So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

Getting clients can be hard, but it’s a lot easier when people trust you.

In this mini episode of So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, Megan Senese pulls from inspiration that has come from a seemingly unlikely (but very cute) source: her kids.

Their observation sparks a conversation about why trust, reliability, and small acts of thoughtfulness matter more than the perfect pitch or another accolade. From following up when you say you will to helping someone even when there’s nothing in it for you, Megan explores how small moments add up to strong relationships, and why that is really good business development.

Who this episode is for:
  • Lawyers who want to build stronger, longer-lasting client relationships
  • Professionals who struggle with business development feeling transactional
  • Anyone focused on attracting new clients while overlooking the relationships they already have
  • Firm leaders looking to create a more relationship-focused approach to business development for themselves and their firm

Episode takeaways:
  • Trust can matter more than credentials, awards, or a perfectly polished pitch.
  • Reliability is one of the simplest ways to build trust with clients and prospects.
  • Small acts of thoughtfulness are business development, even when they don’t feel like it.
  • Helping when you have nothing to gain demonstrates that a relationship isn’t merely transactional.
  • Strong relationships make outreach, referrals, pitching, and staying connected easier.

How to make trust part of your business development strategy:
  • Do what you say you’ll do: Follow through when you promise to call, email, introduce someone, or provide an answer (especially when you offer a timeline).

  • Show up: Consistency helps people know they can count on you when they need something.

  • Pay attention to the small things: Remember the book they mentioned, make the introduction, or send the recommendation that made you think of them.

  • Help when there’s nothing in it for you: Refer work when you’re not the right fit, answer the question, or check in simply because you care.

  • Take time to reflect: Think about your strongest client relationships and identify the small moments that built trust before there was ever work to discuss.

Stay Connected:

At stage, we believe business development is relationship development. We help lawyers move beyond transactional outreach and build the kinds of authentic, trusted relationships that make business development more natural and sustainable.

If you or your firm are interested, you can reach us at info@stage.guide.
Love So Much To Say? Let us know! Drop a review, give us 5 stars in your favorite podcast app, and tell us what made you laugh, think, or just go “yep, that’s me.” Every review helps us reach more awesome humans who want to make legal…well, human. 

Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People where we explore the behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We’re your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we’re here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real challenges of balancing ambitious careers with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. Instead, So Much To Say is a human-centered leadership, marketing, and culture podcast through the lens of law. We bring you real stories, candid conversations, and thoughtful insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer, what makes you human matters too. So whether you’re navigating billable hours, building meaningful relationships, redefining success, or simply trying to stay human in a high-performance profession, this podcast is for you.
Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human).

[00:00:00] Megan Senese: We spend a lot of time thinking about being more visible and polished and impressive, but if people don't trust you, it doesn't really matter that you went to a fancy law school or that you were submitted as a best lawyer. So much of the reason why people hire you is because they trust you, they like you
[00:00:21] Welcome to Minis with Megan on So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People Our show is called So Much To Say but even I run out of ideas sometimes. So I do what I usually do, which is to ask people, and I even like to ask my kids. They are around two salespeople essentially all the time. I have a 10-year-old and an eight-year-old, and so I decided, let's see what kind of clever feedback they would have as I told them I was running out of ideas for a mini-episode.
[00:00:56] And so I asked them, what do they know about business and what should my topic be? And they said, "You should tell people that it's hard to get clients, but it's not as hard if people trust you." I thought it was pretty good advice. So I think that's actually one of the clearest explanations of legal business development that I could think of.
[00:01:14] We spend a lot of time thinking about being more visible and polished and impressive and adding more accolades and submitting for awards. And again, all of that is important, but if people don't trust you, it doesn't really matter that you went to a fancy law school or that you were submitted as a Best Lawyer.
[00:01:32] So much of the reason why people hire you is because they trust you, they like you. I wanted to explore my kids' simple observation and what that could teach us about attracting and keeping clients. Getting clients is hard, they're right, but earning trust isn't about the perfect pitch. It's about showing people consistently that they can count on you, and I always like to start off with if you say you're going to do something by a certain time, then you make sure you do that.
[00:02:02] If you say, "Hey, I'm gonna follow up with you in two days," on that second day, you follow up with them. If you do not have an answer for them, as a really basic bare minimum, you write back and say, "Hey. Said I was gonna follow up with you in two days. I'm still waiting for..." Fill in the blank. So how do we ensure that our clients, our future clients, our prospects trust us?
[00:02:23] You wanna make sure that you are returning a phone call, an email. Your client, your contact, your prospect may remember that you helped them when they needed something. You introduced them to someone who could help them. Maybe you just gave them a recommendation for a book or a restaurant that they mentioned in passing.
[00:02:41] You were being thoughtful. It's moments like this that I often have to help our clients in knowing that that actually is business development. Doesn't always feel like that's what business development is, but that is how you're continuously building relationships with people. Trust can also be about consistency, about predictability.
[00:03:03] If people can count on you to help guide them, to answer them when they need you, to ensure that you can explain the next steps. They're not wondering, where are you, what you're doing. Reliability can feel kind of basic, but it is actually one of the simplest ways to build trust, and it's why we constantly are talking about showing up time and time again.
[00:03:25] It's about consistency and how you're making investments in those relationships, and that is making deposits into that relationship bank. So much of ensuring that your contacts, your clients, your reputation becomes on somebody that people can trust is to do things when you have nothing to gain from them.
[00:03:46] Do you make an introduction for work when you're not the right person? Do you refer it out? Do you answer a small question and maybe you don't bill them for it? Do you stay in touch just because you want to know how they're doing, even if there is no work to talk about at that moment? Those are the things that people will understand and internalize as real.
[00:04:06] And a lot of my past experiences that are negative with lawyers and their client relationships were because the business development ideas that we were coming to them were really relationship based. And a lot of the lawyers at the time that I was helping and supporting did not have a relationship based approach with their clients.
[00:04:27] It was unfortunately just very transactional. And what I'd love to see people doing going forward is to be more relationship focused. It makes pitching easier, it makes outreach easier, it makes writing and identifying trends easier. When you have a relationship with someone, it's a lot easier to say, "Hey, I saw this."
[00:04:47] You text it to them, you email it to them. It doesn't need to be long and formal every single time, and that's what makes business development easier. So much of relationship building is developed through really small moments, and they don't feel like business development every time, but that's how they decide if you are someone that they can trust.
[00:05:10] So my closing thought is, think about that last person you interacted with. Before they said they needed you, before they said that they were going to hire you, what did you do to get to that point? How did you build that relationship? What happened from that experience that you can then put into your future opportunities?
[00:05:30] If this resonated with you, follow and subscribe to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, and send this episode to someone who has earned your trust.