out a lot more that you can do for that client.

Tom Poland 5:04
That’s a great idea, and actually, that’s a great tip for the entrepreneur as well – to go and speak to the top 10 clients, right?

Jeremy Streten 5:12
Absolutely.

Tom Poland 5:12
Do you want to add anything to that?

Jeremy Streten 5:15
No, I was going to say, that’s a great tip. But as far as the business owner goes, if you’re a business owner listening to this, pick up the phone and call your lawyer and have a chat to them about what’s going on at your business. And find out what other opportunities there might be for them to help you. Yes, there will be a cost to it. But as we said, that’s going to be far cheaper to solve their problem now, or solve your problem now with the lawyer, than wait till the problem occurs.

Tom Poland 5:37
Absolutely. Thank you. One ounce of prevention is better than a ton of cure. Question number six, two minutes left. One valuable free resource that you could direct folks to that’s going to help them even more with this issue.

Jeremy Streten 5:51
Yeah, great question. So I’ve put together a page: www.jeremystreten.com/mti and that redirects you to a page that I created when the COVID-19 crisis happened. So, if you’re listening to this in the future, you remember 2020? I’m sure we all will for a long time. I created some free resources out of that, about dealing with crisis for a business owner, and that actually includes some free copies of my book that’s written in Australian law, in the US law, and the UK law. I partner with lawyers in those countries to help me rewrite the book into their law, and I want to offer that to your listeners as something that they can use to help their business and understand their legal advice better. It also includes, if people are interested in a 50% discount on taking the SAS test which identifies the legal blind spots in the business.

Tom Poland 6:38
Fantastic. And folks, let me tell you this is not just a skanky little brochure dressed up as a book. This is, as we say here in Australia, a fair dinkum book in UK edition, Australian edition, and the US edition. The website is www.jeremystreten.com/mti which stands for Marketing the Invisible. Fifty seconds left, Jeremy. What’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Jeremy Streten 7:04
I think it’s around, what’s the block that most lawyers have in getting that repeat work. Do you want me to answer?

Tom Poland 7:11
Yeah, why not? We got thirty-five seconds left.

Jeremy Streten 7:16
So it’s really because they’re focused on doing the work. Most lawyers are great technicians – they’re great at getting in there and doing the work. And their block is that they don’t even spend time getting the work in. And they think ‘sales’ is a bad word – they think that they don’t want to do that, but really, it’s necessary for their business. So really, manage your time better so that you can do your work, but also, get work in.

Tom Poland 7:35
Perfect. Jeremy Streten, thank you so much for your time.

Jeremy Streten 7:38
Thanks for having me.

Tom Poland 07:38
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.