IAM829- CEO Leads Strategic Change For Industries

Marc Snyderman is the CEO of Snyderman Law Group and a serial entrepreneur. A former C-level executive who led an international engineering and information technology firm through significant growth, Marc recognizes industries that are ripe for disruption and leads strategic change for those industries. Marc is currently an angel investor and board member for companies ranging from a healthcare payment technology solution using blockchain to a Carvana-like platform for semi-trucks. He's a lifelong learner and an avid management theory reader.

• CEO Hack: Book- Simon Sinek's Start With Why
• CEO Nugget: (1) What other people think doesn't really matter (2) Do the work
• CEO Defined: Leader, one who identifies and demonstrates what the organization is about

Website: http://snydermanlawgroup.com/

LinkedIn: LinkedIn/marcsnyderman
Instagram: Instagram/marcsnyderman
Twitter: Twitter/marcsnyderman

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Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

00:39 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mark Snyderman of Snyderman Law Group. Mark, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:40 – Marc Snyderman

Hey, it's great to be here. Excited.

00:43 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. I'm excited as well because of all the awesome things that you're doing. Before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Mark so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. Mark is the CEO of Snyderman Law Group and a serial entrepreneur, a former C suite executive who led an international engineering and informational technology firm through significant growth, Mark recognizes industries that are ripe for disruption and leads strategic change for these in those industries. Mark is currently an angel investor and a board member for companies ranging from a healthcare payment technology solution using blockchain to a caravan-like platform for semi trucks. He's a lifelong learner and an avid management theory reader. Mark, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:30 – Marc Snyderman

I am.

01:31 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story and we'll let you get started with all the awesome things you're working on?

01:42 – Marc Snyderman

Sure, so I would say that my CEO story started, I mean, I started my firm about 4 years ago. I would say the story started probably when I was a kid when I was, you know, always hustling and always doing something entrepreneurial. I had my first, I used to work for my dad's auto auto auto parts store when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, I would literally stand on this way before any but most of your time and was probably most of your audience's time. I still run about 5 books because we didn't have computers back then. I stand at the really high counters and I'd have to go through the big book to try to find an auto park for somebody that was coming in off the street. So it was before the days of Pet Boys and Mr. Auto.

Ran that all the way through from multiple entrepreneurial ventures from auto detailing stores to a hamburger stand on the boardwalk and down the Jersey Shore and you know became a lawyer and then I guess about 4 years ago I started my firm with the concept that there's a big hole in the market for small and mid-sized businesses to get affordable, effective legal advice and strategic advice for their companies. And it's mainly because of the structure of firms and the structure of the industry, which is very old school, billable hours, large overheads and large pays and thought, well, what if there was a way to run a law firm or like a startup and make it subscription based almost as if it was a SaaS model, but it's actual people, not just to be software. And 4 years in and happy to say it's been pretty effective.

03:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think definitely a lot of people, 1 of the best things about the subscription model, especially too, is just knowing exactly or having a better idea exactly what you're gonna pay. And I imagine that a lot of clients probably are sometimes afraid to go into that. But I love that you've been able to kind of create that solution. Jen, true entrepreneurial for me, it sounds like you've been doing it for a very, very long time.

03:46 – Marc Snyderman

Yeah, I think that was sort of the impetus for it, right? As a growing up, it's sort of in-house in companies, you realize that using outside counsel sometimes becomes rather costly and you say to yourself, well, If I'm a small business, how am I ever going to do this? So you turn to Google, you turn to legal Zoom, and nothing against any of the legal Zoom products or any of those, because I think there's a lot of value in them. But there is also a piece of the business where you need to understand what are the real risks and having somebody at your side that can actually help you analyze and understand, what's going on in your business and how to help you go through that growth phase and mitigate risk along the way and make sure your documents match up with that is something really important about it.

04:35 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I almost feel more like you have a partner that actually is looking for your best interest and sometimes you may not get that with other alternatives.

04:44 – Marc Snyderman

Right, and I think that's sort of the, you know, you call it like maybe our secret sauce, our unique selling proposition is really that, you know, I happen to have been an operations executive. You know, I spent 10 years growing a company from 75 employees to 300 employees. We did that growth in 5 years. And then I spent another 5 years trying to build the infrastructure to support what I just wrote. So you learn a lot about what is when you're when you're in your fate, you're you're you know, the hacker phases, the growth phases of your business, what do you do? How do you manage that risk? And, you know, that's sort of the differential between, you know, my firm and a lot of firms that are out there, which is we actually haven't just been lawyers, we've been business people. And, you know, and I start up my own companies all the time. And I'm always learning and I'm always going to share what I'm learning with, you know, my audience and my clients.

05:41 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, even, you know, working in that auto shop, you know, I feel like you start to probably get, you know, more data and information to be able to make those decisions. But I think too, definitely correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like you're able to also put yourselves in your client's shoes, where you're able to kind of understand from that vantage point and be able to provide that advice and information.

06:02 – Marc Snyderman

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the piece that makes it different is most businesses, it used to be that you didn't go to a business meeting without your lawyer. Now you go to business meetings, you never see lawyers in the meetings. And it's interesting to think about why that is and really the reason is pretty simple. Lures are really expensive. So they've sort of priced themselves out of being that strategic advisor and that seated at the table unless you're talking about a Fortune 500 company. And most of us don't talk to that kind of kind of company all day long. We talk to small business and medium-sized businesses that really need help and really need somebody that can, you know, help shepherd them along the way.

So when my clients call and say, hey, I'm on my way to a meeting. I need an NDA reviewed. I understand where they're going, and what they're doing because I've already been talking to them daily. My clients call, text, and email all weekends. They never have to think about getting some crazy bill the next week because they texted me on a Friday and I spent a whole weekend doing a research project that they never asked me to do.

07:09 – Gresham Harkless

Right, yeah, and having that kind of you know understanding probably helps out a tremendous amount for clients but also it probably helps out too because it sounds like and I never even thought about that, having the meeting and not having a lawyer present, it probably saves you and can save organizations from potential pitfalls and things that can happen down the line by not being able to kind of make those astute decisions.

07:34 – Marc Snyderman

Right. I think that's all part of the offering and what we're trying to change within the industry. So I use the term, you know, hashtag disruptive lawyering. You know, and I call myself sort of this disruptive entrepreneur and try to figure out any places where I can find some white space in a market where it looks like there's a whole of some sort or some process that really needs to change and take a look at it and see if there's a way to work within it and find something, find a solution to provide.

08:10 – Gresham Harkless:

Absolutely, and that's in true entrepreneurial form, definitely from my vantage point. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:27 – Marc Snyderman

I do a lot of I have a lot of things that I call hacks for myself. To say 1 that I think I probably would go to the to a book and I'd probably say Simon Sinek's walk on Why the Golden Circle of why I think you know once you can find you know your inherent Purpose you know what drives you and you can state that and you can put it on paper and you can explain it properly to your team. As the CEO, it drives the whole organization forward. So if I had to pick 1 I would say know your why and if you haven't read any of Simon Sinek's books or listened to him I really highly suggest you do so. He's you know sort of the ultimate optimist and especially in these times you know hearing from an optimist is a great thing because it helps, you know, we all need that right now. And he's, he's just sort of, you know, I think he's just really strong at it. And he's been doing a ton of stuff online these days with his books and doing book reviews of his own books and having groups sort of read through them together. So it's been a lot of fun.

09:43 – Gresham Harkless

Truly love that hack. And so now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

09:56 – Marc Snyderman

Okay, I mean, I'll probably borrow a little bit of Gary V here. I'll try not to use the vulgarities.

10:03 – Gresham Harkless

We have the explicit

10:08 – Marc Snyderman

I think that he has a lot of really, I mean, you know, you get to take everybody with a grain of salt. I take you know, it's why I read and study and listen to a whole lot of different people because there's great advice from across the board. You need to take pieces of all of it. So like you said, there are some nuggets. And I think the 1 nugget that I would always, that I would love to, you know, it's the hardest thing when you're younger is to understand that, you know, what other people think doesn't really matter. You know, it's what you want and what you and you have to drive for yourself and you have to drive and people aren't going to do it for you. Hard work is, is hard work.

And that I learned from a really early stage, because like I said, you know, I was working when I was 8, never really stopped. I can say I can tell you that specifically, I literally started when I was 8 years old and never stopped working. So, you know, I think that that's a piece that I make sure that I always talk to young entrepreneurs about, you know, you can want to do it all you want and you can talk about it. If you're not going to actually do the work and don't do it, you know, and you know, and I guess the other pieces are, you know, everybody's going to criticize you. Everybody's going to have their own opinions. You know, yeah, it's important to understand what the market is, but it's not important to listen to every single person around you telling you you can't do it. Because if you think you can, you probably can.

11:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And so now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Mark, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:40 – Marc Snyderman

To me, it's being the leader, the 1 that understands and can identify and show and demonstrate what the organization is about and for, and you know, really rally around that why, that purpose, and build the right strategy to get there. And then understand how to delegate and, you know, utilize and attract talent around you that will help you make your mission come true because you can't do everything yourself. And that's, you know, as you know, you asked for, you know, nuggets, I'll give you another 1, which is, you know, go back and teach yourself, you know, how to delegate. That's a skill that takes a long time to learn. And still, learn it. I learned it every day. So I would say, you know, to me, the CEO really has to be that transparent, you know, effective leader is really what it means what's best for me.

12:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely love that. And I feel like definitely a lot of people are probably not in agreement about learning the delegation piece, because I feel like understanding that it is a process and it's like a marathon, so to speak, in business and entrepreneurship and organizations that we start is so huge. But I love that vision that you spoke to, then being able to kind of empower those people that are in those seats, so to speak, in order to be successful, in order to be able to thrive within them, because I think so many times we forget and we think individually about ourselves being successful, but success is a team sport. And in order to be successful, you have to often have your team be successful and then it starts to flow from there No, absolutely.

You need to energize and build that team from the ground up and make sure that everybody's on brand, on culture, and of the same right and you'll win when you do that yeah you have to make sure all everybody's rowing in the same direction so you're not going in circles so to speak but truly appreciate that definition And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you are working on.

14:06 – Marc Snyderman

Sure, I mean I love to help small businesses and, you know, and I'm kind of an open book and very reachable. LinkedIn is probably the best place to get me. It's just Marks, you know, there's a Marks Thunderman on LinkedIn, it's me. You'll find me pretty easily. And you know, it's thundermenlawgroup.com and all of our social media channels. My social is all slash Marks Thunderman on Instagram, on Twitter, and Facebook. And you can find me wherever you need to. I love to help out and you know I provide a lot of content online so hopefully, it's helpful to people. So feel free to subscribe to our newsletter, you know check us out, see if you know hit me up if you have any questions. I have lots of different things going on. So always fun to talk about and appreciate the opportunity to, you know, share a little bit of my story today with you guys and a great interview. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

15:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, no problem. Definitely, you know, thank you and we will have the links and information in the show notes as well too and I've always felt and maybe I'm a little biased but I feel like the best entrepreneurs and CEOs are definitely lifelong learners So I appreciate you for riding some of that wisdom today and definitely looking forward to collaborating and working together in the future. And I hope you have a great rest of the day.

15:23 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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