How to Build a Professional Services Business That Gets Clients
Direct Answer: Consistent credibility-building content helps professional service providers get found and get picked by clients.
Why Most Professional Service Providers Struggle to Grow
Many attorneys, therapists, consultants, accountants, and other professionals believe that being good at their work is enough to attract clients. Unfortunately, expertise alone is rarely enough in today’s digital world.
Potential clients research you online before they contact you. They evaluate your website, social media presence, reviews, videos, and content long before scheduling a consultation. This is why professional service providers need more than visibility. They need credibility.
According to Seth Goldstein, building a successful professional services business requires consistency, value, and strategic online positioning.
How Professional Service Providers Build Trust Online
1. Take Action Instead of Waiting for Perfection
Many professionals delay marketing because they feel overwhelmed. They overthink platforms, branding, content ideas, or technology.
The bigger risk is doing nothing.
Professional services marketing rewards momentum. Small actions repeated consistently create long-term authority and visibility.
Whether you hire a law firm digital marketing agency, build content yourself, or use automated tools, the key is to begin.
2. Consistency Builds Online Credibility
One of the biggest mistakes professionals make is posting inconsistently. A dormant LinkedIn profile or outdated website can actually reduce trust.
Consistency signals reliability.
This is especially important for:
LinkedIn content
Google Business Profile updates
Blog articles
YouTube videos
FAQ-based content for AI search optimization
Professionals who consistently publish helpful information build what Be-Picked calls a “trust library.” Over time, this digital footprint helps potential clients feel safer choosing you over competitors.
Why Educational Content Works Better Than Self-Promotion
3. Focus on Providing Value First
Most professional service providers talk too much about themselves.
Clients care more about whether you understand their problems.
Instead of constantly promoting awards, credentials, or achievements, create content that:
Answers common client questions
Explains confusing topics clearly
Reduces fear and uncertainty
Demonstrates expertise naturally
This approach improves:
Law firm content marketing
Lawyer social media marketing
Therapist credibility marketing
AI search visibility
Referral trust
The goal is simple: become the professional people already trust before they contact you.
Where Should Professionals Market Themselves Online?
4. Go Where Your Audience Already Exists
Different platforms attract different audiences.
A therapist may perform better on Facebook or Instagram, while a business attorney may benefit more from LinkedIn and YouTube.
A common mistake in professional services marketing is trying to be everywhere at once.
Instead:
Identify your ideal client
Learn where they spend time online
Create platform-specific content
Stay consistent
For example, many law firm internet marketing strategies fail because they focus only on SEO rankings instead of trust-building content.
Getting found is important. Getting picked is what matters.
What Type of Content Builds Client Trust?
5. Create Content That Reflects Your Brand
Your content should sound like you.
AI tools can help brainstorm ideas, improve efficiency, and support consistency, but your audience still wants authenticity and clarity.
Strong credibility-building content includes:
Case examples
Educational videos
FAQ posts
Thought leadership
Short-form social videos
Blog posts optimized for SEO and AI search
The most effective professional services businesses combine visibility with trust-building communication.
The Real Goal Is Becoming the Safe Choice
The professionals who grow consistently online are usually not the loudest.
They are the clearest.
They show up consistently, educate their audience, answer questions, and reduce uncertainty. Over time, this creates authority, trust, and stronger client conversion.
Professional services marketing is no longer just about being seen.
It is about becoming the obvious choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best marketing strategy for professional service providers?
Consistent educational content combined with SEO and credibility-building is one of the most effective long-term strategies.
How often should professionals post online?
Consistency matters more than frequency. Even one quality post per week can build authority over time.
Why does credibility matter more than visibility?
People hire professionals they trust. Visibility gets attention, but credibility drives decisions and appointments.
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DescriptiAndrew Colsky (00:12)
Welcome to be picked the podcast for professional service providers who want to learn how to build and grow their businesses I'm your host Andrew Colsky and today we are talking with Seth Goldstein He is the principal creative director and co-founder of Goldstein media And we are going to share his wisdom with you and help you build your business. So Seth, welcome to the show
Seth Goldstein (00:37)
How's it going, Andrew? Good to talk to you. And no pressure, right?
Andrew Colsky (00:42)
Well, we're always happy to have people like yourself who can tell us the tips and tricks and pitfalls of trying to build a professional services business. I know from personal experience that a lot of my colleagues struggle with that, myself included, until I started to learn what to do here. And it's not easy. So tell us about your experience working with
professional service providers, give us some of the common mistakes you see them making and some of the things that they start to do to turn the tide for their practices.
Seth Goldstein (01:20)
Yeah, lot of them, biggest mistake is them not doing anything.
Andrew Colsky (01:26)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Goldstein (01:27)
They get kind of deer in the headlights and they're like, uh, uh, I'm just not gonna do anything. I don't know what do. Or they decide, oh, this person who just DM'd me randomly on LinkedIn, oh, he's good enough. I'm not gonna vet that person. And we're just gonna go with him and see what he can build for me. Uh-uh, no, no, no, no. Do you do diligence?
You'll save a lot of time and pain if you kind of just either do it yourself or do your research before you hire someone to help you with it. That's
Andrew Colsky (02:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Goldstein (02:01)
the big one. That is the biggest. And then another one is not being consistent. As painful as it is, you need to be consistent on places like LinkedIn, Instagram. If you're going to be there, be consistent. If you can't be consistent there.
Don't be there. I mean, for professional service providers, you need to be on LinkedIn. Absolutely. Alignable is another good place to be for some local businesses and stuff like that. That's a great place to be consistent there too, but be consistent. You know, be active, you know, and yeah, it's only 24 hours in the day of that. You sleep hopefully eight, if you're lucky. Nah, I'm not that lucky. I get like six of them if I'm lucky. But,
you really have to think about, you know, where your time spent and how you're spending it. So you gotta kind of schedule your stuff out, plan out your topics you're gonna talk about and go from there. So.
Andrew Colsky (03:03)
Yeah. Well, I love that because you're so right about being not just visible, but being consistently visible is important.
Seth Goldstein (03:11)
Mm-hmm and memorable. Yeah
Andrew Colsky (03:14)
Memorable, decent, decent content. can talk all about, you know, those things. But devil's advocate,
Seth Goldstein (03:23)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (03:24)
attorney, doctor, therapist, realtor, whoever it is comes to you and they, and you tell them that and their response is,
Well, that's great, Seth, but I got clients, I got cases, I got patients, got insurance claims to file, I got a million things happening
at once. And now you're telling me I gotta take another God knows how long every single day and go get onto LinkedIn or social media? What gives?
Seth Goldstein (03:55)
I mean, that's also where you do your vetting and you find a provider that will do it for you, will help you with it. I mean, whether that be bring someone in-house that will help you with it on regular basis, but hire someone local, hire someone nationally. I would try and keep it state side because then, know, US law applies. God forbid you need to, I mean, I'm talking to a lawyer here. So you should talk more about this than me, but like I've been doing this for 18 plus years. So.
Ultimately trying to keep things where you can keep the American legal system at your beck and call if you need to, God forbid. But if you can't do it yourself, hire someone to help you kind of plan things out so you can do it yourself or you can get help with it.
Andrew Colsky (04:42)
Okay, all right. So let's take the next question, which is, okay, so I hear you, Seth, and I hired someone to help me, and we are working consistently to be consistent on LinkedIn as a starter.
Seth Goldstein (05:03)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (05:05)
I've been at it for a couple months now and I keep telling people what wonderful degrees I have and how fantastic of an attorney I am and I'm getting no clients. What is?
Seth Goldstein (05:14)
Cause you're talking about yourself too much.
Yeah. You need to think about this. Share your knowledge. It's all about givers gain. Give, give, give, give, give, give, give. And then maybe you say, by the way, I do this.
Andrew Colsky (05:27)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Goldstein (05:27)
Gary Vaynerchuk for better for worse has a book called,
jab, jab, jab, right hook. I think that's, or it be a few more jabs in there, but it's a give, give, give, give, and then say, by the way, I do this. So.
Provide good information, show your knowledge, don't tell about your knowledge. Show what you know and how to help people and then they'll come back in droves.
Andrew Colsky (05:53)
Bingo, bingo. And I think that's really hard for a lot of people because they want to, they figure, if I'm to take the time to go post something, I might as well just start out and hit them between the eyes and that'll surely bring me business.
Seth Goldstein (06:06)
Dude, it's exact opposite, honestly.
Andrew Colsky (06:09)
Well, I always tell people, you know, I'm on LinkedIn every day and 95 % of the people who contact me, they have a bot set up, you know, I accept their request and boom, within a second, I get the sales pitch in my messages and within two
Seth Goldstein (06:30)
the pit's slapping. The pit's slapping.
Andrew Colsky (06:32)
seconds, they get blocked. it doesn't really work out well for them.
Seth Goldstein (06:38)
No, it's a game of numbers and they figure that if they get one out of 10,000, that's great, but they get banned from LinkedIn before that.
Andrew Colsky (06:48)
Yeah, well, you know, they earned it.
Seth Goldstein (06:51)
Yeah, they were tired for that.
Andrew Colsky (06:54)
Because honestly, they're wasting my time. And
Seth Goldstein (06:57)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (06:57)
I'd rather be using my time to be doing something productive.
Seth Goldstein (07:02)
Absolutely.
Andrew Colsky (07:04)
So, okay, so then let's follow that through. So you're saying that the post needs to be giving and productive and all. So what does that look like? Let's say I'm a therapist.
So
Seth Goldstein (07:18)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (07:20)
I get onto LinkedIn. Are my clients really on LinkedIn? Like who's my audience and what am I doing on LinkedIn?
Seth Goldstein (07:28)
That's kind of key. If you're doing business to business, LinkedIn is the place to be. you're doing local business, LinkedIn and Alignable are the place to be. If you're B2C, it's more Facebook and Instagram. You go where your people are. And a lot of times
Andrew Colsky (07:40)
Okay. Okay.
Seth Goldstein (07:43)
you got to figure out what your target market is, what your ICP is first before you start spending time on these platforms. So you want to figure out, okay, I'm trying to deal with end users, you know, the consumers.
Well, LinkedIn might not be the place to be. Instagram might be the place to be. Oh, I'm a B2B SaaS company or a B2B service provider. LinkedIn is a great place to be. You gotta go where the audience is. You gotta fish where the fishes are. Fishes. Fishes? Fish. Yeah. We wanna know where the fishes are.
Andrew Colsky (08:15)
That's a tough one. You're
both correct. So, all right, so let's follow through with my example. So I'm a psychologist, I'm a therapist, I am looking to get out there, I'm listening to this, and I'm hearing you say I should be on Facebook and Instagram because that's where my target audience is gonna be. So, okay, I decide to get onto Instagram. That means I need to go do some sort of funny dance, right?
Seth Goldstein (08:44)
If you want, I mean, it's relevant. mean, if you can make it funny dance relevant to therapy by all means, go for it. I'll probably get you more, more traction, but it's more like talk about mental health, talk about, you know, case studies without mentioning names and breaking HIPAA, obviously, but like be real on there. Talk about the struggles with mental health. Talk about the struggles of, you know, what you're doing in your therapy sessions with people.
You know, obviously HIPAA, HIPAA, HIPAA, HIPAA, HIPAA, HIPAA, but you can see John Doe, know, names are changed to protect the innocent kind of thing. But you can, you can think outside the box a little bit, be creative. Honestly, in a way you can always ask, I would not take it verbatim, but you can always ask these AIs, Hey, I'm trying to do X. What suggestions do you have for me for topics to talk about? They're great for brainstorming.
They're not great friend and copy.
Andrew Colsky (09:45)
Okay, so I want to put out posts
following what you're saying here.
Seth Goldstein (09:56)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (09:57)
I don't, I'm very concerned about my public persona and my credibility. I don't want to... Right, exactly.
Seth Goldstein (10:04)
Mm-hmm. So don't do a chicken dance. can tell you that if you're worried
about your persona, this is gonna be the chicken dancing therapist. If that's what you want to do, all the more power to you.
Andrew Colsky (10:14)
Right.
Seth Goldstein (10:16)
But you know, only put out there what you want seeing because once it's up there, it's up there.
Andrew Colsky (10:20)
Right, but if I if I focus on putting out. Factually correct, meaningful, helpful content. Isn't that going to be too boring for people?
Seth Goldstein (10:34)
You'd be surprised what people read. You'd be surprised when people are doom scrolling. Finally, get some useful information. People actually enjoy reading people's content. I mean, every once in a while, if you write a book on LinkedIn, I think you have like 2000 characters on LinkedIn to write. Don't use all of them. No one's going to read your post. But like 700 characters, you know, if you want to write like a small little blog post on as an update, go for it.
And then see what the reaction is like. If people are reacting to it and liking it, great, keep doing that. If they're not liking it they're not getting any traction, try something different.
Andrew Colsky (11:10)
Right, right. So, so let's, let's switch gears for a second and talk
Seth Goldstein (11:17)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (11:17)
about B2B. So I'm an attorney and I'm trying to build my credibility amongst my peers and others. looking to get referrals. I'm looking to
maybe even be in contact. Maybe I do a business law and so I want to get in contact with businesses or I want them to know about me.
Seth Goldstein (11:37)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (11:38)
What's my approach?
Seth Goldstein (11:40)
Definitely LinkedIn and definitely talk about the topics at hand. Let's say, cause when you say business law, now I'm not a lawyer, you're a lawyer. I don't play one on TV. You play one everywhere. So there you go. Well, that's the disclaimer right there.
Andrew Colsky (11:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Seth Goldstein (11:56)
But from the digital marketing side of things, there's a lot of topics based in business law to talk about. A lot of people doing stupid stuff in business. A lot of things saying
Andrew Colsky (12:06)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Goldstein (12:06)
don't do this.
And you can write a blog post about something, this guy's an idiot, don't do this. I wouldn't call him an idiot because he might get yourself sued, but whatever. I'm not a lawyer. You're the lawyer. I'm not the lawyer. like, you know, talk about things that are relevant to the industry that you're focusing on. Give your expert advice, you know, legal opinion, not advice, because I think advice you have to pay for. think that's how it works. Something like that. Again, I'm not a lawyer. You're the lawyer. can vouch for what I'm saying is legally sound or not.
Andrew Colsky (12:34)
You
Seth Goldstein (12:36)
But ideally you want to talk about stuff that's relevant to what you practice. can, I know with client, know, HIPAA and then there's attorneys have the attorney client privilege. You can't say Joe Schmo is my client and give a case study that way, but you can call him Sam Fried and
Andrew Colsky (12:57)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Goldstein (12:58)
say, well, Sam Fried names obviously changed, came to me for X, Y, Z. This is what we did. Here's a case study. That's the, that's the right hook.
part of the jab, jab, jab, right hook thing. So
Andrew Colsky (13:08)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Goldstein (13:09)
it's like, you know, talk about, so this happened in the industry today. This is what I think you should do. This is what, you know, this is what they did wrong. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And say, Hey, let's talk at the very bottom. see a lot of times people saying, Hey, I'm, Steve Smith.
I do business law in these areas. I'm licensed in this area. If you want to learn more, talk to me. So there's a
Andrew Colsky (13:33)
Right.
Seth Goldstein (13:33)
big give and a little bit of an ask at the bottom.
Andrew Colsky (13:37)
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and there's another piece in there to what you were saying. So lawyers, same thing with doctors, therapists, whatever, graduate school, you get your degree, you get your license, everybody has the same education. There are no
Seth Goldstein (13:52)
and a lot of debt.
Andrew Colsky (13:53)
different types of lawyers per se. Now you may have focused on certain classes in school,
Seth Goldstein (13:57)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (13:57)
however, here's what I'm getting at. So if I say, well, I'm a business lawyer and I represent businesses and whatever.
Okay, well, like you said, well, business law, what is that? There's like a
Seth Goldstein (14:09)
Kinda broad. Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (14:11)
million things there. So if you're going to be posting something out there and trying to attract clients, even though you're qualified and capable and you do all these different things, pick an initial niche audience. Maybe you focus
Seth Goldstein (14:22)
Please, pick a lane.
Andrew Colsky (14:24)
on, I don't know, reviewing business space lease agreements or something, you know, whatever it may be. absolutely.
Seth Goldstein (14:29)
Yeah? Sounds thrilling.
Andrew Colsky (14:33)
It's great reading.
And, but do that. Talk about that. You don't need to talk about
Seth Goldstein (14:39)
Picoline, yes.
Andrew Colsky (14:40)
everything because when you talk about everything, you talk about nothing.
Seth Goldstein (14:44)
Amen to that,
Andrew Colsky (14:45)
so pick a niche to start with. Become known as the guy that does that stuff. Those clients are going to need the other stuff you do too, but if you don't have a client to start with, what are you doing? You know, you're not getting it.
Seth Goldstein (14:59)
As much
as I hate this term, but riches are in the niches.
Andrew Colsky (15:04)
there you go. There you go.
Seth Goldstein (15:05)
They're not in the niches, because it doesn't rhyme. It doesn't sound good, but riches are in the niches.
Andrew Colsky (15:11)
But it's something that I hear so often from people. like, I do all these things. I don't want people to think that I don't do these other things and you're not out.
Seth Goldstein (15:21)
That's what your website's for. That's what your website's
for. They look at your thing saying, all right, Andrew does contract law. They get your website and they're like, he also does contract negotiations. he, he does estate planning. That's kind of random, but okay. Good to know. Keep them in the back of my head that he does that too. I think most lawyers that are business don't do estate planning. think that's kind of what, it's like a podiatrist trying to do internal medicine.
This doesn't happen. I'm
Andrew Colsky (15:50)
Right. Right.
Seth Goldstein (15:52)
sure, I'm sure, I'm sure I'm saying this and there's someone who says, I do that. But most people don't. They usually
Andrew Colsky (15:57)
It could be someone else's
Seth Goldstein (15:58)
pick a lane. Your emergency medicine, you do that. I think pathologists can't do internal medicine because there are different degrees, but better example, can't do, you can't be a internist, know, a primary care doctor and be emergency medical. You got in the ER in the pit because they're two wildly different things.
Andrew Colsky (16:19)
Yep.
Seth Goldstein (16:19)
And you can, you can do, you can be a generalist, but you know, master of none.
Andrew Colsky (16:25)
Yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, something you said earlier, which I want to kind of reiterate here is as you are thinking about what niche you want to hit and you're thinking about what the content
is that you're putting out. Number one, it's important to identify and this what you said, your ideal client profile, your ICP, who, who is my ideal client?
And then understand, okay, now that I've identified who my ideal client is, what are the common problems that they have that they don't
Seth Goldstein (17:01)
Yes.
Andrew Colsky (17:01)
understand that they're looking for information on? Because when they have a problem and they go to the internet, they're not looking up business lawyer. They're looking up, I'm getting ready to lease a new space and I don't know what
Seth Goldstein (17:11)
They might start there, but it's not gonna get them as... yeah.
Andrew Colsky (17:14)
to consider in my lease, right?
Seth Goldstein (17:16)
Yeah, I mean,
I might start with business lawyer and then I'm going get this result back. It's going to completely not helpful. And then they'll niche down and they'll search down. Cause I think a lot of people do start broad. That's a little broad, but they might say business lawyer that deals with the rent control something. And then they'll be like, well then rent control what? And then leases and then boom, boom, boom, boom down from there.
Andrew Colsky (17:39)
Yeah, but ultimately there's a particular problem that they're trying to find a solution for
Seth Goldstein (17:46)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (17:46)
and you want to be the one who starts to show up in those searches when they're searching for the problem solution.
Seth Goldstein (17:52)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (17:54)
And so that means content that you create has to be related to providing solutions and information about the problem they have, not about,
Seth Goldstein (18:03)
Absolutely.
Andrew Colsky (18:04)
I do business law and look at my fancy website that I spent a million dollars on and I don't get any.
Seth Goldstein (18:08)
Exactly.
Yeah, that's the same reason why you do business law, you do contract law, trademark law. You don't want to say you have to do estate planning. It's completely out of field.
Andrew Colsky (18:21)
Yeah, yeah. So here's another one that I really would love to hear your feedback on. I'm sure we all get these. I don't know if I get it more than other people because of the type of work I do. I'm sure there's a certain degree of that. But I must get at
least 50 % of the emails and contacts that I get on a daily basis are from these wonderful people who are so in
Incredibly competent that they're gonna get me top SEO ranking in my field immediately over I just give them a bunch of cash and boom I am going to be top SEO now since there's tens hundreds Billions of these people who are all gonna get me top SEO Well, don't they run out of clients or how does everybody get top SEO in the same? I don't get it. Can you tell me what's going on there?
Seth Goldstein (19:14)
scammers.
Andrew Colsky (19:15)
No, there's scammers on the internet. Oh my god
Seth Goldstein (19:18)
Exactly or what they're
doing or they found some secret sauce that's gonna work for five minutes and then everybody get you banned from Google and Then it's me like then you're not ever gonna be at the top of Google again Like if they problem you can never promise an SEO you could never promise anything You can say I can try and get you to the top of Google on these terms We're gonna aim for this in this region and so on and so forth But you never guaranteed, you know, you're mean I'm gonna get you number one
If you get number one fantastic, go out for beers and celebrate, like, never guarantee it.
Andrew Colsky (19:52)
And
you know, I'll give you the tip that I use. Obviously, I'm not going to hire any of these people because I realize they're scammers. But the tip I always use is I say to them, well, you know what? This sounds wonderful. And I really do want that. So let's do this. We'll go ahead and sign a contract to do it. And the contract will be as soon as you get me number one on SEO in these particular areas, then I'll pay you.
You said you're gonna do it, so it's not problem.
Seth Goldstein (20:22)
You troll the trolls. I love it.
Andrew Colsky (20:25)
And then suddenly I get ghosted. What happened? I thought you were, you know, I'm
Seth Goldstein (20:28)
Really sounds, yeah.
Andrew Colsky (20:30)
willing to pay you for what you're gonna do.
Seth Goldstein (20:33)
So you asked you to engage with them? Oh man, you're brave. I just hit, I hit spam. When you, you, you feel salty, it's like, all right, we're gonna jump into this and have fun with it.
Andrew Colsky (20:36)
Well, because sometimes I'm bored. No, sometimes I'm bored. Yeah. Because
I just want to keep my skills fresh. But I I abhor scammers. I despise
Seth Goldstein (20:51)
they're awful.
Andrew Colsky (20:52)
scammers. If you can't be honest and direct, and I tell people this on LinkedIn when they contact me, I will tell you. Because you get these vague, fishy type of contacts. I tell them, I said, look.
If you can't be direct with me and tell me exactly what it is that you're trying to contact me for, then I would never do business with you.
Seth Goldstein (21:09)
Amen. Amen. That's simple.
Andrew Colsky (21:11)
So I
just, and I'm sure there's gotta be a lot of people like me who are just over.
Seth Goldstein (21:18)
Well, here's something I find funny for podcasters. Cause I know you get probably pitched all the time and I always have these ones where they say, Oh, I love your podcast. I've listened to your podcast a lot. Great. That sounds great so far. And I sit there and I read some more and I love to leave your a review. Where would you let me put the review? I don't care where you put the fricking review. Just put the review down and fine. But like they'll ask me where I want your review.
I, if I go to a good podiatrist, I don't know, I'm talking about podiatrist today, but whatever. I go
Andrew Colsky (21:53)
Yeah
Seth Goldstein (21:53)
to a good podiatrist and I think they're doing great. I'm going to post a review where I post a review and it's up to them to find a damn review. I might tell them, like, Hey, I reviewed you over here. They may ask for a Google review. Fine. I'll put it there, but like, just give me the review.
Andrew Colsky (22:10)
Yep. Which, goes back to what you were saying before at the core of all this, the people who are genuine, who are contacting you for legitimate, genuine purposes, not to try
Seth Goldstein (22:22)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (22:22)
to sell you, not to try to pitch you, not to try to do any of that type of stuff, but
who
Seth Goldstein (22:27)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (22:27)
are genuinely looking for solid connections and things. Those are the people who succeed. It takes more time. It takes more effort, but everything else is
kind of like going into the casino and dropping quarters and dropping quarters and dropping quarters and leaving broke versus
Seth Goldstein (22:42)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (22:44)
not going to the casino and actually doing your homework, doing your work and building up your business and doing it the right way and those are the ones who succeed.
Seth Goldstein (22:54)
Amen. It's simple.
Andrew Colsky (22:56)
So.
Seth Goldstein (22:57)
It's not that freaking complicated people. Stop overthinking. And it's from a guy who overthinks everything, but stop overthinking.
Andrew Colsky (23:06)
Right, so, so, so, you know, and people who listen to this podcast, I'm sure over time through guest after guest after guest, because my guests are people who like yourself or professionals in this field who know what you're doing, who have the experience, who've seen all the mistakes that people make. It's the same message constantly. Be authentic. Put valuable information out.
Seth Goldstein (23:34)
and viable.
Andrew Colsky (23:36)
and viable that addresses the client's need. And then that's when they start to build trust. Now, it takes time. Yeah.
Seth Goldstein (23:43)
And it takes time. It's not going to happen overnight. It's just like when
you join a BNI chapter or a networking chapter, people have to trust you. People have to get to know you and make sure you're not a fly by night organization. So I'd say give it a year. Give it two years. Sometimes, you know, I've been in this for 18 years, I've built my whole practice based on referrals and networking, going on schmoozing, and it pays back in dividends, but
It's a of blood, sweat and tears at the very beginning. It's a lot of like, my God, I gotta go to this networking event again. It hasn't produced that much, but it's like, if you haven't produced that much in three or four events, keep going. It will eventually.
Andrew Colsky (24:28)
Well and also consider what is your approach when you go to that networking event. If you're in the room, well right,
Seth Goldstein (24:32)
Stop painting cards that are like crazy. Stop it.
Andrew Colsky (24:36)
there's the two people who don't get it. There's the one who's
Seth Goldstein (24:40)
There's one too.
Andrew Colsky (24:41)
in the room but doesn't talk to anybody, doesn't do anything, doesn't, you
Seth Goldstein (24:45)
Dan's there.
Andrew Colsky (24:46)
know, they stand there. Well I went.
That's one. And the second one is the one who walks in with the box of business cards and can't even like introduce themselves to somebody without shoving the card in their face and then moving on because they got to get one into everybody's hand. For some reason, both of those people fail.
Seth Goldstein (25:00)
or collect the other person's card, yeah.
Yeah, that's not how it works. Honestly, if I go to an event and I talk to two people in an hour, but they're good conversations, I'll have more power to it, you know?
Andrew Colsky (25:14)
So, you know, there's, right, right.
Seth Goldstein (25:15)
Again, it's not rocket science, It's common sense.
Andrew Colsky (25:20)
But it's, you know, when you're, you know, hungry for business and you're trying to build your practice, there's a degree of fear. The fear is if I don't get clients, I don't have income, I don't have a practice, right? And so I think out of desperation, some people turn to the, well, I got to get a client today tactic.
and then that causes them to do the things.
Seth Goldstein (25:45)
or they got
a client today and it's a fluke and they think it's going to happen again. Lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice. Well, it's not that I'm aware of.
Andrew Colsky (25:59)
And that's another piece here that I want to point out to the audience. If you are someone who is in school planning to become an attorney, a doctor, a therapist, a realtor, an insurance, whatever it is that you're going to be doing, if you want to get into the professional services field, you don't wait until you get out there and open your office. Today, right now, you start.
Build your YouTube
Seth Goldstein (26:27)
start.
Andrew Colsky (26:28)
channel, build your LinkedIn account, build your credibility engine of what you're going to be doing, right? And get going now, not later, now.
Seth Goldstein (26:40)
Yes.
Andrew Colsky (26:40)
Like if you hear about investing, what do they tell you? They tell you start investing in your 20s so that you get the benefit of compound interest so that you're rich when you retire. Same thing with advert, not advertising, but credibility building,
Seth Goldstein (26:54)
Fizzle market, yeah.
Andrew Colsky (26:55)
trust building.
marketing, it compounds over time. That's why it takes one to two years. But you know what? Once you got that, you got a solid foundation
and it only builds.
Seth Goldstein (27:06)
and there's coming in droves,
yeah.
Andrew Colsky (27:11)
So.
Seth Goldstein (27:11)
Again, not rocket science.
Andrew Colsky (27:14)
Right. Right.
Seth Goldstein (27:15)
Patience is a virtue.
Andrew Colsky (27:18)
So if you had to share with us the top three mistakes that when people come to you for your help, they probably tried some things that haven't worked before. Probably spent a whole bunch of
Seth Goldstein (27:30)
Top 3.
Andrew Colsky (27:30)
money on SEO people and all this other stuff and got scammed all along the way. What are the top
Seth Goldstein (27:35)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (27:36)
three things that you see that they've done?
Seth Goldstein (27:39)
They don't invest their time in the platforms that they need to be on. They go to networking events and they're either a wallflower or they're a pushy person and they don't listen. And three, they don't listen. I mean, it's a double, but they don't listen. You know, you have two ears and one mouth, use them proportionally.
Andrew Colsky (28:01)
Right, absolutely. okay, so if you had to pick from all the things that we talked about today, the top three things that they should do, if they want to listen to this podcast,
Seth Goldstein (28:14)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (28:15)
podcast ends and they're ready to go and they're gonna do these top three things today. What are those?
Seth Goldstein (28:25)
Good question. Top three things you should do right now is sign up for LinkedIn, build out your profile, be honest with it and what you do, how you help people. That's number one. Number two, go out to networking events, but don't be a wallflower and don't be pushy. Bring cards, but make sure you have two or three quality conversations with people. And number three,
is you need to make sure that you have a quality website. Even if it's a one-pager, just something that people can land on, know that you're legit, that you spent the money on a domain name, and that you're gonna be around for a little while. That's key.
Andrew Colsky (29:07)
Okay, you know, I took a lot of the information from what I learned, you know, and the mistakes that I made, because I'm an attorney, I'm a mental health professional, I've
built practices, I've made all the mistakes that we're talking about here,
Seth Goldstein (29:27)
Mmmhmm.
Andrew Colsky (29:28)
and I learned, it's like touching the hot stove, I did it one time and I will never do it again, but I learned what does work, I continue
Seth Goldstein (29:33)
Hopefully not, yeah.
Andrew Colsky (29:34)
to do that.
So I put all that in a book that I put together called Left of Trust that I'm happy to announce. It's coming out in September of 2026, but it's available for pre-order. So if you go to my website, is www.bpict.com, can look up the book there and you can find out how to pre-order it. So just need to get that plug in because that took a lot of work, but it takes everything that we've been talking about.
Seth Goldstein (30:02)
of course. Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (30:05)
and it puts it right in front of you and it explains the psychology behind it and it lays it all out in a way that makes total sense when you
Seth Goldstein (30:12)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (30:13)
understand how all this stuff fits together.
Seth Goldstein (30:16)
Absolutely.
Andrew Colsky (30:18)
So tell us about you Seth, how would somebody find you if they wanted to follow up with you and what area do you work in, who do you work with?
Seth Goldstein (30:25)
Awesome. pressure, go to goldstein media.com no hyphens in their goldstein media.com. You can go to social.sethgoldstein.me, E before I, I've never seen that I before E and Goldstein, but people always ask me that. So it's always Goldstein with the E before I. so that's social.sethgoldstein.me. All my links are there to connect with me there. I work with service based businesses, small, midsize businesses up to like 50 to a hundred people.
After that, they kind of become more enterprise and a little bit more pain in the backside. So then I go avoid them like the plague, but I help people of all sizes kind of figure out where they're going, how to optimize for it and go from there. I also help people with their podcasts. I'm a podcast coach. I've been podcasting for 15 years. So if you're interested in doing podcasting and not sure where to start, I help people kind of get out of the weeds there too. So, and that's a podcastmastery.coach.
Andrew Colsky (31:23)
Fantastic.
Seth Goldstein (31:24)
I cannot get the
dot com for the life of me. It doesn't exist. So I'm sitting on it I'm like, if you're not going to use it, let me use it.
Andrew Colsky (31:31)
Right, right, no, that's a big.
Seth Goldstein (31:34)
I can't even
buy it. They're just sitting on it. I'm like, I
Andrew Colsky (31:37)
Really? Wow.
Seth Goldstein (31:38)
buy it. was too expensive, it was like a few hundred bucks. I'll buy it. They won't let me. I can't figure out
Andrew Colsky (31:43)
Yeah.
Seth Goldstein (31:43)
who owns it.
Andrew Colsky (31:45)
And that's, you know, for people who don't have a domain have never dealt with that. You know, one
Seth Goldstein (31:51)
god.
Andrew Colsky (31:51)
of the biggest things is they just assume that, I have this great idea for domain. Let me just go buy it. Yeah, not so much. This is 2026. There's practically no domains available in the dot com space unless you're into three words or more. Right.
Seth Goldstein (32:04)
know, hence.coach. But
thank God they opened up the namespace. Now you get a .app. You can have fun with it now. So it works.
Andrew Colsky (32:12)
Right, right.
So, all right. So let's see here. So this podcast obviously comes out weekly. We always have new and wonderful guests like Seth. They give you their perspective from down in the trenches. This isn't me just talking and telling you what I think I know or what I read that my sister thinks she saw on Facebook. This is actually the real stuff because we truly want you to succeed and we want to be resources for you.
So please feel free to listen to the additional podcast episodes. You can find the podcast, you can find all sorts of info and everything you need at the website again, be-p-i-c-k-e-d.com. You will find this episode, you'll find a blog about this episode with the content, you'll find bits of this episode on LinkedIn, you'll find it in many other places. Why? Because that's what we want you to be doing so that you're found in multiple places.
last bit there you'll also find I got to put in the shameless plug for the credibility generator where I took all this information and I automated it in a way that things that take you multiple hours per week take you multiple minutes per week but that's a conversation
Seth Goldstein (33:28)
Love it,
Andrew Colsky (33:29)
for a different day. So Seth, final word is yours.
Seth Goldstein (33:33)
Thank you for having me on and be productive and get out there.
Andrew Colsky (33:40)
Thank you so much for your time today.
Seth Goldstein (33:43)
My pleasure.
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