Mike Morse is a guy that has redefined the way law firms practice their business. Since he founded his own law firm in 1995, the company has grown to 150 employees, served 25,000 clients, and collected more than $1 billion for victims of auto, truck and motorcycle accidents. These numbers are definitive proof that Mike Morse Law Firm has become the largest personal injury firm in Michigan. His passion for his craft continues with his #1 Amazon best-selling book “Fireproof”, in which he unlocks what it takes to grow a law firm effectively like an entrepreneur would grow a venture. Mike also lectures across the country with his fresh take on the practice of law, and has since received numerous accolades including DBiz Top Lawyer and 21st Century Innovator. Likewise, he is also a familiar face in prominent news outlets and renowned publications such as The Today Show and Huffington Post, among others.
Running a law firm is not a walk in a park, and part of it is because lawyers don’t naturally think of themselves as entrepreneurs or even business people. The same sentiment is applicable with professional founders in professional service firms getting stuck in the nitty gritty of things, rather than growth. Today, I am joined by Mike Morse, who is the founder of the well-known Mike Morse Law Firm in Michigan, to talk about the art of delegation, finding the balance of working in and on your business, the important role of EOS Integrators, and getting the message across through unique advertisements.
5:01 The key differences of EOS from the “Fireproof” method
11:18 Lawyers are not naturally good business people
16:41 Delegate and elevate to extricate yourself from the day-to-day grind
20:20 You cannot scale until you can really delegate in a robust way
23:49 Mike shares how he found an integrator that would pair well with his visionary characteristic
36:31 Scaling a personal brand through unique ads
46:50 Make ads that break through the noise and highlight your core values, not those that serve as random irritation
50:28 Mike’s passionate plea to entrepreneurs
"Hire a business coach to help you learn a system like EOS-slash-Fireproof that makes you understand your business better."
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
MIKE MORSE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljmorse/
https://www.855mikewins.com/
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, integrator, law firm, business, fireproof, lawyers, gino, firm, book, calls, ads, eos, talking, running, delegate, clients, numbers, law firms, fun, mike
SPEAKERS
Mark Leary, Mike Morse, VO
Mark Leary 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary and my name is Mark, and I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. And so what I do is I help you get control of your business. And one of the ways I do that is by letting you listen in on a conversation between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world, talking about something that you already know something about. But this time we're digging in and getting the details and nuts and bolts so you can really understand and break through the ceilings and unlock the potential for your business, and ultimately, for your life. And before we dive in today, just a quick reminder, please do subscribe, share, give us the feedback, the good and the bad, we'd love everything. It's so critical and important that we get all that it really helps, I promise. And thank you for those who have done that. My guest today is a guy who I'm so excited to talk to you for a lot of reasons. But Mike Morse is the founder of the mike Moore's Law Firm, the largest personal injury law firm in Michigan. Since being founded in 95. Mike, his firm has grown to 150 employees. 150 employee law firm, served 25,000 clients and collected more than a billion dollars for victims of auto truck and motorcycle accidents. The important part of this though, is that Mike lectures across the country, because he is he's unlocked what it what it takes to grow a law firm, like a business. And why that's so exciting to me is he's put this into a book called fireproof, that just completely changed my opinion of what it is to think of your business as a business because law firms so so much like academics and other things they seem and they feel like they don't apply to regular business law, and the regular rules that we use to grow business. But what Mike did was use all those principles, so purely and so directly to grow his firm in such such a level, that it is not just an inspiration to law firms that can and should grow. But it's an inspiration to any business that is making excuses for not using the fundamentals to grow their business and be successful. So without any further ado, I'm so excited to talk to Mike. Welcome, Mike. How are you, sir?
Mike Morse 02:19
Good, Mark. Thank you. That was a fun introduction. And I'm really happy to be here with you.
Mark Leary 02:25
So if the essence of this, this start, this whole conversation starts really around Eos. For me, I'm an EOS implementer. That's what I do with my clients. You of course, have your own take on what you've done with EOS you work with Gino Whitman from the beginning. And in the book is about your journey using these tools to us the fundamentals things like data, and delegation and leadership and management and all the things that are traditional business, that I think a lot of people who are in law and pro services, in any business actually use a lot of excuses to say that doesn't we're different. It doesn't really apply to us. You know, that's big business stuff. And you're like bullshit, you know, we can we can absolutely do this. And you maintained a personal brand through it all.
03:05
What What was that like
Mark Leary 03:06
for you?
Mike Morse 03:08
Wow. So there's a lot there. There's a lot there. So you know, you're right. law firms don't think that they should be running like a business. I don't know many lawyers who want to run a business who know how to run a business. They actually looked down at me as a businessman. You know, I've heard gripes that more sees no longer practicing as a businessman, right? I wear that as a badge of honor, because I actually am still practicing. And I'm running like a business. And you know, EOS saved my life. I was Gino's first law firm. It was a rarity to have a law firm back then. And so I think a lot of law firms have jumped on the train since then. EOS taught me the basics. It's a wonderful model. It teaches you independence. It's a great five day a year coaching session, which I still do to this day with Gino Wickman, five times a year, I was just with him last month. And, you know, we decided, or we figured out over 13 years that EOS is good. But we wanted to take it to the next level. So we created a fireproof process, which basically sits on top of the EOS process, it gets more granular gets more hand holding. We don't just tell people what to do and let them do it on their own, like EOS does. We actually strategize with our clients and hold their hands to get to where they want to get to quicker than some would say the EOS model allows. Does that make sense to you, Mark?
Mark Leary 04:56
Yeah, so what's it What's that? Tell me about that. So what are the limits? What do you see
Mike Morse 05:01
Well, I think EOS is a great model for people who can, who have, who are smart, who are true entrepreneurs who can really get it done who have good follow through who can write their processes on the road, who could figure out their scorecards on their own, who could figure out the hiring and firing and all that on their own. It took me 13 years. And I'm now helping firms who don't want to wait those 13 years to get it done in a year or two or three, by literally coaching them on a weekly basis. Showing them our playbook, how we were able to do it. And this is for people who don't want to wait 13 years to do it. These are people who want to get it done quicker. And I kind of quite frankly, Mark wish I would have had the book Fireproof 30 years ago, I still would have learned the EOS process. But I would have liked somebody to hold my hand a little bit more, to eliminate some of the growing pains to eliminate some of the mistakes, to answer the questions quicker to build the scorecard. I mean, I rather than taking years and years and years to really perfect one. You know, EOS says this is what a scorecard is these are the elements go do it yourself. We say the same thing. But let us create one for you, and tweak it with you. And get it almost perfect way sooner than doing it on yourself doing it by yourself.
Mark Leary 06:39
So what I'm what I'm hearing in that is that a lot of businesses already know what they need to know what to do, there's not doing it. And so creating a structure for them to do it and be disciplined to be focused brings that to the surface. And then other businesses are still they don't know exactly what to do. But the industry has models and examples and it with a little bit of research, you can refine it and you can trial and error your way through. But maybe in pro services, or certainly where the paradigm is so different, where it's this individual is broad base of individual contributors, slash leaders, which creates, as we know, like lots of conflict and problem. There weren't models there had there wasn't a great way to archetype you it was very difficult to pick up the phone and say, Hey, you solve this problem. How did you do that? Because there weren't as many examples. And so you spent 13 years in the legal industry saying like, here's some numbers, these are the numbers and nobody but me is measuring these. And if you measure them, too, you'll get good results. Is that kind of what you ended up doing?
Mike Morse 07:32
Yes, that's that's basically what we ended up doing. And, you know, it's interesting, you said something in the intro that triggered this. So I've had half a dozen EOS implementers call me. And they've all bought 100 150 of my books to give to other businesses. And I think this is like a really interesting thing. I was blown away when the first one called me and said we are now using fireproof, to show architect firms, construction firms, dental firms, what EOS looks like in the real world, what EOS looks like it, you know, from a law firm perspective, but it's also from anybody's perspective. And I never really thought about that. I thought this is just for lawyers. And obviously EOS is not just for lawyers. And I don't think the fireproof bottle is just for lawyers, I think that we are helping other types of companies get there quicker by using EOS as our base. EOS is our base. But we are just we are helping people. You know, who who want who don't want to wait to figure it out themselves. To get there quicker and success quicker.
Mark Leary 08:45
I like what you're saying. Because what I've seen I'm a big obviously us is my world. And I'm very much a fan of the of the simplicity and the discipline that comes with it. And I also have a lot of belief in what I bring to working with my clients in terms of my judgement of my experiences, and it's kind of what you're doing as well. And I think that over the evolution, you know, 10 years ago when 100 companies were running on EOS. Now there are 10,000 companies running on Eos. It's a broader set and a broader set of level of sophistication and education. So we're saying now that everybody should be running on EOS, as opposed to a smaller segment of people who are willing. And now what does everybody look like the degree of information and expertise that each leadership team I encounter varies hugely. And so what I'm seeing what you're seeing is that these foundational tools, they're absolutely as timeless as ever, but to raise the game, you want some more sophistication and education, education of specifics, and it's not it's you know, 10 years ago, you measured anything, you are doing better than your competition today, your competition is also running on us. So you need to measure the right things and react to it at a higher level a little faster. So the sophisticated We're kind of one level up on maturity of what do you do inside the framework? Did you see it? And have you even evolved your own thinking on it, because you probably measured things 10 years ago that were life changing. And now you don't even mention those anymore. You measure other things.
Mike Morse 10:14
We tweak our scorecard, monthly, and we're adding to it and changing it. And hey, let's check this number. Hey, let's check this number. And, you know, for us, the numbers have just become DNA. And we will not make a decision without looking at the numbers. And as we are now coaching 17 different law firms across the country in the fireproof method, we are finding that they don't know what to measure. They're making decisions just in a black box. We are teaching them that there is data out there. I talked to a very smart lawyer yesterday, who was trying to figure out something in his practice. And I said, we can't make that decision without the data. Yeah. And lawyers don't think like that. Now, I don't know about other businesses, because I'm a lawyer. And it sounds like some businesses are more sophisticated. Like you said, not every leadership team is created equal. What
Mark Leary 11:13
leadership team is created equal to the other. And the uniqueness of that is kind of mind blowing when you when you experience it.
Mike Morse 11:18
What I'm finding, though, is that every law firm I talk to are behind, none of them are good business people, the very few are coming to us with a good foundation in business one or two have when I asked him, what's your average fee on an auto case? Two out of 15 know it. When I asked him how long does it take to get a case from beginning to end. None of them know it and basic things that I know off the top of my head, they don't know. And once they start looking at them and diving into their numbers. Things just open up and start soaring for them. And they in there, I'm trying to get them as addicted as I am to numbers. And lawyers don't like numbers. Lawyers are not accountants, for a reason. Lawyers are not doctors, for a reason. Lawyers are lawyers for a reason. And I haven't really broken down what that means what I just said. But lawyers,
Mark Leary 12:20
lawyers would have to charge so much money if they just remember to build their clients more often. Right?
12:24
Okay, there you go.
Mark Leary 12:26
I think that sums up what you're talking about, like, I gotta keep jacking up the rate I'm running, I'm broke. It's like, well bill your clients and build them on time, and then they'll pay you and you want to charge so much. Oh, that's a good idea.
12:36
That's an interesting idea.
Mark Leary 12:38
So let's get you sound like you really love this specific. So let's do the specifics. So when I work with a team with data, and I say, all right, so we're gonna drive toward weekly activities, weekly things that will happen in repetition, yield, ultimately good results for the month, quarter, and then for the year, and then people go, Yeah, that sounds great. And they go right to invoice revenue or something. And sometimes that's actually what you need. But people really struggle to imagine because they've done precious little weekly measuring in the first place. So they're actually started going to measuring trailing indicators. And that are, they're good to start. But they're not really all the way back to the activities that when done in advance yielded good results. So what do you see in the law firms? You sit down a law firm, you say, What do you measure now? And they measure some nonsense? Where do you what do they measure now? And where do you take them?
Mike Morse 13:27
So they don't measure anything? That's so that they they meet with their accountant once a quarter and they see if they're profitable or not profitable? The billable law firms are obviously watching how many hours are billed and what's coming in. But that's nothing. So you know, we start with a basic scorecard, we actually give it away for free on our fireproof performance.com website, they could download it for free, and they could see the basics that we make people counting how many new client calls, how many new client signups, how much money's coming in the door, who's bringing it in the door, and things like that. And we just start the conversation that way. And then once we get to know a leadership team more and understand the nuances with a team, new numbers pop up every day, and we add it to the scorecard. And every firm, you know, wants to track a little bit different things. And that's kind of fun in it and just a discovery process with them as to what's important, what's going to help us make good decisions. And that's creative and fun. And we encourage them to track those every week. We help them track them. We put it on a we call our scoreboard a jumbotron for different reasons. But it's the same thing basically.
Mark Leary 14:50
not actually a jumbotron I actually listened to the book, I can imagine a giant screen with bulbs on it. But it's not it doesn't have to be something displayed on the wall. But it probably is better if it is do you display it
Mike Morse 15:02
on the wall? We do not. But we do share it with every employee when they want to see it. They all have logins, they all can see it we share the numbers. I have actually seen businesses that have big, huge TV screens. And it's flashing all the time. We've thought about that. And are we actually for a period of time had it up in our intake department, new calls new signups. We have contests, what teams are doing what? So we are looking at our numbers, we don't have screens all throughout the office showing it though, but it is important to look at the numbers, I look at the numbers almost daily, I look at certain numbers daily, certain numbers and my level 10 on Tuesday mornings at 830. Same time, same place never cancels. And so I'm looking at that, you know, I'm looking at the robust picture on Tuesday mornings, I'm looking at the daily numbers at 5pm, who called who signed up? What types of calls are coming in? Things like that. So you know, it's it's, it's a game changer for the companies that we are working with. I'll tell you that.
Mark Leary 16:06
So I'll go to it's kind of a non sequitur. But I wrote this down it crossed my mind. You did what you discussed right now is all leadership management's that really management. And so you are plugged into the numbers, and you have your pulse on the business. And that's the part that I think that any individual contributor of any kind, any pro services person, any creative architect, designer, whatever struggles with getting out of their individual contribution role, but you do have a caseload. How do you manage the difference? The context switching? And it's very different thinking and a very different part of the role? How do you manage that?
Mike Morse 16:41
So I think what you're asking, so I have done a really good job of delegating and elevating, okay, which is one of the most fundamental things that he teaches, one of the best things that you guys teach is how to extricate yourself from the day to day grind. And I've done it, and I am able to work on the things that I love to do. And I'm able to work on the things that I'm great at. And that is what I do day in and day out. So my caseload from you know, used to be 250 litigation files, and I was doing everything down to a handful down of files. But yet I'm mentoring my lawyers every day, I'm working on the big relationships, I'm working on making sure that the phones are ringing. I'm doing lots of different things. But the things I want to be doing, it has freed me up to be able to manage and lead and do the things that you just mentioned. And that's another huge struggle when you're talking to lawyers, because every lawyer I've met, thinks they're the best litigator, the best negotiator, the best with their clients, the best with the adjusters the best with the prosecutors, if they're a criminal lawyer, whatever it is. And when I say to them, you know, imagine not doing any of that stuff and delegating that to other people. They'd say, Well, my friend would fail, because I'm the best. And I'm sure that happens in every one of your meetings that happened. Listen, I said the same thing to Gino, when he told me, You can't have a 250 person, a docket, and run and manage and lead this firm. And I told him he was on drugs because nobody's better than me. And I have to try every case, I have to talk to every client, I have to interview every employee. And slowly over many years, I extricated myself from a crazy docket down to a manageable docket that allowed me to do what I wanted to do and eventually get into my sweet spot. I've been in my sweet spot now for many years. And it is a game changer. And I can tell these stories to other lawyers, and they want it. They don't think they can get there. They're nervous about getting there. But I am a living example. That's possible.
Mark Leary 19:02
What allowed you to believe first, what was the first moment when you started thinking there might be something to this?
Mike Morse 19:09
Now that is a good question. Oh, I so that's it. I think there's a story in the book, but it it was my first mentor Steve rate up before I actually met Gino. But it's the same concept that you guys teach. I was getting bogged down with phone calls. So lawyers are on the phone, right? But if you're talking to 100 people a day, you have no time for anything else. You just don't. I mean, I love talking to my clients, like I really do. I'm good at it. I can I'm a good listener, I can empathize, I can problem solve, and I'm quick. I can get on and off the phone in five minutes and they feel heard and their eight questions are answered. So I'm like, like a pro. But I couldn't I couldn't keep doing it and I was you know grousing to him one day over one of Our mentor lunches. And he says, Michael, do you realize that there are people in this world whose life purpose it is to be on the phone all day, who love customer service, who are great at it, and could do probably a better job than you? And I told him, I thought he was crazy.
20:19
He sounded like BS. Yeah.
Mike Morse 20:20
And he said, No, no, I promise you, let's write an ad, let's craft an ad. Back then we had to put it into a newspaper. And we we crafted a really good ad at that lunch. And within a week's time, I had met the person who fit this very difficult job description. Her name is Jan. She's worked for me for over 18 years. And she's still with me today. And guess what she's still on the phones today. She's runs my intake department, which takes 25,000 calls a year, she's got a team of 10. Plus, they do all the write ups, they do all the counseling, they weed through all the new calls. And she was my superstar. And she's still there. And that was my first she was my, I think my third hire out of 150-160 people I have. And so that was my first aha moment. So when Gino did start teaching me about delegating the elevating it wasn't a foreign concept. And I was able to start hiring lawyers and allow my secretaries to do legal stuff that they were allowed to do that I was holding tight to the chest, close to the chest. And, you know, once you're once you can delegate, you're off to the races and and you can just scale, you cannot scale until you can delegate in a really robust way. And you got to have confidence at it, you got to have trust. And I think the lawyers will get there. It just takes them some time.
Mark Leary 22:01
So the delegation counts. I love that. And that was it was brilliant. There's a second bite of that, though. And I want to if you've delegate at all, that's awesome. But the second ceiling, I think, is the concept of the integrator and no harder. There's no industry harder to digest that then AT Pro services. How did you react to the idea of an integrator, somebody asked to run the business whose job was to try No cases? To do no billable work? How much?
Mike Morse 22:32
I hated it. I hated it. And I fought it. And I said, No. And I said, Well, I'm not hiring 100 150 $200,000 person to do what? And you know, I did make no sense at the beginning. And I share that because lawyers who are listening to this podcast or other service people who are listening to podcasts, it's an important concept to know that it was it's not always it's not an easy decision. I fought a lot of Gino's suggestions, and my father in law's suggestions, tooth and nail. And then what happened was I hired an interim, I elevated my secretary to the office manager. And she started taking care of a lot of the day to day tasks because she's, you know, highly. I mean, she's just so smart. And she was able to do it that I got a taste of it. And then I had that fire in 2007 and I
Mark Leary 23:36
so for people who don't read the book yet they people will your whole office was destroyed in a fire.
Mike Morse 23:42
Yes.
Mark Leary 23:44
Totally gutted. So yeah, so this was not a kitchen fire this was it the lights out type of thing.
Mike Morse 23:49
Yeah. And thank God, I had a leadership team in place. And thank God I had some systems in place. And thank God I was a paperless law firm. We were up and running three hours later. The story is interesting the stories in the book but the job my next session with Gino and I don't know if we had a session or he just called me or I called him panicking. He says Michael, you need now's the time for integrator, imagine you have to rebuild your office, you have to find new space. You have to transition and build up the new building, you have to move back into the building, etc, etc, etc. If you have to focus on all that, how are you going to run your law firm? How are you going to try cases? How are you going to manage lead etc. And so I'm like, you're right. And another thing is I wasn't getting stuff done. I had an 88 point to do list at that point. And so Gino encouraged me to hire the integrator. I hired the integrator. It worked very well. He's still my integrator. He's the co author of Fireproof, John knock Hazel. And Gino was so blown away by the relationship that he featured us at least two times in his book, Rocket Fuel, that 88-point list that I handed John saying, "Get this list done, and rebuild my office building and get us back good in six months." And he did it all expertly. He featured us in the book saying this is the best integrator visionary pair that I've ever met, he explains what makes us so great. He explains the differences, the fact that we're opposites, and on and on and on. I'm sure most of your listeners have watched and listened to listen to rocket fuel, or what Red Rocket fuels when
Mark Leary 25:41
consumed. But you're right, do listen to it these days.
Mike Morse 25:45
And, and so they might be familiar with our story in there. But so yeah, so that's kind of what got me started. And obviously, I'm not looking back. John's amazing. And, you know, I assume we'll be together forever.
Mark Leary 25:59
So to describe you, you hit on a really critical point of the opposites, the polarity and you know, loves to talk about Yin meet Yang, and the stronger the polarity difference, you know, the greater the difference in the charge, the more significant the impact. Does. You're an attorney attorneys know what attorneys are like, and there's this certain DNA and a hard charging, you know, hands on approach to warfare. I described John, you know, he's not like you, what is it? What are his defining traits?
Mike Morse 26:33
Well, I'm a liberal Democrat. He's a right wing, libertarian, Republican. Let's start there. I mean, we're talking, this country is filled with politics, and we love each other. So, but we think differently. That's, that's a big one, right? He loves numbers and data, and the nitty gritty of contracts. And spending lots of time reading and meeting with people and has a lot has good patience and attention. I don't have any of that stuff. I'm a true visionary in every sense of the word people know not to send me longer than a one paragraph, email, or else I won't read it. They know I'm not diving into contracts. They know I don't understand, you know, the data, the numbers, and they need to break it down for me, so I can understand it and digest it. He's great at making holding people accountable and making sure that trains are running on time and problem solving. And figuring stuff out, I'm good at problem solving and figuring stuff out. But he's making sure that people are there and figuring out how to hold people accountable. So I don't have to, I don't want to that is not fun for me. So he does the things that I don't want to do, I do the things he doesn't want to do, or he's not great at. I'm the one coming up with 1015 ideas a day, and he's shooting them down. And once in a while. He says, Yeah, that's a good one. That's great. And when, when that happens, it's like magic.
Mark Leary 28:10
So his background leading up to this was you know, he went to law school, right? He has some background and professional service. What was his career leading up to this?
Mike Morse 28:18
He's an MBA, he worked in the auto industry. He sold data and car people to the car industry. He had never been in a courtroom. He's never been to law school. He went to U of M, you know, Business School, and just a smart, smart dude.
Mark Leary 28:37
Industry guy and MBA numbers studying, you know, your business business guy.
Mike Morse 28:43
Yep. And law firms don't have business guys. law firms don't do this. I think they do. Now, I think the silk stocking firms do now. But 15 years ago, this was not a thing. I mean, when people heard that john wasn't a lawyer, they're like, what? We're a law firm. Well, you can't have a non-lawyer literally running a law firm. And that's what I've done. It worked perfectly. It worked expertly. And I would highly, highly recommend it for anybody.
Mark Leary 29:10
So actually, another interesting point, and this applies mostly specifically to law, the idea of legal firm administration, there's like a whole kind of on how to describe it. But there is a tradition, maybe that's a tradition of that there are these administrators, these people who run the firm, who vary in size, various sizes and shapes of gluing it all together in a in an almost an assistant capacity, like an office manager on steroids that sometimes has more authority. But I think that my fear is that thinking of that as your integrator is likely to mislead you, because that's not what you're trying to do. It seems like legal administrators are just barely empowered enough. And you're saying like, No, I want all the authority on the integrator to get this stuff done. And there's a quantum difference. What would you tell somebody to understand the difference between authority? Additionally, the administrator and the integrator.
Mike Morse 30:03
So I'm not sure a legal Administrative
Mark Leary 30:05
Law Firm administer because I'm not there sometimes like the like the. But like in Houston, we're, I guess, is the LA. The types of the people who keep the office managers who glue the firm together and handle the HR admin and those kind of things. And they're very important people, but they're more focused on bringing lunch in and making sure the offices is clean and that the bills are paid. But they don't tell the lawyers what to do. They don't have any ability to do that the lawyers tell the lawyers what to do. And the integrator has a different approach. So how do you tell the lawyer to think of this law firm?
Mike Morse 30:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't I'm not all that familiar with legal administrators, except I'm hearing what you're saying. And it sounds like a glorified office manager. And I'm not saying listen, the right office manager can be elevated to be the integrator, you know, that I mean, finding an integrator for any business is, in my opinion, one of the hardest tasks to do. I'm finding that with different businesses. And so, you know, the person has to have the right skill set, and the person is running the business, the person is making the decisions for the, for the visionary, knowing the visionary his vision, hopefully in line with the visionaries, beliefs and heart and what, where they want to move the company. And, you know, we spend a lot of time on, you know, who the tiebreaker is right? You know, because the visionary and the integrator are certainly not always going to agree, Gino has worked with us harder, you know, I don't know how many sessions on, you know, convincing me is the owner, founder, visionary to allow John to make decisions, even though I may not 100% agree with them all the time. That's a hard pill to swallow. So whoever you choose has to understand you get you. Acquired agree with you. I'm coaching a law firm right now, where the integrator, quite frankly, doesn't agree with the visionary doesn't believe in the EOS or fireproof model. And it's not going well. And something's gonna have to give, and somebody's gonna have to go. Because you can't do that. They have to be in alignment. And if they're not in alignment, it's like a bad marriage. I mean, it's just not gonna sustain itself. John and I are in alignment.
Mark Leary 32:40
Yeah, the two things you're describing, and I agree is in the same page, this has to be high that and that's a whole effort, the same page meeting, having those one on one private debates, so that like, you can hash it out and take the gloves off and make sure that by the time you're done, you're competent, comfortable that you're on the same page about what's going to happen. That's one of the ingredients. The other ingredient is are they actually capable of leading the organization? Do they have the experience and tolerance, strength training to be able to really lead because if you're going to say you're running the firm, you're going to make decisions in my absence. Now that we're on the same page, you can't let somebody under gunned out into that law firm or any organization, because they'll get squished or they'll make bad decisions, even if they were on the same page with you before.
Mike Morse 33:31
Yeah, I agree. I mean, the integrator is huge. This is your CEO. We call him he's our CEO, he's the integrator slash CEO. And he or she better be really, really strong and really smart, and understand you and buy into your core values, obviously, drive it, you know, they have to buy into your core purpose. Get it, get it all they have to get it wants to have the capacity. I mean, you gotta make sure you know this person, make sure you test this person. Make sure you you know, this is I've seen lots of firms and companies go through lots of integrators till they find their first one. So it's one of the most important things
Mark Leary 34:24
When you first describe it to a firm, do they get the magnitude you're describing? Or do you have to repeat yourself like no, I'm not talking about like just a glorified admin. I'm talking about a leader, do they get it or do you or how do you land the point?
Mike Morse 34:38
So I think with all of the data out there and the books like the Rocket Fuel, Traction, Fireproof, they have come to us and read all that. And they have seen the illustrations, they have read the texts, there's so much talk about it right now. Now, it's very rare that they don't know the term integrator. Okay, it's very rare that they don't know what a CEO is. And they've heard the story. So I'm not starting from ground zero. But, you know, I started from ground zero. And I never heard the term integrator. I remember not being able to remember the word integrator. It's, uh, I don't love the word. It's now second nature to me, but does it flow from the tongue? I don't know how he came up with that word. But, you know, I think I think people are realizing what the second in command means. Your right hand person? The person running the firm, you know, your CEO. Oh, I think I think it's an easier concept these days. Okay.
Mark Leary 35:47
So, let's switch. So you've you find yourself in your new unique ability, you've delegated? Well, you've got just the right caseload. And now you've got an opportunity to do things like build a brand. How do you use that? Yeah, there's a lot of questions kind of nestled in this. So sort of attack, whatever part of this sort of resonates with you, but you have a unique brand. It's polished and fun, and it preserves your name and the firm. You're a large firm that has a unified personal brand. How did how did you make the decision? And what was sort of the journey for you leaning into a scaled version of this personal brand law firm? And what's that like for you?
Mike Morse 36:31
Yeah, so a lot a lot there. to unpack. When I, the second fire that we talked about in the book, when I was fired from the lawyer, who was setting me 70% of my business, I looked at the data made a quick decision that I need to go on TV, I secure the number 855, Mike wins. It was just a it felt right, it was a good brand, that because we win. And that was in our core values before I secured that number. And luckily, the number was available. And it people you know, nobody was using the word wins. Now everybody's using the word wins. The word wins right on my website. But we were one of the first is definitely my market, we were the first and now they're all copycats, because they all don't have a brain and their bodies to follow and come up with their own concepts. But, you know, the branding part, you know, took some time, I didn't really know automatically that I had this, whatever personality. I didn't know how I wanted the ads to be, except I did know I didn't want to be like the other boring vanilla ads on TV. So I was very aware of those ads. As Everybody listen to this podcast, no matter who you are what you do. Lawyer, traditional lawyer TV advertising absolutely is the bottom of the barrel garbage advertising. I call it vanilla. It's all the same. It's all a big commodity. And we came up with a concept to make it different. I outlined it in chapter my book called "Jerry Garcia versus Vanilla". Just that you know, you want to be memorable, you want to be different. You want to find your differentiators. You want to find what makes you you and you want to dare to be different. You want to dare to be entertaining, you want to dare to be poke fun at yourself. You want to dare to bring your dog on your mom on whoever on I've done all those things.
Mark Leary 38:45
I definitely know your mom's that she's known as one of the main characters in your your brand. It's awesome.
Mike Morse 38:51
My mom cannot walk down the street without being stopped, recognized asked for a picture. And luckily, she's game and she's wonderful person.
Mark Leary 39:03
Well, I guess coincidence. I thought I would assume the apple doesn't fall too far out of the tree. Right?
Mike Morse 39:07
I hope so. She's a great sport. And we have a ton of fun. We laugh a lot. We've made blooper reels off of our commercials, which I think some are on our YouTube channel, which we have a very, very robust YouTube channel for anybody who wants to check out the commercials we're talking about. You just search Mike Morse Law Firm. Under YouTube, you'll see our channel please subscribe. You'll get notifications of our new commercials. We have a very robust coming up at 100 episode podcast open mic. That's got 3 million downloads and people are digging that. So we're doing lots of different content. But my mom and my brand and it's all part of this conversation about the brand and I don't sit down and really think I don't it's not manipulated as all I can say I don't it's thoughtful. We think about our content we think about it. I have a great creative team led by learner advertising here in Beverly Hills, Michigan. I have an in-house creative team. We have an in house and out house. So social media team. We're looking for content every day we use our clients in our ads we use by family we use friends. Strangers send me an E funny email or an email saying Mike by 97 year old grandmother loves you. You come by and say happy birthday. Yes, I come by we videotaped the whole thing we posted on YouTube, it gets a million views. And that's fun. And it's not fake. Yeah, bringing a video crew with me to go say happy birthday. But so what I mean, it's you have to in this day and age that's it's about getting Listen, what I try to say to my clients, it's about getting attention. People ever I mean, there's a bazillion podcasts, there's a bazillion YouTube channels, there's a bazillion Instagram channels, how are you going to get them to watch yours? Are you just going to post something boring, happy Veterans Day and hope that you get I mean, I guarantee you if you do a state image, you're gonna get three thumbs up from your mother and your friends. And that's it. It's not fun. It's not engaging. And listen, my firm does that. Sometimes you have to, but for the most part, if people come to me say why isn't my stuff working? And I look at their stuff. I said, because it's god awful. And I don't want to look at it. Do you want to look at it? And they look at it. They're like, Yeah, no. So you just got to sit down and be thoughtful and creative. And in the book, we talked about writing down on one column what your competition is doing. And then doing the opposite, you know, should do the opposite of what you're doing. If they're fighting, you want to you know, you don't want to be fighting, if they're if they're greedy, you want to be giving, if they're serious and boring, you want to be entertaining, and not serious and fun. And funny. And so but true, you
Mark Leary 42:06
write you different. It's a combination. It's like a Venn diagram of like, what they're not. And what you actually are, which leaves a tiny number of they like funny and aggressive, like, that's you you're competitive and fun and approachable. And that's just a couple of things. So what you have now is a tremendous asset. Like you've got super solid brand equity and awareness, and a budget and in house, all this kind of stuff. And that's aspirational for a lot of people. But what what were the moments like when you were just sort of taking those first risks of expressing yourself and those first few dollars? And how did you feel the first time you spent like more than you would normally spend on on on on advertising.
Mike Morse 42:49
So I probably put out some bad ads at the beginning. And they didn't, I didn't like looking at them. I didn't like how they sounded. I didn't like the lighting. I didn't like him. And just I kind of knew intuitively that this wasn't my future. And I think a lot of that is the herd mentality that I got stuck in for a little little while. Others get stuck in. I remember saying, Well, if these boring ads are working for them, and they all seem successful, and have big firms and making money, that it'll work for me. And then they didn't work that great. And I said well, it's because they suck, these ads suck. And so then I had one thing that happened I remember just popped in my head was I mentioned lighting I had one of the first creative people not learning our advertising. introduced me to the to the notion that the TV stations will do free commercials for you. If you spend money on their station, they'll send you a camera crew. One dude with one camera and a little light, and they'll do the spots for you for free. Wow. Great. And they just are terrible. And I remember watching TV one day and seeing one of my ads thinking God is that bad. And God I've shaded in my face and the sound was okay. And then the next day literally Ross learner sent me a CD. And I watched a just a cold CD, and I watched it of another law firm and another DMA. And I thought, wow, that's different. That's unique. And I called him when we sat down and I realized that you could put some money into ads to make them look better. And it was a foreign concept. And yeah, I mean, it wasn't free. And yeah, the first ones were probably five or $10,000 that I now spend 25 to $50,000 on a set of commercials and quite frankly it pays for itself. And 98% of lawyers out there don't and won't.
Mark Leary 44:55
But there was a sound like it was a learning process. I mean to get confident, to spend 2030 grand, you had to spend a bunch of 5000s that were not that great, but got better every time.
Mike Morse 45:06
Yes. And I realized that the production value matters. The what you say matters, what you put out there matters. I don't remember what that first ad that was kind of cutting edge was. But I do know that what I put out great ads, I get hundreds of unsolicited, really nice emails, and calls and texts. And it feels good. And it puts you on the right track that you say, Oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This works. And the other stuff doesn't. And then you keep building and I keep getting more and more outrageous in my ads. And, you know, I have a great creative team that's pushing me I mean, I got an ad right now, where it's black and white. There's no talking. It's the Lone Ranger music in the background. And I'm running around town sped up. It's crazy. And yet, I've gotten 1000 emails and the calls. It just, this is the best, I have a 78 year old people saying this is the best TV ad I've ever seen in my entire life. I record it and I can't stop watching it. That's awesome. Because what I have seen lawyers, how many lawyers in this country can say that about any of their ads?
Mark Leary 46:24
So you only want I know. What I think it's so important to highlight is what you said it's outrageous if you're pushing the envelope, but it's not outrageous and audacious for audacity sake. It's outrageous and audacious on top of the core values. It's on top of who you are. So you know, when you push the gas pedal down, it's more of what you want, not just random irritation to people.
Mike Morse 46:50
That's a good point. So you made me think of like all the hammer guys out there. Right? Every Mark has got a hammer. It started in your city. Yeah. Listen, God bless him. I hear he's one of the most successful lawyers in our country. The Hammer concept didn't work for me. But if it works for you, use it. I actually think that's fabulous. And I think you know, any one of these commercials that that could draw attention in a decent way that stalking to irritate people and make them hate you and turn off the TV is good. You just got to find your comfort zone. And that's what I help coach these people to do, to coach my clients to do the lawyers to do and we're finding it we're finding their comfort zone, we're making commercials. I have a gentleman in town from Atlanta today shooting commercials with lunar advertising one of my fireproofed clients, and I've seen the spots. And it's super exciting. And I think it's going to cut through the noise in Atlanta and a very crowded market. And I'm super excited to see what happens. Because these are going to be different ads stuff they don't have. And we'll see if it breaks through the noise. And I think it's going to and I I love this part of it. This if I wasn't a lawyer, I'd be in advertising and marketing.
Mark Leary 48:13
That's awesome, man. So we've covered a ton of stuff. I've everything from like the data to delegation to the leadership and the business interjection into like how to maintain brand. And everything we've talked about is applicable to every business, other than maybe LA and how that fits in with everything. Everything else is just the same fundamentals and the disciplines that we go back to enrolling other people in a vision, empowering them around a vision that's true, authentic differentiated, you know, really plugs into who you are, and the ability to turn up the volume on all those pieces and really go hard, go hard and heavy for a decade or more and see how much ground you can cover and you've covered a ton of ground. Is there anything else you you feel like we need to cover to round that out?
Mike Morse 49:00
You know, as you were just talking, I was thinking, I don't want to I just want to say one comment about 99.9% of the people listening to this podcast, don't have budgets that I'm describing, and don't have, you know, they, I want that I want this to be relevant. I just want to say that they can do all of these things we're talking about for free and social media. And you can create a really good following by making your stuff authentic and unique and fun and different. And you could figure out how to light it good and you could figure out how to, you know shoot it for for on a shoestring budget. So all of these concepts can be for anybody if you have the ingenuity if you're a little bit industrious. So I just I just want to say that this, I don't want to sound you know that like I'm eliminating people and I don't want people to tune out because they think that I have an unloving budget for this stuff I didn't at the beginning, you know? So it's just all the things we're talking about, you know, could be is for any business any time on any budget.
50:12
That's awesome.
Mark Leary 50:12
So the final question that I always ask is, given all that's gone on whatever is in your mind and in your heart, what is your most passionate plea to entrepreneurs right now
Mike Morse 50:28
is to hire a business coach to learn a system like EOS slash fireproof, to understand your numbers in your business, as well as you understand anything else in your business. And it will transform you and your company to new heights.
50:54
Awesome. Oh, that's
Mike Morse 50:56
it. I've never said that. What I just said before, but that sounds pretty succinct. Yeah. And I think that that's, I think that's it.
Mark Leary 51:03
Awesome. I'm so grateful for your for your time, your gifts, the book, the wisdom, experience, and all that sharing. If somebody wants to continue the conversation, follow you What's going on? What's the easiest way for them to continue the conversation in some form with you?
Mike Morse 51:16
Well, hopefully they could find me pretty easily. My tag is at 855. Mike wins. Our website is 855. Mike wins my email is Mike at 855. Mike wins fireproof performance comm if you want to learn more about the book, sign up for our newsletter, where we send out tidbits, the book is on Amazon, all the proceeds to the book, go to giving back backpacks to the Detroit community which we give away, we've given out almost 200,000 stuffed backpacks full of supplies to every kid who needs whether the Detroit Metro area, we're expanding that to other cities. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. That's why I'm here with you today is to to bring knowledge to everybody but to get more backpacks of the kids hands. And it's just just a such a wonderful, fun opportunity that we have. And you know, Mark, I really appreciate you having me on and sharing what I what I know. And I love to interact with your listeners if they want to reach out to me on any of the platforms. I'd love to connect. Awesome. Awesome.
Mark Leary 52:18
Well, that's it for today. So please don't forget to subscribe, share it in the hands of your friends. You've got people who can use this information, make sure they have access to it's no good if they don't ever find it. And also give us the feedback positive and negative. Anything you got is helpful for us. And we will see you next time on you're doing it wrong with me. Mark Henderson Leary.
VO 52:36
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary for more episodes and to subscribe, go to lyric.cc