Dive into the latest episode of Your Practice Mastered Podcast, where bestselling author Mike Michalowicz reveals the secrets to unlocking your team's full potential. 

Discover innovative strategies to foster a high-performing team that can take your practice to new heights. Mike's expertise, combined with real-world examples, provides a blueprint for success that you can't afford to miss. 

Our channel offers expert advice on law firms, entrepreneurship, and success strategies. Hit "Like" and subscribe to stay updated with our latest content.

Let’s Chat About Growing Your Law Firm. 

https://rjconsulting.lpages.co/appointment-engine-application/

Great leaders make people believe in themselves. And that's what small organizations that are doing this are doing it, right? They're learning what the dream, the vision is of the individual. They're learning what the potential talents are and allowing them to grow into that and express it through the organization.

Amazing people will stay because they can express themselves because they can be the most of themselves. that's the key

​

Welcome to Your Practice Mastered Podcast

---

MPS: Hey, law firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.

Introducing Mike Michalowicz: The Man Behind Profit First

---

Richard James: And I'm Richard James and MPS, I know that you've just gotten to meet Michael in person or Mike in person today for the first time in person, virtually, that was a little weird. But anyway Mike and I have been friends for a number of years, here, been in the same mastermind group, watched him grow his business from when he maybe had.

And we've had our clients come back and talk about your lessons, Mike, throughout all of the years you've been with us. And so thank you for sharing your time today. Thank you for being with us. This is going to be a wonderful conversation. Can't wait for our world to learn more about you.

Mike Michalowicz: I can't wait for this conversation. And Richard and MPS, thank you for having me.

MPS: Absolutely. It's our pleasure. And to the law firm owners listening, look, we do the gentleman's agreement around here, right? So, if this isn't your first time listening or watching, you're about to get a ton of value today and here's some great stories. Make sure to click that follow or subscribe button, depending on where you're listening or watching.

And Mike, we like to loosen up the audience a little bit around here.

Mike's Unique Relaxation and Ideation Techniques

---

MPS: So what's maybe something that not everyone knows about you?

Your mind can't scramble around anymore. You got to stay on one thing to stay focused and I just find it relaxing and cathartic and a learning experience or at least ideation experience.

Richard James: And it gets you out of the winters of Jersey.

Mike Michalowicz: Oh, you're right. Right. Cause that's the cool down process. You run outside and the sleet's coming down and there's ice everywhere and you freeze to death. You run back to the sauna.

Richard James: Have you done the opposite? Have you done like this ice bath challenge thing that people were doing?

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Well, yeah. A version of it, which is cold showers. So it only drops down to like 47, maybe 50 degrees. That alone is brutally hard. You know, 50 degrees, it sounds like nothing when it's cold water. Oh my gosh. But I have not done the ice bath. No.

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I hear you.

True

Richard James: Good.

Well I think we're

Michael. We're here today to really dive into, you know, we could talk about any one of the books but really this concept of all in, I think is where we want to turn today Michael. So where do you want to go? I'll let you be the driver.

MPS: Yeah, I mean, so, Mike why don't you share process?

The Genesis of Profit First: A Leadership Epiphany

---

MPS: What led to the creation of Profit First.

Mike Michalowicz: Great. That's a great starting point. I'll give you the aha. And it started a journey about six years ago, really to investigate it. So the aha was this 20 years ago, I used to be in computer forensics, computer crime investigation, worked with a lot of defense attorneys. And one day I ran the numbers.

So you couldn't see it, you know, for the reveal. And I did the most important thing, which was I queued up the pump up music of the eighties, which was I have the tiger by survivor. Yeah. So you hear in the background and I call on the team and with great flair, I'm like, this is the year that we achieve the dream of every small business to take down a couple of, and we're going to do it with great flair.

My assistant at the time, her name was Patty Zanelli. And she came up to me. She said, listen, Mike, we achieved 10 million in revenue. You get the bigger house, you get the new car, but what about our visions for ourselves? And that was the epiphany. I was like, Oh my God, the corporate vision is not the corporation's vision.

The corporate vision is the dream that the leader or the owner has for themselves. That satisfied my fat ego. That meant something to me. I made up for childhood trauma, but my team, I found out one person was, fighting a terminal disease. Another person wanted to buy their first house. Someone just want to spend more time at home.

They'll help us achieve the outcomes we want in life. That was the epiphany. But then there was one more component. I started researching this out actively five, six years ago.

Adapting Leadership in the COVID Era

---

Mike Michalowicz: What I found was this went on steroids when COVID happened. There was an interesting shift in our environment. What was prior desire.

I want to work from home one day. I need a more flexible work schedule. If I can get it now became an expectation and COVID switched it. I don't want to work from home. I demand to work from home or I demand a flexible work schedule. So when COVID happened, I said, my gosh, there's a new work environment.

And there's a new approach. I got to codify this. I created the book. We've deployed in our own companies. Admittedly, I am not a great leader. I think I am a better leader than I am. I've ever been. I aspire to be a great leader. But I think the tools are all in this book to help anyone has the aspiration to achieve it.

The Evolution of Mike's Writing Process and Framework

---

I don't know if that's a fair assessment, but this felt like this is the next step of what you've got to do in order to be able to achieve clockwork. Is that accurate?

Mike Michalowicz: So I'm privileged to have many people reach out to me after reading one of my books. And share their stories and I watch, what are the needs now? So, that's part of it. They're like, there's a whole new workforce, new expectations. And the belief was, I wish my employees would act differently or I need to put different expectations on them.

So my real problem at first, I said, what's your desire as a business owner and financial freedom was the desire, at least one component of their business. I said, okay, there's a desire. Then I say, what's the outcome you're experiencing. Not financial freedom. I'm working my ass off. I have no money when there's a misconnect or disconnect between desire and outcome when they're not equal.

It's the method in the middle. That's the problem. DMO. So if desire does not equal outcome, we have to investigate the method. What I found is when it comes to teams recruiting, you know, I want the best employees. I want rock stars or A players, whatever the term du jour is. Well, what's the outcome? Very few people hire high performers and most businesses.

There's a lot of turnover

Richard James: Unless you own

Mike Michalowicz: Netflix.

Unless you own Netflix. That's right. So the desire and the outcome is a mismatch. That means there's a problem with the method. I investigated four main categories where I saw desire and outcome mismatched. And I'm a contrarian person. I believe I found. And tested improving release for my own businesses and many businesses I've worked with that.

Richard James: so the desire for clockwork was to, well, for profit first was to get financial freedom for clockwork was to get financial freedom but also be able to take a week off. Cause I can remember Don Golden, I think he mentioned message you, he was a guest on the show. He's been a client of ours for a long time.

And I think he messaged you. I scheduled my week off on, you know, June whatever. And he took a

Mike Michalowicz: Four weeks. Yes. Four weeks. That's the key.

Richard James: four weeks off, right. He took us four weeks off and he messaged you and he goes, Mike replied to me. And I'm like, yeah, that's cool. Like he should. Right. And yeah, of course, Mike replied to you.

And then when small business reads that, they think, Oh, maybe that's what I should do. And it's the farthest thing from what they should do.

Redefining Leadership and Talent Acquisition for Small Businesses

---

Richard James: Is that part of the inspiration for you that you saw some of the other junk that was out there and you decided to, you had to correct that for small business owners?

I don't mean to call out the author. authors. That's not fair. I mean, it's right for somebody. It's just not jus right for small business owners.

Mike Michalowicz: It's not practical. The founder of Netflix, by the way, is Joey Netflix. His last name was Netflix. Big business often has a big budget and it's funny. I was sharing off air with you. An interesting phenomenon is happening ever since writing this book. And the book only came out a month ago. I'm getting calls.

How is small business doing this? Small business has a secret and it's not the foosball table or, you know, we do your laundry for you. It's allowing people to lean into their own personal vision. There's a saying and I don't know who attributed to, but it ain't my saying, but I love it. It says good leaders make people believe in them.

Great leaders make people believe in themselves. And that's what small organizations that are doing this are doing it right. They're learning what the dream, the vision is of the individual. They're learning what the potential talents are and allowing them to grow into that and express it through the organization.

Amazing people will stay because they can express themselves because they can be the most of themselves. That's the key to rockstar talent.

MPS: this is good.

Richard James: Michael, where you want to go here?

MPS: No, this is good. I was going to ask just a tactical question.

A Revolutionary Approach to Discovering Potential Talent

---

MPS: So, you know, a small business owner in our case, law firm owners reading this book what's like a tactical thing that they can take out and implement?

Mike Michalowicz: I'll give you one that blew my mind. We've been testing it and is a game changer. So I'll set the stage. And I'll be a little bit confrontational. So interviewing is the most common approach to recruiting. And I've done the DMO analysis, desire, method, outcome, and desires A players. The outcome is abysmal.

But interviews only reveal experiential ability, what I've done in the past. And now there's a next level is called innate ability. There's tools like Enneagram and DISC and Myers Briggs and Predictive Index. There's countless ones, StrengthsFinder. Those tools are helpful to give the internal makeup. But what we really want to look at the 800 gorilla is potential.

What could this person do in the right environment? So we want to seek people with the most potential. The question, of course, is how do you find people's potential? Well, there's a way to do it. And there's a half trillion with a T dollar industry that only does potential analysis. The industry is sports.

Well, during my high school career, I went to Hobart Lacrosse Camp. I live in the Northeast. That, at the time, was one of the preeminent lacrosse schools. And there was like three, maybe five hundred students from all over the East Coast that went to this camp. And I was getting better. I was learning new skills during that process of educating me and the other students.

Some of the kids got tapped on the shoulder and they said, wow, you're really good at XYZ skill. We'd like to bring you to another advanced field. What they were doing was sorting potential. That's what elite companies do. We run a camp or a workshop where people are learning, but during the process, we're also vetting.

This may sound kind of Theoretical. Is it practical? Well, let me give you a couple of things. Home Depot does this. There's already a corporation doing this. The next time you see, hey, build a birdhouse workshop, come down to the store. They are recruiting you. How do they stage it? It's an educational event.

So you come down with your kid. You build a birdhouse. Yes, you get ingratiated the story. You have a good experience. Hopefully you become a customer or a more engaged customer. Then, what they do is they have one employee sitting there simply observing and they look for the indicators. Who's curious?

Who has the most desire? Who's thirsty? Who's helping other parents? Who asks the most questions? Who's the most engaged? Who stays the longest? They will tap that person on the shoulder and say, you show all the behaviors, what we want in a great Home Depot employee. Have you ever considered working here?

Do not say we're looking to recruit. Simply look to educate the power here is you're no longer looking for people who are looking for a job, which is a minority people.

Unlocking Potential: A New Approach to Talent Acquisition

---

Mike Michalowicz: Now, anyone who's looking to improve themselves will attend. And, you know, the number one group looking to improve themselves, A players, rock stars.

The great people want to get greater. The people with the most potential want to express it more. You can reach out to your competition. We've done that with groups already and say, Hey, send over your paralegals. We'll teach them how to perform another level. They will pay for it. It's an educational event after all.

That's the model instead of interviews.

Richard James: First, yeah, I mean, right, Michael, I know what you're going to say. This was like, I mean, so like get the book. Okay. So that was like a precursor. Okay. If that's one thing out the book

Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's

Richard James: you got to read the whole book. Right. Because, oh my gosh, you just laid down the law on a whole new way to think about attracting talent, right?

And I don't know how you figured it out because I've been at this a long time and I'd never heard outside of your book and you're what you tell the, I'd never heard that Home Depot story.

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.

Insider Strategies: Learning from Top Organizations

---

Mike Michalowicz: It's a lot of research, you kind of have to go incognito. These companies don't want to reveal it. I had access to M& M Mars you know, major candy manufacturer. And had there's a confidential source. I cannot reveal because they shared inside strategies and stuff that company didn't want revealed.

So yeah, that is just a little peek into what's inside the book.

Richard James: so inside baseball for us.

Revolutionizing Recruitment: A Personal Business Case

---

Richard James: So I'm going to tell you how I immediately saw this apply for us. Okay. Because we are business owners, just like your business. And I'd love to hear how you applied it in yours. Cause I know you eat your own dog food. So, us, as you just said that here's our traditional process for appointment centers.

It's one of the legs of our business. This is not an advertisement, but we look for appointment setters for our clients and they're in Guadalajara, Mexico. We're looking for. We handle the advertising, the recruiting, the paperwork, everything. And we have to go through a traditional process of doing interviews in the whole nine yards.

So they really know what the job is going to be. And we know if they're capable and willing to do it. And we end up weeding through a lot of people that don't pass the 96 hour test, because we have no way of knowing these things before we got them in other than an ad in an interview.

However, if we started running educational platforms down there and run an advertising for an education of a webinar of sorts or whatever, and we start teaching the people how to be a great appointment setter and find those who ask great questions and raise up and have the right diction in their language and are coachable and all these things, we'll be able to tap them on the shoulder and say, Hey, are you happy with where you are right now?

MPS: absolutely. Game changing. I was pretty blown away as I was hearing you talk about this, Mike. And one of the things that you said, and you said it quickly, but that I caught is you're totally right. The people that want to attend these types of workshops. Are the A players because the A players are the people wanting to grow.

And so you're literally creating an opportunity to surround yourself with a bunch of A players. And so I just thought that would really

Mike Michalowicz: they're,

Expanding the Talent Pool: Beyond Traditional Methods

---

Mike Michalowicz: And they're not, necessarily the people seeking a job. That's the best part at any given time during a very healthy economy, which we're in right now, 3 percent of population's unemployed. Another three or 4 percent is in a churn looking for something new actively. So we're talking about 7 percent of the population.

The other thing, too is, it's interesting. Sometimes the best potential employee is not someone with experience. It's the fact that they don't have experience, but desire that's better because someone's experience sometimes have to unlearn the old way of doing things, which is very hard to be relearning the right way or your way of doing things.

So sometimes you can use this to find people with potential.

Leveraging Workshops for Recruitment: A Practical Guide

---

Mike Michalowicz: Now, I have using my own organization and I'll give you another shortcut. So here's another little hack putting on a workshop or teaching something can be a little overwhelming. It sounds like, Oh, I need a paralegal. I got put together as a shop.

Richard James: Well, yeah. And you're automatically accepted because you're in the same room that they're in. So you've got, instant credibility. So, I'm not going to call you calculating in an evil way but I need to like point something out here.

Differentiating in the Market: Attracting Talent Uniquely

---

Richard James: So your book get different, right?

Is all about how to differentiate yourself in marketing. And what you just pointed out was how to get different in the marketing space of how to attract talent. Is that a fair statement? And did you consciously see that as you were building these books out.

So let's just hang on the paralegals right now. You'll typically say, seeking paralegal or some equivalent with the title there. That is the worst thing to do because now there's a very small group that predefined themselves as a paralegal. Not that I could be one one day. I already am one. This is who I am.

So the identity has to be there, which actually potential rarely has the identity been formed. So you're excluding tons of people. Plus it's replicated over and over. So it becomes, it's called habituated. Very hard to see your ad is hidden there. So our ad says would say something like just graduated college.

Love crunching away at the keyboard and serving the law. We should talk that ad is like, what it's so different.

Richard James: It's a It's a whole

Mike Michalowicz: book.

Richard James: Now, are you leveraging social and paid and all the, I mean, are you doing this through traditional indeed monster zip recruiter, or are you, finding your new team members as your team continues to grow through more of this social advertising and workshops, and is that what they did?

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So more of the social, we do the indeed ads, but the primary source is our competition, which sounds crazy. We'll reach out to our competition and say, Hey, we're running, we're going to say we're running a educational event. We may not identify who we are. We'll just say there's an educational event and say, send your best people here to learn a advanced skill.

So my competition sends their people and pays for it to educate them on something. And then what I'll do, cause I want to be ethical here. I want to educate them and serve them. I want them to return to their opportunities with advanced education. But I will say. Hey guys everyone here is coming from organizations.

And that way we fill the room with usually A players, people who want to learn gainfully employed, typically in a player, top performer, and But they're coming into my room.

Richard James: So how many uh, employees do you have?

Mike Michalowicz: Only 20.

Richard James: how big is it? Oh, only 20. Okay. Yeah. Still there's that person that's listening that has them in a secretary and just choked because they thought about the idea of having 20.

Mike Michalowicz: Well, that's a great point. Well, let me qualify that.

Optimizing Team Size and Productivity: The 3.3 Rule

---

Mike Michalowicz: So only 20. I should have said that more of a proud thing. I'm proud to have an organization of that size. Most of my people are part time employees. So, and I talk about this, there was a study account in England, the average knowledge worker is productive 3. 3 hours per day, regardless of the hours worked. This blew my mind.

And the realization was if I got my employees, I would say, 16 of them are part time. They will still give the same degree of output. So I just wanted to qualify that. I wish I could have an organization of six people or two or five and produce the output where we have. So I wish to be only two or three. That's the ultimate dream. I still don't know how to get there yet.

Richard James: Yeah, we don't either. I think we're at 16 ish, Michael, something like that. And yeah, it's uh, it's not easy.

Mike Michalowicz: It's not easy. I never want a single one of my colleagues to go. I have such a I'm blessed to be surrounded by the people. I am just like you are, for efficiency sake. Gosh, how can we do so much more with so much less and resources?

At the same time, you need to like embrace the fact that, well, there's going to be a bunch of suck that goes along with that. And you're going to have to jump into that pool, but your book is helping it suck a lot less. And so that's great. Michael MPS, where do you want to go from here?

Success Habits and Business Growth Strategies

---

MPS: I'm always curious to learn just some of your success habits. What do you do on a daily basis that leads to your continued success?

I used to think that I was the free resource of the business. I can work, I should work as hard as long as possible. And now I realized that's a detriment to the company. A question of my productivity was any better. I don't think it was understanding the three, three rule, but also I became a crutch.

I remember in my house there was a, I installed like a hammock into a tree with a bolt. Well, over the years, the trees kind of built around this bolt is unremovable or ill removable, whatever. I can't get it out. And that's what was happening with my business by always being bolted into the business.

Richard James: Easy to say so hard to do.

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.

Richard James: so very hard to do. Yeah, our clients struggle with it. We have many who have accomplished it. I, I did, as I often say, before Michael came along, I played more golf than I did work in the business at one point, and then Michael came in and we were on a growth pass and I've reinserted myself back at a major level.

And I will be honest, I can start to feel, me being the limiting factor.

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard James: I can see it happening again. And I met Michael and I just had the conversation yesterday. We've joined a new coaching program for us so we can eat our own dog food and get coaching about what we should do and have somebody look at our business from a different view.

And we were just talking about how, okay, we need a very strategic plan to replace ourselves in the roles that we're in, because this business will stagnate if we're not careful. And to your point, it'll grow around us and we'll be the limiting factor.

Do I get enough joy that I want to sustain this? And is it worth the compromise of the business? Because I am restricting the business growth and that's something that I consider regularly. And for now, I'll be the spokesperson.

Richard James: Some days.

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I'm right. Right. And when more days or some days, no, like I get out of here, then I got to get out of here.

MPS: Yep.

Richard James: Well, congratulations on your daughter coming in the business as well. I know you shared that off camera, but you know, that's having watched watching that happen in my world right now. It's an awful lot of fun. It's invigorating. And if you do it the way I know you're going to do it.

She can also step in and figure out what roles she's going to develop in the company and then she can become the limiting factor.

Mike Michalowicz: All right. Right. Yeah. Maybe.

Richard James: Michael, where do you want to go from here?

Mike Michalowicz: Michael. I invite everyone, if you're listening right now to go to Amazon and get it. Now, this is a selfish ask. First, I do believe is the best of me. I believe it's the best book I've written and I, think it will be transformative. It's the download of seven years of research into 220 pages of content, or you can get the audio.

So that I think will serve you dollar for dollar. I don't think I can top that. But here's a selfish ask if you're willing to get it, because I know the community you all have built Amazon's algorithm is monitoring who buys and the avatars like you is all behind the scenes in their algorithm. But if you do buy the book, even if you have a copyright, this is my boldest, most selfish ask.

Richard James: Yeah, well, and as it should, you've put the sweat in, not just in this book, but in the building from all of your other books to this book, Mike, I've got a question for you. What are you, I'm stealing Michael's question, but I'm going to do it because why not?

Mike Michalowicz: On the script.

Richard James: What do you, what are you most excited about? What's got you totally pumped and ready to go?

Embracing AI and Future Business Opportunities

---

Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, well, in regards to the business economy, it's AI and it's because it is the great equalizer. The big companies can't hide behind their size or leverage that anymore. smallest of small businesses has the ultimate tool now, size doesn't matter at all anymore. So I has me excited for me.

You know, we see each other, but we're not with each other. And that is a challenge and it's also an opportunity. I think that might be the next book I write.

Richard James: Yeah, well, great leaders make people feel great about themselves, right? And my friend, I have watched you through the years morph and change, and you have become more in touch with the humanity of your team and the teams of others than many that I've seen. And I think that has served you and your company very well, but because of your willingness to put your thoughts in words and create your framework and put it in books and do the hard work to promote them, we now get the benefit of that.

MPS: Yeah, Mike, I mean, seriously, thank you. This was terrific. We appreciate you being on and to the law firm owners listening to this. Thank you for investing your time here. And as we mentioned at the front side, look, if you got some value today, which it was impossible not to, and this isn't your first time listening or watching, make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button, depending on where you're listening or watching and show some love down in the comments for Mike and let us know your thoughts of all in when you get your copy and get a chance to read it.

Mike, we appreciate you. Thank you very much for being on.

MPS,

Mike Michalowicz: and Richard. Thank you both.

Richard James: You're welcome.