Welcome to Lawyer Business Advantage. This podcast is
dedicated to helping attorneys earn more money,
get better clients, and spend more time with
family.
I'm your host, Alej
Hajnik, founder of Law Firm Success Group.
Smart business guidance for small law firms begins
in
3, 2,
1. And it's my pleasure to welcome back
to Lawyer Business Advantage, Sajah Raouf, owner of
Raouf Law. Sajah, welcome back. Thank you. We
were just chatting about networking for introverts. And
today, we're gonna jump into a topic that
I'm really, really excited to get your take
on, which is social media
for introverts. And I know people say introverts
can dominate social media and all of that,
but as an introvert myself, I don't like
social media one bit. I find it exhausting
and a little scary.
But you have done a fantastic job of
leveraging social media, specifically LinkedIn. First off, just
wanna check-in with you and make sure that
that is indeed the social platform of choice
for you or there others that you're looking
into as well? Absolutely. So far, it's primarily
LinkedIn. And why did you choose to focus
on LinkedIn?
Because
I feel it
gives you a
business focused
connection with
others,
other attorneys, coaches,
all kinds of advisers.
And
it's,
to be memorable on LinkedIn.
You speak about what you do in a
way that
resonates with people outside your area of expertise.
So it really brings out,
creativity
and
personalized style
without being too,
personal.
Yeah. I love that too about it. And
It's the only social media platform I know
that does a really good job of doing
that, and
it's really stood the test of time compared
to a lot of others.
So,
you know, now when you do a post
on LinkedIn, let's talk about where you are
now, and then we can talk about how
you got there because there's a lot of
cool stuff to unpack.
When you do a post on LinkedIn now,
what are the typical results you see when
you put it out there?
I tend to get
a lot of engagement on my LinkedIn posts.
Of course, it's
sometimes
it's not I mean, a 100% every single
post. But Right. Lot of posts that I
that I put up, I
don't necessarily
expect engagement on,
but they get a lot of reactions.
And I
it's
good to see that there is
interest in immigration law out there
and that people are engaging.
And
for the most part,
there's respectful
feedback.
So it's
fulfilling to be able to talk about people's
journeys to be such a big part of
their,
lives
in a way
that appeals to a wide leadership.
Yeah. And, can you show with us,
some numbers that you look at to give
you a sense of how well your post
are performing?
Some things,
pick up thousands of
posts within
24 to 48 hours.
I was,
particularly surprised when I posted,
about 12 or 14 months ago
about
my own journey
and how my family and I came to
immigrate to the US.
And
I started the post with the sentence.
The one thing that all Iraqis
can agree on, no matter their
religion or ethnicity
is that the last few decades have been
hell.
And
I question whether I should use that word
in the opening sentence,
on a professional
social media platform,
and I decided
there is no way to sugarcoat it. That
is how
my story needs to be told. That does
need to be
the exact wording of the first
sentence.
My degrees and my experience are on my
the about page on my website.
But in speaking about my why,
the gravity of
my family's
journey and the circumstances that compelled them to
make the US their home, given that
Iraq has been through war after war after
war since I was born,
needs an unusually
vulnerable and authentic
opening line.
And
it's been a while since I looked, but
it gathered thousands of reactions,
over in triple digit comments.
Wow. That is really something.
And this is really interesting because
you have a very powerful personal story. You
share that with me.
And that personal story ties directly
directly into the practice of immigration.
And there's a lot of attorneys who might
be in your situation who might say, well,
I don't really feel comfortable, you know, sharing
my personal story
or maybe even worse using my personal story
to grow my law firm. I mean, I
might feel like a sellout or that I'm
cheapening myself or something like that.
How did you kind of approach leveraging your
personal story to
gain that kind of visibility on LinkedIn?
I
talked about how
when I was 13,
and it was clear that
my family and I were never returning to
Iraq.
And my dad started to look at immigrating
to the US,
and I talk about how I helped him
put our green card application together.
Over the course of,
a year.
He qualified for what's called alien of extraordinary
ability, and
I've
interviewed him on
the entire process, and I posted on my
LinkedIn.
And I've had clients reach out,
and say they
contacted me because of my interview with my
dad. So
and this is a common theme among immigration
attorneys. There are quite a few immigration lawyers
who also
chose this particular career,
having been through that journey themselves.
And it's no different than, say,
a
family lawyer who arrived at their choice of
career because they went through a difficult divorce,
and they wanted to they felt it was
empowering to choose that career
having gone through the process themselves or personal
injury or what have you.
I think those kind of stories
make us,
relatable,
and,
they,
I don't think they,
the the concerns that we may have about
we're undermining ourselves
if we
share that side of us, I don't think
there's
validity to that.
Yeah. Quite the contrary as a, you know,
as a non attorney
bringing looking at attorneys through that lens,
man, we have all sorts of wonky stereotypes
about attorneys, and most of them are negative.
Right? The attorney that just wants nothing but
money, the attorney that, you know, just gives
advice in bad faith, like, it just goes
on and on and on. And, you know,
most of that stuff is completely, completely false.
But that's what we get exposed to. And
when me as a non attorney get to
hear that, oh, my gosh, this attorney actually
has a personal
reason for practicing law. They're not just in
it for the money. They're not just in
it to be in a courtroom. Like, they're
really genuinely in it to help. And here's
the proof.
That just makes me have so much more
faith in that person.
And so I'm, you know, I'm not surprised.
And did you have any qualms or concerns
about sharing that personal side?
I I was so when I wrote it,
I felt so compelling, and it felt so
exhausting to put on paper. And I felt
so vulnerable
that I decided to
host it without running it by
anyone, yourself included.
I told you about it after the fact
because
I didn't want
the
possibility
of
changing my mind. Like, I there is something
very strong about it that I decided to
just
go ahead and hit post. And it wasn't
even at an optimal time as far as
the LinkedIn algorithm is concerned. I just put
it there before I changed my mind and
was stunned at the reaction.
And when I went back and read that
and watched the videos as you subsequently posted,
the reactions are well merited because it's really
outstanding stuff. It's from the heart. It's very
courageous. It's
It's compelling, it's very compelling.
So, Donning the introvert hat here for a
moment, how would you say, posting on LinkedIn
compares with other business development things that you
do for
as an introvert, like compared to networking, how
easy or difficult is it or different is
it for social media?
So
like networking, it involves
being vulnerable,
feeling exposed.
But also like networking,
a giving mentality
is everything. So when you
engage
other people's posts and when you comment and
like and share and
come with the mindset of giving before you
receive,
I found that useful in
LinkedIn as in with networking.
And then on LinkedIn, it seems like you've
been actually getting more personal on LinkedIn
than you were maybe you would in a
typical networking type of setting. Can you elaborate
on that or comment on that?
I realized that the things that I thought
were hindrances
are actually
points of meaningful connection with other people. So
talking about introversion,
talking about my personal,
immigration journey, talking about my type 1 diabetes,
talking about things that I used to think
were limitations
I had thought would undermine the way I
come off,
actually served to
foster deeper
connections with other people.
That's really something that I hope, whether you're
introverted or not, just all the attorney entrepreneurs
that are listening
really take note of that because being your
authentic self,
there's a lot of power in that. There
still is despite everything. You know, that term
came into vogue, what, 5, 10 years ago,
something like that. But it has a lot
of power. And the reason it's part of
the conversation is because so few people do
it even to this day. And you you
do, Sasha,
and the results
results speak for themselves. And speaking of results,
one thing we were talking about the other
day about a LinkedIn post, we're trying to
figure out, you know, what you should post
about. But one of the things you mentioned
to me was that
your posts that are focused on immigration
tend to get a lot more attention than
your posts that are focused on, you know,
Sajah the networking guru or Sajah the public
speaker or, you know, whatever it happens to
be. Can you elaborate a little bit on
how that professional thought leadership
has really driven your posts?
I think immigration
being the hot topic that it is, whether
we're doing the administration that is welcoming to
immigrants or not,
It's at the top of a lot of
people's minds,
regardless of which
sub area within immigration, be it business, immigration,
family immigration, asylum,
or what have you. So
it's,
top of mind and it's relevant.
So
things that I post that
may seem
mundane to immigration attorneys actually end up generating
a lot of interest just because it is
people are constantly thinking about it. It's a
top issue.
This is one of the really cool things
about being a lawyer that I absolutely love.
I'm not a lawyer, but all my clients
are. And we talk about what ideas can
we what can we write about, or what
can we post on LinkedIn, or what have
you. There's so many great stories just by
looking at your desk. I mean, there's a
reason why
there are TV series and plays and movies
made about the law because it's dramatic and
it's really interesting,
grabs people. So, you know, if you're a
corporate attorney or you're a trusted estate's attorney
or a family law attorney, personal injury,
immigration, you name it, there are really interesting
stories that you're involved with that people would
love to hear about. To your point, Sajah,
writing about that stuff on LinkedIn
There's a great way to do it because
that's where you're communicating with other professionals and
you can LinkedIn is set up to showcase
your expertise as a professional. Mhmm. That's what
it's designed for, and and that's what you're
doing. What advice would you give to other
introverts who are looking to get started with
social media?
Think about the
value that you're delivering.
Prioritize that.
Make that your main focus.
And that
will take care of caution consciousness you may
be feeling about broadcasting yourself. It's great advice.
And who should they be writing to? What's
the target audience? Is it other attorneys, or
is it potential clients, or is it somebody
else?
I
address
or it feels at least that my posts
have got engagement from both referral partners as
well as
potential clients.
So
I don't necessarily have a formula for what
percentage I do for each audience, but I
just
will write
a post.
Last week, for example, I wrote on
what does
one slash four mean as far as the
date. Is it January 4th? Is it,
April 1st?
And that could be relevant to both an
immigrant
or
to an adviser who works with them. Right.
But the group you're not writing to is
you're not writing to other attorneys or other
immigration attorneys. Your posts don't have a lot
of legal
terminology or jargon.
Correct. So far, no. I'm not primarily wiping
to other immigration lawyers. That's something for us
to take to the bank. And, have you
ever thought about doing stuff on, like, TikTok
or Instagram or Facebook or one of these
other types of social media? It's crossed my
mind. I haven't
decided to execute just yet. Maybe someday in
the near future. Who knows? Well, this actually
strikes, I think, perhaps to
what we think about as as introverts because
for some reason, I don't know if you
have the same thing, Sasha, I don't find
LinkedIn all that tiring. Like to me, it's
just, a professional forum
where I can behave like professional. But Facebook
I find exhausting.
And
I don't even I don't even touch TikTok
or Instagram. It's just
it's just exhausting for whatever reason. Is that
something that that you experience too? Or is
it just me? I haven't really tried
Facebook and Instagram that much professionally.
So I just use it for
the standard Facebook
cat pictures and that kind of thing. Not
so much for,
business development.
The people I've spoken to who
do use Instagram enjoy it. I
I'm not opposed to it. I I just
haven't explored it that much yet. So maybe
another suggestion we can make to introverts who
are looking to do more or to get
involved with social media. Let's start with the
platform that makes the most sense. For you
and I, it's been LinkedIn. I suspect
for a lot of professionals, it'll probably be
LinkedIn. You know, a lot of attorneys will
wanna do LinkedIn. And that's where you should
start and it makes a lot of sense.
If for some reason though you absolutely love
one of the other platforms,
you know, jump in and and start with
that one, but start with one and see
how it goes. Right? And remember, whatever you
do, make sure you you're authentic when you're
doing this social media.
One of my top inspirations for being authentic
on social media
is, James Robillora,
who I met through Roman Zelichhenko,
and he has
really
very powerful content on the importance of being
authentic and being yourself in any kind of
context when you're speaking publicly or when you're
engaging on social media.
Awesome. Thank you, Sajid. Thank you for sharing
your expertise and your experience with us here
on Warrior Business Advantage. It's been a real
pleasure having you on the show. Thank you,
Ali. I appreciate you. Well, we like it
so much. We're gonna have you back for
another episode
next week where we're gonna be talking about,
what are we even talking about? Oh, yeah.
Public speaking for introverts. Now there's a there's
a real conundrum, and I'm looking forward to
chatting with you about it. Sajah, if people
wanna connect with you, what's the best way
for them to do that? My website is
sar.law.
Awesome. Thank you, Sajah.
And that's a wrap for this episode of
the Lawyer Business Advantage podcast.
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We look forward to talking with you soon.
Thank you for listening.
My name is Alej
Yajnik.
Until next time, remember,
you can seize freedom. You can embrace happiness.
You can build your perfect practice.