[00:00:00] Richard James: Hey everybody, welcome to today's episode of the Your Practice Mastered podcast. My name is Richard James and today I'm joined with a very special guest, MPS.

[00:00:14] MPS: Hey everyone, super excited to be on. Feel like you haven't ever heard my voice before, but I'm excited about today because I think I get the opportunity to be interviewed similar to Rich last time. So, this is gonna be a fun episode, at least we're certainly gonna try to make it so, and hopefully draw some valuable lessons while doing it.

[00:00:30] Richard James: Yeah, you know, so obviously if you've been listening to this at all, you know that. MPS is my son, right? So his name is Michael Patrick Strauch, and my name is Richard James and my real name is Richard James Strauch, but nobody could say or spell Strauch as I had all my companies. And so I decided when I built this company, I was going to brand under Richard James.

[00:00:48] And, but Michael doesn't feel that way. And he goes by MPS. I suppose that's why he did that, but I'll let him tell you that. What I want to, you know, our goal today, Michael, correct me if I'm wrong, but was for them to get to know you a [00:01:00] little bit better because last week they got to know me a little bit better.

[00:01:03] MPS: Yeah, that's the goal. I want to share a little bit more context behind the story and what led me to be in this position right now.

[00:01:09] Richard James: So tell me what was the reason for the MPS? Would that come out of previous YouTube years or did that, like, how did that develop? Was it also because the difficulty to say and spell our name or what's up?

[00:01:22] MPS: No, it was actually Delaney, my fiancée, future bride. Her mom originally started saying MPS, calling me MPS, and I was like, I like that, and then I started using that on YouTube content, and then I started using that around you guys, and then everybody started calling me that, so MPS just stuck, and it coincidentally, just fits a little bit more naturally because Strauch is a little difficult to pronounce for someone that doesn't know it.

[00:01:44] So MPS was a nice fit.

[00:01:47] Richard James: I had somebody that's known us for a long time the other day say Strauch to me for like the hundredth time and I finally said, Look, we're friends. So I just need to tell you, I don't care. [00:02:00] You could call me whatever you want, but I think you want to know that's not the right way to say her name.

[00:02:04] And they were like mortified, right. That they'd been saying it wrong all these years, but I would like, it's been too long for me not to tell you. Right. So, like I always thought it was Strauch. I'm like, I know we've got it. But here's what it really is. So I don't think they'll ever forget it again.

[00:02:20] But yeah, anyway let's, you know, so look, we both work kneecap to kneecap with attorneys on a daily basis. The mission of this podcast, as you well know, is to provide value to those attorneys. And I think them getting to know who you are and why you have the chops that you have to teach them, I think is really important.

[00:02:39] But before I go there, I don't know, maybe tell everybody something that everybody else doesn't know about you.

[00:02:48] MPS: I'm a registered ACL player. So I'm a registered American cornhole league player. So I'm welcoming a challenge from anybody that's listening to this podcast. I'd [00:03:00] be willing to probably put money on the fact that I'll win. Now I'm putting my mouth on the line there, but yeah, that's my fun fact.

[00:03:07] Unfortunately during COVID, there was no matches to actually play, but I did get registered during that time period.

[00:03:14] Richard James: Oh, that's great. Well, so, yeah, so I get the myself and my best friend growing up or one of my best friends growing up, Brian Laws, we get the credit for turning Michael and his co partner Corey into Cornhole Maniacs, and Michael has now become very good at Cornhole after many years, and he still claims that they have the winning record.

[00:03:37] I suppose I've got to give him that.

[00:03:39] MPS: We do, it's, there's, it, we ran over the last three years on the beach, so, I mean, it's a winning record.

[00:03:46] Richard James: You would think that, you know, you would think after he got to the legal age and he could drink beer with us on the beach that we would definitely beat him. But that didn't happen. So, anyway.

[00:03:55] MPS: Being reverse that actually happen.

[00:03:56] Richard James: Okay. So, okay. So you've thrown down the cornhole gauntlet. [00:04:00] Good. So you're going to be getting messages for a hundred dollar cornhole matches soon. Beware.

[00:04:04] MPS: Comment down below, I'm willing to take all of them.

[00:04:08] Richard James: All right. So, look, a lot of times I like to start this entrepreneurial journey at the beginning, but I actually want to reverse rules a little bit. I'm going to build the story behind, you know, really your origin story into the legal arena. Cause I think that's really important. So walk us through like.

[00:04:31] You know, how did you, well, really what I'm looking for is a lesson, but I'm gonna let you tell the story and then I'll ask the lesson point. How did you find your way into the legal arena and helping people understand how to close deals in the consult room?

[00:04:48] MPS: Yeah, so I'll start at the middle of the story then. So, if I start at the middle of the story, the way that transition happened was I had graduated from college, And I had just gotten [00:05:00] done with a business that I had built over really a six year period. And I decided I wanted to exit out of that business.

[00:05:09] And just graduating, I felt like there was opportunity in front of me. I could really do whatever I wanted. Thankfully that business, which I'm sure we'll touch on provided me a very good income source throughout my end of high school years and all of college years. And so I had come to you and I said, Hey, let's do something together because I thought that would be a pretty cool opportunity.

[00:05:30] And as you recall, we sat down in Christmas time and went through just about every single business option you could think of. We put out strengths, weaknesses, what we like, what we didn't like, and ran through the gamut of just about every business you could imagine. And we finally boiled it down and we're like, okay, what's up?

[00:05:50] There were both really good sales, right? Sales was just not.

[00:05:53] Richard James: Before you go there. I get we're about to run into this and I am excited about that, but I'm gonna have questions there, and I have a question that [00:06:00] hit me just now before, so forgive me for interrupting you, but.

[00:06:03] MPS: Okay.

[00:06:04] Richard James: The lesson I want to take, what you just said, I really want to pull a lesson out of, so you decided to exit a business, right?

[00:06:12] And the way that you exited the business. I mean, so what did that mean for you? Did you sell the business?

[00:06:20] MPS: Good question. No, not yet. I haven't.

[00:06:24] Richard James: So, you decided to let the business run.

[00:06:29] MPS: I decided to let the business run. I built a business that generated mostly passive income for the most part. And I decided I would let it run with maybe a little maintenance here and there and just let the income that came come over the next few years. That's really the way I decided to exit it.

[00:06:49] I really didn't have a clear exit strategy to be honest with you.

[00:06:52] Richard James: Well, it's not like

[00:06:53] MPS: I knew.

[00:06:54] Richard James: Well, I don't, it's not like it's, I'm not, it wasn't blame. It was more like, so, but the point I want to get to is [00:07:00] here's the lesson in this. I think you decide to let it run it for a while. It ran just fine and brought you an income. But over time, the more attention you put on something else and the less attention you put on this, something happened to that business, didn't it?

[00:07:13] MPS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we can boil it down to one word, that one word being focused. My focus was on something else. My focus and effort were on something else. And so there was no focus or attention happening on that other business. And I had already come to terms with the fact that if at some point in time, the income from that wound down, I was okay with that.

[00:07:34] And I had to be okay with that because I wasn't doing anything to help facilitate it to grow. So focus was the lesson. What you put your focus on is what's going to grow or what you're going to attempt to grow. And so because there was no focus on that business over time it, it's not completely gone, but it certainly came down quite substantially from where it was at a high point.

[00:07:56] Richard James: Good. Okay, great. That was what I want to get. So back to the, you chose sales [00:08:00] and sales training is what you were passionate about and you can pick back up where you were.

[00:08:03] MPS: Yeah. Yeah. So that, I mean that when we sat down, we looked at it, we said sales, in my previous business, which I will loop back to and touch on, I was doing training. And so I was training through video content. And so training was something I was already familiar with doing. Sales was something I've always loved to do.

[00:08:21] And I've done it throughout my entire life. It's been an undertone of just about everything I've always done. So sales training seemed like a natural fit. Well, obviously, you know, working with Partners Club, you had a group of law firm owners and you recognize that Law firm owners could use help with sales.

[00:08:38] And so we decided to launch into law firm owners. So what we decided to do was I was going to go work in a firm and solve the sales process, right? I was going to go physically do it. And so that's what I did. We had a firm step up, raise their hand. I know we referenced it in their podcast episode, but the Graftons out in [00:09:00] Maryland decided they would give me the opportunity to come in and prove this out.

[00:09:03] So we took the intellectual property from partners club. I boiled down this very convoluted sales system into our current sales system. Came into the Grafton's firm and they were closing at 50 percent at the time. And this was during COVID era. So we were running virtual consultations and by the end of the 90 days that they gave me, we were closing at 84%.

[00:09:25] We increased their fees, increased the amount of paid in fulls that happened during the initial consultation. It was a smashing success. The Graftons loved it. And I decided to then launch into a beta group of clients of different law firm owners in different practice areas.

[00:09:39] Richard James: So hang on.

[00:09:40] MPS: Because I had to figure, yeah.

[00:09:42] Richard James: Sorry. So, that's a pretty dramatic increase. And I'm going to come back to that word focus. Do you believe your ability to focus on solving that one problem and knowing how to solve the problem using the system that you had, is that what made the difference or is it, was it just you?

[00:09:58] And you're so [00:10:00] good at sales. You've been selling your whole life and that's why you're able to get that result?

[00:10:04] MPS: No, I mean, obviously having an undertone of sales helped with the initial launch of this. But focus is what did it, I mean, because I wasn't focused on running every aspect of their business. I was focused on Solving converting more consultations into paying clients one very specific thing and so that focus helped guided that increase in conversion rate and more so to further that point we took that focus and I decided I had to make sure it wasn't just me. So, I had to now take that same system and figure out if I could teach other law firms to implement it.

[00:10:41] So I took a beta group, different law firm owners, different practice areas, and I started training them on this system and structure. And they came with an average across all of them of about a 33.7 percent close rate.

[00:10:56] Richard James: That's what they were closing.

[00:10:57] MPS: And the end of

[00:10:58] Richard James: That's what they were closing at when they walked the room.

[00:10:59] MPS: That's [00:11:00] what they were closing at when they originally started, right?

[00:11:03] When they originally started 33. 7%. And at the end of 30 days of implementing this structure and system, they all averaged out at about 65%. So, they jumped from 65%. Well, then the thesis proved true. We determined that we can take this same system, take me out of the equation and teach law firms to do this.

[00:11:25] And that's exactly what we did. And then we took it and grew it and grew it. And now, you know, we've had the opportunity through the closing room across all facets of its impact over a hundred firms.

[00:11:37] Richard James: How many consults do you think you have either personally participated in listened to or coached clients or client salespeople or your own salespeople for a minute when you had some done for yourself? How many do you think you've been through personally through the years now?

[00:11:53] MPS: Easily thousands. I mean, I would say at this point, close to 5,000 [00:12:00] consultations. I've probably either I've run, listened to or helped coach on or score. So it's been a lot.

[00:12:06] Richard James: So, the question of expert is not in question anymore. How old are you, by the way?

[00:12:12] MPS: 25.

[00:12:13] Richard James: 25 and have done 5,000 consultations or coached on 5,000 consultations. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine when you're 50? Okay. So, yeah, no, yeah, well, you're looking at them. So I guess this is if you're lucky, you'll have hair.

[00:12:26] You probably will have here. I will. You got your grandfather's genes. Yeah. So.

[00:12:31] MPS: Hoping that too.

[00:12:32] Richard James: I hope so too, for your sake. So, okay. So, now let's go back. So let's go back. Let's go back into the history a little bit and let's talk a little bit about, so we set the status of this. But one of the things that I thought was really interesting.

[00:12:48] So, not a lot of lawyers, interesting enough. Here's what I find. Not a lot of lawyers actually chose to open their own practice, like they [00:13:00] obviously chose to open their own practice. That's why they did it, but they didn't like go into law thinking that and I know that because I taught at a, I taught I sat in on one class and was a teacher or a lecturer for class and I asked a bunch of law students.

[00:13:16] How many of them like are considered themselves entrepreneurial business owners, whatever, and not a single hand went up and there was like 20 or 30 students in the room. But then I said, well, how many of you think at some point in your career you may have to open up your hang your own shingle.

[00:13:35] Everybody's hand went up, right? So what's interesting is they don't see themselves as business owners. But you've always seen yourself that way. I mean, maybe it's because mom and I always, you know, believe that profits were better than wages, but I also say that you were born this way. So you always saw yourself as a business owner first.

[00:13:53] Is that right?

[00:13:55] MPS: Yeah, I call it genetic wiring plus nurture versus nature, but I [00:14:00] never even saw another path. Like, I mentally I didn't even comprehend the idea of working for somebody like being an employee just never even crossed my mind.

[00:14:09] Richard James: What job did you have? You had a job. You had a job. You have two jobs.

[00:14:11] MPS: Yeah, I had several. I had several. I was a dishwasher, I was a busser, I was a server, I'd flip pizzas, I worked at a Christmas tree shop being a salesperson. I did a lot of jobs, but they were all very quick and temporary and I was never able to stick at them very long.

[00:14:28] Richard James: Ah, yeah. So, but it's interesting. All of some of those jobs, the ones you liked, I think had more salesman, like the server job you enjoyed it because it had the sales side of it.

[00:14:36] MPS: The server, my favorite was probably the Christmas tree sales job. That was the most exciting one. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:43] Richard James: Okay. So, so,

[00:14:44] MPS: That was the most exciting one.

[00:14:45] Richard James: Your journey, you had jobs, but along the way, you also started businesses along the way. So you had this spirit, right? Of generating a business here or there. Correct?

[00:14:55] MPS: Well before I was of working age, I would do anything and [00:15:00] everything to just make money on my own. I would dye Nike Elite socks and flip them on eBay. I started a lawn care business and cut grass with my friend and would go door to door for fun to every door in the neighborhood just to try to close deals and get people to buy our lawn care service.

[00:15:17] I had, we had a landscaper. wasn't very good at lead generation and at whatever it was, 11 years old, I offered to go generate him leads. So I would go door to door on all the neighborhoods by us and start to generate him leads. And if I'm not mistaken, I think you got a call and actually said I started overwhelming him with the amount of lead he got.

[00:15:38] Richard James: Yeah. Berto texted to me and says, please have your son stop sending me leads.

[00:15:45] MPS: Yeah, right. So, but there was always that doing something on my own. But it always had that sales undertone. Like I used to love going to, every kid whenever you got that like you have to sell chocolate [00:16:00] fundraiser. Hated it. And I was like, oh, this is gonna be a piece of cake. Like, I looked at it as an opportunity.

[00:16:05] I was gonna be the top person in the class to do it, 'cause I got to go door to the entire neighborhood, knock on every door, making sure I sold all the chocolate like I used to love that kind of stuff. But most people despise it.

[00:16:17] I remember when you, how much did you sell that a hundred dollar bill for?

[00:16:23] 120. Yes, I did flip a 100 bill on eBay for 120. Yes.

[00:16:27] Richard James: So, okay. Everybody's going, cause I might put that at the headlines. He's so good at sales. He could sell a hundred dollar bill for 120. How did you sell a hundred dollar bill for 120?

[00:16:38] MPS: I heard somewhere that there was a new 100 bill that came out and I decided to go get one of the new 100.

[00:16:44] Richard James: Was like 2011 or 12 or something like that. Right?

[00:16:49] MPS: Somewhere in that ballpark. And so I decided to go to the bank and get a new one. I didn't think it looked all that special, but someone obviously thought it did. And so I put it on eBay for [00:17:00] 120 and somebody bought it. Moral of the story, it was great to sell it for 120. It really wasn't ultimately worth it outside of the story because it was a real pain to have to package up how they wanted it.

[00:17:12] It had to be like collector mint edition. Nothing could get touched, folded, anything like that. So I think I spent more money in packaging it than it was actually even worth to me. But the story was cool.

[00:17:24] Richard James: That's great. Good. All right. So, you obviously, you were active in generating profits better than wages, took some jobs to figure some things out. But whilst you were doing that, you did land on, like, you actually had started, if I'm not mistaken , what you call it? The computer MD of Gilbert? Am I right about that?

[00:17:44] MPS: Yeah, I started running, it started by doing local. Like computer lessons because I like technology for senior citizens in the area and I called it computer MD at Gilbert. We were back at Gilbert, right? And so then I figured okay, if I could do it [00:18:00] there Maybe I'll try to start doing like technology tutorials online So I started a YouTube channel the computer MD at Gilbert and then what had happened and this is where we launched into the business that fed me all the way through college is, I got 50 subscribers on YouTube with ComputerMD at Gilbert.

[00:18:17] And I wanted to build a website to try to find ways, of course, to optimize revenue, start getting people off of YouTube onto my own list. And what I did was I was looking for all the web development platforms, finally landed on Wix. Wix was one that I really liked, thought it was a cool platform. And when I was trying to build a website, I recognized that I couldn't find training resources.

[00:18:40] Like it was, Wix was brand new and I couldn't find anything. Like I've tried to do something when I built the website, couldn't find how to do it. So then I decided, I don't know, light bulb just went off. Well, I've already got a YouTube channel. I like technology and there's obviously an open market here.

[00:18:55] So I just started making Wix tutorials and I started showing people. I would [00:19:00] tinker and then I would show people how to do what I did. And so I just started doing that and then it started to grow and then it grew and then it continued to grow and Wix was growing in popularity alongside it, which of course was an added benefit to all of this.

[00:19:15] And I grew it to the point where I became Wix's largest global influencer and I was the primary source on YouTube for Wix training content. And I was able to generate leads at ease like on demand, I didn't have to do anything leads would just come to me and say, Hey, can you help build a website? And so while that was happening, I decided to build a web development agency off the back of it.

[00:19:43] And I had zero acquisition costs because the leads would just flow in. And I looked at that as another opportunity to get to optimize sales because I get to generate these leads and now sell them. And so I built this web development agency. It was going really [00:20:00] great until it didn't. And I hit a point where during college, cause this was all during college that I built this, it got to the point where I had probably about nine people on the team and it got stressful fast, I was utilizing contract labor that would kind of be 10 99s on the team.

[00:20:24] And they would drop the ball and then I'd have major client problems. And then I'd get, you know, Hey, I need a refund or this or that. And now I've got to balance cashflow and payroll. And it was my first real big lesson in that arena. And I realized at that time during college, I was in my last probably two years.

[00:20:44] And I was like I really, I don't want to stress this during college. I just kind of want to enjoy the passive income that I was generating from YouTube. And just enjoy the rest of my college years without the stress of nine employees and having to deal with clients in the whole [00:21:00] nine. And so that's where I learned my first big lesson and decided to, yeah, I know there's going to be questions there.

[00:21:05] Richard James: So built that business up to a couple hundred thousand. Is that right? Two, three?

[00:21:10] MPS: Yeah, I was doing a few hundred thousand at the top side and then YouTube was obviously providing passive income.

[00:21:16] Richard James: Right. And so, you're earning, you know, some six figures from YouTube without really doing anything, but posting videos and you've grew your business. There's so many lessons in here. So one of the lessons I heard as I wrote it down was try a lot of things. So, I feel like when I talk to law firm owners, and maybe you can say this too, they feel like they, you know, they want to try like one thing and that's it.

[00:21:37] They don't keep like, they just want that one thing to work. Right? And sometimes it does. And when you work with experts, oftentimes it does, but more times than not, you have to try multiple iterations, even when you and I create sales scripts for us or for anybody else you test, you tried multiple things until you figured out what works.

[00:21:53] And I think that's a lesson there. Would you agree with that?

[00:21:57] MPS: Yes, but there are two things that led to [00:22:00] that. I'm not a perfectionist. So I did not care if things were perfect and two, again, call this nature. I had zero fake fear of failure. So I just didn't care if things failed I was willing to test things and if it just failed that I didn't care like I was kind of numb to It just it made no difference to me whatsoever.

[00:22:22] It would either work or it wouldn't but I wouldn't be scared to test it And so I think those two helped me be able to test a bunch of different things.

[00:22:30] Richard James: So, so yeah, that's huge. The fact that you had no fear of failure and you weren't a perfectionist. Would you say that you find law firm owners have a fear of failure and are perfectionists by nature when we run into them?

[00:22:44] MPS: Both.

[00:22:45] Richard James: Both, right.

[00:22:46] MPS: So, traditionally, I see that they inherit both of those

[00:22:48] Richard James: traits.

[00:22:48] So it gets in their way a little bit, right?

[00:22:51] MPS: Right.

[00:22:52] Richard James: Okay. Got it. So we can unpack that, but we don't really know because we're not them. So we don't know why it happens. We just know that it's there. So for the law firm owner out there, if you're listening to [00:23:00] this, recognize that in yourself and recognize that as in some cases, certainly a strength in some of the things that you do but in marketing and business also could be a weakness, right?

[00:23:08] So, the other thing that you said was you said, I wanted to get them off YouTube and onto my list. What was that all about? And why is that so important?

[00:23:21] MPS: Well, the number one asset in your business is your list and on YouTube, if YouTube shut down tomorrow, YouTube theoretically owns that audience. I don't own it. They're subscribers. I post content to it. Great. They see it when I post it on YouTube. If that some for reason went away, I'm screwed. So I had to figure out a way to get them off of YouTube and on my house list where they were now, I owned that list.

[00:23:50] And now I could email it to them. Now I have a list of people that will buy things that will respond to things. And so it was really a protection tool as well as [00:24:00] an asset and that list is part of what served me so well during that time, because you have other brands, you have advertisers, and if they have an opportunity to not just market on YouTube, but also connect with your list, who you've built a relationship with, well, that makes a world of difference.

[00:24:18] Richard James: Yeah. Cause you were able to leverage that list. If you wanted, if you had, you were going to go on a trip to London with school or something, you could email into the list and offer some product service or whatever. And some portion of your list would just naturally buy it because they had a trust factor with you and they knew you delivered good quality stuff and so they would give you money and you'd wake up in the morning and boom, you'd have three, four, five, 10, 000, right?

[00:24:40] MPS: I still routinely do that. If I just want to grab a little extra cash and I have a good product that I know, like a course that I've built and I'll just throw a sale into the list just to have some fun money.

[00:24:51] Richard James: So how many subscribers did you have on YouTube?

[00:24:55] MPS: It's up to like 95, 000 subscribers now. And at the peak, [00:25:00] it was doing three to 5 million views a year. And several hundred thousand hours of watch time.

[00:25:05] Richard James: And how many people are on your email list?

[00:25:09] MPS: 35, 40,000.

[00:25:11] Richard James: That's not including those who unsubscribed through the years. So, it was bigger than that, but people got off of it. Right? So you were able to get some 30 to 40 percent of your subscriber list to move over to your email list that you now own. So you're not just relying on them seeing the YouTube video.

[00:25:28] You can control where you can communicate with them at will. And so do you see that as an opportunity for law firms as well? Do you see that law firms don't necessarily understand the power in their list and what they can do with it?

[00:25:41] MPS: Absolutely. I mean, many don't even recognize the idea of building a list, right? You're taking all of your marketing ideas, resources, money, time, investing them into marketing. You might as well capitalize on that and make sure we're harvesting every single person that comes through. [00:26:00] Build a list because now you've got a list and even if they don't need your service today, now you've got a list that you can continue to build a relationship and now you're the go to for them when they do have this problem that your firm helps solve.

[00:26:12] Richard James: Yeah. And so many firms I hear, well, bankruptcy, they're only going to be served once. And I don't need to see them again for another seven years. Why do I matter? Well, because what if you decide at some point in the road that you want to offer personal injury, or you want to work with a personal injury firm and market into your list and do a fee share or something, or some other type of firm, like an estate planning firm or a family law firm and maybe you don't do the work, but you could get a fee share out of it.

[00:26:34] And, you know, so there's all sorts of ways to monetize that list. But at the end of the day, you're relationship with that list and the bigger the audience that knows, likes, and trusts you, the more referrals you can get from them, the more trust factor you can build and gain, the more reviews you can get from them.

[00:26:51] You know, everything that you want from your list is accessible if you'll just build a list and communicate with it. Did I accurately say that?

[00:26:59] MPS: Absolutely.[00:27:00]

[00:27:00] Richard James: Okay. So then the final lesson was that it was interesting as you went into the you started offering services. And so you were in the service business of building websites for people.

[00:27:10] What you found is that two things you found your desire to manage the way that you were managing it whilst you were going through school. So the lack of focus that you had, you didn't have enough time to put in it because you had school and you had other responsibilities, a girlfriend, a fraternity, whatever.

[00:27:27] And then you had all these employees, you were managing it. You decided it wasn't worth it. So that's one lesson making the decision. And the second lesson is, if you're not very good at what you do and you don't have a great team with great systems and great structures that execute on a regular basis, you speed up the pace at which people figure out you're not very good at what you do.

[00:27:46] And it can be detrimental to your overall business. And so those two things led you to decide to close that. And I don't know if you see the parallel or what the lesson there is for law firm.

[00:27:57] MPS: Yeah, I mean, right, I think that [00:28:00] the parallel is recognizing that between sales and operations, there's a delicate balance and you've got to be able to fulfill on what you say you're going to do. And there was a valuable lesson there for me. Of course, you know, we took care of the clients, made sure we made everything whole for any clients that didn't have a great experience.

[00:28:18] But you've got to be able to make sure that you've got a good client experience on the backside of the sales process. For me, I was very good at selling the projects and we sold a lot of them, but the systems on the back end weren't where they needed to be from an operation standpoint. So to your point, we just sped up the pace of which everybody realized the experience wasn't all that phenomenal on the other side.

[00:28:43] And so for the law firm owners, it's that delicate balance. You need sales, you've got to maximize sales, but you need to make sure you've got systems built in on the backside to micromanage that client experience and fulfill on the result that you promised.

[00:28:56] Richard James: Good. I love it, man. What lessons today? [00:29:00] That is awesome. So, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, we have got, man. Okay. Last last question. So, you know, we bridge the gap. Now they've got the full picture of how you started, got through it, what you did now, what you've been doing, working with lawyers now for over 5,000 initial consultations to understand what they go through.

[00:29:17] And obviously you experienced the pain that goes around all of that. What are some of your personal habits that help you stay disciplined and untasked?

[00:29:27] MPS: Yeah. Well, first and foremost, obviously taking care of the health. Right? So, I think the gym helps refocus. There was a period in time there where I got off consistency with it and I recognize it, right? I felt it in the day. I recognize it wasn't as sharp, wasn't as focused, wasn't as energetic. So making sure waking up, getting to the gym every day.

[00:29:47] But then also I'm a very disciplined person, but I'm probably the most fluid disciplined person that there is. So I'm very disciplined in the things that I need to get done, but I'm very fluid about when they [00:30:00] happen. And so I would just say that making sure if there's stuff you need to get done for me, that success habit is to make sure it gets blocked, right?

[00:30:09] I have to block it in the calendar. And if I don't block it in the calendar, not that it won't get done, but it may not get done at the time I need it to get done. And so that's one of the biggest things I could tell, especially law firm owners. You're busy. And usually you're getting to things when you can.

[00:30:26] And so my biggest tip would be block it in the calendar if you want it to actually happen. So that way you ensure it actually happens. Otherwise people are going to be chomping at the bit for your time. You're going to get caught with a console. You're going to be caught with case work and it's just not going to happen.

[00:30:42] So that would be the biggest thing that I personally do from a success standpoint to make sure stuff gets done.

[00:30:48] Richard James: Well, that was a, those are two wonderful, perfect lessons. Making sure you take care of exercise and take care of your health. Cause it does ripple effect down into your daily activities and time blocking. Well, [00:31:00] Hey Michael, thanks so much for being on today. You know, for those of you that are listening we do have a basic gentleman's agreement.

[00:31:06] We love doing this. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I hope you enjoy the lessons that you learned from Michael today. Sorry, MPS today. And I hope that, you were able to draw the conclusions as to what this means to you and your law firm. And if you love these recordings, look where there's no compensation we need.

[00:31:21] Our compensation is in your love. And the way that you give us your love is by to like it and follow it, and comment on it and share it and subscribe. And wherever you are and however you're listening to this podcast, you know what to do by now, we'll keep doing it. If you keep letting us know that we're doing a halfway decent job.

[00:31:37] And so, again, I hope that you've found value in this today. And Michael, thanks for taking the time and time blocking your time today to record this session. I think there was a lot of writer downers, some nuggets, and people got to get a little bit more insight on who you are. So as you're doing these interviews they know you've got the chops behind it to stand up and be able to say, I know what it is that needs to get done.

[00:31:57] So, nice work.

[00:31:59] MPS: [00:32:00] Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to interview good questions today and good unpacking. And I think there was a in John Lee Dumas's terms, a lot of value bonds dropped today for law firm owners to take out of this and appreciate everyone taking the time to listen or watch.

[00:32:16] And to Rich's point just make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button, depending on the platform you're listening or watching on. And Hey, if you do want to learn more about optimizing the sales process, the links down in the description below, we'd love to schedule a time to talk to you more about your current sales process and how we may be able to help you out with that.

[00:32:35] Richard James: All right, everybody. That's a wrap. That's today's pod. Make it a great one. Good.