[00:00:00]
Introduction and Podcast Overview
---
MPS: Hey, law firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.
Richard James: And I'm Richard James. And today, MPS, we're gonna have a conversation. It's a little different than our normal conversation.
The Inversion Model: Learning from Mistakes
---
Richard James: It's actually a conversation between you and I about the 13 things you can do if you definitely wanna screw up your business, right?
MPS: So if you wanna learn how to screw up your business, make sure to listen in today. But more importantly, let's learn the lessons of what not to do so that way we're able to optimize our business and not make the mistakes using the inversion model that we go into today.
Richard James: Yeah, I think if you listen to this and do the opposite of what we tell you to do, you're gonna have a great business on your hand.
Richard James: If your business has clients today we're gonna discuss the 13 things you need to know to grow your firm by not screwing your firm up. Hey, I'm Richard James and I'm here in Orlando at the Ritz-Carlton Great [00:01:00] place on a golf trip with my son MPS. And we're celebrating this idea. Well, the reality that he has purchased 49% of my company, and I thought about, Hey, what advice would I give my son?
God forbid I left this earth prematurely and he didn't have me here for my guidance. What would he need to know to make sure that he didn't screw up the business?
The Concept of Inverted Thinking
---
Richard James: And so I thought about Charlie Munger's concept of inverted thinking, where he talked to people about how to think the opposite way of what would be successful.
So if you're not quite sure of what to do, how about we figure out what we would do to screw it up and then think about the opposite way? That's Charlie Munger's way of thinking about an inverted topic. And so today we're gonna discuss the top. 13 things you could do if you wanted to make sure you screwed up your practice.
And so what we're gonna do is look at the opposite. I'm [00:02:00] gonna invite MPS here to have this conversation with us so you can hear me giving him the advice in real time. So Michael, welcome to the show.
MPS: Yeah. Thanks Rich. I'm super excited to be here. This is a fun time and exciting opportunity. And I'm excited to hear what you've got to say today about how to avoid stupidity and screwing up what I just bought into. So with that said, I mean, why don't we talk about what's the first thing you had in mind as far as avoiding, screwing up the practice?
Richard James: Yeah. Well, so the first thing I think. Now, I don't worry about this with you, but I think it needs to be said. So a lot of things is me gonna say them? Not because I think you're gonna do them, but rather because I think it's important that they don't go on set. Fair enough?
MPS: Sure. Yeah. Fair enough.
The Importance of Service in Business
---
Richard James: Alright, so the first one is if you want to screw up your practice, the first thing you should do is stop serving. So, think that you've already made it, like buying the business, becoming the CEO or whatever your role is in the company has this level of [00:03:00] achievement or commencement, right?
MPS: Sure.
Richard James: But really what it is, this idea that you need to take your service level to a whole new level, which means you have to serve your staff.
You have to serve your clients, you have to serve your vendors. You have to come from a perspective of service. I mean, do you have any general thoughts on this?
MPS: Yeah, I mean, I think it could be very easy to get into the position I just got into and get complacent or comfortable thinking, all right, got a good business, got profitability.
It's easy to kind of sit back and chill out. The good news is I don't have that attribute, right? I have this desire to grow and I have this desire to take it to the next level. But I think that's really important to make sure I never stop serving.
Richard James: Yeah. I think it's like a, little bit of feeling like we don't have to do this anymore. Do you know what I mean? We've arrived.
MPS: Right, right.
Richard James: And while you'll always do things, I think it's an ego check, right? It's making sure you don't feel more of yourself. The higher you get in the company, the more you have to do, like they Patrick Lencioni calls it the [00:04:00] CEO is not for chief executive officer, but rather it is for chief executing officer. It's a verb and that's serving. Right. Does that make sense?
MPS: It does. And I will tell you that many people to your point, if they get into that CEO role, that's like the pinnacle for them. They think it's time to sit down, relax, and just oversee everything. I haven't heard that. That's actually. Yeah.
Richard James: Yeah. Well I borrowed it. It's not mine.
MPS: Well, sure.
Richard James: And all of these, by the way, obviously I didn't come up with any of these things. Right.
MPS: There's a lot of smart people out there.
Richard James: Yeah. There are a lot of smart people. The well has already been dug before us.
MPS: Yep.
Richard James: So let's talk about the second thing that you can do if you want to make sure you screw up your business.
Okay.
The Danger of Taking Clients for Granted
---
Richard James: And that's, start taking your clients for granted. So you've purchased this business, so whether us, you or from, I'm giving the advice to you, but if somebody else out there is listening to this, maybe they've purchased a practice or maybe they've stepped into somebody else's [00:05:00] practice and they would just succeeded to them.
Right. And sometimes they forget about the clients that got them there.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: And they just focus all their attention on getting new business and don't pay attention to those who help them. The business become what is we've got, in our case we've got almost a 15 year history here, right?
MPS: Right.
Richard James: And so we've got clients who've been with us a very long time and they don't have to stick around. So we need to continue to make sure we don't take them for granted. So in your case, it would be opposite of that would be what you want to do.
MPS: Right. I mean, I think it's really easy to fall into that trap of wanting to get in and grow
Richard James: new, new, new,
MPS: new.
It's easy to fall into that. But even you and I have had conversations about certain things to change and I think we look back and you do a very good job of this and saying, well, look, if we change this, here's the potential domino effect of our current clients. Right. And so it's always that check of making sure you've got the checks and balances there. [00:06:00] Because, yeah, if you make too many changes or you only focus on the new very quickly, all the clients that you've established such a history with can get frustrated, get complacent in their position as a client.
And ultimately decide to leave at some point. So I agree. Never taking the client for granted is an important point, and that's really what got the business to where it is.
Richard James: You know, you brought up a really interesting point. I wanna, plus one on years ago, one of my original mentors, he wasn't my first mentor, but he was one of my original mentors, Richard Parker.
Shout out Richard Parker, if you're watching
MPS: What's up, Richard?
Richard James: Yeah. You always used to call him Richard Parker, even when you were like four years old or five years old.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: Anyway. He told me like when I bought my first business with him helping me, he's like, don't change a thing for six months.
And that was like tough for me. Because the business was geographically located three hours from my house, and I bought the business in hopes to relocate it. And he's like, don't, for the first six months, don't [00:07:00] do things for six months. I drove my rear end every day, three hours one way and three hours another way.
Oh, and by the way, I still owned two funeral homes at the time. And, I'm, you know, my life was a bit crazy. We had two young kids. You and your brother. Your mom was thinking I was outta my mind.
MPS: Understandably so.
Richard James: Um, But not doing that allowed us to grow. That company because we were able to get a firm grasp on what worked and really build around that and be able to see more of the forest through the trees.
'cause we were standing above it, just letting the business run. Does that make sense?
MPS: It does.
Richard James: yeah. Cool.
The Necessity of Continuous Marketing
---
Richard James: So let's talk about the third thing that you absolutely can do if you wanna screw up your business, and that is stop marketing. Stop marketing. Like, just look at the marketing budget. And go, my gosh, we're spending 12% of gross revenues on marketing. That's x number of dollars. You know, you're doing multiple seven figures, that's x number of dollars. You know, like, man, why do we have to spend all that money?
And [00:08:00] so I think a lot of new business owners oftentimes look at marketing as an expense rather than investment or if times get a little tight, they initially think, well let's ratchet down the marketing. And that's where we'll save some money. And if you want to screw up your business pretty quickly, that's where you're gonna do it.
Do you agree?
MPS: I do. Thankfully I don't sit in that boat 'cause I love marketing. I love sales. Right. But I could understand that's kind of the first rational place you think of, right? You don't want to get in a position. Many business owners don't want to get in a position where they have to cut staff.
And so they think of the next big expense on the list. And although it's not an expense, it's really easy to want to cut marketing, and we saw this firsthand, right? With a lot of law firms during COVID, especially bankruptcy firms.
Richard James: Absolutely.
MPS: Right. They cut marketing and they suffered from it.
I mean, when you cut marketing. That means lead flow starts to slow down. But the alternate also happened. All the firms that increased marketing [00:09:00] during that time gained market share. Anyway, I say all that to say I think that's a good piece of advice. Something I personally would never do.
But it's important to know, for anyone that does buy a practice, don't jump in and look at the marketing budget and decide to either cut it or stop it.
Richard James: Yeah. You bring up that interesting point about those firms that, there was a dry spell in that particular industry. Right. So regardless of the industry you're in.
MPS: Doesn't matter.
Richard James: Sometimes there are dry spells and you have to be smart and the ones right now who are thriving were smart. They picked up market share, right? And grew their geographical mark footprint. And they, I mean, many of them right now were in the throes of that number is up 20% over last year.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: I mean, they're crushing it right now. I mean, really it's fun to watch what's going on for so long.
MPS: It's fun to watch. Yeah.
The Significance of Sales
---
Richard James: So that leads us naturally into the fourth item that you could definitely hurt your business with if you decide to stop this thing, which is, stop selling. So, so in other words, and I know you'll never have this [00:10:00] problem but some do.
Like, They, buy a business and they think that their job becomes administration. Or they think that they have to manage the finances, or payroll or HR and all those things are true. And they're many different things are thrown at you. But if you stop selling. And you stop putting your focus on that particular issue or stop training your sales associates or stop inspecting your sales associates.
I'm not just suggesting you have to sell, but whatever the sales department is, if you ignore that department, it because you have other things you have to do. That's the start of the demise.
MPS: Yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, sales is what allows your business to be fueled. And without sales, it's dying.
Literally. I mean, without new sales, your business is dying. There's really no in between. It's either growing or it's dying. You could stay stagnant, but that still requires sales, 'cause every industry has turnover and retention issues. So you gotta constantly sell. [00:11:00] Yes. No, not an issue for me and something that will always exist in our business.
Richard James: You know, this idea that you're either moving forward or you're moving backward, but you can't stand still. And that's the general concept we're talking about here, right? If you stop selling, you're not moving forward. And if the way that the world has been designed, it means that we can't stand still.
Inertia really isn't a good thing. And it's usually not possible, you'll start sliding backwards.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: Because we have to keep moving forward. The way we keep moving forward is to keep selling, keep focusing on sales.
The Power of Measuring Business Metrics
---
Richard James: The next piece, the fifth piece of advice or the item that they could do if you wanted to screw up your business, is to stop measuring.
Right? So just say, this is too tedious. It's too difficult. It takes too much time. I don't want to have meetings about this. The numbers are never right. I don't understand why this is important. It sounds too simplistic. Mm-Hmm. [00:12:00] Why does this matter? And they stop measuring all of the KPIs they need to be measuring to run the business.
All of a sudden, you're now, you're using a shotgun. You don't have a target. You're blindfolded, whatever analogy that you want to use as compared to eyes wide open with twenty-twenty vision using a laser beam. Right?
MPS: Right.
Richard James: And so,you need to make sure you keep measuring. I wonder, I don't know, you gotta answer this for yourself. You're a great marketer and you're a great salesperson. How have you adopted to the thought process of measuring everything? 'cause we measure a lot around here.
MPS: We do. I would say in most things, I'm fully on board and very solid at measuring, especially on those front end statistics.
Richard James: Mm-Hmm.
MPS: Some of the back end statistics, fulfillment and stuff like that could probably use some practice. Just not always things I was used to measuring.
Richard James: Mm-Hmm.
MPS: And so I think it's very easy to get into that position and either keep what the previous person had in place and that's it.
Which could have been a lot of [00:13:00] measuring could have been no measuring. Right. But I think to choose not to measure is to set yourself up for failure.
Richard James: Yeah. You know, so again, this is under the premise that if you wanna screw up your business, stop doing this. Right.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: And so, I will say that. Okay. We've been doing this for about 15 years at a pretty high level, for most small consulting firms, right?
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: And we have clients that we've been blessed that they have saw value in our world and stuck around. That didn't happen by itself.
MPS: No.
Richard James: That didn't happen because we were really good at a particular thing necessarily. It happened because they're like. I say a thousand, but it feels like a thousand. It's not really a thousand, it's probably 120, but like all these things that we measure and pay attention to.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: When it comes from, generating leads all the way through serving the client that we've been measuring from the beginning.
MPS: And there's a lot of data points.
Richard James: A lot of data. But I think that's one of the reasons why we've been successful at having this long-term [00:14:00] business.
MPS: Yeah, I mean. I think you're spot on. Because without tracking that, it's very easy for stuff to just kind of slow down, fizzle out, or we start to lose control of it.
And then, obviously in steps, retention issues in steps, issues with marketing and sales even because we're not tracking it. So measuring the data is an important part of this that should not be overlooked.
Richard James: Well, how nice is it for us to be able to go back.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: And take a look at the historical information when you're new, you've never made a decision that you're thinking you wanna make.
It's an idea you have. And you come to me and you're like, well, what do you think? And I'm like, well, we've got all this data, let's look. We tried that this way, here's what happened. Now I'm happy to try it a different way. And in fact, we're making one of those decisions right now.
MPS: We are
Richard James: Right. Some, one of the things we're selling and we decided, well, it didn't work when we did it like this, but with this twist, you had an idea of maybe it will work, so let's test it.
MPS: Exactly.
Richard James: And,
MPS: and
Richard James: that,
MPS: testing is important. But to your point, being able to just have a snapshot of [00:15:00] all of these things that you have tested and have the actual numbers on it has made life much easier to make decisions on.
Richard James: Yeah. Testing. Boy, that could be an argument zone, but we're not gonna go there.
Let's go to the number six thing.
The Significance of Leadership in Business
---
Richard James: So number six thing is and this, is gonna feel like, maybe the first thing, but it's not stop leading. Stop being a leader. It's so easy for the owner of a business to get caught up in what they're good at.
You're good at sales. Mm-Hmm. Right. So it would be really easy for you to just maintain your role in sales and not grow out of that. Even though you bought the business, you stay in the mire. Right? It'd be really easy if somebody was great at accounting or HR or whatever, that they stay in that role instead of leading all of their team.
Right? And so the number one thing that, you want to do, if you wanna screw up your business, the number six thing you wanna do, if you wanna screw [00:16:00] up, is stop leading. Right? Which means you have to coach your people through. Does that make sense to you? Does that relate to you?
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: Or, and if he doesn't ask me, 'cause I wanna make sure I'm clear about this.
MPS: No it, it does. You know, coming into it, especially being a little bit younger, there's the growing in the leadership experience. But I also hear a lot of the stories that you're on Twitter, you're surfing around.
A lot of people on there are buying businesses, and I think this is a big issue because you see a lot of them that buy it and the goal is they buy it and just sit back and can kind of just have the life that they want, which means not leading, right? Because now they're just relying on the people that were already there to lead.
So I think it's a really solid point and it's one that I know I personally need to continue to grow in. I would say I have a base level of that.
Richard James: Yeah. But an advanced base level.
MPS: Sure. And so just continuing to grow in that, in all facets of the business because to your point. I'm very good at the things I'm very good at, but growing in leadership in other realms.
Richard James: Replacing yourself in the day-to-day [00:17:00] activities so that you can lead, not so you could do nothing else, but so you can lead the other people who are doing it. Right.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: Building a team, you're gonna forever be the bottleneck if you don't raise up to the point where you're the leader. Right? That doesn't mean you. I mean, yeah, maybe he gets to play golf a little bit more, but that you still have to lead and they have to lead strategically. And so if you wanna screw up your business, stop leading.
Number seven. Lucky number seven. Right. I would tell you that this is an unlucky situation.
The Dangers of Bad Debt
---
Richard James: If somebody decides to do it, start taking on debt. Start taking on debt now, let's call it bad debt. Okay. Because there are some businesses who have clients who use debt. Good leverage debt to purchase properties or equipment and they use the proper debt to, you know, ratios like they're under 60% or whatever to make sure that they're not at risk.
And when you use healthy debt, I understand it. [00:18:00] But bar, I've met so many people through the years that, depending on the business. So let me see. So like, take a criminal law firm for existence, like a criminal law firm. You know, they kind of wake up broke every day.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: And so they don't know if they're gonna get business today or not. They, the lead's gotta come in, they gotta meet with people, they gotta convert the sales.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: The guy that they bought from him six months from now, once his trial is over or whatever it is he is going through, or his DUI is over, he's not likely still paying them money. So he's not still a client.
MPS: Correct.
Richard James: Which means it's usually a once-and-done. Sure, there are repeat offenders. Okay. But in this particular case, that means that when they build up costs. Okay. That their costs are built at a certain threshold based on revenue.
If for whatever reason, lead flow goes down from the macroeconomic situation, conversion goes down at set rate, show rate, or higher rate. Client value goes down, people stop paying and all of a sudden you [00:19:00] reduce your top-side number and you start seeing yourself breaking even or worse, losing money.
What I've seen businesses do is borrow. Lines of credit cards. And you know what the biggest proponent of this is? I think like we were listening to a podcast, you and I the other day. And Guy was taught, they asked him how he started his business and of course, what did he say?
MPS: Credit cards.
Richard James: He was by credit cards. Credit cards. Right. Credit cards. Credit cards. And he worked for him.
MPS: It did. That one panned out.
Richard James: He sold it for $40 million.
MPS: Yep.
Richard James: Right. And everybody's like, oh, that's the way. Most of the time that doesn't work out all that well.
MPS: No. For every one of those, there's 10 of the bad side, right?
Richard James: Yeah.
MPS: And I think debt's one of those things that's a controversial topic, right? You have people like
Richard James: until it's controversial, until you've had bad debt and it's taken away your business.
MPS: Fair enough. Fair enough.
Richard James: I own that t-shirt. Right? Maybe that's why I'm so against it, bad debt because I've had it destroy my business.
MPS: But you,
you added a contingency there and you, you've said this a couple times, which is [00:20:00] bad debt. I think there are levels to debt. Like you hear someone like Dave Ramsey, he's no debt, right? It's no debt, which is fine.
Understanding Good and Bad Debt
---
MPS: Everyone's got their stands. And then there's bad debt. And I've always, maybe it's just because of how I've grown up seeing the businesses in front of me operate.
The Power of Profitability and Growth
---
MPS: I've always been fueling the growth of the business from profitability and looking at it from a profitability standpoint. And how do you grow using your profit as leverage rather than taking on debt. And certainly not trying to take on debt in times when things are going south to try to recover it. I mean, a recipe for, it's probably not a good recipe.
Richard James: Yeah. Any type of debt that's not. So Robert Kiyosaki, put it this way an asset is something that puts money in your pocket. A liability is something that takes money out of your pocket. So any kind of debt that you can use to get good leverage to allow it to put money in your pocket.
'cause it's a positive cash flow situation, A rental house equipment. Right. Those types of things. [00:21:00] I can rationalize that decision.
MPS: It's, yeah, it's different. It's producing you income.
Richard James: It still raises the risk factor.
MPS: Of course. Yeah.
Richard James: Still raises the risk factor.
MPS: The more debt you take on, the higher the risk, and potentially in some cases, the higher the reward. But it comes with a high risk tag too.
Richard James: Most businesses that have clients. Likely can grow out of cash flow rather than debt.
MPS: If they're doing it right And profitability is where it needs to be. There should really be no reason a practice that has clients can't grow from profitability.
Richard James: Mm-Hmm.
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Shiny Object Syndrome
---
Richard James: So let's talk about the next item, the eighth item.
The Dangers of Shiny Object Syndrome
---
Richard James: Stop doing what works. What I mean is.
what I So simple.
It seems so simple, but I can't tell you how many times I've watched new business owners come into a business, or existing business owners who have a formula of what works, but for whatever reason.
They stop and they start something new. They get bright and shiny object [00:22:00] syndrome. Does that make sense?
MPS: It does. I think part of it's trying to add their own flair to it, right? Taking an existing business and wanting to put their mark on it. In some cases, that market turned out to be really good that they made a change.
In some cases, if you stop doing what works. It can really harm the business. I think the key is to keep doing what works while also being able to add some of your new ideas as a flair in addition to, or modifying what works already.
Richard James: Yeah.
The Importance of Sticking to What WorksThe Importance of Consistency in Marketing
---
Richard James: So I was working with a business many years ago and I was talking to 'em and they were like, I'm frustrated. It's not working the way that it used to work. And so I said, I go, okay, let's do an exercise. So let's sit down. I want you to take 10, 15 minutes. I want you to write down, I want you to back when you started the business and I want you to list out your marketing efforts, your sales efforts, all the things you did to get new business, to get new leads, to get, you know, XYZ.
And I want you to [00:23:00] list it out. And they did. And things were on, they're like, attend trade shows, have referral dinners, referral partners. I launched a book party and I'm like, okay, how many of these things do you do now? Well, I don't do that when I don't do that, when I don't do that, when I don't do that, when I go, well, why?
Well, because we had Google ads. And we had SEO and that kind of took the place and we stopped doing all that.
The Power of Traditional Marketing Methods
---
Richard James: And I'm like, well, maybe let's go back to what worked.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: Right. It's a great formula. To be successful, let's figure out what works and let's just do more of it.
The Return of TV Ads and the Power of Sex AppealThe Return of TV Ads and the Power of Persistence
---
Richard James: I've had clients for years that back in the day I used to help clients make TV commercials.
And we had a killer script. We still have a killer script but TV's coming back by the way. Just a little tip. TV ads are coming back. The streaming is dead. Ads are coming back. Anyway people used to use this segment formula that I taught. Okay. And we hired a really attractive young woman to be the interviewer.
And we had the client, my, one of my clients, [00:24:00] be the person giving the advice. And it was about a free copy of the book. And the reason we used a pretty young woman is because grandma always said. Richie's sex sells. This was your grandmother, by the way. Your Yaya used to believe that sex sells.
Just saying, she said, the best business you can get into is the in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania. Put up a clear booth, put a shoe shining station in there, and a girl and a red bikini, and you'll make millions. She said, that was her answer. A hot bikini wearing blonde, doing shoe shining in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This was her.
MPS: Some places have adapted that philosophy.
Richard James: Maybe, but I think that we'd go broke today 'cause nobody shines their shoes anymore.
MPS: True.
Richard James: But anyway the point is that they would make these ads and then I would say, oh, you know, how are the ad doing? Oh, you know what? We decided to go a different direction with the ad.
I'd go, oh really? It stopped working. No, but you know, I kept seeing the ad and it just feels like it got stale and it looked like it was not like. You know, everybody's already seen that [00:25:00] ad already.
MPS: That's very easy to fall into with advertising. I know I personally do this too. Like I'll keep seeing the ads that we produce and I'm like, Jesus things gotta be running its course. And sometimes you'll turn it off and you're like, what the heck happened? To lead flow. Not everybody sees it. It's just not everybody's, everyone's on whatever platform you're using all different times, it's shown to different people and so it's easy for the business owners or whoever's creating the ads and marketing team to look at something and think that it's run its course because it's been out there for a while, but if it's working. But when it's not.
Richard James: If you take a very 30,000 foot view of marketing and think like what is the role of marketing, generally speaking, marketing's role is to make sure that your front and center, when your desired client is ready to make a buying decision.
MPS: Correct. Yeah.
Richard James: Well. You never know when your client is ready to make a buying decision. And [00:26:00] likely that client who was ready to make a buying decision wasn't paying attention to your ads all those times, but now they are because they're out looking for it. And so that to them, your ad was brand new.
MPS: Correct. And that's the other thing. Everybody sees so many ads in a day. It's like the likelihood of them seeing your ad, remembering it, and then coming back to it again and thinking, oh wow, they're just running the same thing. Yeah, it's not very high.
Richard James: Yeah. No. Alright. That was a fantastic one.
The Pitfalls of Constantly Chasing New Ideas
---
MPS: So let's,
The Danger of Believing You're the Smartest in the Room
---
Richard James: The number nine thing you could do to make sure that you screw up your business that you just purchased is to start doing something new every day.
The Perils of Constantly Starting Something New
---
MPS: Unpack that one. What do you mean?
Richard James: So, this is like almost the same sister to stop doing what's working. So this idea of you're constantly read a book, you get an idea, you start something new today. Mm-Hmm. You watch a podcast.You get an idea. You start something new today. So, maybe you do keep [00:27:00] doing what's working, but you're running your team ragged.
Because you come home with a brand new marketing idea, a brand new product idea, a brand new sales idea, and they have no time to get any traction, cause you just keep starting something new, whether it's your own personal ego or it's really you're a good student and you're bringing something new.
Sometimes new is not good. Sometimes new is good. And there's a balance to it. But if you want to, I mean, if you start too many new things over and over again, a couple things are gonna happen. First, your existing team is gonna stop trusting you. Right. Because they're gonna be like, oh, they're just gonna, it's just gonna move on to the next thing after this one gets old.
Because they're constantly chasing the new and shiny. And second, even if they do trust you, they're gonna struggle to get traction. 'cause there's not gonna be focus. Does that make sense?
MPS: It does. It's easy to fall victim to that you know, especially with the amount of content we consume between podcasts, between videos books, which you're a little bit more heavy on than I am.
But between all of that, I mean, there's ideas galore. Like [00:28:00] you hear something new every single day. You're in the gym working out in the morning, you're listening to my first million. A new idea hits your head, right? And then you want to go out and you want to implement it. You're right though. You gotta be careful of doing that.
And there are some ideas that are probably worth pursuing and trying, but if you do that too much, it can get disruptive.
Richard James: Yeah. So, you want to keep a bank of those ideas.
MPS: Correct.
Richard James: Because there's gonna be a time and place for them. Okay. But it does lead into the number 10, right?
The Importance of Continuous Growth and Learning
---
Richard James: Which for me is a big one.
If the number 10 thing, you can make sure that you.
The Importance of Continuous Learning and Growth
---
Richard James: Stop doing in order to ruin your business is stop growing. Stop reading. Stop listening. Stop getting educated. So while I don't want you to do something new every day. I want to make sure anybody who's listening understands that if you want to screw up your business.
You stop staying plugged in. Like you need to be around peers that are holding you accountable. You need to be listening to podcasts or YouTube channels or [00:29:00] reading books, whatever your thing is. Like, I tried to never judge you about whether you like books and I didn't, sorry.
I like books, and you didn't like books. I try not to judge you about that 'cause I know. You watch YouTube channels or you listen to podcasts, and so you consume your way, and so you just have to find what works for you. And if you wanna make sure that you fail, you wanna stop growing as a human, as a leader, as a business owner.
Does that make sense?
MPS: It does. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're the leader of
the business can go only go as far as you. Right? So if you're small-minded, or you're not growing. Likely that's going to mirror in the business. Because it follows your path and your guidance.
So Yeah. I think that's a great point. Not only for anyone that's, you know, just bought a practice and doesn't want to screw it up, but owns a practice, just generally speaking, that's just good for people to keep growing.
Richard James: Yeah. No. I believe in going to Automobile University, you know that?
Mm-Hmm. As you and your brother as young [00:30:00] kids, you'd have used to have to sit through me driving in traffic, listening to Dan Kennedy.
MPS: Yeah. Dan Kennedy would pop up.
Richard James: Yeah.
MPS: The no BS tapes.
Richard James: Right, right.
MPS: The diamond call would be on.
Richard James: The fact that you just said tapes.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: Tells you how long I've been doing this.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: Right, right. So tapes CDs now plugging your phone in and listening to it. It's I believe in constantly being educated. Right. And I think that if you want to be unsuccessful you need to make sure you stop being educated, right?
MPS: Yep.
The Risk of Taking Advice from the Wrong People
---
Richard James: Let's talk about the 11th thing that you could make sure that you do to ruin your business. The inverse of that is what we'll really want to do, but the number 11 is start taking advice from poor people.
MPS: Okay.
Richard James: So, somebody once said, I don't remember who said it first. But if you want to become successful, you've got two choices.
You can go find a successful person and do exactly what they did, or you can go find a bum and do the [00:31:00] opposite. Right. And it was meant to be entertaining. But I find that a lot of, not young people, all people, regardless whether they start into a program or an education process where they're moving in the right direction, they can feel change happening, and then BAM their brother-in-Law.
Tells them about why they shouldn't do it. That, what do they know about this? Why should they go down? How dare you think you are better than or they start giving you advice and you look at your brother-in-Law and he is driving a 19 eighty-two Toyota Corolla.
MPS: Right.
Richard James: You know what I mean? And I'm not judging that. But he's got holes in his jeans. He's got old shoes. He doesn't keep with his appearance, he doesn't read any books. CDs or podcasts. He does nothing to benefit himself. He's a civilian. He is working a job, which is fine if that's what they want to do, but he's not an entrepreneur and he's giving you advice. And maybe that's an exaggerated form of that.
MPS: Sure.
Richard James: But it's [00:32:00] just being really careful. About where you get your advice from. Does that make sense?
MPS: Yeah. Yes it makes crystal clear sense and I think it's one of those things that I think is good for entrepreneurs, but I know me personally I want to try to get into a room where I'm the dumbest person in the room.
Right? Like, I have to, I'm learning, I've got examples in front of me. I mean, trying to take advice or letting stuff that poor people that are down in the dumps give to you is, you don't wanna be in their shoes. Right.
Richard James: And it's poor in money and poor in spirit.
MPS: Mindsets.
Richard James: Right.
MPS: Spirit. Yeah. It doesn't just have to be financial, but if you look at the person that's giving you advice and this is the kind of the way I frame it and you look at their situation, how they are, and you think to yourself. That's not where I want to be, then you probably shouldn't be taking advice from.
The opposite's also true. If you look at someone's, that's exactly what I want to do. It's probably a good person to take advice from.
Richard James: Yeah. Well, Jim Rohn said, you will become the average of the five people you spend your [00:33:00] most time with. Now, you said something that was really important and you mentioned it, which leads us to our 12th thing that you could make sure that you do to ruin your business and start going down the wrong path, which is.
The Consequences of Believing You're the Smartest Person in the RoomThe Danger of Believing You're the Smartest in the Room
---
Richard James: Start to believe you're the smartest person in the room. Right? Yeah. And meaning that you're too cool for school. You're smarter than everybody else. You stop listening. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason, so you could listen twice as much as you speak.
And you stop doing that because you think you are the smartest person in the room. Maybe you've got an advanced degree, maybe you're a lawyer, maybe you're a certified financial planner. Maybe you've been doing what you've been doing for 20 or 25 years and you really are intelligent, but you start believing that you're so smart that you couldn't take advice from anybody else regardless of who they are.
Does that resonate? I know that doesn't resonate with you 'cause that's not who you are.
MPS: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense Is that's a dangerous position to get in. That's a really dangerous position [00:34:00] to get in because then you're relying on just you at that point, which, cool, that only gets you so far.
Right. And so once you hit that pinnacle point where now it starts to tilt the other direction, if you continue that mindset, it's gonna run you into the ground.
Richard James: Awesome. Let's get to the 13th.
MPS: Let's hear it. All right. 13 way to screw up the business.
Richard James: Number 13. If you wanna make sure you screw up your business is to do this or to stop doing this.
The Importance of Expecting ExcellenceThe Importance of Expecting Excellence
---
Richard James: Stop expecting excellence. I was having a conversation with somebody the other day. I went and got my salad. No, it was a Greek salad because I was at a Greek restaurant, and it was one of those restaurants that they now have just like Chipotle kind of thing, where you walk up and they scoop the little stuff in the thing.
And they give it to you at the end. And then she flips the screen around and she's like, I've got one more question for you. I'm like, okay, I get that. And you know, normally it's whatever, 10%, 15%, 20% no tip, custom tip, whatever. Oh, now, huh? [00:35:00] Now it says 20%, 25%, 30%. Now the salad was already $20.
Right? 19.50 for a salad. Right. And so now they're expecting I'm gonna give a 25% tip on a salad. So now I'm gonna spend $25 on a salad. And all they did, all she did was flip the screen over. I mean, literally the person down the line may have at least scooped the stuff into the little plastic container.
But I feel like we're starting to reward mediocrity. And we're starting to stop expecting excellence of ourselves, right? As a leader. Stop expecting excellence of our people. Stop expecting excellence and behavior of our clients. Stop expecting excellence. All around us and we're rewarding mediocrity.
Rewarding Mediocrity vs. Expecting Excellence
---
Richard James: And so if you wanna ruin your business, a business that's already working well, start rewarding mediocrity and stop [00:36:00] expecting excellence. Does that make sense?
MPS: It makes total sense. And then, the good news is good news, bad news. Bad news is that we're rewarding mediocrity. Good news is excellence is really standing out now.
Right? So excellence, I mean, we just went for a celebratory dinner last night. Right.
Richard James: And that was.
MPS: Yeah, that was,
that was good.
Richard James: That was awesome.
MPS: That was great. Charlie's down here in Orlando and he was.
Richard James: Highly recommended.
MPS: Highly recommended. And from the moment we pulled up, you know, just excellence from the moment we walked in the door, everyone welcomed to
Richard James: any need was anticipated.
MPS: And that's something that you just don't get, like before you even knew you're gonna need more water. Water was there before you even knew you were gonna need a next set of silver. More silverware was there. Right. It was just, everything was anticipated. So it's fun to watch Excellence happen at the same time.
Richard James: It happened here at the Ritz too, this morning for breakfast.
MPS: Yep.
Richard James: Right. The young girl was a young woman. She was she's a photographer or a singer songwriter. But she's working as a waitress to [00:37:00] make some bucks, you know, standard story. Yeah. But she was on it.
MPS: So on it.
Richard James: I mean, for breakfast she replaced my cut cutlery like three times.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: Now that means I ate a lot 'cause it was a buffet but still.
that was our,
MPS: That was our mistake.
Richard James: Yeah. But still, like she was on it and it just.
MPS: Very much so.
Richard James: You know, so, and of course the Ritz has a reputation for expecting excellence. Charlie's, I guarantee you expects excellence. As a matter of fact, they expect excellence so much that they only allow the managers to cut the meat.
MPS: That was crazy to hear that story. And it's so much so just as a tangent that they have the managers come in and go through a day in the life of a manager of Charlie's before it's them confirming, are you sure you want this job, basically?
Richard James: Right. Right.
MPS: And they have to spend hours in the cooler. Cutting, the cuts of meat.
Richard James: Correct.
MPS: And so that's excellence, right?
Richard James: Yeah. I just can't say it enough. If you want your business to grow, the opposite is expect excellence. Stop rewarding [00:38:00] mediocrity. If you wanna screw up your business, stop expecting excellence and start rewarding mediocrity.
Final Thoughts and ReflectionsClosing Thoughts and Reflections
---
Richard James: Mm. So there's 13 things, young man. That I think I've got all the confidence in the world, which is why I sold my business to you. Forty-nine percent of it.
MPS: Thank you.
Richard James: Uh, So that, because I believe that you don't believe any of these things are part of who you are. But I thought I'd want to get these recorded for you.
MPS: Yeah.
Richard James: So they were good memory for you. God forbid, you know, I'm not here tomorrow. We don't want that to happen. I get it. But God forbid and we thought maybe somebody else could benefit from that lesson too. Oh, well. So thanks for being part of that.
MPS: I appreciate it. And I think it's, I think this is helpful. I think these are 13 really solid reason.
Richard James: Yeah, look, don't screw up your business. How about take the charm monger approach and let's invert everything we talked about today and do the opposite of it. I think you're gonna find yourself serving more clients in a sales driven, client focused business and building it on these concepts of systems and structures that you're gonna continue to do.
MPS: Yeah. Hey, give [00:39:00] some love to Rich. I mean, I'm sure this video's gonna go up at some point because it was valuable, so give some love to rich in the comments. Hit that like button and
subscribe or follow if this does go up.
Richard James: Appreciate you.