Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad, joins us to discuss his career pivot, his insights and recommendations on how to utilize and capitalize on the advantages of social media, and how to generally pursue a job that you’re not only qualified for, but that you’re passionate about. Alex is active on TikTok (@legaltechbro), where he makes videos poking fun at the legal industry and is a columnist for Above the Law.
What does Ironclad do and what puts them at the forefront of Legal Tech?
The explosion of Legal Tech and valuable resources to learn from: Legal Tech News, Bob Ambrogi, and The Artificial Lawyer.
Career pivots and non-linear career paths are more common than not, and it’s key to remember that sometimes the setbacks provide the biggest opportunities in the end.
Considering a different path? Take action, try something new. You don’t have to leave your job immediately, try something on the side that may provide insight into whether it’s a good fit for you.
Exploring opportunities, networking, and leveraging your background for success.
Social media is social. Do you know how to master engagement to create your own community of ambassadors?
LinkedIn: unparalleled for business purposes. What MUST your profile include?
How to connect with decision makers in pursuit of the unpublished job market.
Embracing your passions for career success.
TOP TALENT ADVOCATES REMAINS COMITTED TO PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS. EACH GUEST IS ASKED TO SUGGEST ONE OF THREE NONPROFITS FOR OUR SUPPORT.
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[00:00:00] Richard: Welcome to Hiring Insights. The podcast that provides insight into the executive hiring process and experience. Whether you are a job seeker, a people leader, a recruiter, an executive coach, or simply interested in talent, there is something here for you on Hiring Insights. Today's episode is presented by Top Talent Advocates, where we advocate for executive and legal talent.
You can learn more about Top Talent Advocates, listen to other episodes, and hire great talent by visiting toptalentadvocates.com and clicking on podcast. Now here is your host for Hiring Insights, Mosah Fernandez Goodman.
[00:00:44] Mosah: I’m incredibly excited to be joined today by Alex Su. Alex you may recognize from his social media posts, his Tik Tok videos or his actual engagement as a sales leader in the Legal Tech industry. Alex is a tremendously influential and insightful executive. Today were going to learn from Alex about his career pivot, his insights and recommendations on how to utilize and capitalize on the advantages of social media, and how to generally pursue a job that you’re not only qualified for, but that you’re passionate about. Alex is a graduate of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and attended Carnegie Mellon for his undergrad.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Alex, we're incredibly excited to have you on the show. For those of you listening to the episode who might not know about Alex or know anything about his background, I'd love to give him an opportunity to share a little bit. So Alex, would you tell us a little bit about your background and maybe what got you to where you are today in Legal Tech?
[00:01:49] Alex: Absolutely, and thank you for having me on this show. I'm, I'm very excited to be here and excited to talk about my career. I started off as a practicing lawyer.
I had a pretty traditional career path clerking for a judge and working at a big firm. Six years into my career I decided to make a pivot and I went into the legal technology space at a startup and decided to go into sales. Did that for five years. And after five years, I moved to my current role at Ironclad.
We're a digital contracts technology company. And my function now is on the community team, which means I do a lot of things to engage with the community, like creating content that's relevant to our target audience, but also hosting events, hosting webinars, just doing a lot of things to continue the conversation around digital contracting.
My law experience has come into play. But a lot of what I do now is more on the business side. I don't practice law. I don't do the job of a typical lawyer, but I'm loving it. I'm very excited and it's giving me opportunities to be on podcasts and shows like these. So I'm very excited about it.
[00:02:54] Mosah: That's great. Thanks so much. I'm sure a number of the listeners are going to go out and google if they don't know Ironclad already, but would you tell us a little bit more maybe about what makes Ironclad different and in private conversations with me talked about the tech curve within the legal space and maybe just what sets Ironclad apart and what you're looking forward to about being a part of that and part of the sector in general.
[00:03:18] Alex: So Ironclad primarily helps by helping you accelerate the business contracts cycle. So large companies and small companies, all companies actually deal with business contracts like sales, contracts, vendor agreements, non-disclosure agreements. We help that process move quickly because very often we find that that process is, is pretty manual, whether it's done by paper or in your inbox.
And so our technology helps generate new contracts based off templates, route it to the right people, integrate with the different systems of a company to help accelerate that process. And we're very much focused on serving companies. And we also have AI that helps extract what's inside existing contracts.
So you basically have a sense of, of what's coming in your contracts on what's already in your existing repository of contracts. So that's apparently a very big business problem in the world. And I think it's a very exciting problem to solve. I think lawyers and legal technology companies are uniquely positioned to solve that.
And Ironclad is at the forefront of that, both from a feature set perspective, but also because we integrate with other systems and we have the AI, we have a lot going on that that can help. So that's what we do at Ironclad. And we've received funding and venture investments from some of the leading investors from Silicon Valley, like Sequoia, Accel, Y Combinator, Continuity.
So it's just a very exciting time right now.
[00:04:42] Mosah: That's awesome. Thanks so much, Alex. And you know, I guess Legal Tech is one of those things where one of those industries where people want to know more or they maybe make some assumptions about what it is and whether it's applicable to their business. If you were sitting down with who I imagine some of your key customers or decision makers to be, whether it be a general counsel, a chief financial officer, CEO, chief revenue officer, maybe someone in procurement. What's the compelling reason to take a look at the sector generally? And then maybe what's the value proposition from Ironclad. Some of which you've already touched on.
[00:05:16] Alex: So contracts touch every single company and touch every single function. If you're in HR, you're dealing with employee agreements. If your procurement you're dealing with your vendor contracts, CFOs are obviously very concerned with spend. So knowing what's inside of your contracts and making sure contracts are being generated in a uniform process that mitigates risk, these are all important things.
I think where Ironclad is really unique is that we help accelerate the process of generating contracts, which means there is a real business impact. It's not just telling you what's inside of your contracts. It's impacting the contracting cycle for sales. As we all know, decreasing sales cycles is extremely valuable.
If you can do that by shrinking down the amount of time it takes to get a contract approved, which our technology helps with, that has huge, huge impact beyond just the legal team. It affects sales, it affects the finance function. There's so many things that it impacts. So I think that's where Ironclad is unique.
But Ironclad also focuses on the entire life cycle. So not just generating and contracting, setting up new contracts, but also looking back at old contracts. And I think this is an exciting time because the technology has matured. Ironclad is a leader in this space, but we've seen a growth in this digital transformation of a lot of the work surrounding contracts just in the past few years.
Just because I don't know if it's because legal has always been a little bit behind the curve when it comes to technology. But the digital transformation trends that are impacting other functions are now hitting legal and really moving into the contract space. So it's an exciting time, and it's really exciting to be part of Ironclad, which is at the forefront of this movement.
[00:06:53] Mosah: That's awesome. So now that everyone's excited about legal tech, who's listening to this episode and with the primer that you've just given all of us, let's talk a little bit about what it means to work within the sector. You've been in it since if my research is right, 2016, and it's very fast moving.
What insights might you give to someone who is exploring the sector? What makes someone want to join that as opposed to FinTech or as opposed to any of the other fast moving similarly situated industries? Tell us about what it's like to work in Legal Tech.
[00:07:26] Alex: So, you know, as you know, I, I started off as a lawyer.
I never imagined that I would go into tech or Legal Tech. I didn't even know Legal Tech was a thing. I think that's part of why there's so much opportunity. It's not exactly a very hot area that everyone knows about like FinTech, but the challenges are so big. You can imagine in the legal sector, in the legal industry, you've got firms doing a lot of work that are archaic, that are relying on manual methods because perhaps firms make money from the billable hour.
And so there's no incentive to, to streamline activities through technology. So there's a lot of upside in this space. For a long time there's not been a lot of technological change, but sometime around 2016, right around the time I joined the space, there were a couple of trends that hit that led Legal Tech to grow really quickly.
You know, one of them was macro like the digital transformation wave that hit all sorts of different functions. You know, you had marketing tech, sales tech, HR tech, all sorts of technology, really having an impact. So it was a matter of time before it moved into legal. And then second, there was this rise of this discipline called legal operations that helped streamline a lot of the work that legal departments and lawyers do.
The third factor, I think, was that investors started picking up on this and started investing in Legal Tech companies. And all of these factors have led to this explosion in this space. And so I think that we're very early still in the Legal Tech growth phase. I do think there's going to be a lot of different problems that technology can solve, but it really comes down to what challenges you think technology could solve best.
For me I think it's contracts. I think that it's a really interesting time in the shifting role of the in-house lawyer, the legal department, the general counsel. So that's why I'm very bullish on this space.
[00:09:15] Mosah: If I've been inspired by what I've listened to on this episode, and I've followed either you or other folks who are focused on the Legal Tech sector, how do I begin a journey into entering into that universe if you will, for my professional pursuits?
[00:09:31] Alex: Well, I think that there's a lot of really great resources out there.
I'll share some of the ones I look at, which are Legal Tech News, which is a subsidiary I think of the American Lawyer, ALM. There's Bob Ambrogi who has a blog. It's really a media company. He's got podcasts and articles. He breaks the latest news when it comes to Legal Tech. And he's been doing it for like 20 years. So he is a real authority in it. And just like, just by looking at some of the articles you get up to speed quickly.
The third is a man named Richard Tromans. He's I think in the UK, he's the founder of another media company, The Artificial Lawyer. He also covers developments. And so I think a lot of what's happening in Legal Tech is fairly new.
There are a lot of these outlets that cover these developments, not in a way that, like, you know, you don't read about it perhaps in the New York Times or in the Wall Street Journal, always, although I think last week or actually yesterday, there was a Legal Tech article in the Wall Street Journal about Exterro eyeing an IPO in 2023.
So maybe that's changing, but right now I think those are the three resources, Legal Tech News, Bob Ambrogi’s blog and The Artificial Lawyer.
[00:10:43] Mosah: So let's talk a little bit more about your experience in Legal Tech and the transition because you know, a lot of listeners who either are attorneys or who are business leaders makes shifts in their career. Can you tell us a little bit about your story. You used to be, as you've said, a practicing attorney, what made your venture into sales successful? And then what were some of your greatest challenges during that shift?
[00:11:08] Alex: I think what made it successful was that I, it was, it's more in line with my personality than the traditional practice of law.
You know, I've always been a people person. I'm an optimist. I always, I enjoy trying to convince people of things. And so sales was a natural fit. And I think I first realized that when, between my clerkship and my going back to the large firm that I worked for, I had some time. And so I volunteered on a political campaign thinking that they would have me do some policy work, something analytical, and they said, we don't actually need help with that.
But what we do need help with is phone calls and door knocking. And I thought, here I am like with a law degree why, why would I do that type of work? But I was willing to do whatever it took to help our candidate win. I learned that I was good at calling. Like I, I just took to it. And then looking back, I think some of the weaknesses I had that made me, perhaps not the best associate, not maybe not the best young lawyer, like not having an eye for detail.
Like some people really, really have a close eye for detail. I tend to miss things, but that also helped me kind of brush off and miss slights or rejections. And so I was able to bounce back again and again. And so by spending two months working on this campaign, doing something different, it gave me the insight that I might be able to do something like cold calling, which was useful when I decided to make the pivot to sales.
Now, I wasn't sure if sales would work out, it was a pivot. It was kind of a calculated risk. But I also knew that sales was interesting because it brought me closer to revenue. And I had learned that if you can tie your work closer to revenue, there's a lot of rewards that come with it. And so I thought it a worthwhile bet, worthwhile pivot to make, even if it meant that that I would be leaving the practice of law and starting over as an entry level salesperson.
And, and I gotta say Mosah, like those early days were challenging because it's like a new muscle. You've got to learn to reach out to people out of nowhere. You know, as a lawyer you're used to preparing a lot and then you're trained to be over prepared. But in sales, you almost have to have the opposite approach, at least at the junior levels, because you’ve got to make a lot of calls and you can't research every person.
And so some, you know, some of those mentality shifts were really challenging and learning this, the sales organization, understanding how to hit quota, forecast your deals and your opportunities. That all was like a was totally new. But it was exciting. And as I grew in my career, I realized there was actually some similarities between sales and practicing law, especially like staying organized, wanting to persuade people, whether through a court hearing, a brief, or an email or a sales call, there are some similarities, but it was an adjustment and it took me a while to get used to. So there certainly were some challenges.
[00:13:54] Mosah: Sure. Absolutely. And for our listeners and you know, a lot of our clients spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. I'm sure we all get those outreaches from whether it be a LinkedIn email, right? Or LinkedIn mail.
Um, in fact, I think I joked with you, I think probably five years ago, so it might have been like your first year involved, I got one from you and I'm like, oh, what is this? Right? I mean, I specifically remember it, but I also remember saying what's Legal Tech? And I do remember the outreach being, I think it was from a previous employer really, you know, positive and upbeat.
And it made, it made sense that of the 20 or 30 that I had responded to. I would've wanted to get back. And I think I did reply when you were, um, we obviously didn't need the services, but it was definitely a great outreach and you know, every no is one step closer to a yes. Right? That whole sales adage.
Let's talk a little bit about non-linear career paths. It's something that we've talked about with previous guests. We've talked about it with Matt Miller, the General Counsel at Uptake. We just recently talked about it with Jenny Champlin, who’s the outgoing president of NAWL and former Walmart and current Edward Jones leader.
You put out a tweet and I'm going to quote you, that summarizes your non-linear career path. You said, “Some of the most strategic decisions I've made in life weren't because they were part of some clever plan, but because some s--- happened and I had to improvise.” What was the best thing to happen that was not a part of your original career?
[00:15:24] Alex: When I look back at how I ended up in sales, I'd like to think it was a courageous leap, but there was this period of time where I left big law and kind of conventional success. And I said, I'm going to try something different. I went to a smaller firm and then I got let go because I wasn't a good fit.
And there were a lot of reasons why, but I got let go. And I was like, all right, I'm going to start my own business. And I did that for a year and, and which wasn't working out. And so I had gone from failure to failure. In search of meaningful work. And I remember being kind of at my wits end and thinking, I don't know how I'm going to salvage this.
I better get a job. I better do something. Now what felt really like a desperate situation at the time, now when I look back, I think it was such a blessing because I had shed myself of all of these burdens, of all of these reasons and justifications to not make a pivot, right? A lot of lawyers, I think, struggle with walking away from the practice because they got a good thing going. Might not be perfect, but it's still pretty good.
I kind of lost everything. You know, I had been let go from a job and I had failed at starting a business. And so I just needed a quick win. So I just quickly acted. I got a job in a Legal Tech company in sales. Looking back, that was really, really helpful because I didn't have this preconceived idea of how much money I needed to be paid, what my salary needed to be.
All I was focused on was how do I learn this new craft of sales? How do I do well at it? And so I think that made all the difference. And that's why I say to people, yeah you know when I talk about my career pivot, it sounds really smart. Sounds like I thought it through. But really, it was also just improvising when I was kind of hit with a challenge. And looking back, I have tried to challenge myself again and again, because I think sometimes when you put yourself out there, it could seem scary.
But even if things turn out bad, it may create another opportunity perhaps to pivot or perhaps develop a new skill. And I'm very thankful for all of those setbacks that I went through now.
[00:17:26] Mosah: Yeah. That's great insight. You know when we're working with our clients, whether it be business leaders or attorneys, sometimes you're right the greatest opportunities come from the greatest challenges. It's also not uncommon for us to work with someone, to figure out what path A, B or C could look like, and sometimes D, E and F. Sort of rank them and develop a plan for that. But you need to take action at the end of the day, right?
We don't provide, say life coaching services, and we're not designed to help you think through your childhood or some significant sort of longer-term type of experience, but we are designed to try to help our clients take action. And the fact that you highlighted that as being one of the best elements of your experience combined with just tenacity is great.
Thank you for sharing that.
So you talked a little bit about feeling stuck in your career during one of your TikTok videos and your transition from law to sales. What advice would you give to those listeners who want to pursue a different opportunity, but are hesitant to make a transition? They may be gainfully employed. They may be in roles that are lucrative, right?
Our clients are making a few hundred thousand up to a few million. So those are, those are by all accounts, very lucrative opportunities. What advice would you give to those folks? And I'll preface it by saying, we always work with our clients to make a plan, right? You actually have to have a plan.
And whether it's one, two or three different versions of that plan, you have to have that. But what advice would you give to someone looking to make that kind of a transition?
[00:19:02] Alex: I think that action is the biggest thing. And so sometimes action does not mean that you have to leave your job. When I think back to why I was able to make that calculated risk to go into sales, it was because of this other experience.
I had that experience on the political campaign that I did on the side. You know, I didn't have to leave the big law world for. And so when I talk to people about considering pivots, I think when you make that major pivot, you should have probably some connection, some experience and some hunch that you're going to be really good at it.
So to find that, I mean, you can do things while you're still employed or you're still in your same role. And that doesn't mean you have to take two months off like I did, it could be at nights and weekends, it could be a side project. It could be a lot of things. I think most people don't understand what their superpower is.
And I myself am still trying to figure that out myself. It's been refined over the years. Like I used to think selling, but I've also found that there are a specific niche of sales that I think I'm good at. And by the way, all the content that I've created, the Tik Toks that I'm best known for today, that was created to solve a very specific sales problem.
Lawyers don't like to take cold calls. I don't like to take cold calls. So, which is why I'm so honored that you, you had such positive memory of my cold outreach, because I know that I would not be so kind to someone who did outreach, but because I was trying to solve those problems, I found that I had this ability to create engaging content for business development purposes.
And so I'm leaning into that. That's my long-winded way of saying that if you are at a place where your opportunity cost is high. Don't walk away from the job. Just try some different things on the side and learn more about yourself before you make that big leap. Because by the time you make that big leap, you want it to be a calculated bet that makes it worth it.
And you don't want to just kind of try something that might not work out. So that's what I would say.
[00:20:52] Mosah: I'd say about half our listening audience are attorneys and the other half are executives of any other position, whether they be in the finance, admin, HR, biz dev, sales, what have you, but for the folks who are in the legal bucket, right? For the attorneys online, listening to this, and they're looking to make a transition outside of law, how would you suggest they explore roles and industries that might be adjacent to the law, but, and still sort of rely on those skill sets in that training, but not necessarily even require a JD or might have sort of in the proverbial job description JD preferred. We work with a lot of attorneys who want to make that transition out of either private practice or even in-house counsel. How would you suggest those lawyers go about exploring and pursuing those types of opportunities?
[00:21:48] Alex: Well, I think networking is always going to be important. You want to be able to talk to people to get their experiences. I think learning too, like reading some of, if you're in Legal Tech specifically, there are those blogs and articles and sources of articles to read and you get up to speed on what's happening in the space.
So I think researching, networking, but also understanding where you sit and this is maybe yeah, very much geared towards lawyers. If you're a lawyer, you're probably a potential buyer of technology, of legal technology or of other services that are legal adjacent. Just think of the classic large law firm lawyer.
They're probably getting bombarded with calls from recruiters. Recruiting in itself. That's a very fascinating space, right? And that is a common alternative. for ex lawyers. So I think as a practicing lawyer, there are things you can explore in conversations you can have with people who may be offering you services or products. I'd say talk to them, connect with them. Network and you'll learn the landscape.
And the landscape is always shifting. Like I mentioned, technology and recruiting. One other niche is litigation finance, which is pretty small, but is growing in impact. It wasn't something that was huge 10 or 20 years ago, but now it is. You can probably leverage your legal background to learn more about that space.
So I think that there's a lot of things out there. Just network, research, and just talk to people. And who knows, you know, I think those connections are the ones who are best able to bring you opportunities. And that's certainly how I got my role at Ironclad.
[00:23:20] Mosah: That's tremendous. So as a salesperson, as someone who's affable, as someone who's not in any way shy, given your TikTok videos, how would you recommend someone cold call?
How would you recommend someone make that initial outreach? And here's what I'm thinking. I talk through this situation with clients all the time, they're a senior level accountant and they're looking to contact the CFO because they either see an opportunity or they are really passionate about the company, or just want to make a shift.
Or they're a junior attorney somewhere looking to go in house, or they simply want to shift law firms, but they don't necessarily know how to make that initial outreach. So how would you, I guess, cold call for that networking opportunity? What advice would you give to folks?
[00:24:02] Alex: Well, the first thing is that you want to make sure you're talking to the right person.
A lot of times, someone who wants to make a transition, they talk to someone who has the job they want, which is helpful, but I would even take it a step further. And so, for example, if you want this general counsel role, maybe you talk to the CEO or the COO. If you want a deputy GC role, maybe you talk to the GC.
You want to talk to these decision makers because they're the ones who are best able to pull your resume out of the stack. So to speak. We learned that in sales about, you know, choosing who the right decision maker is. So that's, I think that's number one. Number two is to really look at who's in your network, who you might know, who knows that person and LinkedIn has really been able to help out with this because you can see who your mutual connections are.
A warm intro is far more likely to get you in front of the person then a cold email, that or cold message that the recipient might just ignore. The third thing I would say is to really think through how you can help someone. And this is where I think a lot of people get tripped up because you know, I, myself, you know, get these emails and I'm sure you do too.
These me emails and messages. Hey, can I pick your brain? I can get grab coffee so you can share something with me. I think that can work. But what makes that more effective is if, is if you can provide something of value to the other person, there’s a lot of ways to do that. And I think it's so specific, but the example I like giving, I would work on a student. Students often want to, to pick brains of successful executives.
They don't know how to get in front of them. There's very little value they can offer. Cause they're very junior. But what I found some really creative students do, and I think this is a really great idea is that they will get a group of five or 10 other students. And then get them together and then reach out to the executive and say, hey, are you open to speaking to us as a group? That has a different flavor than hi, can I just take some time off your calendar to like ask you questions?
It's a very different feel. There is value being exchanged. And so I think that's that the combination of these three approaches lead to much higher conversion rate. It makes it more likely that someone will, will give you the time. Certainly it takes a bit of effort, but I think it's worthwhile, especially if you're exploring a pivot.
[00:26:15] Mosah: Absolutely. So let's follow that vein for a second and talk a little bit about how to pursue that cold outreach online. One of the things we work with our clients on and a lot of our social media scripting support for clients, centers around finding that decision maker, making sure that people are obviously professional and polite, but are to your point on adding value, giving something to the person, as simple as a like, and all the way through to commenting and supporting someone's posts frequently, often, and adding value online while it may run the risk of seeming a little creepy at the start, or for some folks who are perhaps a little more, reluctant to engage in that social media forum.
Our recommendation, our view is you're giving someone value by not only validating, but by engaging. And we often stress social media is social, right? It's got to be both ways. And so someone like you, who's got millions of views on TikTok and, you know, approaching a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn or connections on LinkedIn.
I still often see you giving value by commenting and liking lots of different people's post. At all different levels of organizations and some of it is paying it forward. I'm sure. But some of it is also just smart outreach and engagement. So I've made a statement and intended to ask a question, but what are your thoughts around, social media outreach and making those introductions online?
[00:27:53] Alex: I think you hit the nail in the head when you said social media is social. Everything flows from that. Something happens when we go on the computer and like, we go on the internet and people forget that they're human beings. Like, could you imagine going to a conference and like handing out sheets of paper of an article you wrote, and then someone reads it and says, hey Mosah, this is such a great article, I love it. And then you just kind of walk away, like, who does that? And yet on social media, that's what happens. Right. These very important executives, they say, I will post something and then I'm too busy to respond. And so that's part of the reason why I try and I, I find it hard myself to, to catch up on all of the comments too, but I try when I can to respond because people are investing time in engaging with you.
It's just nice to engage back. And the thing that is strategic about it, which, you know, sometimes I think is strategic sometimes I think is just, if you treat people kindly, they'll help you out is that you're not always looking to impress people who could help you in some way. When you are kind to, to lots of people, they become your ambassadors.
They become people who find opportunities for you. The way that I've really built out my social media presence and helping with business development isn't that I sell to everyone I comment with or DM with it's that they are often out in the world, talking about me, talking about what I I'm offering that is contracts technology software, and, and referring people to me.
And so I think that is just kind of how the real-world works. It's always worked that way. It's just that the internet has created a new element to this. So I want to continue engaging with people. And I think by the way, and this is why Ironclad created this community team community function, we realized.
In addition to your traveling, your classic sales and marketing, you want to have a conversation with the community you serve. And by doing that, you create a lot of warm feelings, goodwill, and the people you engage with end up being ambassadors for you. And so that's why I think it's so important to continue the conversation commenting back and forth, liking each other's posts. That’s always going to be important
[00:29:55] Mosah: Absolutely. And as far as adding value and, and I think people often feel that giving thought or being intentional in this outreach is somehow deceitful or overly salesy. And I think it's just being thoughtful and considerate in the way that you're approaching an interaction.
As you said, you know, with the fellow human being. One of the things we also encourage our clients to do beyond simply commenting and liking. And, and I know I'm getting into the nuances of, I sort of see a feed in my mind of what's online right now, but is making introductions for people before you ask for anything.
Right? So the types of paying it forward by way of making an introduction, whether it be students to a larger group to promote, you know, a company or a firm or an organization. All the way through to I think there's someone in my network who I'd like to make an introduction for this person to either a potential customer or a potential client.
And it doesn't even have to be business related. Someone who just happens to know a lot about what someone might be engaging in. That is an even deeper level than simply liking or commenting on it. We do that research for our clients because often either our clients don't have the time to do that or the network or the inclination, but can you share a little bit more about how you would take those relationships even deeper online? You've been a master at that.
[00:31:19] Alex: Thank you for saying that I'm a master at that. I'm still figuring things out as I go along. And when I first started out posting content, I actually thought I don't really understand, I don't know these people, let me jump on a call with them.
Not like just on the internet but I guess on zoom, but not on social media. Right. I wanted to get to know them. I wanted to hear about them, what their interests are, what their worries are. And so I went down the list and I actually met with probably over a hundred people in a month or two.
And I just wanted to hear from them and just kind of learn and understand where they were coming from and how I could potentially help. A lot of people think about social media in the sense of what can I get out of it? And I have found again and again, that once you keep creating deposits into social media, into people, it gets paid back.
You don't know how and when and where, but it gets paid back. And so I think being less transactional has been helpful, but those conversations have to take place. And you do have to give people value if only just telling them I'm curious about you, tell me more about you. And then over time, as you kind of build out your network, you can see how people can be connected to one another.
You can provide value by with just a, a quick email intro. So I think that that to me was, was my way of, of figuring this out. And by the way, again, like I kind of just figured it out as I went along, it was never deliberate in the sense that I was trying to get some sale out of them or anything like that.
[00:32:44] Mosah: Sure. Well, whatever you're doing is working because you have 90,000 followers on. You've been described or taken on the name, LegalTechBro, which I don't know if it's pronounced bro or bra and some of your videos have over 3 million views. I want to talk for a second about the right social media platform.
There are a number of them out there I'd like to maybe contain the conversation to what works most effectively for job seekers and for professionals. And I think the automatic response is LinkedIn because it's the professional social networking site. But can you talk a little bit about why, assuming that's the answer to the question, why that might be the case and what features and benefits you see in that versus other social media platforms?
[00:33:29] Alex: Absolutely. I'm active on four different platforms, LinkedIn TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, LinkedIn by far is the most valuable network when it comes to job searching, careers, business focus, and I've spent some time thinking about why people are so different on different platforms. I'm active on all of them because my niche is legal, but also humor. And humor plays out on all the different platforms.
But when it comes to business purposes, LinkedIn is unparalleled. So when it comes to career to finding out what's happening in the business world, LinkedIn is the primary place to be. I think part of that has to do with who's there. I think executive level audiences are on LinkedIn. I mean, if you imagine you're a CEO, you're a chief legal officer, you're head of marketing or something like that.
All of those folks will have a LinkedIn presence. They may not for other platforms. That's the first part. Executive level, senior level folks are on LinkedIn. The second thing that's very different that I didn't appreciate early on is that people on LinkedIn wan to meet and connect with one another. You take another platform like Twitter, where you do get some good insights.
You do have some senior folks on there, especially from the technology space and venture capital space. I don't know if they're more introverted, but they're, they're a little bit less interested in connecting with one another. Some of them do on a one-on-one basis, but LinkedIn feels like everyone wants to meet each other.
And there's a positive energy that's there. Maybe it's because it's tied to your, your actual name, but there's a lot of features and traits of LinkedIn that make it very, very special. So I would say LinkedIn is the place to be for those two reasons. Uh, the senior, the seriousness and the senior level executives on there, but also that people want to connect with one another, which makes a lot of this networking really effective on that platform.
[00:35:19] Mosah: Let's talk about LinkedIn more specifically, if I'm a job seeker at any level, but for arguments sake, let's say it's a senior level in an organization, lawyer or non-lawyer. What are some of the, and, and I know you come across a lot of profiles, so what are some of the things that jump out at you as being the absolute non-negotiables to creating a profile and activity? And then what are some of the things that you would say stay away from please never do. What guidance would you give to those folks? Not only looking for jobs, but as they maintain those, those online presence.
[00:35:54] Alex: So assuming this is for career purposes, uh, because different people use LinkedIn for different reasons.
It's not always primarily career. Interestingly. For career folks I think the non-negotiables are you need a picture The picture has to be in line with your brand. And that could mean a very professional picture. You're in marketing. I've seen effective pictures where they have, I think, different colored hair, but they're like in marketing and so it it's aligned with that creative marketing brand. So it's got to be aligned, but it's got to have a picture. Because when I see someone without a picture, I think this might be a bot. This might not be a real person. So that's important. I think your headline is critical. That's the first thing people see and you know, you could put in your job title. You can also do things like a lot of sales people do, which is they talk about the value proposition of their product or service. So you can get creative with that. That's the first thing people look at. You got to have something there. Then I would say it is a nice to have a solid summary that describes who you are and what you're about.
In a way that ties together your work experience. Lots of people take this in a different way, but I tend to think that you can create a story about yourself. Like for me, I'm a lawyer who went into legal technology and now I bridge those two worlds together. That's my value proposition. And can see that for my job history.
I think that is very compelling and easily me. It makes you memorable so that your brand gets, uh, remembered. And then each of your jobs, they have to be placed in there strategically. Like they have to serve the general narrative. So, for a salesperson you may want to highlight your attainment to quota and then your management experience, like each piece needs to be put in there.
Just like for lawyer, just like you want to cite to these certain authorities and these, this evidence that I am a skilled executive. So I would say those are the key pieces. Look, everyone's busy. And I know that it can be hard to do, but there's a lot more. And I think those are the basic ones that if you just kind of do all of those things, you'll get a lot of rewards out of it.
People will find you as a compelling person. It may reach out and connect with you. As for what you should stay away from. I think always keeping in mind what your goals are and if it's career, networking or job searching, you don't want to be too controversial in your posting. We're talking about people who are not trying to do marketing on LinkedIn.
We're talking about people who are doing career related things you don't want to be known for your outrageous personal opinions. You'll have to use your judgment for what you want to share and don't want to share. But I think that because of the way the algorithm works. Everyone in your connections can see what you're commenting or what you're posting.
So you want to make sure that that's representing you in the way that you want to be represented.
[00:38:30] Mosah: If you wanted to utilize social media in particular, LinkedIn, to advantage your job search right now, what tip or trick, or soon to be trend as someone who spends a lot of their time managing social, would you give to a job seeker?
[00:38:46] Alex: I think you want to be connected to the decision makers who could give you what you want.
What I mean by that is that, you know, the last two jobs I've gotten in legal tech. They were not jobs that were posted. They were jobs that were created for me. And it's because I was connected to a lot of these founders or CEOs of legal technology companies. They were the ones who would give me what I wanted.
And so I think having that connection will be a big part of it. And these days people are open to connecting, even if you've never met them. Put in a nice message in your connection request, that shows why you can bring value to them. I think that could go a long way. And then the way you present yourself on your profile, having a brand, that's going to also go a long way if they're looking to hire you.
So for me, you know, I wanted to present myself as an expert in Legal Tech just a few years in this was, you know, several years ago, I made sure that I had a banner picture at the top of me speaking at a legal technology conference. I had the work experience. I had everything described out like I am a lawyer, so I have expertise in this industry, but I also had Legal Tech experience.
So I can speak tech. That's just the way I present myself. And so by being connected to the right people, by presenting myself in a certain way, that helped me not only find opportunities, but have opportunities find me as well.
[00:40:03] Mosah: So I want to ask you one final question about, and it's actually a quote from you and it has to do with sort of conventional success. Let me read the quote and then explain to you why I think it was so interesting. So these are your words, right? “Because what they never tell you, especially in law school is that conventional success is often anything, but they're just proxies for success.”
And you said this in reference to chasing credentials, purely for the sake of having them. And sometimes people chase, not only educational credentials or some ways people treat salary or compensation as a credential. How would you for a job seeker who's thinking about advancing, counsel them on what that actually means in terms of conventional success? Because your success has certainly been anything but conventional for someone with your pedigree and career trajectory.
As you mentioned earlier, have taken a couple different twists and turns in managing that. How would you, again, being the sort of human that we are guide people to think about or encourage them to consider what conventional success means versus maybe the path towards satisfaction or happiness?
[00:41:23] Alex: I think we all have to figure out what we're meant to do.
There's a lot of pieces that go into that, which include your own talents, what the market needs. You know, when I went into law, I, I didn't think about it that way. I thought of, if I worked at this firm, whatever the prestigious firm was, I would be set. And I quickly realized that I was starting to play that game of getting the firm on my resume for the sake of getting the firm on my resume. I wasn't actually developing skills. It wasn't taking me to a place where I could really have about really have a contribution and be valued. And so I ended up in something less prestigious in sales at a startup. And I found that I actually was quite good at it. And I grew very quickly.
And the thing that seemed like it was not something that I could be very proud of, like an entry level salesperson. I quickly grew out of that and carved out this career for myself, where I was having an impact and I was making more money. It was only a few years before I was making more money than I did as a lawyer, as a salesperson.
And then at that moment I started thinking, where do I go next? And then I started falling into the same trap. I thought, okay, well, all the people who do well in this space, in sales, they go on to become VPs of sales or chief revenue officers. And I thought I'm going to do. There were a few things that happened along the way.
Right. I realized, okay, well, a sales manager's job, a sales leader's job is not selling. It is managing. It is forecasting. It is leading. It is managing up and down. It is organizational politics. It is a lot of things, but it's not selling. It's not the thing that I knew I was good at. And I was good at.
And so that kind of had an epiphany. I was like, I've seen this movie before. I'm starting to play the game for the game. I'm trying to get this VP of sales, the CRO job, you know what it was just like a title. And so I was like, okay, I made this same mistake before. I'm going to take a step back. What do I really love?
I love selling, let me do that and not waste my time, climbing the ladder for something that, that doesn't make sense for me. That was the moment that I started thinking, okay, I want to sell, how do I sell more effectively? What challenges are there? I noticed that generating sales pipeline was tough. This is when I started really focusing on content.
First on LinkedIn later I went to TikTok, but first on LinkedIn. As I was generating content, I created a new way of sourcing opportunities. Now, was there a book that said, if you're going to build a sales career, you have to figure out how to use social media to generate sales there wasn't. But because I focused on what I truly felt like I was meant to do. My eyes were open to different problems that I could potentially solve that led me to this other place. Right? And so I'm never going to be a law firm partner. I'm never going to be a CRO or a VP of sales, but I think I've created something very unique and valuable. That's tied to me and that I enjoy and I'm good at, and I think that is what many people don't do. They expect to hit the titles in the job, adding things to their resume without figuring out is that what you're meant to do? And that's why I wrote that article. And I certainly don't have all the answers and I'm trying to figure out where again, where my place is, what I'm meant to do, but I feel like I'm closer to it now than I was before.
And I think I did that by avoiding those mistakes. So I'll get off my soapbox, but that's kind of what that, that article is really about.
[00:44:42] Mosah: If you were to be offered a CDRO role, would you consider that?
[00:44:48] Alex: CDRO was CDRO?
[00:44:50] Mosah: Chief Document Review Officer, would you take that role would that be something you gravitate towards?
[00:44:57] Alex: Well Mosah, how much, what's the compensation look like? That's no, I'm just kidding.
[00:45:02] Mosah: That's what's all the title, Alex. You have the title, it's all in the title.
[00:45:04] Alex: It's all in the title. It's all the C level title. There you got that's so good. No, that's totally right. You know, that’s exactly the point.
[00:45:12] Mosah: We always support a nonprofit on the podcast. We make a contribution. We found in, in thinking about the planning for those contributions, that while we've contributed to individual charities, we want to make the greatest impact that we can. And we've selected three charities. We've selected the American Cancer Society, Feed America and the ASPCA.
In honor of your being on the show, any of those three really strike a chord or, or which one would you like to make have us make a contribution in your honor for?
[00:45:42] Alex: I think all three are wonderful and any one of the three would be great. I think if I had to choose one, the American Cancer Society, but honestly, Mosah I think this is a great thing and all three would be fantastic.
[00:45:55] Mosah: Tremendous. Thank you.
[00:45:58] Richard: Thank you for joining us on Hiring Insights. Remember, you can learn more about Top Talent Advocates and listen to other episodes by visiting toptalentadvocates.com and click on the podcast link. You can also email us tta@toptalentadvocates.com.
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