Serve First, Sell Later Marketing
Serve First, Sell Later Marketing
#35 Growth Strategies for Mediators with Bob Bordett and Alice Shikina
Welcome back to another insightful episode of the Serve First, Sell Later Marketing podcast! In this episode, we dive into the world of mediation with two remarkable guests, Bob Bordett and Alice Shikina. They share their inspiring journeys and reveal the keys to client acquisition, visibility, and trust in the mediation industry. Learn the art of business development and networking from two experts who have mastered these essential skills. Don't miss their pro tips on professional growth, from blogging and podcasting to speaking engagements, and get a sneak peek into the upcoming APFM 2024 online conference designed to elevate your mediation practice. Tune in to equip yourself with the tools and inspiration needed to excel in the mediation field.
Resources Mentioned:
Register for the APFM 2024 Conference
APFM Website
Robert Bordett's Website
Alice Shikina's Website
Alice Shikina's Negotiation Academy
Key Takeaways:
- Client acquisition and engagement
- Strategic networking and reciprocal referrals
- Career advancement and visibility
- APFM 2024 Online Conference
-Determination and skill utilization
Chapter Summaries:
(0:04:31) - Success in Mediation
(0:14:58) - Effective Business Development Strategies in Mediation
(0:23:21) - Building Effective Networking and Referral Partnerships
(0:35:46) - Strategies For Enhancing Professional Growth And Visibility
(0:50:19) - Maximizing Mediation Practice Growth
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00:00 - Sylvia (Host)
So by that I mean speaking on stages, you know, delivering something each and every week or each and every month, so that there is a recurring place where they can come to learn from you. So, for example, we teach our clients to do online workshops every single month so that they are inviting their referral partners and possible end clients to come listen and be interested in what perhaps could address some of their pain points. But for referral partners, it's a really great way for the know, like and trust factor to increase when they're seeing you in action and learning from you. I'm Sylvie Garibaldi, founder and CEO of a well-established marketing, training and done-for-you services company tailored specifically for the modern legal and financial professional worldwide. Fast forward to today, my team and I have nailed down and perfected a process that has helped so many of our clients consistently achieve outstanding results and create a legacy for their practices. I created the Serve First, sell Later marketing podcast to give you simple, actionable, non-salesy and results-driven marketing to grow your legal or financial practice, like so many of our clients have. If you're a lawyer, mediator, financial or divorce professional who is looking to become highly visible and wants to create a practice that makes an impact, then you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
01:39
Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 35 of the Serve First, sell Later, marketing podcast, and in this episode I am super excited to speak with Bob Burdett and Alice Shekina, who are powerhouses in the mediation space. Bob is the founder of Collaborative Practice and Mediation Services. He is also one of the founders of Divorce Innovations and is a financial neutral, working with couples, families and businesses in Atlanta, georgia and Florida. He also serves as a mediator and arbitrator and is a certified financial planner and a certified divorce financial analyst. Bob also is the current president of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators and has written many articles on financial issues in divorce and has appeared on CNN Sunday Morning News. Alice is a mediator and negotiator trainer. She mediates divorces and workplace conflicts and is also the co-chair of the Conference Committee of Academy of Professional Family Mediators. Alice also volunteer mediates for the Department of Police Accountability in San Francisco and she has a very unique background in theatre as an actress and director. Alice currently lives in Oakland, california, and all I can say is wow.
03:02
What a great conversation I had with these two experts who share in-depth examples, tools and resources on how to grow your practice.
03:12
You're going to want to listen in right until the end, as so much is shared.
03:17
Welcome, bob and Alice, so excited to have you both on the show today, and I believe that you both bring a really unique perspective in the space of mediation and so, as thought leaders, I'm really excited to have you on the podcast today so that you can share your knowledge with our listeners, particularly from a business development perspective and a marketing perspective, of course, so that they can walk away with really valuable information and be inspired to see what's possible for their practices.
03:49
And I also want to add that you're both on the board of directors for APFM, which is the Academy of Professional Family Mediators, and so the work that you do in terms of the work that you do with this organization, I think will really bring a wealth of ideas to our listeners in terms of best practices. So, welcome to the show and thank you once again for being here and taking the time to chat with me. I thought, because you both bring a really different perspective to mediation and how you first got started, I'd really love for you to share how you first got started in the mediation space.
04:27 - Bob (Guest)
Oh, thank you for having us Appreciate it. By all means. Gosh, my time goes back probably 35 years ago to do. I was in the financial planning business and actually had a couple the financial planning business and actually had a couple a young couple that had decided to get divorced, had no children and came to me they were clients and said we want to get divorced, but we don't want to go to court, we don't want to spend our money foolishly. How can we do this? And it was more of the you know. Both were consultants, self-employed with firms, and wanted to just say how can we do this so we can still be friends? And you know, we just aren't suited to be married? And I worked with them on that and after that I said, gosh, this is great, but what do I really know I'm doing? I used common sense at that point but had never really been trained and went out and started searching for training and got trained in Atlanta, georgia, and from that point forward, just fell in love with it. It was a great piece.
05:43
My background is finance and so I come from the financial side, but I've also learned. It's just not what you know. You've got to learn so much more. You're not an attorney, so you're not practicing law, but you've also got to work with the mental health professionals, therapists, and learn. And I'm not a therapist but I work with a lot of them and I learn from them and we a lot of times we learn. I always say we learn from the potholes we step in, and that's what I tell my clients at the same time.
06:17
The potholes I've stepped in, let me let you know, and it's your choice how you want to do it. And so, 35 years later, here I am gone through mediation, worked in collaborative law, collaborative divorce, and brought that up, using it as a financial neutral and back to practicing full-time as a mediator.
06:42 - Sylvia (Host)
That's fantastic, and I know you bring such a wealth of knowledge, particularly from all these different spaces that you're in and some of the work that you did in finding some of these organizations. So I appreciate you sharing that, because I know that there's people listening that may have not started yet or they're in a different field, and they may want to progress from mediation to collaborative or do both and not sure where to start. So I know our listeners come from all of these different backgrounds, so thank you for sharing that. Alice, I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you first got started.
07:14 - Alice (Guest)
Sure. So my background is actually in theater, as an actress and a director, and I use a lot of those same skill sets in my mediation, namely the emotional, intelligent piece of it, because when you're studying acting to become a professional actor, you are having to read what's happening to other person's emotions and you're also having to learn how to affect other people. Obviously, because you're on stage, you want to affect your audience, you want to affect your partners, right, and so I'm using those same skills. Now, the way I actually got involved in mediation is I was working for an au pair agency part time, and part of that job required mediating between the au pairs and the host families. And for people who are not sure what an au pair is, those are caregivers who come from other countries to take care of your children and they live in the house with you. So you can imagine if I am managing a bunch of host families and au pairs, there will be some kind of domestic conflict that will make them want to break the match. They might say, oh yeah, she keeps missing her curfew. Or the au pair might say I really don't like the way this host father's communicating with me. Or I don't like the fact that they leave the dishes, and so then for those reasons, a lot of times they start looking to break their match. But there are risks and financial risks as well involved when you break a match, and so I would go in and try to mitigate that, try to mediate it so that we can keep that match intact. So that's how I actually got started in mediation and that, and the agencies don't usually train you, they just throw you in there, and so you're just like don't know what you're doing, and they just say, oh, go, mediate this conflict.
09:03
And my very first one that I did, I was like really, really nervous because I thought, okay, great, I'm going into the family's house, they're all angry at one another. I'm going into the space where the conflict is. And so I was terrified. I didn't have any training at the time, so I went and did it and after several times I recognized that I'm actually pretty good at this.
09:24
And so when, about three years later, I got laid off from another job entirely, my boyfriend was like, hey, what are you going to do? And I said I don't know. And he said, oh, you should be a mediator because you seem to be doing that very well and at the time I did not know that you did not have to be a lawyer to be a mediator. So I said, well, don't you have to be a lawyer? And he said no. So I looked it up and I found a place to get certified and I also got my certification in arbitration at the same time Awesome. So now I'm a certified mediator and arbitrator. And then I opened up my practice and have gone on to build my practice doing various mediations, which includes divorce, workplace conflict and family mediations.
10:11 - Sylvia (Host)
Fantastic. Such a unique background. I love the theater and TV background and certainly sets you up for success. That's fantastic. Everybody brings such a unique perspective, so thank you for sharing that. So both of you specialize in mediation, as you know. A key area that you work with, I guess families and workplaces that need that sort of support or some kind of conflict resolution. The successes that you've had in your practice, what would be one top top, one or two ways that you have found to be very successful to bring in new clients, for example? Any thoughts on that?
10:56 - Bob (Guest)
When you first start out and you get trained, you go oh, it's kind of like I've been trained, oh, it's kind of like I've been trained, I built the ball field, they will come. It doesn't happen that way. It just really doesn't. You've got to go out and it's networking. One of the people I do a lot of business with, who is a family therapist and a mediator, I said how are you coming along? She was wanting to build a practice in collaborative. She said I've blocked out every Friday on my calendar and I do three meetings with other professionals and I started doing what she was doing, following in those footsteps, and it made the difference going out talking to other therapists, talking to lawyers, talking to other financial planners difficult piece because financial planners don't normally talk to each other about clients and fear that somebody's going to try to take them away.
12:05
Once they saw what I was doing, it became a different piece where I was getting referrals from them. My biggest piece was being able to all of a sudden realize it was okay to communicate with past clients. I always felt people who had gotten divorced. It was private, personal. I didn't want to approach them and say, oh, can you send me referrals? And somebody said you got to, that's where your business is. And I started doing that and, sure enough, that's probably 60% of my referral base now are former clients. So learning that and then just getting out there and networking, speaking, speaking engagements and before the pandemic it was always in person. Today it's totally different and so I think we've learned so much on being able to you know.
13:06 - Sylvia (Host)
Absolutely. So I wanted to unpack that a little bit, bob, when you say you know you met with three people a week, sort of like referral partners, how did you find them and then how did you approach them to have those conversations?
13:19 - Bob (Guest)
So I found them from belonging to other networks whether it was the state bar or local bar.
13:30
I put a group together. I called it a study group. It was 10 of us and it was people that I felt had like-minded, like I was, that wanted to work with couples, not in litigation but in helping them, and they were came out of the legal field and the mental health field and we would meet once a month, talk about issues, and those were the ones that I went back to. And for me, being in finance and taxes, it was always nice when the tax law changed and it involves couples getting divorced, because that gave me a better audience to invite in and say, oh, let me give you a seminar on what's happening in our field, and that just puts your name out there. And the other piece I found was when they would call you with a question. You answered your phone and responded immediately. You didn't say take a message and I'll get back to you. You lose that opportunity.
14:37 - Sylvia (Host)
Absolutely. Yeah, I love that, and so the idea of a study group is fantastic because they can, through time, become referral partners as they start to know, like and trust you, so I think that that's a really great way to do that. You said you'd go back to past clients because that would be a really great way to generate more business. What approach did you use and how did you approach them and what did you say?
15:02 - Bob (Guest)
They were articles that I would write, that I would make sure they were sent short blogs at times and it was just issues that we'd see come up or would research to do about children or parenting, and little stories about things. My daughter at the time was in high school. She was a freshman and she was asked to become a peer leader. And I said so what's a peer leader? She goes, it's handling mediations. She did it for four years in school, through her senior year, and I said one day so how, just exactly what do you mediate? And she said well, I mediate student-student issues, but I also mediate student-teacher issues. And now I'm mediating teacher-teacher issues. Oh, wow. And I'm like oh. And she said would you come talk to our class? And I was interested in it because it was. I wanted to know what materials they were using and I found they use the exact same materials we used. The difference was they were on a four-year program and training constantly and we're out there doing our continuing ed.
16:19
One of her classmates raised his hand and said do you ever think this will become a full-time profession? And I said yes, I really do. It was before it really was. I said I think it will. There's a need for it and you've just got to work at it. I asked her afterwards. I said who was that young man who asked me? She said, oh, that's Jimmy Carter's cousin, president Carter's cousin. I'm like, oh perfect person to be asking that question.
16:51 - Sylvia (Host)
I'm like, oh, perfect person to be asking that question. I love that Wow.
17:00 - Bob (Guest)
So bringing that back to your clients so you would send them pieces of information yeah, little articles. So if there was a major tax change coming about, I'd send it out. Yep, I'd send it out when tax laws changed about child care credits or plans. And what I've always said is I do think people get a better plan sitting at the kitchen table working with a professional than they do in court. Judges have blinkers on and they have to follow what they know and they don't have to go out and learn the family. We get to learn the family.
17:55
I still stay in touch with my one of my early, early on clients. Their children were small, they got divorced and they've always stayed in touch. Their children are now fully grown and they have children. Wow, wow. They still drop me a note to say, hey, here's how everybody's doing. They've got blended families. Some of them, even with the blended families, wanted to come back to the table and say how this is working. How do we continue to do this, so we don't fall into the trap of having to get into an argument and put it forward.
18:33 - Sylvia (Host)
Fantastic. I think that's such a brilliant idea of you. Know, you may not have all of the knowledge that a therapist would have, but you would go back and interview them, take that information and then share that with your existing clients, your past clients, to stimulate and create new conversation about why they need to work with you again.
18:53 - Bob (Guest)
And it's it's just like when people you say well, you know you have to have you in my state you have to have a written parenting plan that's accepted by the court. It's up to age 18 or when they graduate high school. I tell people, even if you have grown children, they still might need to go to that coach for one session just to help them understand what's going on with mom and dad, because children you know, grown children still don't want to get involved and they don't want to take sides. And so many people have said to me oh, that's so great, never thought of that, you know. So it's just being able to go out there and help and show.
19:40 - Sylvia (Host)
And add value. But I like the way you took initiative and said okay, well, I'm not the expert, but I know others are, and you brought the value to existing and past clients. Fantastic, such a great piece of advice, alice. What are some of your top ideas that you've used to generate new business?
19:59 - Alice (Guest)
So, similar to Bob, I do a lot of networking, although for anyone who is a non-attorney mediator, like myself, we have unique challenges in that a lot of attorneys do have a bias against me. It's not my imagination. They have actually told me to my face that they would never hire me because I'm not an attorney. So there is that. However, I decided that after I went and knocked on so many attorneys doors, I decided, well, I'm going to do it anyway, and so I persevered, and what has served me the best has been Yelp advertising. So I did not just start advertising on Yelp. You have to have, you know, I would say, a minimum of four or five reviews. At this point I'm pushing up towards 80 between those that you can see and those that you cannot see. There's about 80 reviews on Yelp and I think about maybe 30 to 40 are visible, and so then when I advertise, it's a two-step like hook First they see the advertisement, then they go check it out. Once they're on my page on Yelp, they can see how many five-star reviews. I have read through them and frequently I get the comment well, I'm calling you. Because there were so many good reviews, I felt compelled to call you and interview you as a mediator.
21:20
So I would say like maybe 70% of my business comes from that. It was generated just by people. What they do is they go there and I have it set up so they just schedule a free consult with me automatically. So my calendar just fills up with free consults. I make sure that they're not during the day when I am actually mediating and they're like in the early evening so that they never conflict or rarely conflict with my mediations, and so then I can just get these calls. I call them and I would say 98% of the time someone actually answers. So they're very hot leads, like actual, real leads, and so I get them that way. And then I also get several from networking. So different people have come to me.
22:03
Therapists, as Bob mentioned, do refer business.
22:06
Financial advisors also know when their clients are either going through a personal or a business divorce and so they may refer business my way as well.
22:16
So those are the main ways, but I would say that when I first started, you know, and I recommend people who are just starting to get out there and try to do some kind of volunteer mediation to get a lot of experience mediating the courts usually have a day of court volunteer mediation program. So check with your local court system. And then in San Francisco particular, they have a wonderful program that's called Department of Police Accountability and they use volunteer mediators to mediate 60 minute sessions between police officers and civilians who are disgruntled by some kind of experience that they had with a particular police officer. And I just got word that Oakland is starting a brand new program just like this and they're also recruiting for volunteer mediators. So those kinds of programs exist in your area. So just look around and find out, because not only do you get experience but you also are able to get connections and recommendations, referrals and that sort of thing.
23:18 - Sylvia (Host)
Yeah, I love that. Such great ideas. So I'd love for you to unpack for me a little bit more about how does networking work for you and some people really just they're nervous about networking. They're, they're unsure about how to go about doing that. Any words of wisdom to share with people that either they could be really good at what they do, but they're just not really good at networking. What are some key steps that they should take? And and where and how should they network? Would you say so?
23:50 - Alice (Guest)
I am an introvert. I know most people don't believe it, but I am, and so I understand that huge discomfort going into a networking meeting. However, what I would like to qualify is that a structured networking meeting is far more preferable for introverts than open networking. So open networking for people who are new to networking is when you just go into a room and there's like here you go, go find some people to talk to and it's up to you to go introduce yourself, and it can be nerve wracking, particularly for introverts. If you are an introvert, I would highly recommend going to structured networking events where there is a meeting, there's a set format, there's a time and a place for you to talk. Typically they call on you and you have 30 seconds to give your pitch, and then these days on Zoom, you might get put into a room with three or four people and again, it's very structured. We take turns and we talk about whatever it is. That is the subject that we're talking about. So it's very structured. You do not have the pressure of having to walk up to a complete stranger and just introduce yourself and start talking, which can be very nerve wracking for people.
24:59
I am in a few different ones.
25:01
I am in one called BNI, I used to be in Provisors as well and there's a few others, but there are many, many different kinds of networking groups out there, depending on whether you want to network, like, let's say, if you are.
25:15
Since you're a mediator, you can probably mediate anywhere in the country, or at least anywhere in your state, if that's what you choose to do. So I always recommend going to ones that are virtual so you have a further reach, because if you go in person, there's nothing wrong with in person, but you're going to only reach as far as the people who can drive there. And so if you are in California and want to reach all of California, if you're going to virtual networking events, I get to meet people who are in San Diego, in Los Angeles, in way up in Northern California, beyond the Bay Area, right, and I also go to national networking events because I can, because it's virtual and I can get people to refer me business who are in Minneapolis, minnesota or Louisiana or what have you. And so I definitely encourage structured networking. For people who are new to this and feel like, ah, I don't know about this. This is like really kind of nerve wracking. I understand, and so I think structured networking is the way to go if you are an introvert.
26:18 - Sylvia (Host)
Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic advice, for sure. Now I'd love for both of you to share. I know as mediators well, this podcast is really for both legal and financial professionals, so there's a wide range of different professionals that are listening to this, but for the most part, these types of professionals rely on referral partnerships as the lifeblood of their practice. So I'd love to hear any kind of advice you may have about how to build those referral partnerships, because one of the things that many people complain about is it's usually one-sided right One person's doing the referring, particularly in these more formal referral partnerships, and Alice made an excellent example where you said none of these lawyers were interested in wanting to do business with you or to refer to you. So when you're looking to build a referral partnership, what's the best advice you would give anyone who's really interested, because it is the lifeblood for these professionals.
27:20 - Alice (Guest)
Well, I would say, first and foremost, you need to know who those people are, right, if you don't know who can refer you business, how are you going to find a referral partner? And when I say who, I mean what type of individual, what title do they have? What jobs are they doing? Because you can't go and find them if you don't know who they are. So, just for example, for me, as I mentioned earlier, a good referral partner may be like a therapist, right? So, if I know this information and it's interesting because I'm telling this to you specifically because I've spoken to people where I ask them who refers you business, and sometimes I get the answer I don't really know. So you want to make sure you are not in the I don't really know bucket. Get yourself out of that bucket.
28:07
Really think deeply about who are the professionals who would, in their natural course of business, run into a potential client of yours in doing their work. And you want to go and find those people, connect with them, have a one-to-one with them where you share, like how you do, and then you want to really start the giving process from yourself. You want to pass business to them so that they feel like, oh, this person is of value, let me try to help them. Let me try to return the favor and pass business. Do not make the mistake of trying to go find people as referral partners because you expect something from them. First, you want to give and give and give. And if you can't give because maybe your network's not normal, then what you want to do is try to find someone else who is that you're giving to, who can give to that person, and try to make that introduction to say, hey, I can't give you directly because I don't know anyone, but this person can. Let me make that introduction.
29:12 - Sylvia (Host)
Right, right, yeah, that definitely makes total sense and I can see the value in that. And one of the things that we like to teach our clients to do with referral partnerships is to really look at the education process so that referral partners know what you do and can actually learn from you. So by that I mean speaking on stages, you know delivering something each and every week or each and every month, so that there is a recurring place where they can come to learn from you. So, for example, we teach our clients to do online workshops every single month so that they are inviting their referral partners and possible end clients to come listen and be interested in what perhaps could address some of their pain points. But for referral partners, it's a really great way for the know like and trust factor to increase when they're seeing you in action and learning from you. So, bob, I'd love to hear your perspective on you know speaking on stages and how you've added value in those spaces.
30:19 - Bob (Guest)
Yeah, speaking on stages, you know everybody, I think, always has that fear at first. I know every time I go out I have that awful fear. When you face the audience and once you get in and start moving it just becomes natural. And I think that you've just got to be natural know your topic that you're going out, know your audience. I always like to have an icebreaker when I do so. I actually have a video clip of War of the Roses I use and a piece of it where they're dividing up the house and Danny DeVito says and this is rational to you and Michael Douglas says yes, I have more square footage, you know, and that brings that laugh to everybody. And that's that icebreaker. And then you can go in and start being able to say how many of you have had cases of this? Wouldn't it be great if you had cases where you didn't have to deal with that and people actually sat at a table and actually shook hands and hugged when it was done and actually came back and said how much they appreciate what you've done and everything. So once you get into that it just starts to become natural. And I think everybody's thought always is there's somebody in the audience that's going to always try to be smarter than you are, but at the end of the day, you always have something that they don't have. There's something out there, absolutely.
31:56
I've talked to groups of judges and my methodology was using fear. I would always present a fear scenario and somebody said to me why are you presenting the fear? I said because I can give a solution to the fear that they can't. And then they'd come back and it was amazing how many hands would come up or you'd be handed a note afterwards saying can I call you about this? I have questions. They wouldn't put the questions out in front of everybody, but they want to put them out after the fact and I think that's important. So it's just getting over that. And how do you do it?
32:42
I think in today's world, having Zoom and other products out there, it's so easy to sit down and just start speaking and putting yourself on camera and playing it back. Does this make sense? You know, am I going along on something that doesn't make sense? My kids are grown adults now, but I tend to shoot them video clips and say, hey, is this getting the point across or am I off on a road I shouldn't be? Type situation. Have I crossed the line somewhere?
33:16
We didn't have that 10 years ago. 10 years ago you were out there and doing it on stage, live and not knowing. Now at least you can actually work with it and enhance. Yes, I remember years ago Toastmasters. Everybody said if you're in the financial planning business and speaking, toastmasters is where you have to go. And I remember my very first time I went and hired a client of mine who had a coaching firm and said I need to hire you. And we worked for a solid weekend and all he did was video record me and then would sit down and go through and say okay, you know, take your hands out of your pocket. Wait, I hear keys. Generally Don't put keys in your pocket, and that was 20 some odd years ago. It's stuck with me totally.
34:07
And he taught me I was a big PowerPoint user and he goes no, no, no, you know that's death by PowerPoint. People don't want to see you stand there and read a slide. You know they can read it themselves. And so all those items that he brought to me still stick with me.
34:28 - Sylvia (Host)
So I think, with the online avenues that we have available today like you said, the live streams, the zoom there's so many different platforms out there. It's so easy for people to just go live on one of their social media platforms and actually start to train and teach people and talk about their subject area of expertise, but if they wanted to speak on the stages of others, because we know that speaking on the stages of others automatically increases your reach, and so how do you find these virtual stages and how do you get yourself booked on them? So I'd love to hear from both of you on that.
35:03 - Bob (Guest)
I mean for me. I've got one coming up in October with the New York State Mediation Association. They contacted me and they have a two-day conference and they've asked if I would be one of their speakers. And I'm bringing in one of my other partners who's a licensed clinical social worker and we're presenting a model that we use and how we work together. I've spoken in Savannah, georgia to a group of attorneys, mental health professionals and financial people that wanted to go into collaborative. They saw that I had been doing collaborative and so it's just having the reputation out there.
35:45
I think one of the things I found that really enhanced everything for me was years ago I went and started blogging and I'm just not a writer and it's hard to put stuff out. So I hired a blogger and we would meet every Monday. I would throw pieces out, they would take, put them together, send them back to me, we'd go through it, edit and then they would publish them and from that I started getting emails from other associations and law firms and then from that started coming phone calls. Would you be available to? You know, come talk at our session or our retreat, or would you hold a, you know, an hour seminar?
36:34 - Sylvia (Host)
Yep, and that's sharing your thought leadership. Right Now, there's so many advanced social media platforms like LinkedIn that can, just you know, do exactly all of that plus more, right? So I love that idea, that concept.
36:52 - Alice (Guest)
How about you, alice? So I have my own podcast, so I'm on there and I'm talking a lot. I talk about negotiation skills there. I also guest frequently on other people's podcasts. How do I find them? A couple of different ways. When I'm networking with people and meeting people, I frequently meet other podcast hosts and so then we start talking about collaborating and they might come onto mine and then I go guest on there. So that's one way. I also belong to a group called Podcast Collaborative, or Podcast Collab for short, and you basically go once a month and you network with a bunch of guests and hosts so you can connect with people that way. I also speak at places. I either speak voluntarily or paid speaking. So it's funny that Bob mentioned Toastmasters. I am slated to speak at their international convention in less than a month in Anaheim Wow, that's amazing in less than a month in.
37:47
Anaheim. So I'll be speaking to probably a thousand people in person and maybe 5,000 additional streaming in, so it will be a very large audience that I'll speak to and I'm speaking about negotiation to them as well. And so eventually, as you build your credibility, you start to get more and more opportunities for paid speaking gigs. But for people who are just starting off, I would recommend reaching out. If you have a topic, that would be great for attorneys to reach out to your bar association, because they have committees and all they do all year long is put together programming and they're always looking for someone to come and speak for free. So just reach out to your local bar association and ask them to get you in touch with whoever's coordinating all the MCLEs, and that's a really great way to do that. And also sometimes different networking groups are also looking for their monthly speakers, so really try to find them as well. So if you're just starting out and you're willing to do things for free, I would start there.
38:51 - Sylvia (Host)
Yeah, that's awesome. Wow, our listeners are getting so much value. Thank you for all this information that you're sharing, because I know that they always love hearing different perspectives on how they grow their practices and these are. You know, they are ideas, they are suggestions, they're practices that actually work, but people just need to take the step and do it and keep moving forward with it, and sometimes they feel a little discouraged, but you know, you just move forward and keep marching forward to get the results that you're looking for.
39:21 - Bob (Guest)
Sorry go ahead, bob, I hadn't mentioned earlier was when we were talking about when I was first starting out in mediation and collaborative. Somebody said to me the number one resource for referrals were hairdressers and I said no way and I went out and I dropped off a bunch of brochures. It generated phone calls because they knew who was getting divorced before anybody else knew. The second one was pediatricians, which I never thought of and had gotten in touch with a group of pediatricians to contact me and said what information can you leave at our office? We always have moms coming in with the children and who are they going to talk to when they're looking to get a divorce, believe it or not?
40:15
Absolutely Wow so those are two that take you a whole lot of time.
40:22 - Sylvia (Host)
Yes, and that's such a brilliant idea. When you think about you know, people say, well, who do I speak to and how do I grow my audience and where do I speak, and so like. Getting booked on stages where pediatricians are part of the audience is a great way to start spreading the word about what you do, and in a different way, because I bet there's probably not a lot of mediators doing that Right, so that's fantastic. I love that idea. Mediators doing that right, so that's fantastic, I love that idea. So, speaking of giving back to the community, both of you are extraordinary members that give back to your community, and one big organization that I can think of is the Academy of Professional Family Mediators, so I'd love for you to share with me. I know that there's an upcoming online conference, two-day conference so I'd love for you to share with our audience what it's all about and when it's happening.
41:16 - Bob (Guest)
I'm going to let Alice start. She's been the chairperson for the last three, four years. On it.
41:22 - Alice (Guest)
Sure, so we are having a virtual one this year. It is September 19th and 20th, and usually we have a full slate of speakers who talk about different things around mediation, but this year we're focused on growing your business. So it's actually just in line with the conversation we're having today and it's how to grow your mediation business right. Growing your thriving mediation practice is the theme, and so the speakers that we will have slated to speak are going to be in some way, shape or form talking about marketing or networking or speaking and that sort of thing. So, basically, helping you gain the skills and the knowledge so that you can grow your mediation practice, the skills and the knowledge so that you can grow your mediation practice.
42:09 - Bob (Guest)
Yeah, and a couple of our speakers are well-known authors and mediators. One is Michael Lang, and Michael is doing a session on reflective practice and he teaches that globally. Now he's got classes running. I think he just is finishing one in Ireland and because of everything being online he's able to do that, so he has that going. He'll be doing that and then we hope to have him do a webinar for us afterwards on that.
42:45
And then the other person is Forrest woody boston, who everybody knows, woody, and he is going to be talking about setting up consultation groups, and I belong to a consultation group that happens to be been together now close to 20 some odd years.
43:05
I've only been in a couple of years. It's in m Maryland. I was invited in and we meet once a month and it's great because we actually talk about problems that we have with cases and I'm talking to people that have been doing it for well. One of the people is my mentor, who's trained me 35 years ago in mediation. So I think this conference is really going to be great because, as Alice said, it's bringing now the business piece in how to grow your practice and that's where I think new mediators are always struggling. I'm seeing more mediators coming into the field that have not come out of the legal profession. They're coming from other professions or they're coming just straight out of college, looking in here about this and this is where they want to go, and I think it's great because it's putting things back in place.
44:05
And I've always said to me the biggest thing is when you have a judge from a superior court contact you and say I want you to handle my divorce and you say you're not going to go through litigation and they go. I don't want to go through the sewer, I want to be able. We have children and we want to be able to preserve that and have you know, continue on. That speaks millions of how the judicial system works out.
44:39 - Sylvia (Host)
Yes, so what level of mediator would this, would the conference, be best suited for, would you say?
44:48 - Bob (Guest)
would the conference be best suited for, would you say? I mean, I think it's suited for all levels because I think the beginner will learn and know what to pick up ideas and at least have some thoughts of questions and going forward. I think the most experienced mediator every mediator I know never shuts down their brain. They're always looking for something new.
45:16 - Sylvia (Host)
So the conference is September 19th to the 20th and it's online, and what's the format?
45:23 - Alice (Guest)
We try to make it so that the West Coast and the East Coast could make it. So I believe for the West Coast it may be in the afternoon and for the East Coast it's like late morning, I think half a day.
45:36 - Bob (Guest)
It's like five hours.
45:37 - Alice (Guest)
It's like I believe it's 90 minutes and then a half hour break and then another 90 minutes, so it's not very long we typically it's a three day, three half days.
45:49 - Bob (Guest)
We've kept it smaller because we're coming in with our 2025, which will be in March rather than September. We've always had it in the fall and, in order to do that, we've moved it to March, which gave us a shorter period between the two conferences that we have to work to get it on.
46:09 - Alice (Guest)
You will be able to register if you go to the APFM website.
46:14 - Sylvia (Host)
Perfect, perfect Right. So once people go to the website, they'll be able to get some more information and then sign up from there. Fabulous. Any parting thoughts that you want to share with our audience before we wrap this episode up?
46:32 - Bob (Guest)
I think you know the mediators I've known over the years, I realize we all have something like-minded For me. I always tell people it's a profession. Tell people it's a profession, but more than anything it's my passion, it's what comes from my heart and that means more to me. I'll spend time with people and not charge, because if I can get to the end results and see that they can have, and as I always tell people, especially with children, at the end of the day you're still mom and dad to the children. You might be in two households that could be blended families, but at the end of the day you're still mom and dad and that, to me, has been one of the biggest things I look at.
47:26
I divorced and my children were seven and four when we got divorced. They're grown adults, professionals today. We talk every day and to me, that's just what I look for and I love to see it when older people what we call the gray divorce gets divorced and they look at each other and say, oh, I know you're going to be gone on vacation for three weeks. Would you like for me to go over to your apartment and water the plants? That, to me, is just something that says we're not into a battle.
47:59 - Alice (Guest)
I just want to encourage people who are building their business to stick with it. It does take time. It takes usually longer than you wish it would take. Make sure that when you're just starting that you do have another source of income. Do not just quit your day job to start, because you will ultimately feel like, wow, I didn't make it.
48:18
But if you've got another source of income a part-time job, something like that and then just keep plugging away at it and plug into your entrepreneur communities if you feel, if you're feeling alone because there are many other people who are doing this work, but you might not feel it if you end up siloing yourself, trying to do it alone. Nobody ever got there alone. So if you can't quite afford a virtual assistant or marketing director, at least try to go and network with other entrepreneurs like yourself so that you can bounce ideas off of them and feel like there's someone else doing it besides you, Because sometimes the thing that might end up sabotaging yourself is that feeling of loneliness. So to prevent it, try to keep connected with others.
49:03 - Bob (Guest)
And I'll say one other thing the APFM for our members. We have a mediator meetup every month the first Friday of every month at noon and it's a place without an agenda so people can log in, members can log in. We typically get newer members, newer mediators just starting out and it's where they can ask questions and not feel restricted. We have no agenda. It runs for an hour and we never know who's going to be there. We've had some great mediators that I've known over the years Larry Fong, who has been the president of the AFCC for years, pops in and out. He teaches globally mediation. Ken Newman, who's out of New York, who's been around for ages, pops in and out. John Fisk out of Massachusetts, and I think members when they pop in and they're brand new, they're amazed. Oh wait, you're telling me I'm talking to this person who I've read books and everything else, and here they are and I can ask a question. So it's a great way for new people to be able to learn.
50:22 - Sylvia (Host)
What a fabulous resource. That's amazing. Yeah, we'll definitely put a link for that in the show notes, because I think that could add a lot of value. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and brilliance. I know that our listeners are going to get so much value from this episode, so thank you for that and for anyone that's interested. We'll also put more details in the show notes for the upcoming online conference, which is September 19th to the 20th, and it's the APFM 2024 Growing your Thriving Mediation Practice. So thank you once again and I hope everyone checks that out.
51:00 - Alice (Guest)
Thank you.
51:01 - Bob (Guest)
Thank you Appreciate it.