Today Seth and Jay chat with Michael Mogill, founder of Crisp Video and best selling author, about how he grew his business and the upcoming Evolve conference and what it takes to move the needle as you grow exponentially.
Hello. Hello. And welcome to another edition of Maximum Growth Live. My name is Jay Ruane and I’m one of the hosts here, CEO from of FirmFlex, your social media marketing agency for lawyers as well as managing partner of Ruane Attorneys, a civil rights and criminal defense firm in Connecticut. With me as always, in our nation’s capitol or close thereto, is my friend Seth Price. Seth is the Founder and managing partner of Price Benowitz, your D.C., Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina law firm handling family, criminal, PI, probably something else that I don’t know about.
Less and less, we’re trying to focus more and more. We got – we like that trio, that sounds good, but that sets …
It’s a solid trio. But you also have Blushark. I don’t want to miss out on Blushark. SEO for law firms, really developed a national reputation as the go-to guy when it comes to how a law firm can position themselves digitally. And Seth, how’s your week going this week?
It’s going well. It’s good to be here with you. Look, a trying time, you’ve been very public talking about things kicking your ass.
Yes.
It is definitely, I feel like the strain of COVID not like the stuff we talked about to be in oh shit, but like knowing that we have the lack of human touch, I think that there are certain efficiencies that we’ve lost and that, that is starting to strain some of those margins aren’t there, the velocity, the up and down, there’s just stuff outside the box that we’re both dealing with and every – our listeners are dealing with from cash flow to morale, to motivation, that those things, things that were sort of locked in are not there and those are those challenging.
Yeah. The cash flow thing really is impacting a lot of firms. I know it’s impacting ours, I’m sure our listeners and our viewers are fighting the same problem because people who used to pay more regularly are now slow playing because they don’t necessarily know where their funds are going to be. So there’s this ripple effect. And, of course, the cost don’t go away. In fact, in some instances, you’ve got some increased costs for your remote workers, who need more supplies and technology. I just recently had to buy 20 new laptops. I mean, it was time. We were probably going to have to do it this year, if last year didn’t exist, because we (inaudible) … Seth Price: But I think there’s another piece and I think that’s the elephant in the room, that doesn’t affect you as other does, but like, look, it’s cash flow from the point of view of the courts aren’t open. They’re not moving as fast. So for you, it takes longer to get through a case and earn money. Like what I’ve said since day one, if you go back to our early recordings from like March and April, which was the short-term PIS stuff settling. But the bigger stuff, that’s where you know you have money coming to you, the question is when and that’s the very stressful piece. So I think that all of those things, the strain is there in some areas like in the South in Florida. Life is quasi back to normal. We still don’t have people with that velocity of life here. They’re just not. Are the roads busy? Yeah, the roads are busy. So in some cases, they can go fast and get into accidents. But the general serendipity of life that causes the needs for the different things we do just doesn’t seem to be happening yet at those massive rates. Again, better than it could have been, it’s not the utter disaster this could have been.
Yeah.
And like god willing, these strains are not as bad and these boosters are going to be fine. But it’s just all goes into risk and all of our employees are living this day-to-day and keeping them motivated and focused has been definitely something that it comes and goes but it is something that if you take your eye off of can be really detrimental.
Yeah. And one of the things from an owner’s perspective is when you spend a lot of time motivating and making sure that your team is in the right mental space. It’s draining to you and it can impact you. As I said, I’m better now but last week I was getting my ass kicked and I was really down, morose. And but I – to my staff, I was, hey, we’re going to be fine. We’re going to be good. This is going okay and it’s like doubly draining.
Well, we couldn’t have a better guest this week. We got somebody coming on who’s great at sort of motivating. To watch his story has been remarkable and Michael Mogill with what he’s done with Crisp is just a sight to behold. So let’s get him out here because at least there we’re going to end with amazing positive energy and some great insights, I’m sure.
Yes. Oh, absolutely. I got to spend some one-on-one time with him last year in an airport lounge for two hours while we were waiting for our flights. And just talking to him, just inspirational and it’s one thing to see somebody have grown so large. Because I can remember when Crisp started hitting the legal market. But he’s really done this himself and it’s really sort of a fascinating story that he has getting into this area and really sort of cornering the market. And then he’s really sort of amped it up and take it to the next level, the next level, the next level. So I really want to talk to him. So why don’t we do this? Why don’t we take a quick break? We’re going to hear from our sponsors. And when we get back, we’ll have Mike Mogill from Crisp Video. Stay tuned, folks. We’ll be right back with more Maximum Growth Live.
Hi, I’m Jay Ruane. One of the founders of FirmFlex and a practicing attorney for over 20 years. Anyone who knows me knows how my firm runs on the systems we create and it has allowed us to flourish even in tough times. I spent years and hundreds of hundreds of dollars until I finally figured out a way to engage my audience and drive top of mind awareness with social media. And what did I do once I figured it all out? I built a system for it and now you can put that system to work for you. You see, we took the hard part, creating the content and finding the images and made it foolproof. Every day you will have curated social media topics to post designed to make your firm constantly remind your audience about your firm, what you do and how you can help. And the best part, you don’t even need to hire a dedicated social media person to do this for you, in fact you don’t even need to hire anyone new.
We designed the system to make it easy for you to delegate to your receptionist, assistant or paralegal and have them execute solid social media for you in just five minutes a day. It’s like having a content writer, researcher and graphics designer at a fraction of the price it would cost to hire in-house. Sign up today for the social super system and start building your brand where your clients already are, on social media.
In this world today, if you want to grow your business you want to grow your firm, you want to take on more cases and make a bigger impact, you have to have a digital blueprint. Statistically throughout the time that we’ve been working with Blushark Digital, our law firm, the Atlanta Divorce Law Group grew over 1,400%. They truly understand where we’re headed and how we want to get there. I have a team in Blushark Digital that I feel like has my back.
Thrilled to have Mike Mogill here, the Founder of Crisp Video. So happy for you to have – make time to join us today. Thank you, Mike.
Thank you for having me
So lots transpired since we’ve had – talked to you last, the world shut down, slowly coming back, lawyers doubling down on marketing. Talk to us about your last 12 months.
Well, I mean, we were just saying the last 12 months feels like 12 years, but it’s been eventful. I’ll put it that way. So we – on our side, we grew the team, we invested a lot in team training and development, we increased headcount 50%. We bought a building at the height of COVID. A lot of the things that we’ve been even up to, I guess, you can’t really see them until the world reopens. But it’s just been head down, we looked at and said, well, what can we do and, of course, with our clients, I mean, this is – we built out these like amazing like communities, if you will, because during COVID the people weren’t traveling, they needed support. I think there were, obviously, a lot of business challenges going on and having, just hearing from other attorneys and learning from other lawyers, I think is paramount, especially during the last 12 months. Because if you’re just around the people that are in your local market and the majority of them are complaining about all the things they can’t do, that’s not really good for anybody especially over a 12-month period.
No. Look, watching from afar but excited we have the first major virtual conference coming up. Tell us about that. It looks like an incredible lineup of speakers.
Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying the first major, because it’s – and I appreciate that. But I mean, so here’s the thing, if you’re familiar with the game changer seminar in-person conference, we obviously postponing that till the end of this year because of COVID. I mean, our goal actually was to have it last year. But during that time, we felt that November would be a long time to wait and we want to do a good virtual conference. The challenge as I’ve mentioned like the word good is that at this point – when COVID first hit, I think getting on a Zoom, everybody was excited. They could do five webinars a week and they loved it. The consumption was at an all-time high.
But then I think about six months, maybe nine months into it, Zooms and staying on a Zoom was just like the last thing that anybody wanted to do and particularly virtual events. Early on, I think, people saw innovation. They basically tried to take the in-person experience and just make it all virtual. Like virtual exhibit halls, virtual booths, virtual everything. And if you’ve ever attended a conference like that, you find that that experience doesn’t really translate the same way. Like the idea is there, if we could just take everything that’s in-person and physical and just make it virtual, that people will engage the same way, but you find that online virtual (inaudible) …
It doesn’t
Yeah. So we set up and basically do a good one. And then a part of it was just because we wanted to take on the challenge of doing it. But on the other side of it as well, it’s just that we needed a way to bring people together and to really have an entrepreneurial like law firm growth conference that I think could be very high-end, because I think a lot of people were expecting the COVID stuff to end at the end of 2020, they held in there for a while and then you start in January and I’ve talked to a lot of firm owners that were just demoralized.
And even with the vaccine and everything like that, they’ve still seen like cash flow hasn’t improved and so the basis for the event was really to create a bit of optimism to talk about – I mean, we based this on like talking about building the law firm of the future, how the industry will continue to grow and innovate what law firm owners can do. And we felt that that’s something that would be valuable to people.
I think …
I look at the Tony Robbins events as sort of like one of the pinnacle of like, high intensity and I’ve watched from afar. Again, him trying to bring some of that dynamism to his virtual events, I’ve just before Jay jumps in, what are some of the things that you – like the speaker lineup is crazy. You got like world thought leaders in a variety of different areas, which I love, because it’s bringing energy and just have perspective from outside of the – okay, how do I get more calls, how do I answer the phone more effectively, et cetera. So it’s taking you to that next level. But what are some of those steps that you’re taking, because that’s got to be a whiteboard area where there was no path? How do you take people and create the energy? Having been to the last few Crisp summits, there’s a definite buzz and energy and electricity, like getting that translated online is going to be no small feat.
Yeah. So I’ll see – let’s see how much I can share, because we’ve been trying to keep some of it under wraps. I’ll say, first and foremost, because we positioned this as a virtual experience, and the goal there is that it’s not just an event you attend, it’s an event that you are a part of. So we have to think, it’s a two-day event, how do you keep people engaged throughout the day and our first thought was how do we make them actually be a part of the event. And what that means is that, you’ll see – we’re doing like this 360 like basically LED screen where like every attendee is in the background, like you can see yourself, people can engage, they can participate with the speakers while they’re speaking like that’s one thing.
And there’s going to be several things that happen throughout the event where this isn’t going to be something where you have on in the background and you’re sitting there doing Slacks and emails. I mean, if we execute it correctly, like this is something where everything stops for two days and either you or you and your team are sitting there and actively participating in this. We’re taking into account even virtual aside is what is that – what about the tangible like physical assets like that you actually can send somebody. So we’re doing like physical workbooks, we’re even, let’s see, I’ll get in trouble for sharing this, but (inaudible) for sending, perhaps (inaudible) …
Well, I don’t know, Michael, I think ironically, as you said that, we may have actually lost the sound. So if you could just repeat what you just said. It sounded it was …
So, I mean, we’re considering every element of the experience. And one of which is like the audio. So if you’ve been to an in-person event, you know we’ve got like big sound and like just big speakers, there’s a DJ, all those things. But virtually everybody’s environment is a little bit different. Some might watch it on their laptop, some might see it in a conference room, some might be in their TV, in their living room. So we’re trying to address that inconsistency. We may be sending out like Bluetooth speakers (inaudible) like an example of every element. And I mean, there’s going to be some people that roll their eyes and say, well, okay, who cares about the sound. But we found that when you’re talking about engagement and experience, everything matters. I mean, the sound matters, the visuals matter. I mean, that’s how people learn. You can communicate the same information in multiple different ways and one way that they’re not going to retain anything and probably be in and out throughout the whole day, another way where they’re just excited and energized to be a part of it. So when we looked at the event we said, okay, first, speakers content, that’s got to be world-class. So we got – you guys know this, even industry and even outside of industry speakers like Marcus Lemonis and Seth Godin and Eric Thomas. And then, it’s speakers like Mike Papantonio and Joe Freed and so on. So we’re addressing both components there. Then there’s the focus on the experience itself, which I mean, one could argue, especially now with virtual, if it’s not substantially better, I think people will tune out. I’m telling you, just from this experience and what we’ve been working on, this might be my first and last virtual summit. And I’m saying it just because (inaudible) …
Yeah, you said that to me before your first in-person and you crushed it out of the park. I’ll pass it to Jay one second, but is the purpose of the Bluetooth speaker that you’re going to actually tap into their thermostat through the Bluetooth, and be able to get the temperature down to simulate that same in-person experience where you want to make sure they don’t fall asleep.
I mean, look, the best part about events and I think what makes Disney Disney is that you can control every aspect of that experience. In an in-person event, you control the temperature in the room, the food, like everything that’s going on. And virtually, that’s obviously challenging, because every person’s situation is quite different. But if you don’t address some of those things, then it’s just another Zoom meeting. So we’re going to do everything we can. I can say that the investment in the Game Changer Summit, the in-person event is a seven-figure investment. This one is more. Let me put it that way. Like we are investing more in this virtual event …
Wow.
… than we have in any in-person event. And I didn’t think that that’s what it would be if that’s just what it’s turning out to be.
That’s really phenomenal. And one of the things that I think is impressive, and sorry I had a little mic trouble while you’re going before, but I was able to pick up on is it seems that you’ve definitely learned a lot from that first one that you did last year, because I was an attendee there. And I was blown away by what you put together then and there. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that, because it seems like there are a lot of corollaries to how you’ve grown Crisp. But, obviously, Max Growth Live, we’re all focusing on growing your firm. It’s just like you’re focusing on the law firm of your future. Let’s talk a little bit about your origin story for the people who don’t know you and your path to growth of Crisp so that they understand that this isn’t something that you were just handed and you’re the CEO of this company. I mean, you grew it from boots on the ground, you and in a camcorder, basically, it seems. So tell us a little bit about the back story so people can get the big picture of who you are. Because I think that’s important for context here.
Yeah. So, I mean, right out of the gate, I started the company in 2012, had $500 to my name. We never had any investors, no loans, no partners, nothing like that. So everything as we’ve grown the business, we bootstrapped it and we’ve continued to reinvest in it. So whenever we talk about a big investment like this conference or anything else, I mean, that’s not loan money. That’s us placing a bet on it. And when I started the business, we were a video company. People told me that there’s no future in online video in 2012 and because Facebook wasn’t what it is, today, YouTube wasn’t what – isn’t what it is today. I felt differently and then we started working with law firms in 2014, video primarily, so we were helping firms differentiate themselves. Obviously, you know like many law firms very commoditized practice, very competitive practice. And for many consumers, it’s difficult to tell one apart from another, so how does a law firm that may not have the same resources that let’s say, the firm that can do TV and radio and billboards, how do they compete. And our way of supporting that was to help differentiate them through their video, to tell their story, their why, communicate why they do what they do. And then the lower barrier to entry from a marketing standpoint wasn’t social media. I mean, just for a smaller firm, for them to be competitive, they couldn’t go out and buy billboards or run TV ads so – but they could create video content and they could place that on social. And as that expanded, they were able to do much better targeting, the reach was substantially greater. So we basically went from video company to video marketing company, because we started just doing the videos, and then our clients didn’t know what to do with them so that’s when we started actually placing this content and placing it on social. And then about two and a half, almost three years ago, we realized that you can have great content. You can have great marketing and you can – let’s say you get the phone ringing, but you don’t know how to answer the phone or if the leadership team isn’t right, if the culture of that organization isn’t right, they don’t know how to hire and train and develop their team and even retain those team members. If foundationally that firm isn’t strong, that’s always going to be a function of the return on investment of the marketing. So everybody believes they have a lead problem and I think the mistake that I made in writing my first book, because I’m writing the second one now, is I think I wrote them in reverse order. So the first book being the marketing book, it’s like that – I think that’s what everybody wanted. And what I’ve realized is that that’s the tip of the iceberg. And if you can get everything right internally in the business, you got the right team, if you got just the right development, if you’ve got the right process, operations, it’s actually rare that you have a marketing problem. Like that solves the marketing aspect. And in fact, that’s actually what we encourage like, if you get that right from within, the marketing is the bonus on top of that, but great marketing on top of bad business is, I mean, it’s got to be a very slow climb. So that’s basically how we went from like video to marketing to coaching over the years.
So it sounds to me like it’s a lot of work.
Yes. And we’re like the anti-sell. It’s funny with everything we do, I know there’s messaging out there that’s like work less, relax more just chill. And we’re saying, committed, farm owners only those that aren’t complacent, it’s going to be a lot of work, it’s going to be hard work. And I mean, look, that’s just been the reality. Like, Jay, to your point, when I started the business, I didn’t know anything. I had $500 to my name. I was bootstrapping this. I was sitting there trying to code our website. I was shooting the videos. I was editing the videos. I was doing the sales and there was really no payroll, because it was just me at the time. And in learning this over time, year over year over year, I mean, I didn’t even know the cause and effect of my decisions. Like I couldn’t tell you a good business decision from a bad business decision. I couldn’t tell you if some – if somebody would be likely to work out or not likely to work out like a team member. It’s just a very scary place to be when you’re just doing things. And I mean, I imagine a lot of firm owners listening to this, they can work hard. I mean, they’re hard workers and they’re willing to do the work. But imagine not knowing, okay, well, what type of marketing will be effective, what – we don’t have a hiring process so how are we going to know if somebody who interviews with us is going to be the right person for our organization? I mean, it’s just a very, very difficult place to be. And for me, I was working harder every year, I gritted my way to getting the business to about a million in revenue. I was so proud of myself, but coincidentally I always ended up in the hospital of just exhaustion because we had no systems, no processes, nothing. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, it was horrible. And there had to be a better way. So as we’ve learned these things over time, it just gets not only easier, but it’s much more enjoyable, when you can build it and you kind of see the cause and effect of the decisions that you can make.
So okay, Seth, so I got to ask this question because you know me, I’m a systems guy. Tell us about the role of systems in allowing Crisp to grow to where it is now?
Yeah. It’s – people think from the outside and I know we market relentlessly and all this, and they think it’s the marketing that’s growing us. And maybe that’s the sexy part, but if you look internally in the business, the only reason we’ve been able to grow beyond like that year, I’d say, in 2015, at that million mark, is because of systems and processes. It’s kind of like Uber. Imagine – so on average, we’re doing even through COVID around 50 video shoots a month, and that’s in markets all across the U.S. Those shoots come with flights, hotels, rental cars, you have to coordinate logistics, you’ve got deadlines around every single project without a way to have the right system and that’s just the video side. That’s not the campaign management or the coaching or the workshops or anything. But without a way to manage that and make sure the trains run on time, essentially, and that everything can continue to grow. We’d be stuck probably with 25 clients and that’d be it. So it’s really back to how are we working and, I mean, we’ve got – I mean, our operations team is one of our largest teams, because in every single department, we’re analyzing every process, like how can we make sure that this is more efficient and also how can we have the team focus more on strategic work, because that’s where it’s most leverageable, if you will, and continue to grow and scale. Because with many business that want to grow, you can spend more money on marketing, and you can bring in more calls and leads and all this other stuff. But if you don’t have the capacity to expand the business, I mean, to me, that’s a scarier problem to have than – people think I don’t have anybody – what a wonderful problem it is to be growing and have so much business you can turn it away. But I’ve always looked at that and was like, that scares me. That keeps me up at night. To have a certain opportunity in the marketplace, in any kind of – in any period of time where you could grow, but you have to say no, because you’re not ready, that worries me.
So really you say that this might be your only virtual seminar, but you’re building these systems now with no real map to get it done the right way. So I can’t imagine that your operations team is going to come out on the back end and say, let’s never do this again. It sounds to me like you’re building the systems to be the dominant force in these virtual seminars, because you’re learning as you go and that type of thing. Seth, what do you have for?
Well, one of the things that that strikes me and it’s a lot – as I hear this, having built a law firm and then digital agency, I feel like and you mentioned with the second book, first concept, there are things that you sort of take away as you see these things. When you take yourself out of it, there are things – the systems that I’ve been able to create in 2.0. Obviously, I wish I knew those things when I was building 1.0 and I’m guessing a lot of times as you’re coaching larger law firms, it’s the legacy issues. Talk about yourself and getting yourself out of the way. That’s one of the things that I see for both myself, my law partner, is that the more we get out of the way and allow a team to do its work, the more that you do have that opportunity for growth and scale. Speak to that for a bit.
Yeah. I mean, so this is one of those things that you hear from a lot of people they say they’re not ready. They want to work on the business, but the timing isn’t right or once X, Y, Z happens then they’ll do it. And you find that usually that time never comes. This is usually a decision. One day you decide you’re ready and one day you decide, okay, here’s going to be my role in our organization. But what does help to expedite this is the importance of having the right people around you. So I think people are the ones that really free you up and the ability to attract me, if you guys are familiar with like the Visionary/Integrator Dynamic, I’m sure that’s been discussed a lot on the podcast, but just recognizing that your role as a leader to me, it really comes down to, I guess, three things. One is visionary, where are we going, what’s the direction we’re taking the organization. Two is like – to me recruiting. I believe leaders single-handedly like and it may not always be you directly, but you’re building the brand that attracts the type of people you want to attract, like why – if people say, hey, we want the best trial lawyers, we can’t hire them. Well, why would the best trial lawyers want to work at your practice, they could go anywhere and they’re offered plenty of money everywhere. So you have to build the type of organization where those people want to work and they want to be and then the last one is culture control. And then just – and realigning continuously. I spoke to a firm owner the other day and they told me – they’re like, we hired amazing people, culture fit, awesome, but six months later they’re like they’re not working out. And I’m like, you think you just hire them and then put it in place and that’s it and you go away? I mean, people require realignment, continuously. And in the – this maintenance of like that – you got to continuously water the grass, if you will. So I think that evolution for me was just recognizing that I was going to be – I was the bottleneck, unless I solve these problems. Like from sitting in the hospital bed, I realized, okay, at that point, I’m of no use to anybody. And clearly, I can’t work more hours, right? because that’s not going to end well for me. So I still want to grow it, how do we do that? And then also, it comes down to like how do you want to spend your time, what are the things that you enjoy. Early on, I was focusing on trying to get really good at everything. Now, I’m good at like three key things and then let’s say horrible at everything else and just hire around that, focusing on the strengths, primarily. So – but a lot of this is about making an investment in people and the mindset, I think – this is one of the reasons with the conference, we’re saying it’s for law firm owners and their teams is recognizing that team component is what takes you to the next level. The mindset needs to shift around viewing team members as costs, like these are investments. When someone says I can’t afford to hire this person or whatever it is, it’s almost something that needs to be reframed to an extent because why are you hiring them. Well, I’m hiring them so that we’re able to expand our capacity and they can take on more cases. Okay. So that allows the business to grow and bring in more revenue. Yes. Do you pay their salary up front? No. So it’s really an investment and anything that frees you up or anyone that frees you up or it frees up somebody who does free you up, expands your capacity. So we’ve always looked at people as an investment. If you look at them as just like this overhead, that’s just the cost, then you’re going to be adverse to hiring more of them. But as we’ve continued to grow and as we continue to bring on great people, that’s freed up my time, it’s also helped take us to the next level. So that’s why like any investment in people is always the highest return, at least, from my experience.
Great stuff and like having had Gerber and others on here, I mean, like to see somebody who’s executing on it at that level, Verne Harnish, and others is awesome. Before I flip back to Jay to conclude, the thing that strikes me in this is that you’ve done – obviously, you said you hired 50% more people during COVID. Talk to me a little bit, A, about systems and B, about what you’ve learned along the way. What are some of the sort of either mistakes that were made or best practices in the hiring systems you’ve created, because to me that is one of those things where the rubber meets the road. You can talk about it all you want, but it’s like, okay, you’re going to make that investment, but how do you put that machine together to make sure that you’re investing in the right people.
Yes. I mean, with everything at the root of it, it starts at the start. So like what type of people do you bring into your organization? if you’re spending a lot of time trying to focus on rehabilitating, a low performing team members, like C players and so on, that’s going to be really difficult. At the core of it comes down to who do we bring into the organization, period. And that’s a function of standards and hiring process. So hiring process means – we used to not have one like – and this is when I thought I was really good at like getting a feel and kind of basing my gut instinct on like who a great person would be. And then we ran the data and found out that I was 50% right and 50% wrong. I might as well just flip the coin. Like this – I was not good at all and then I speak to a lot of business leaders that feel like I can get a sense of someone, no, you can’t. So the hiring process is key and we make it very to get the job.
Well, so talk to me what did you do to take it out of yourself, are you using testing, are you using committees, are you using shadow days, we love to talk about here? I’ll give you an example. So we – the very first thing that we want to vet for is that somebody wants to work with us specifically as opposed to a job. So whenever we put up a job posting, we make it clear that like to apply, you can’t submit through the job site, whether it’s like LinkedIn, Indeed. Wherever you have a number – like a phone number, you have to call. So like leave that, they can follow instructions. They call the number and that’s the voicemail that gives them kind of next steps that tells them to send a resume and the cover letter with a certain email subject line to a specific email, okay? Then once they send that in, we see some that are resume but no cover letter or they did the wrong subject line. We weed out probably 75% in that first step, okay. Then once they do that, they’d get a phone interview and we’re asking questions that are primarily more like culture based questions. So we’ve developed questions around our core values, that without asking them, hey, do you meet this core value, because everyone is going to say, yes, we ask them more like a situational question where we can determine if they are results driven or solutions focused if they take ownership, those types of things. And then once they move through the phone interview, we have test assignments for every role. So depending on what they – what the position is, we’ve created a test assignment for it. We’ve got a rubric and a key that we can go off of and that comes with a 24 hour turnaround. We weed out about another 50%, because they don’t want to turn around in 24 hours. We also have other like assessments, like we’ve used the (Colby) to print, the Wonderlic. So we’re testing for like cognitive and even intrinsic drivers to kind of figure out that optimal mix. Because you can have someone who is experienced and knows how to do the role, but do they align in terms of like that – let’s say the core values of the firm, the culture of the firm, all those different things, which I think sometimes even more important, because you can train a lot of the skills. But we’re vetting all those things and then they’re coming in for an in-person interview. So this is kind of like an abbreviated version of those steps. But that weeds a lot of people out. We may have, let’s say, a thousand applicants for a position at the top level of that funnel, if you kind of look at it almost like marketing. And then down when we get to final interviews, we’ll have usually about five that make it to that point, sometimes three. So the thing that I’ve always – kind of interesting is that we have this, let’s say, this funnel and this vetting process. But I imagine the other 990 goes somewhere, right? So someone hires them. So imagine even right out of the gate, the first step of the funnel, they just didn’t follow instructions, somebody hires that person. They will go somewhere and that’s always been the most baffling thing to me. So like whenever you dodge a bullet because of your hiring process and you’ve been able to like weed somebody out, another organization isn’t weeding that person out and they’re saying things like, why can’t we find good people, right?
That’s really interesting, because, I mean, I think the takeaway from this really is no matter what you’re going to do, you have to put in the work. So if you’re going to be hiring, put in the work to hire the right way. If you’re going to develop your culture, put in your work to develop the culture and then, like you said, water, the grass. I think that’s the thing that a lot of people need to hear is that – it sounds like to me, there’s a lot of lawyers out there. There’s probably a lot of business people, I’m sure Seth and Michael you’ve dealt with that over the years and meeting people outside the legal field. That everyone thinks that there’s this holy grail this – I get to run a business, but I don’t have to do anything. I just – I get to come and go as I please. I collect a check and that could be great. But it’s a fantasy, right? I mean, for both of you guys. I’d love to hear your opinion on that, because it sounds to me like the most successful businesses are the ones that involve the work. I mean, Mike Bloomberg could be considered the best and the most successful Mayor of New York City. His cubicle was dead center of the room and he would stand up and talk to people and do the work. I really – I hate to burst bubbles, but can you have a business where you’re not doing the work? Is it possible?
Well, look, and I’ll throw this back to Mike, but I’m not – there’s a difference between doing the work and leading. And I think that – and something I’ve talked to Mike about offline over the years was, if he was still shooting the video, there was probably nobody better at shooting the video at the time and you found that since. There was no – like – it took you a while to find somebody who edited better than you, who could deal with sales better than you. That until you – it’s not just – you have work to do, but unless you get trained and pyramid a team beneath you, you’re going to be stuck with the 25 clients. So I think it’s a – it’s not that it’s a lot of hard work, but it’s both – and my guess is from your lawyer consulting, it’s lawyers getting out of their own way, allowing other people to do that work. Mike, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah. Look, I agree with both you. I mean, the reality of it is, like, building a business is hard and often painful. I mean, it’s – I could say that now I spend my time differently than I did in 2012, when I started the business. I’m probably working much less, I was working over a hundred hours a week, now, it’s probably closer to like 50 or 60. I mean, that’s because we have a much larger support team and it’s important for me to be home for bath time with my daughter like that type of stuff. But at the same time like you have to be willing to do the work to get there. So – and there’s no way around that. And then the other component of it is – and this is what I’m finding was – is the separation between so many different farm owners and so many different levels. So one is their commitment level to like what it is that they’re trying to do and they’re trying to achieve and what commitment means at the height of COVID, do you lay off the whole team or do you continue to press forward towards – with a firm you want to build, because that’s a good check on commitment. The other thing is just, it really comes down to courage. I mean, I know this is going to sound probably silly when I say this, but you can give somebody all the information like everything. You could give them the full playbook. Here’s exactly how you build this eight-figure law firm, here are exact systems, here are the hiring processes, here’s everything you could do, the full playbook, step by step. But then it comes time for them to hire another lawyer or then it comes time for them to make a marketing investment or whatever, whatever the writing of the check is and …
Or investing seven figures in a conference, when everybody thought you’re crazy.
Yeah. I mean, so there’s like – that’s the part, I think, is the difference maker. I mean, the difference with seven figures, there’s eight figures, there’s six figures or whatever it is, comes down to their like the courage and the willingness to write that check. Because if you’re only investing in things that are like sure things like bonds or something like that, right, those have the least amount of upside. And I think it’s the willingness to stomach downside, because there’s going to be – I mean, with marketing, I mean, how many things we do that don’t work. We have meeting with the team this morning and we’re saying, look, probably 50% of the things we try, they don’t work, they don’t convert, all this other stuff. But we don’t really figure out what does work unless we’re willing to invest and get that data back. So that’s the big one and for – let’s say, somebody does – this is another thing I’ve gotten over, if somebody doesn’t have that interest in saying learning the business side of the practice like, they want to build a big practice, but they just don’t like the stuff. They want to be in court, they want to be doing legal work, like that’s where their passions are. I mean, the best thing you can do is just hire someone like a COO or someone that can run the practice that can do that stuff. Because if you’re trying to juggle both, it’s not only is a very difficult to do, but you’re working against yourself. So at the end of the day, I’d say commitment and courage are probably the two key things, the simplifiers. And if someone was saying, well, how do I gain courage, like I want to be able to – like two law firm owners. One knows they got to hire like three attorneys and sits there deliberating for 12 months like should they make this investment or not. Another one makes that decision right away, puts up the job posting, hires those people, let’s say they don’t work out, okay, hires three new ones, they don’t work out, hires three more, they don’t work out, hires three more and then they work out all in the same 12 month time span, while the other firm is still deliberating. So at the end of the day, like you’re just going to move faster by being decisive, even if like things aren’t working out. But that first firm I’m talking about, let’s say, they finally make that decision, takes them 12 months, they hire those people and then they don’t work out. This – they’re going to start all over again. So I think the speed and the pace at which that type of progress can happen really comes down to that decisiveness and you’re not going to be decisive, unless you’re actually committed to what you’re trying to do. And you will never be committed to what you’re trying to do if it’s not a future that excites you. Like if you’re just – if you don’t have like somewhere you’re trying to go and some sort of thing that you’re – could transform your life in some way, if you’re saying, hey, I want us to grow our business, let’s say by 5% or 10% this year. Well, if it’s not really meaningful to you, if it doesn’t change your life or your team members or anything for your clients then – I mean how committed are you going to be if it gets hard and unpleasant. You’ll just put it off and say, okay, it’s just 10%. We have a good life, why rock the boat? But imagine you’re trying to like grow – I’m just giving you random numbers, but like grow by 300% and that allows you to not only expand offices and allows you to build out a great trial team, it allows you to like bring in new infrastructure, new technology, everybody in your firm now pays off their student loans and they buy homes. Okay. That’s worth it. We’re going to work differently when we have a definition that excites us. So when we start ever having these conversations, it’s always about like what is that vision for you and more importantly, what can you actually commit to. Because your goals are your goals, but at least make it exciting for yourself, because you’re never going to do what it takes if it’s not a future you want to get to.
That’s great stuff.
It’s awesome
Look, I can’t wait to see what you put together because that energy is contagious and it sounds like you have some world-class people that are going to help create that vision for people. We’ll make sure that there is a registration link below and can’t wait for that. Jay?
I think the takeaway really is have a bias towards action. And you’ve shown it with a bias towards action, you’ve taken Crisp from a one-man operation to great heights. And every lawyer, every business owner that’s watching this show today, if you have a bias towards action, you’re going to – you’re going to get results and I think that’s really – what we saw even during COVID. There were some lawyers who have a bias towards action who pivoted, who changed, who adopted new marketing techniques and they’re still thriving, while other lawyers had a bias towards inaction and they’re waiting for things to open back up again.
The final thing I’ll say, because I wouldn’t talk about this conference, we tried to de-risk this as much as humanly possible for everyone. So like if you can’t stomach the $200, I think it’s under $200 ticket, okay, let’s just say that’s crazy. Like we put this $100,000 guarantee on it. So basically, we’re saying that if after attending the first day, you don’t feel like you’ve received the the hundred thousand of value, I’m not going to question or dispute it, you could even buy the ticket with the intention of getting your money back, we’ll refund the ticket in full. So I mean, it’s – just get there and like – and start, I think, getting engaged, if nothing else, like learn from the speakers, all these different things. And if for whatever reason, maybe you get $99,000 worth of value, it didn’t meet the guarantee, fine, we’re refund the ticket no questions asked. It’s okay. Oh, and also I had the team set up a code, Max Growth, so they’ll get a discount if they end up registering.
Awesome.
Well, I’m willing to pay full price for that, because this is going to be a great conference. I’m really looking forward to it.
Thank you.
Sounds great.
All right. All right, so …
Thank you, Michael
… thank you so much for being with us today and we’ll be right back, folks, with more Maximum Growth Live.
If I can’t tell the difference between lawyer A and lawyer B, why will I pick you? We don’t say what’s the average one, we say who’s the expert.
The question is can you rise to the top of the list. You better have something that you need. It better be experiential, your product better be amazing. Your process better be on point.
It would be irresponsible to run a business and not be invested in educating yourself in terms of how to run a business and how to be a great leader. If we’re going to talk about business growth, well, we better be one of the fastest growing business in the nation.
Man, Seth, I got to tell you, bias towards action if that is not the title of the Michael Mogill autobiography that we’re going to read in 20 years, I think it absolutely – it absolutely should be. What were your takeaways?
Agred. It’s just I’m always inspired by the energy, the insights to business. My – one of my favorite Michael Mogill moments was hanging out with him at the end of like an MTMP event. There was like a cocktail party and he was – his team had gone, he was the last guy at his booth. And I remember I hung out with him and two things. One, I got to shoot the show with him for 45 minutes, which is always awesome. But secondly, a client came by who was a client of his that needed digital help. And all of a sudden, that last hour spent, which looked like it would have zero ROI not only landed a client for Blue Shark, but 45 minutes to an hour with Mogill is always time well spent, so it was great. I look forward to this. I mean, look, he’s tilted at windmills and hit home runs multiple times. Curious to see how this goes, really can’t wait for it
Yeah. And I think there’s something that’s a big takeaway that a lot of people in our audience can recognize is that he’s free to admit that he does make mistakes with his marketing team and things that they’ve done and not everything is working. And there’s a – there’s – I don’t want to call it dirty secret. But a lot of people in this space, a lot of lawyers especially, you only ever see the good things. They don’t tell you about the warts and the stumbles and those exists for all of us. I mean, I try to be as open and as transparent as possible and that’s one of the things that I like about Mike is that he is approachable and he’ll talk to you about the problems he’s had as much as the victories that he’s had. Because he’s not about to say that this was just easy. It was a lot of work. I mean, it’s just like anything worthwhile is a lot of work, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah. All right. So that’s going to do it for this week on Maximum Growth Live. As always, you can catch our show here every Thursday 3 pm Eastern on our Facebook page as well as our podcast, which gets released every week as well. You can get it wherever podcasts are and, of course, that podcast is also syndicated on the Maximum Lawyer podcast. We’ve got the Maximum Lawyer media family behind us and really this year, we’re talking about the Crisp evolve online conference, Max Growth Live is going to be – hopefully at – have a presence at the Maximum Lawyer Conference. There’s some really great stuff out there and I think there’s a lot of pent-up energy and ideas. A lot of – that once we get released, Seth, I mean, I know …
Nobody is looking forward to this more than I am. So my kids are making fun of me. They’re like, you got – dad, get out of here. Go to talk to people.
I mean, they’ve had you home for an hour. They’ve had you home now for an hour for a year and a half. They’re probably thinking, when will this guy get out of our hair. We just want to be alone with our (inaudible) …
Well, they also had the road trip, right? Then we went from Florida through Atlanta, coming up through South Carolina, each place meeting friends and business colleagues. So like they’re used to it. They’re like, oh, this is what you do. You just happen to fly to a place where everybody hangs out rather than having to like drive to them.
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. All right. Folks, that’s going to leave it for us. Please be sure to tune in every week, catch us on the podcast. If you get a chance and you have some spare time and you want to learn more about digital marketing, be sure to check into this guy’s SEO insider on the Blue Shark Facebook page. Phenomenal, phenomenal stuff there, always really pushing the envelope talking to some huge, huge names in digital marketing. And, of course, if you want to – if you want to get into more about systemizing your law firm, be sure to join our Facebook group Systemizing Your Law Firm for Growth. Seth, would you have something else to say?
No. No, just excited and – look, when you get when you get a guest like this, it’s – I got to go, I got to go because I got to go kick some ass.
Yeah, absolutely. I’m fired up. I’m going – I’m leaving this and I’m going to register for his conference because I know it’s going to be worthwhile. I’m jazzed up. It’s Thursday afternoon. I got another full day of work. I got a couple more hours here. So let’s knock it out of the park. Folks, we’ll be with you next week. Thanks for tuning in on this edition of Maximum Growth Live.
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