In this episode of Your Practice Mastered, host Richard James interviews his entrepreneurial son MPS. Learn how MPS went from selling socks on eBay as a kid to coaching over 5,000 law firm consultations and boosting their conversion rates. Discover key insights that can help grow your firm. Don't miss out!

[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.

[00:00:48] 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.

[00:01:09] 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?

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

[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.

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

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

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

[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.

[00:03:56] 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.

[00:04:08] 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.

[00:04:48] 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.

[00:05:30] 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?

[00:05:53] 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.

[00:06:04] 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?

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

[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.

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

[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?

[00:07:34] 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.

[00:08:03] 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.

[00:08:38] 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.

[00:09:25] 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.

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

[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?

[00:10:41] 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.

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

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

[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.

[00:11:53] 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.

[00:12:12] MPS: 25.

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

[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.

[00:13:16] 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.

[00:13:53] Is that right?

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

[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.

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

[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?

[00:15:17] 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.

[00:15:45] 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.

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

[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?

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

[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.

[00:17:44] 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.

[00:18:40] 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.

[00:19:15] 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.

[00:20:24] 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.

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

[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.

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

[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.

[00:22:44] MPS: Both.

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

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

[00:23:21] 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.

[00:24:18] 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?

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

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

[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.

[00:25:41] 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.

[00:26:34] 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.

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

[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.

[00:27:46] 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.

[00:28:18] 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.

[00:28:56] 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.

[00:29:27] 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.

[00:30:09] 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.

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

[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.

[00:31:37] 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.

[00:31:59] 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.

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