Please tell us a little bit about your business — what is your company all about?
I am a Shareholder in the Intellectual Property practice of Vedder Price P.C., a global law firm with approximately 380 lawyers, providing a wide range of legal services to its clients.
Tell us briefly about your background.
I joined Vedder Price in May 2019 after spending 13 years as an in-house corporate intellectual property lawyer, beginning with Motorola and then the last 12 of those 13 years with a major consumer products and food packaging company (home of the Reynolds Wrap® and Hefty® brands). I initially went into the corporate world to allow myself the freedom to become the kind of father I wanted to be to my three sons, who were 4, 2, and still in utero at the time I left my first law firm job. Fast forward 13 years, and those kids were now young men, and the most time-consuming part of being a dad was over. I sought to challenge myself, bet on myself to secure clients and become a trusted advisor, litigate more, and prove that I could succeed as a private lawyer. While my sons still needed quality, they were teenagers and certainly didn’t want quantity, so I was able to work longer hours and return to law firm life.
What are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
1. You must be curious. It’s an essential value.
2. If you knew all the answers, you’d already be rich. The first step in learning anything is admitting you have things left to learn.
3. You need to know what you value about others, life, and most importantly, yourself. If the thing you choose to do with your life doesn’t reinforce the aspects of yourself that make you proud, you’ll always be in tension.
What are your plans for the future, and how do you plan to grow your business?
In the law firm business, you are responsible for acquiring your own clients, retaining them, and nurturing the relationships. Therefore, I must: 1) continue to meet new people who need what I can offer, 2) continue to have a positive impact on my clients so they keep me top of mind, and 3) not be ashamed to ask for referrals.
How did the pandemic impact your business, and do you feel like you have completely exited the other side?
With great compassion for others, it was personally beneficial to my business. I had just returned to private practice in 2019, with a need to ramp up and establish new clients and relationships quickly. I had joined a nationwide networking group just before COVID, but the monthly meetings were all in-person, so I was mostly limited to meeting people local to me. To survive the pandemic, the networking group shifted to Zoom, which enabled me to network with people across the country I would have never met otherwise: from Atlanta to Dallas, Denver, and the West Coast, from L.A. to Seattle. Today, more than half of my new clients come from referrals from those networking connections that I have never met in person.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
I have two skills that are each rare among intellectual property lawyers, and exceedingly rare in combination. First, I advise on every kind of intellectual property and am not just limited to non-technical intellectual property (like trademarks), but also do patent work. I also do more than help my clients obtain intellectual property protection, but I litigate cases as a first-chair jury trial lawyer. Few intellectual property lawyers do all of that. Second, I spent the middle part of my career as a Chief IP Counsel for a $14 billion company. That experience gives me insight into what my clients need, how to serve them, and what they really want from their outside law firms, which people who have never worn those shoes can never truly know.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
1. Be selective about your clients. Work with people you want to work with, and don’t take on clients that don’t appreciate your value. (Trying to collect money from clients is the worst part of the job.)
2. Learn sales techniques early, because sales is different from marketing. Most lawyers learn how to market themselves, but never take a sales class. Turning introductions into closed business is hard. Good salespeople know how to make the sale. I wish I had learned those lessons earlier.
3. Differentiate yourself. Most businesses have competitors. Most people in the service industry do something that others also do. I wish I had recognized sooner what my point of differentiation would be and leaned into it harder. Try not to sound like everybody else who does what you do.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process; what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
I have done my best when given a chance to speak to an audience and get them thinking. Being a thought leader and someone who challenges others to be better or think more productively is a tantalizing proposition. People want to work with those types of people. I’ve been very successful giving addresses and presentations, as well as chairing events.
What have been your biggest challenges, and how did you overcome them?
I’m an introvert, so it is not just hard, but also uncomfortable, to socialize at events, engage in small talk, or approach people. What works for me is to meet clients more organically by really trying to connect with them, either through direct referrals or by being vulnerable and compassionate in keynote addresses and conferences. I relate to people on a personal level because that’s where I operate best. I build relationships with clients and potential clients built on trust and compassion. They don’t feel uncomfortable, and I don’t feel “sales-y.” It took time to figure that out.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I attended college to become a physicist. As it turns out, being a lawyer was easier and more lucrative, and fortunately, it was also more conducive to my undergraduate physics grades. Still, if I could magically switch careers, I would get my Ph.D. in physics and do theoretical physics. A few years ago, I returned to it for the first time since college, nearly 30 years prior, and bought some graduate-level textbooks. I then forced myself to learn advanced-level physics, particularly general relativity and quantum field theory. That required me to also invest in teaching myself non-Euclidean geometry, differential geometry, group theory, Lie algebra, and tensor calculus. I’m not nearly a grad student equivalent, but I have an incredible amount of pride and satisfaction in what I’ve managed to learn and (a little) understand. I can’t solve any of the equations, but at least now I know what they mean.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
I wouldn’t be here without learning from the mistakes I made. I wouldn’t change a thing.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you use to grow your business?
1. LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator
2. Rocket Reach
3. Google
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Do the thing you least want to do first. If you keep putting it off until you finish the things you want to do first, you’ll never do it.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
My podcast with Sara is at the top of my list!
I don’t have any recommendations for online courses, and I don’t read many business or “self-help” types of books. That said, I am an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction (besides graduate math and physics textbooks). I read to learn and challenge myself to think about things in new ways. Everyone should read The Brothers Karamazov.
What is your favorite quote?
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Start with introspection. What part of you makes you proud of who you are? Do the thing that reinforces that sense of pride.
What is your definition of success?
Tangibly and professionally, success is the freedom to choose your own job or vocation. Most people don’t get that choice initially, either out of college or grad school. Most people are lucky to get an offer, and (rightly) take the first paying job they can get. Success is killing it in whatever job you get, learning, advancing, and building a resume of skills. Eventually, success means being able to pick your second job, because if you’ve done it right, other people will want what you can now bring them.
Personally, success is teaching someone something meaningful, even if that person (like your children) denies that it’s important to them. Be a mentor, and give people something that they will carry with them in their back pocket and be there when they need it.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Who knows? Time is a wonderful balm, and it only goes in one direction. The worst eventually passes because time goes forward either way. It’s also trite to think you should overcome all fears. Some fears—the rational ones—are there for a reason, telling you not to do something you shouldn’t. I also happen to think, though, that there are very few mistakes in life that genuinely can’t be fixed, and we tend to inflate that list irrationally. Have loved ones who support you around you, act with integrity and authenticity, and hope that others are forgiving when fear causes an action—or inaction—you need to atone for.
How can readers get in touch with you?
E-mail: dshulman@vedderprice.com
Phone: (312) 609-7530
Vedder Price web site: https://www.vedderprice.com/daniel-h-shulman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-h-shulman/
