How Effective Communication Impacts Business and Brand Development with Elise Holtzman
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Description
Do you think that not focusing on building a brand means that someone doesn’t have one? You always have a personal brand, whether you realize it or not! So you must be intentional about yours.
Many lawyers haven’t been taught about branding. Luckily, experts like my guest Elise Holtzman are dedicated to helping attorneys develop their businesses and brands.
Elise is a former lawyer turned coach. As the CEO of The Lawyer’s Edge, she and her team have spent over 15 years working exclusively with lawyers and law firms to help them become better business developers and leaders and grow thriving practices.
In this episode of the Branding Room Only podcast, you’ll hear about Elise’s journey from pre-med to lawyer to coach. You’ll also learn how effective communication through coaching, podcasting, and volunteerism has impacted her brand and business development. She also highlights the value and importance of understanding and adapting to different communication styles and personalities.
Chapters
00:55 - How Elise defines personal brand and describes herself and her favorite quote from Jack Canfield
4:25 - Elise’s upbringing, why she pivoted from premed to law, and the rewards of practicing law
11:58 - Why Elise left law, how doing so affected her brand, and how she transitioned into coaching
19:45 - Elise’s passion for business development and how she started building her brand and business
24:02 - How leadership and volunteerism have helped Elise build her brand (and can do the same for yours)
27:27 - How the coaching process has influenced the way Elise has built her brand and helped her clients
33:13 - The biggest lesson learned about branding and business development from hosting a podcast
40:02 - The importance of effective communication, understanding personality types, and communication challenges that can crop up
47:05 - Two uncompromisable core values of Elise’s brand and what nakedness has to do with her Branding Room Only superpower
Connect With Elise Holtzman
Elise Holtzman is dedicated to working with lawyers and law firms to help them be proactive about business development, leadership, and career acceleration. As a former practicing attorney with experience working at Fried Frank and Morgan Lewis, Elise brings a deep understanding of the practice of law (and the demands of operating a firm) to her work.
As founder of The Lawyer’s Edge, she helps leaders promote a healthy, growth-oriented culture in their firms and coaches lawyers on how to bring in more business, retain clients, and communicate effectively. Elise frequently speaks and writes on the subject of business development and career acceleration for lawyers, and is the host of The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast.
Ignite Women’s Business Development Accelerator
Mentioned In How Effective Communication Impacts Business and Brand Development with Elise Holtzman
Paula Edgar | How to Boldly Be YOU in Everything You Do - The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast
The Success Principles Workbook by Jack Canfield
Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract more Business With Less Effort by Steven Van Yoder
International Coaching Federation
New Jersey Women Lawyers Association
Subscribe to The Branding Room Only on YouTube
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi everybody, it's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only, and I'm super excited about my conversation today with my guest, Elise Holtzman. Elise is a former practicing attorney and the CEO of Lawyer's Edge, where for more than 15 years, she and her team have worked exclusively with lawyers and law firms to grow thriving businesses by helping lawyers become better business developers and leaders, so you know she's in the right spot. Elise, welcome to The Branding Room.
Elise Holtzman: Thanks so much, Paula. I'm excited to be here.
Paula Edgar: I'm excited to be here too. I had so much fun when I was on your podcast.
Elise Holtzman: That was great.
Paula Edgar: Fantastic. I start off my conversation with my guest by asking everyone the same question, which is what does a personal brand mean to you? How would you define it?
Elise Holtzman: When I first started working with personal branding, I heard it defined as what other people say about you when you're in the room. I think that's a great beginning of the description, but I don't think it goes as far as I would like it to, because I think it's important that you be intentional about your brand.
Not just letting anybody say whatever they want to say about you but making sure that people have the right impression of you, that people know what value you deliver, what's authentic about you, and what's special and different about you.
It's a combination of the value you deliver and how you deliver that value. How do you make other people feel when you're talking to them? How do you or services, or products, or just being yourself? That's a little bit different than how other people do it.
Paula Edgar: Love that. Especially when you're thinking about personal brand and lawyers, as you know, I talk about this all the time, usually to a legal audience. What I find is that people think, “Well, why do we even need to have a brand? What's a brand?” I'm like, “No, if you're not thinking about it, you still have one.”
Elise Holtzman: Right, right. It may not be the one you want.
Paula Edgar: Exactly. That intention piece is a really important pivot point that people should be thinking about. Speaking of brand, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases?
Elise Holtzman: I'm very driven. I can't let things go. If I want to accomplish something, I've got to get it done. So I'm very driven. I also think I'm funny. I'm unintentionally funny most of the time, but people seem to think I'm pretty funny.
I'm very direct in a warm way. I'm not direct in a nasty way, but I'm very direct. I tell it like it is. Sometimes I joke that my coaching style is tough love with an emphasis on the love. If there's something that I think needs to be said, something that's getting in your way, I'm going to say it and I'm going to do it in a kind empathetic way, but I'm going to get the message across.
Paula Edgar: I love that. When I used to coach folks, I would say, “I'm the foot in your back, but I'm sometimes wearing a ballet slipper and sometimes a boot.”
Elise Holtzman: Right.
Paula Edgar: All right. Do you have a favorite quote?
Elise Holtzman: I have a favorite quote. It's a little bit long so stick with me. It comes from a guy named Jack Canfield. Jack Canfield was one of the creators of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. There's a book he wrote called The Success Principles, which I read very early on. That's actually how I found out about coaching.
In that book, he says the following: "It's time to quit waiting for perfection, inspiration, permission, reassurance, someone to change, the right person to come along, a more favorable horoscope, the new administration to take over, an absence of risk, someone to discover you, a clear set of instructions, or more self-confidence. Get on with it already!”
I love that because it is that kick in the back that you just mentioned before. I think all of us can be reminded that sometimes it's just time to stop waiting around for things to change and to make them change.
Paula Edgar: That resonates for so many reasons for me, and I've never heard the quote before. This reminds me in a succinct way, my mother used to say, "Buck up, Buttercup. Let's go.”
Elise Holtzman: Yeah. Get with the program. Move it along.
Paula Edgar: Exactly, exactly. Tell me, where did you grow up and how did that shape you?
Elise Holtzman: I grew up somewhere between New York and Baltimore. I was born in New York City. Lived in Queens and Long Island as a very little girl. Then my father got a job in South Jersey, in Philadelphia. We moved to South Jersey.
I was there until I was in middle school. Then he had gotten another job down in Baltimore and for a couple of years was commuting back and forth between South Jersey and Baltimore because he didn't know if it was going to be a forever kind of job and he didn't want to have to move the family if he didn't want to.
When I was in sixth grade, which I think is just about the worst time to move, we moved from South Jersey to a suburb of Baltimore. I did middle school and high school there and then left and I went to college in Philadelphia and law school in New York.
I went down the coast and then went back up the coast. My parents, who thought they were going to be there for a few years, wound up being there for 40 years and finally left there a few years ago.
Paula Edgar: Wow. We have another thing in common. I think we talked about this before, but my dad is a South Jersey person as well. But when I was in boarding school, they moved from Brooklyn to South Jersey to Willingboro, New Jersey.
Elise Holtzman: Oh, yeah.
Paula Edgar: It's like a whole nother ethos being there, so different from New York, even though we're close an hour and a half on the turnpike.
Elise Holtzman: It is very different. I live in New Jersey and I feel like sometimes there's no such thing as New Jersey. If you live in North Jersey, you live in New York. If you live in South Jersey, you live in Philadelphia. I think maybe New Jersey needs your podcast. Maybe New Jersey needs some better branding.
Paula Edgar: It needs a brand. The brand is gardening. It's got its fruit.
Elise Holtzman: The Garden State.
Paula Edgar: That's hilarious. All right, so I know where you grew up. I knew where you went to, came back to school. Tell me about your career path after you went to school back in New York and Philly.
Elise Holtzman: In college, I was pre-med. In my family, I'm the oldest in my generation and my family is all about education and having this generation be better than the prior generation and all of that.
I think that my choices felt like doctor or lawyer at the time. This is obviously a long time ago. I chose doctor because I was fascinated by science. I was fascinated by the idea of taking care of patients. I love that, and maybe doing surgery or doing emergency medicine or something like that. So I went to college all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about being premed.
I was premed for almost the whole time I was there. But it was such a rude awakening. Part of this is just learning as a young person, and I know we're going to talk more about this, the idea of accepting who you are as part of branding, but I'm just making this connection as I'm sharing the story.
I love the idea of being a doctor, and I think I would have loved being a doctor. But that is not what came naturally to me. So the sciences, I did fine, but I had to knock myself out for these sciences. Whereas everything else I took, if I took an English class, I took a history class, I took a psychology class, there were times I was getting the best grade in the class and I wasn't even trying that hard.
It was just fun. It was interesting, but it was like, "Yeah, blah, blah. I'm doing that other thing over on the side, but this medical stuff is what I'm focused on." So chemistry and biochemistry and biology and oh, my god, physics was the bane of my existence.
Near the end of college, I enrolled in the Stanley Kaplan MCAT review course. I think I took one physics practice test and the whole house of cards came down. I was like, “I can't. I just can't do this.”
I started asking around and I had already started doing some interviewing and trying to figure out who was doing what and what I might want to be when I grew up. I decided to go to law school. It turned out that was the perfect thing for me because it was a combination of what I was good at and what I liked.
I think that in the past there were days where I thought if I could wake up tomorrow morning and be a surgeon or an ER doctor without having had to go through all of that nonsense, I would love to do it. But choosing the law was the right path for me.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, same. I write like a doctor.
Elise Holtzman: So nobody can read what you're writing.
Paula Edgar: Right, exactly. That's all I got there. Me and the sciences, I have admiration, but otherwise we don't have it.
Elise Holtzman: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Tell me, because I think you started getting into that in your realization maybe, how was it for you, having put all this effort into one space and then decided to go another, like was that pivot for you an easy one, or was it one that you have a lot of strife with and how did the family take it?
Elise Holtzman: It's a good question because my family, they were very driven generally, but also driven for us. They just wanted us to have a better life than they had an economic security and all of that sort of thing.
I think that if I had said, “I don't want to go to medical school, but I'd like to stare at my navel and figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up,” they would have completely freaked out, which is a little bit what they did with my sister, because my sister, who's three years younger than I am, really didn't know what she wanted to do.
Super smart, super accomplished, but wasn't really sure what she wanted to do. Their response was, “You don't get to come sit on the couch and just get some job and not know, you have to pick something.”
She wound up going to law school as well, which was not really the best fit for her. I mean, she did it, but it wasn't the best fit. I think that when you have grandparents who can say, “My granddaughter, the lawyer.” Instead of, “My granddaughter, the doctor.” They get over it.
I think the fact that I had a direction to go in was okay with them. For me, I was fortunate in that it was like, “If this is not what's right for you and you're finding something else that you think is going to be right for you,” they were supportive of it.
I think that that made it easier for them. If somebody had said to me something along the lines of, “We can't believe we invested all of this in you and now it's all a waste,” I think I would have been devastated, but I'm fortunate that I didn't have that kind of reaction.
Paula Edgar: Well, thank goodness. You then became a lawyer, as you said. You worked at some big law firms. What was that experience like in terms of you understanding who you are and where you want your trajectory to end up being and how it showed up now?
Elise Holtzman: It was a mixed bag. I loved practicing law. I know there are a lot of lawyers out there who say that they don't love what they do. I absolutely loved what I did. I would always say, “I wasn't saving the baby seals.” I was doing commercial real estate transactions, so it wasn't like I was necessarily making the world a better place unless you consider real estate development, making the world a better place.
But I loved it. It was challenging and I loved negotiating and I loved helping people get to “yes”. That was really important to me. It was something that I liked more than the idea of litigation, where I think there's just a lot of strife all the time. You could have some challenges in getting a deal to come to fruition, but everybody was trying to row in the same direction.
I had really great mentors. They were all men, by the way. There were really no women in positions of leadership. The couple that were there were not interested for whatever reason in really helping people behind them, probably because it was so rough for them getting where they were going.
In a lot of ways, it was a fantastic, fantastic experience that introduced me to the business world. I went straight from college to law school, which a lot more people did back then. So I didn't have that experience.
But the part that was not so great was working 80 hours a week and pulling all-nighters and not having a life. I married a lawyer. We met in law school. I don't know if I told you this, we met when we were cast together to sing a love song in a law school show.
Paula Edgar: No.
Elise Holtzman: Yeah. I'm married to a lawyer and he's trying to make it at his firm and I'm trying to make it at my firm. Then we go and have a baby. The baby is about to turn 29. We're not going to discuss that. But the whole thing became untenable at that point because we were both working crazy hours.
He was a litigator. I was a transactional lawyer. We didn't have any family around. The baby would be in the crib in the morning when we went to work and the baby would be asleep in the crib again at night when we came home. That was really the challenge that I had with the law. So I reluctantly left.
I really did enjoy what I did and I like the people with whom I was doing it for the most part so it was a disappointment to me, especially with a law degree to say, “Okay, now this doesn't work and I'm going to stay home with kids for a while.” I did that for quite a few years until I shifted gears and started doing what I'm doing now.
Paula Edgar: Talk to me about that pivot because I had someone else on my podcast who talked about returning back from work and then maternity leave, et cetera. That's a different experience than saying, “I'm going to stop and take the time to invest in raising my children.
What was that like for you brand-wise? From being a lawyer, doing this up to then your shift, your role shifting to the head of household and leader of children. How was that for you?
Elise Holtzman: Yeah, again, a mixed bag, but largely positive. For me, I was torn. I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I didn't feel that I had chosen it. My firm actually wanted me to stay. Nobody was really doing part-time back then. If they did, they were just testing the water.
They offered me part-time, which was supposed to be 40 hours a week for 80% of my salary. Then of course I was working 70 hours a week for 80% of my salary. I was annoyed that I had to leave.
Again I had gone to this fancy-schmancy law school and was working at this fancy-schmancy firm. Now all of a sudden I'm changing diapers and going to a shop right. That felt different.
On the other hand, I recognize that most women don't have the choice to stay home with their children. Even though we certainly didn't have a lot of money at the time, my husband was actually making like 48% of our family income because I was two years ahead of him in law school.
In the lockstep nature of things, I was actually making more money than he was. But I had the choice, I could do it. On the days when I was annoyed at the whole thing, I felt guilty because I knew that other women didn't have that choice.
In terms of the branding, if you will, and how I felt about myself and how other people looked at me, I'm fortunate with my relationship with my husband because my husband never looked at me any differently.
I was home for like 10 years. In the years that I was home, we had the same conversations. He treated me the same way. He knows that I have a couple of brain cells to rub together. You hear these stories about women who say that they feel less than in their relationship. I'd never had that for one moment.
For that, I'm grateful. That made it a lot easier. I also threw myself into volunteer work, like a crazy person. I would run every community fundraiser or preschool thing or school thing like it was going to be reported on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or something like that.
I made myself entirely crazy, but in that way, I was able to still feel confident like I was delivering some value. But there absolutely were times when we would go to a party or some social gathering and people would say, "What do you do?” I would say, “Well, I'm actually home with my kids now.”
All of a sudden, I was looking at two backs, like nobody wanted to talk to me. Again, I had both of those experiences. But overall, it was okay, because the people that are closest to me never treated me any differently than they had before.
Paula Edgar: I'm really glad that you brought this up because obviously, I never know where the conversations are going to go, but I'm really glad that this part came out because I do think those labels that we incur as we are going through our life, they shift some of our perceptions of ourselves and other people's perceptions.
But what I love is that you still were you, the busyness of and the adding value piece and it doesn't have to be a detriment and actually thinking about it, you took care of your kids. The prize is them.
Elise Holtzman: Well, people forget that sometimes, Paula. I'm glad you said that because I've raised three amazing kids. Some of it it’s luck, hopefully, some of it is something that we did on purpose. But when I look back, what am I going to do? Say, “I'm sorry that I raised these amazing human beings”? It's been the joy of my life to be able to do that.
Paula Edgar: Right, right. No, I love that. I'm glad that we veered off that way because it's an important piece. Tell me, you then came back and decided, “What am I going to do once the kids are in school and doing more things,” what was that decision in terms of pivoting back?
Elise Holtzman: Yeah. I think I mentioned I have three kids. Two of them were in school and one of them, my youngest, wound up with special needs. He has autism. It took some time. I was thinking about, “Oh, I'm having a baby and I'd like to go back to work. Wouldn't that be fun to do all of it at the same time?”
Then he came along with this whole bucket of like, “Figure this thing out. You don't know what you're doing.” That took a while. When he was about four or five, I started thinking, “I need to do something else.” Because that was when I started feeling like I was losing myself a little bit.
I got sucked into the autism world and worrying about every detail of everything and going to conferences and trying to do the research, all the things that lawyers and I guess doctors would be doing, and putting that all into one package.
I said, “I've got to do something else because this cannot be what consumes my thoughts 100% of the time. It's time for me to go back to work anyway.” So then it was like, “Well, what am I going to be when I grow up?”
For me, as I said, I love the law. But in my mind, I was so used to big law, not really understanding so much the world of smaller practices that I thought, “Well, I'm not going to turn my life over to anybody ever again. I have to raise these kids, we don't have family around. I live in the suburbs, my husband works long hours in Manhattan. As a lawyer, I've got to be able to control my own life so let me look into some other things.”
I'm not joking. I would take them to school, and go to Barnes & Noble, and roam around the aisles of Barnes & Noble reading all of the “What am I going to be when I grow up?” books.
Actually, it was Jack Canfield’s book that I mentioned earlier that I found called The Success Principles. I read it with fascination. It was just all about “How to be who you're meant to be.” In my mind, it was like, “Well, how can I help others be who they're meant to be?” I found out about coaching by reading that book.
Then I did my research, I found a program accredited by the International Coach Federation, took a full year certificate program in executive and leadership coaching, and then started my own firm, not really knowing exactly what it was going to turn into.
It wasn't like I had lawyers in mind from the first day. But very quickly realized that that's the world I know, that's the world I love, that's the world I'm comfortable in, and that's when The Lawyer's Edge was born.
Paula Edgar: I love that, and I also love the business name. I'm a big fan of it. It sits well. You then are starting this business, you've got all these other things going on. How did you build your brand? What were the ways that you got the word out about what you were doing and built up yourself for the value add that you have?
Elise Holtzman: I love this question because sometimes it's hard to remember where you started. For me, I started my business, I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about running a business.
It's like, “Okay, I got my name and now I'm in business. I'm a coach. I'm in business. How do you get clients? Great question. I have no idea.” I did not grow up in an entrepreneurial family. My dad worked for a company. My mom worked for a school system. We’re lawyers, we went to law school, we got out, they gave us jobs.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I, fortunately, recognized that and started enrolling in all sorts of conferences and classes and reading books and all this stuff about marketing and business development, really out of pure selfishness. Like, “Oh my God, if I want to rub a couple of nickels together, I gotta figure out how to do this.”
I started noticing that I was helping my lawyer clients grow their practices. It wasn't something that I had actually intentionally started doing. When I noticed that—and I'll go back a little bit—when I noticed that, that's when I really started to double down on business development, and marketing branding because I absolutely love it.
It's something that for a whole variety of reasons, that your lawyer listeners will certainly know, is very much needed in terms of support. But one of the ways I started getting my name out there was by doing a lot of speaking for free.
I remember going out to lunch once with a former associate of my husband's who was a total superstar. She then wound up getting pregnant with twins and didn't want to commute into Manhattan anymore so she got a job with a fantastic firm in New Jersey.
We wound up having lunch and I said to her as we were finishing up, “Hey, I'm just curious, does your firm ever bring in speakers?” She said, “Well, sometimes we do a lunch and learn like once a quarter.” I said, “Well, I'd be happy to come in and do a lunch and learn with you if you want.”
Did I have any idea what I was going to talk about? I certainly did not. I wound up putting together a program for them. Doing this program, came home, looked at my husband, and said, “I've never smoked crack, but I'm pretty sure that this is what smoking crack feels like.” Because I loved teaching. I loved teaching, I loved educating, I loved engaging with the people in the room.
At every opportunity where I saw that I could deliver some value, I didn't wait around to be asked. I would call people up and say, "Hey, Bar Association, I know you need to put on programs for your members. I speak for law firms and for legal organizations and I'd love to come in and talk.” That was one of the major ways that I first started developing my brand was through speaking engagements.
Paula Edgar: I tell people all the time that if you are not involved in a member of a Bar Association or professional association, if you're in another field, you're wasting opportunity because literally, they're looking for content, engagement, they're always on something and you can bring so much innovation.
To your point about bringing intention for yourself and for them, it just makes total sense. This is a great moment for me to plug the fact that I am a board member for the New York City Bar Association. So all of you who are not members, go ahead and join. The link will be in the show notes.
Elise Holtzman: I love that. They're getting a special plug.
Paula Edgar: Absolutely, I'm a Bar baby. I love Bar Association so much. They bring me joy and they also bring me business. The two things don't have to be separate and apart, which is a good thing.
Elise Holtzman: Well, no, it's better when you can do both. If you can grow your brand, meet people, network, deliver value, and love what you're doing, that's where the magic is. I love when you say that.
Paula Edgar: Exactly. Okay. You started talking about some of the volunteerism that you did when you were at home and being the friend of the newspaper or the events that you were putting on.
You just talked about doing some things for free in terms of getting your name out there. How has leadership and volunteerism helped with building your brand in addition to that? Have you done any other things in terms of stuff in the home space or board membership, anything like that?
Elise Holtzman: Yeah. I've been on a number of different boards over the years, largely in the legal realm, and also in the legal marketing realm. I've been able to meet people in the business.
There's a book that I read many years ago, and I can't even remember if the book was fantastic or not, but the book was called something along the lines of Get Slightly Famous.
What I think is great about volunteering either in your own industry or in the industries that you serve or with people who are potential referral sources is that not only do you get to show them the value you deliver, for example, by speaking or writing, but you also get to show them who you are.
When you are working on a committee with somebody, let's say you guys are planning an event for October, and you work together, you roll up your sleeves and you work side by side and you've got emails flying back and forth and you've got meetings, people get to know who you really are. They get to know that you care about people. They get to know that they can rely on you.
The networking is absolutely fantastic. Feeling a part of something, being a part of something with other people is what bonds them together and offers that know, like, and trust factor that we know is what people use to make hiring decisions.
I have been so fortunate, I'm currently on the New York board of the Legal Marketing Association, which is a tremendous organization. I've been on the board of the New Jersey Women's Lawyers Association.
I've been on the board of Columbia Law School for many years, I just rolled off after God knows how many years I was there. In that regard, it's not just about delivering value in terms of articles and speaking engagements, it's really about hanging out with people that you can care about and that can get to know you and you can get to know them.
Paula Edgar: I'm so glad I asked that question because you brought out something that I often ask the question, but this part that you brought out that doesn't really get talked about that much is the skill building that people can get and also see, if in your day job, you only do X rope thing, you can use these organizations to do some of the skill pieces or build the skill areas that you don't already have that you want to be seen for. People, when you're collaborating, folks can see you. I think that's a wonderful reflection.
Elise Holtzman: It's a really good point, Paula. It's one that I discuss with my clients frequently. Especially if I'm talking to people who are fairly junior or mid-level and they don't have a lot of opportunities in their firm for whatever reason. Maybe they're at a smaller firm and there are not a lot of opportunities for leadership or they're at a larger firm and there are too many committees and too many people and they're falling through the cracks, being able to join an organization is such a great proving ground and learning possibilities.
Maybe you're not managing a lot of people in your law firm, but now you're managing a large committee of people who have to get something done. It helps you grow. It does also demonstrate to people around you, even at your own firm, the leadership capabilities and the gravitas that you have.
Paula Edgar: I love it. Oh, also one of my favorite words, gravitas. In coaching lawyer clients, what are some of the reflections, what are some of the things that you have learned in the coaching process that maybe have influenced how you have built your brand or navigated your brand yourself?
Elise Holtzman: One of the things that I've been fortunate about is, look, I work with a very specific cohort of people. So I'm bathing, if you will, in what their opportunities are and what their challenges are. I think for everybody, when you know, and you always should know what your clients' greatest opportunities and greatest challenges are, you can then help them achieve those goals and navigate those obstacles.
So for me, learning about what the needs of my clients are allows me to build my brand because it allows me to deliver to them what they need. When I first started, I came up with a list of, I think it was eight or nine different talks that I could give.
Very quickly, it came down to two different talks that I gave, and people were requesting over and over again, I would give them this list. I finally threw the other seven out because I realized that that was what I thought might be a good idea, but that's not what they were asking for.
As far as understanding the branding needs of my clients, I think it's really important to point out that lawyers don't know anything about branding because nobody—and I'm not being critical, oh, and I'm really not critical of lawyers, like you and I both know we have the same education—nobody talks to us about this stuff.
We don't go to law school because we want to become salespeople. We could have gone and become salespeople, we didn't have to pay a gazillion dollars to go to law school. We go to law school, they teach us to color in the lines. They really want us to color in the lines, we already, most of us showed up as being pretty good at coloring in the lines or we probably wouldn't have gone to law school.
Then we get to the law firm and we just want to grind out really good work, which is of course the baseline that's absolutely critical and foundational. But all this other branding, like I'm not a box of Tide detergent, why do I need a brand? So I think that what I've seen is the need for the awareness and then the need for support for people who are already working so, so hard and have so much pressure on them to be able to build a brand that feels authentic to them and doesn't feel like they're the proverbial used car salesman.
Paula Edgar: I mean, that's a clip right there. Because I get frustrated when people think, “Oh, branding is only for that bottle of Tide.” Shout out to Tide. Anyway, but we are all walking representations of ourselves and the business of us.
So even if you're listening and you're thinking, "I'm not at a firm," or "I'm not a lawyer," you still, how you show up, the value you add, what you strive for, the way you do all of those things impact how you're perceived and the opportunities you get. That is why you need to think about it. You need to be intentional, to your point.
Elise Holtzman: Yeah. It really is critical. I'm glad you mentioned that. My oldest daughter just started graduate school, but for six years she worked in the PR world. She came out of college and went into a PR role.
What do I know? I know lawyers, that's about it. But one of the things that she did, to your point, because of perceptions being so important, and I guess the poor kid, I mean, my kids have grown up hearing all of this stuff for years, whether they liked it or not. They got to listen to it. Lucky them. I remember her telling me one day that she had been put on this really interesting deal.
Oh, how did that happen? Well, all of the young people, the first years and second years, we went to this meeting where the, I don't know who it was, it was like some vice president 12 times ahead of them, 12 levels ahead of them, at one point he said, “I know I'm not going to work with all of you, but I would really love to meet anybody who's interested. So if you're interested, call my assistant, get some time on my calendar, and come talk to me.”
She walked out and everyone was like, “Over my dead body. There's no way that I'm going to go talk to this guy and then call his assistant and make an appointment. That's terrifying.” She said, “So Mom, I called his assistant, I made an appointment. I talked to him.”
A few weeks later, she got in the elevator to go upstairs in New York City. He was in the elevator and he said, "Oh, hi, it's so good to see you again." He said, "You know what? I'm glad I saw you because I have a project that I need to staff and I'm wondering if you would be interested."
In a million years, that would never have happened if she hadn't gone out of her way to have a communication with this guy. So she started building her brand very early on. She's not a lawyer. It's different people and different topics, but the concepts, as you point out, are identical.
Paula Edgar: Well, you deserve an award as a mother.
Elise Holtzman: Listen, I'm never getting one. So if you want to give me one for today, I'll take it.
Paula Edgar: You are getting that award because we were talking about this earlier before we started, it is wonderful when they start to come to us for the things that we've all known their whole life.
Elise Holtzman: Right, it takes a while.
Paula Edgar: But I just can't wait to have the opportunity to see it in action. I actually did see it with my 12-year-old son this summer because he went to a camp that was at the school that I went to for boarding school. I was so nervous because he's 12. I was like, "Oh my gosh, my baby's going." But I was excited for the opportunity.
He did like a 360. All of a sudden he was like, "I'm going to go to this school "and then mommy, I'm going to go to this other school. I was like, the investments that you make in them.
Elise Holtzman: Yes, and the world that you open up. That's the thing. There are so many people who don't have the opportunity to see outside the little world that they live in. So giving them that opportunity is always wonderful.
Paula Edgar: Truth, truth, truth, truth. Talk to me about what you've learned from hosting your own podcast and the guests that you've had in terms of their navigating the legal profession and lessons and themes that may have come out from those conversations about branding. Anything come to mind?
Elise Holtzman: I think the biggest lesson I've learned is that there is really no one way to be. There's no one way to be a lawyer. There's no one way to be a mother. There's no one way to be anything. I think we know that intellectually, but I, like you, am so fortunate to talk to really interesting, accomplished people, and hearing their different perspectives is remarkable.
There are so many people who have established brands for themselves, reputations for themselves. You could have 10 people doing exactly the same thing, and they're doing it in 10 wildly different ways, all of which are perfectly legitimate, and maybe right for somebody, but not right for somebody else.
So I think that that's taking it from the intellectual to the kind of feeling it in my bones and really seeing, I wish I had known this when I was younger. I think when I was younger, I definitely grew up in a family where there was a certain way to do things.
I raised my kids that way too. I mean the joke in this house is that it was run as a benevolent dictatorship and the inmates were not running the asylum, that kind of thing. I don't think gentle parenting was a thing. Even if it was, I probably wouldn't have adopted it.
There are shoulds with the kids. But when I was very young, I really thought that there was a certain way to be and I think I was trying really hard to be that way. I mean, to the point where when we bought our first house, I said to a friend we were going to buy some things and try to decorate it a little, she said, “Well, what do you want it to look like?” I said, “Well, I don't know what it's supposed to look like.”
She said, “There's no ‘supposed to’ in decorating like you're supposed to make it where you feel comfortable.” I know that in my bones now, particularly after talking to so many different people and seeing so many different ways of doing things, I just think it's really important for people to recognize that whoever you are, whatever your background is, whatever work you do, there are things about you that are special, there are things about you that are unique, and there are eight billion people on this planet, so not everyone's going to love you and you're not going to love everyone else, you're not going to be a good fit for everybody else.
But for a certain cohort of people, you are going to be absolutely perfect for them. Really, I think that's what I've learned so much from all the different people that I've talked to.
Paula Edgar: I love that as a takeaway. My therapist who, as all of my audience knows, should be given a Nobel Peace Prize, the people she saves me from everywhere. She often says, "Growth begins where comfort ends." I always think about always wanting to engage and do better.
For me, wanting to do the podcast was a selfish endeavor. I wanted to be able to grow and learn from the lessons and the experiences of other people. But one word that you said just now is the “should” piece. I've also learned that throughout pretty much every story I've heard, it's you need to shed your “should.”
“Should” should put you in boxes that you don't need to be in. It makes you not as authentic as you could be. When you lean into that who, and I say it, but it's well fought for, it's not an easy thing, particularly when you're more junior in your career, but once you get into that stride and you realize, “That's not for me,” or “I don't want to do it that way,” and you can just be you, people, to your point, they come on to you.
They get it because you are glowing sitting in that truth and that space that is really only yours. Speaking of branding, it's what resonates with folks. When you know what your skill is and know where your will is, all of those things come together to show up as you. So I love that.
Elise Holtzman: It's very true and it's really about not being afraid to not blend in. I think that so many of us are trying to blend in or at least I know that I was trying to blend in when I was a young person, partly because I've always been really confident in my work, in my career, but when I was growing up, when we moved to Baltimore, for example, we moved into a very affluent community where we did not really fit that category.
I felt, and also they all had their families there, it was a very provincial kind of place, I felt that I didn't blend in, I didn't fit in. All I wanted was to blend in and fit in. I think that part of the value of growing older is to be open to the idea that blending in is not what it's cracked up to be because it really means muting who you are.
Paula Edgar: If that's not a lesson and the takeaway for y'all, snapshot this one right in your head. It is not all that it's cracked up to be, although I think most of you know, especially having heard from my father, that I never tried to blend in ever.
Elise Holtzman: Listen, that's true for some people. Yeah, that's true for some people. Paula, you are not somebody that I would ever think was somebody who tried to blend in. But I thought we all did that. I remember having a conversation with one of my dearest friends who's eight years younger than I am.
She married into my family and we became very close. As a young person, I always felt that she had that confidence. She knew who she was. She wasn't trying to blend in. We had that conversation once and it never had occurred to her to try to blend in.
Whereas for me, it really did. I think that whoever you are, if you are one of those who marches to the beat of your own drum, fantastic. If you're somebody who feels like you're still trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, find a square hole. Make your own hole. I think everyone's experience is different, but we can all learn from both of them.
Paula Edgar: 100%, I align with this. I often say people, the extroverts of the world, they get all the shine because they're loud and big, and I'm one of them.
Elise Holtzman: Me too.
Paula Edgar: But I honor an introverted person so much, particularly when it comes to branding because they're much more strategic, they're much more thoughtful, and much more impactful because they don't want to do it as much. They're like, “This is the thing I got to get done.”
So when I think about conversations I've had about branding and business development, there's some people like, “Well, I'm an introvert, so I don't think I'll be good at this so I shouldn't.” I'm like, “No, no, no, no. You have to be better at it.” I'm like the butterfly that's going to touch every flower versus finding the flower that I know that I wanted to get to.
Elise Holtzman: Yes. I agree with you. I'm married to a very strong introvert. They're typically not throwing spaghetti at the wall and they're not saying everything that comes to their mind. I mean, you and I as extroverts, it's like the mouth opens and stuff comes out. Whereas the introverts are spending a lot more time inside their own heads pondering and thinking about what they're going to say or do before they do it.
Paula Edgar: Absolutely. Speaking of saying and thinking about what you say, I'm sure that in the coaching practice that you have and also in just the interactions you had, communication is a big part about how our brand is communicated. What are some of the things that you have taught, encouraged, or seen when it comes to effective communication and how it can impact your brand?
Elise Holtzman: Communication is one of the most important things that we do. Think about it. The minute we're not capable of communicating the way everybody else does, we call it a disorder.
For example, my son has autism, and so he has issues with communication. Yet at the same time, we don't teach people how to communicate. You might take a Toastmasters course or speaking course once or twice, but we don't focus on that in any schools. We don't focus on that in workplaces so I think that learning about communication is absolutely essential and it's one of the things that I enjoy working with people on.
One of the things I did, I don't know, it could be eight or seven or eight years ago now, is I became master certified in a set of personality tools called TypeCoach, which is, I guess, a competitor to Myers-Briggs. You get the same four letters you would get into Myers-Briggs, I just happen to love the TypeCoach model.
I think one thing to do when it comes to communication is to understand and acknowledge how you show up. We all show up with inborn personality traits. By the way, there's no such thing as a good personality or a bad personality. They're all equally valuable. They're just different from each other.
Understanding who you are, owning it, and that's a huge part of branding, is really important. Then being willing to do two things. One is flexing your style to other people. For example, if I'm coaching a very strong introvert, I have had to learn to ask a question and then shut my mouth.
Because I will fill in, and I'm sure you do this too, as extroverts, we are very uncomfortable with silences, the silences need to be filled. So I need to leave space for people in conversations who may be introverts because they need a little longer. They don't just start talking, they think first. They need that time to ponder.
If I ask somebody a question, he might not have the answer right away. He may need to think it through. I think being willing to flex your style towards other people is important. Also being willing and able to ask for what you need.
For example, let's say, Paula, I report to you and you give me an assignment and I come to your office and you're a big picture thinker, you're not really a micromanager, you think I have a brain in my head, you've worked with me before and so you just want to give me this thing and have me go run with it.
You give it to me and you pride yourself on, “Oh, I'm such a great leader and manager, I'm not a micromanager, this is awesome, I'm doing a great job.” I may go back to my office and cry. Paula is hanging me out to dry. She's setting me up to fail. She didn't give me the information I need. I don't know what she wants from me because maybe I'm more of a detail-oriented concrete person and I need those details.
If that's the case and I go back to my office and whine about you, there's another opportunity for me to say, “Hey, Paula, one of the things I've learned is I need a little bit more detail in order to get started with you. Would you mind taking five more minutes of your time to just help me figure this out? Then I'm happy to go run with it and I'll get it back to you by Tuesday like you asked.” Two things, flex towards other people, but also ask for what we need so that we can reduce stress for everybody and improve the quality of our communications.
Paula Edgar: I love that as advice and we all deal with it, not just in work, but all of our relationships. I remember, I don't know, probably two or three years ago, I said something to my husband and I don't remember what the topic was, but I was sure that he understood what I said.
Then I came back and I was like, "What the hell happened?" He was like, "Well, you said this thing," and I hadn't even thought about the fact that it could be construed in the way that he thought. So was I, but we just didn't communicate.
So it's really important to be, I think, as much as you can detail direct and to do check-ins to make sure that there’s shared understanding in any of the relationships that you’re in but particularly in the workplace because folks will attribute their good or badness to you in terms of the feedback. You’re not getting it so it’s your responsibility to make sure that you’re going to get what you need in order to fill in the assignment.
Elise Holtzman: A couple of things you said resonate with me. One is that this is, as you say, not just for the workplace. This understanding, this model of personality type in particular, has been wildly helpful for me in my relationship with my oldest daughter, the one who was in PR.
She and I are so different from one another in so many ways. In some ways, we have similarities, but largely very different, whereas her sister is much more like me. She's a little bit of a mini-me and even sassier, which is good sometimes and not always good.
But it really helps. I mean, she was into the personality stuff. I was into it. It allows us to have these conversations where it's like, “You're not a bad person. You just don't do things the way I do so let's talk about it.”
That's the second piece of it. You mentioned this idea of people judging you or labeling you or thinking you're a certain way. Understanding how other people show up in the world and how you show up in the world takes the intentionality out of things.
If I understand that you're a big picture thinker and you're not so into the details, I'm not going to go back to my office and say that Paula, she's such a jerk. I can't believe she didn't give me the details. I'm just going to say, “You know what, she's not really a detail woman, but I am so I'm just going to ask her for the details and then we'll be fine.”
It's not like Paula is a witch. It's just that's how she rolls and her personality type is just fine. There's nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't 100% align with mine, which is never going to. We're never going to align 100% with anybody.
Paula Edgar: Right, it removes some of the strife that we tend to put on ourselves. Although I would say that another lesson that I learned, particularly in my workplaces that I was in before I came on out to be an entrepreneur is, some people just aren't your people. I think that's important to know.
Some people are bad communicators. So I think you should try. We should always be trying to flex and understand and be curious and not blaming in that space and understanding as people show up. But also give yourself a break and don't put up with any BS because some people are not your people.
Elise Holtzman: Yeah, and the way I put it, sometimes when I'm doing these educational workshops about personality type, somebody might raise her hand and say, "Well, my coworker did X, Y, and Z." I usually get a laugh out of this, I'll say, “Listen, let's be clear, jerk is not a personality type. Sometimes people are just not nice people or they're so wrapped up in their own thing that they just come across in a way that's not really what the model is about.” But you're right, we can't over invest in people who have made it clear to us that they're not worth investing in.
Paula Edgar: Snaps to that, Elise. I love that. All right, I knew this conversation was going to go by quickly because we're talkers, but I have two questions that I ask each of my guests. It's called stand by your brand. Essentially, I want to know what's one thing about your brand that you will never compromise on.
Elise Holtzman: I guess I'll take two. One is that I will always try to help people succeed as patiently as possible. When people get down on themselves, I don't jump in the box with them, go, “Oh my God, you're right, you're this or that, whatever.” I really try to help people navigate those negative feelings or navigate negative circumstances to get where they want to go.
I also think that I'm very direct and honest with people, but in a very kind way. Sometimes I see people, even in my own family, who are sabotaging themselves. I'll say to them, “Listen, is it okay with you if I share something that I'm observing? You can tell me whether you think I'm right or not, but I feel like I need to share this with you.” I'm very honest with people, but not in a mean way. It's all in an effort to help them get where they want to go.
Paula Edgar: I love that as an inquiry, too, like you're asking for permission for that interaction, which I don't think enough people do. I learned something two years back, which was essentially when somebody comes to you with something, you ask, “Are you looking for a listening ear or are you looking for advice?”
Because I'm like, you come to me and like, “Paula, what two times I'm going to give you the answer, I'm going to tell you the things.” Immediately, and I realized that it can be off-putting if the person just needs to release the information as opposed to getting more. So that's another thing.
Elise Holtzman: Well, I have a quick story. First of all, that's a lesson I had to learn. I have a quick story about that because my oldest daughter, my daughters used to complain, “Why do you always have to try to fix everything? Why can't you just listen?”
They come home and “So-and-so was mean to me and Mrs. So-and-so thinks I did a bad job on this thing or whatever,” and I would immediately, because that's my personality type, I immediately jump into problem solving mode. It was like, “Why can't we just cry and be upset, or whatever?”
I said to them, “Listen, if you're crying, I'm trying to get you to stop being upset, so I'm going to help you solve the problem. If we solve the problem, you won't be upset anymore.” Well, they were annoyed. Their mother was annoying.
One day, my daughter was all upset about something at work. She was overwhelmed because there was a hiring freeze and they had fired people. It was the pandemic and she was doing too many jobs. I forced myself to just listen to her and sit in a big comfy chair with her and snuggle with her. Like, she was in her early 20s and say things like, “Wow, honey, that must be so challenging.” “Oh, wow, I'm so sorry to hear that.” “Oh, hmm, interesting.”
It almost killed me. It was absolutely exhausting. Later in the day, she said to me, “Oh, my God, Mom, thank you so much. That was so helpful.” I said, “Rachel, I did nothing.” She said, “I know, Mom, I'm so proud of you.” Because I finally shut up and let her give her what she really wanted, not what I thought she needed.
Paula Edgar: Wow. There's a big lesson that I continually learn so I'm glad that you shared that as well too. Okay, my second question I ask everybody is this: So Branding Room Only is a play on standing room only. I want to know what is it about you, what experience, what skill set, whatever it is that people would be in a room with only standing room space to experience about you.
Elise Holtzman: Two of my clients explained this to me recently in a group program where I was asking them to talk about what made them special. They came back to me at the end of the program and said, “We wanted to share with you what we think your superpower is.”
First of all, I was so grateful to them. It was really lovely. But what they said was, and I guess I know it, but I never really thought about it, is they said, “You have the ability to just make people comfortable talking about these issues and sharing them in front of other people so that we can all have a really valuable conversation.”
So one of the things, and I've stolen this and the Entrepreneurs' Organization, this concept of getting naked fast. When we're in a room together and we're going to talk about something, we have two hours, you gotta get naked fast or we're not going to be able to get to the crux of things.
They said, “It's one thing to say we should all get naked fast. It's another thing to create the culture and the environment in which people who don't even know each other are willing to get naked fast and have those valuable conversations.”
So I think that, and looking back at the speaking I do and I like to joke around with the people in the room, and never mean-spirited joking, but just joke around with them, get them comfortable, have them laughing a little bit, get them talking to each other, I think that that's something that I'm able to do pretty quickly.
Paula Edgar: I love that. Elise, tell everybody how they can find you, what's coming up for you, anything that you want to share as we close.
Elise Holtzman: Well, the project that I'm most excited about these days is something I started last year called the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator. It's for women, partners, and council who want to learn how to grow a book of business. They want coaching support. They want community. They want education.
We're already planning for our 2025 cohorts. So I'd love people, if they're interested in getting involved in business development or amplifying what they're already doing, to check us out. You can always find us and find me at thelawyersedge.com. You can find me on LinkedIn and the Ignite page is on the Lawyer’s Edge website.
Paula Edgar: Fantastic. I loved our conversation. I'd love to have you back anytime you want to come back and talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Elise Holtzman: Thanks so much, Paula.
Paula Edgar: Tell everyone you meet, especially moms and parents that need to feel better, make sure you tell a friend, share the podcast, download it, like it, and all that good stuff, and we'll see you soon. Bye.
Elise Holtzman: Bye-bye.
