Michael Mogill is an international entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Crisp Video Group. His company provides unparalleled services to help law firm owners achieve exponential growth via superior brand differentiation, world-class video marketing, and exclusive leadership coaching. Crisp Video Group has been recognized four years in a row on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in the U.S., and it has also been rated as one of Atlanta’s Best Places to Work.
Michael is also a highly requested public speaker, the international best-selling author of The Game Changing Attorney, and the host of The Game Changing Attorney Podcast. He has been featured in Forbes, Inc., The Wall Street Journal, and more.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Michael Mogill, the Founder and CEO of Crisp Video Group, shares his early entrepreneurial experience
- How Michael’s hobby turned into a successful business venture
- Why is it important for entrepreneurs to adopt a giving mindset?
- Overcoming obstacles while building your own business
- How to deal with the criticism you receive as an entrepreneur
- Michael talks about his experience working with his wife, who is the Director of Operations at Crisp Video Group
- A mentor that has impacted Michael during his career
- Michael’s advice to someone who wants to start a business from scratch
In this episode…
People often believe that the most important aspect of building a business is making a profit. However, Michael Mogill, the Founder and CEO of Crisp Video Group, believes that the key to running a successful business is actually adopting a mindset where your main focus is helping your clients and contributing to your community.
Michael, who built one of the most successful companies in the legal industry, knows firsthand that reinvesting in your own people is the key to scaling your business. That’s how he took Crisp Video Group from $500 in revenue in 2012 to one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. four years running.
Join Luis Scott in this episode of The Guts and Glory Show as he talks to Michael Mogill, the Founder and CEO of Crisp Video Group. Michael discusses how he got his start in the legal industry, his beliefs about success, and the lessons he learned while building his company from the ground up. He also shares his advice for entrepreneurs that are thinking about starting their own businesses. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Michael Mogill
- Michael Mogill on LinkedIn
- Crisp Video Group
- Crisp Coach
- The Game Changing Attorney by Michael Mogill
- The Game Changing Attorney Podcast with Michael Mogill
- Luis Scott on LinkedIn
- 8 Figure Firm
- Bader Scott Injury Lawyers
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by 8 Figure Firm.
Co-founded by Luis Scott and Seth Bader of Bader Scott Injury Lawyers, 8 Figure Firm helps transform your law firm into a 7-figure or even 8-figure firm.
After their own law firm scaled from $3.5 million in revenues to $30 million per year in revenues in just two years, Luis and Seth started the 8 Figure Firm to share their strategies and help other law firms achieve exponential growth.
Visit www.8figurefirm.com to receive a consult call and start scaling your business today.
Episode Transcript
Luis Scott 0:00
I’m Luis Scott Managing Partner Bader Scott Injury Lawyers one of the fastest growing law firms in the country. And I’m also the co-founder of 8 Figure Firm Consulting. I’ve successfully built multiple companies by focusing on leadership, operations and culture. Using these principles, my companies have generated close to $100 million in revenue. But before any of this success, I started my legal career as a receptionist, and I worked my way up to becoming managing partner. And each episode of this podcast, I sit down with leaders and entrepreneurs who have had the guts to step out on their own, and the courage to face adversity. They share with us their tips for achievement, the challenges they have faced and the glory of success. I welcome you to The Guts and Glory Show.
Alright, Luis Scott, here, host of The Guts and Glory Show I feature top leaders who share the obstacles and challenges of leadership, the guts it takes to succeed in the glory of success. Today, you will hear another inspiring interview from international entrepreneur, Michael Mogill who has built one of the most successful companies in the legal industry. But before we get started, and I introduce my guest, I want to mention a sponsor message from a figure from consulting, 8 Figure Firm Consulting helps law firms take their business from seven to 8 figures by keeping lawyers from doing the work they hate, and letting them focus on making the impacts they love. You know, I remember when I started my career, and Michael, you work with a lot of law firms. So you could attest to this being the case, I was working 70-80 hours a week, I literally had no idea what how to build a business or how to do anything. And we’re going to talk a little bit about your your company and how you help lawyers make this big impact. And that’s what we do at 8 Figure Firm as well. We do it more from an operational standpoint. And we work with them to help them develop a business that works for them instead of them working for the business. So if you want to turn your law firm into a law business, go to 8 Figure Firm.com now, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing today’s guest. He’s an international best selling author of the game changing attorney, owner of sea and CEO of Crisp video, host of the Game Changing Attorney podcast and my good friend, Michael Mogill, Michael, welcome to the guts and glory show.
Michael Mogill 2:00
Thank you for having me.
Luis Scott 2:02
All right, so let’s just get get started. When I was preparing your intro, when I was preparing your intro, I realized I couldn’t fit it all in one page, because it’s like so many accolades, so many things that I could talk about. But you know what I said, let me let him talk about his story. So so for the people listening to the show, tell us a little bit more about you and about your business and what you do and how you help law firms around the country.
Michael Mogill 2:24
Yeah, how far back do we want to go?
Luis Scott 2:28
To? I mean, give us give us the good stuff.
Michael Mogill 2:30
So you know, I guess really, at its core, I mean, just a background about me, you know, my family and I immigrated from Eastern Europe to the US, I came here when I was four years old as my brother and I have parents and grandparents, they didn’t speak the language with $500 to our name. And, you know, we grew up, you know, great parents, you know, my parents have always been very supportive. They valued education and things like that, but we did not have much. So, in the financial sense, right, so grew up in a lot of low income communities. And you know, but you know, but my parents, like I said, they always, always pushed us and, you know, they came here because it was really to create opportunity for my brother and I. So, you know, I took that with a tremendous responsibility. Now going to school and going to college, I was originally pre med took the MCAT got into med school. And I think that’s like the prescribed path for, you know, for most like immigrant children, right. So it’s like doctor or lawyer, you know, right entrepreneur is always very, like, you know, foreign, right? It’s like it this is, I mean, this is before shark tank and everything like that. So, you know, you hear entrepreneur, people don’t really understand what that what that is what that means. And you know, it wasn’t very cool. You know, it at the onset. It’s basically that, you know, unemployable, right. I mean, that’s, I think that’s probably pretty much more of it. But, but I was very entrepreneurial from an early age, I mean, my first company to get age 13, it was a web design company, and you know, my mom and let our clients in, like, the front door, and like, I’d sit and, you know, create, like, their websites. And, you know, I mean, even I think even going back before that, I’m trading cards and like those Pogs. And I remember getting in trouble at school, because, you know, in elementary school that the teacher saw this gambling, and they’d call my parents and they’re like, wait, what’s he doing? But it to me, I was just like, yeah, this is an entrepreneurial thing to do. It just makes sense. Right. So yeah, so ultimately, I mean, I guess it decided not to go to medical school just wasn’t for me, I you know, being entrepreneurial, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that I that I wanted to do. And you know, and I explored a lot of different paths. And there came a point this, by the way, this is right in 2012. You know, it actually, prior to that it was in 2008. This is right, when the, you know, the economy tanked you know, I come out of school honors graduate, and there are no jobs, right. I mean, this is I’m washing dishes at a dive bar. And then from there, I was able to, you know, kind of upgrade my my life to, you know, washing lab equipment at the CDC. And, yeah, but while I was there, I was trying to basically figure out what do I do? I mean, I was, you know, study for an MBA, you know, get and and ultimately I was I was learning things, everything from like JavaScript and PHP, and then you know, I didn’t know anything about money. So you know, I got kind of obsessed and learning different like financial strategies. And just like I would read all these different books, because I didn’t have much money at the time, but I didn’t really learn anything about that from from my parents. So I figured, well, this would be probably something good to be good at, right or at least to understand. And then I ended up buying a camera, because I figured this would be a nice and lifetime skill to have, like, who don’t want to be good at just taking pictures. And the start is a hobby. So for me, my hobbies turned into like, basically business ventures. So it started off with just me buying a camera, but then it led to me really starting a photography company, and then you know, and then a marketing company, and then that led to a video company and so on. And, you know, what started, you know, as working with, you know, a lot in the hospitality industry, eventually is when, as we outgrew that it was starting to work with, you know, larger brands and companies like Coca Cola, and Redbull, and Verizon and so on. And, you know, I looked at, you know, where could we make the greatest impact, and it wasn’t actually for the large brands and the large corporations, it was really for, like the small businesses, yeah, I could relate to other business owners and business leaders. And as I was undergoing that journey, you know, we had an attorney that reached out to us completely, you know, at random, we weren’t marketing towards attorneys, we know we were working with, you know, all sorts of different industries, like tech, financial, you know, legal wasn’t one of them. But she’d reached out to us, she had no online presence, we ended up creating, you know, some videos for her and marketing those videos, and in her firm exploded. So we did that for another law firm. And then another one after that. And I looked at what was going on in the legal industry as it related to like marketing and advertising and essentially saw that, you know, for the last, let’s say, 1520 years at the time, and this is in 2012, not a whole lot had changed. So like the methods of advertising were fairly traditional, right? So you saw in a given market was that you’d have the top Goliath firms. So there was like one, two or three that had the, you know, the most revenue and the most advertising dollars, investing the most in marketing, bringing the most cases. And as a result, because they would bring in the most cases, they were able to put that money back into the market, into their marketing. And it wasn’t very much a level playing field, it was very difficult for you know, smaller firms to even be successful, because you have Goliath in every market that can literally outspend them and out saturate them. But what we saw was that, you know, at least as it related to like digital, video, and social and so on that there was a, you know, a potential area where you could be more competitive and more strategic. And, you know, the cost were very different than the barriers presented by traditional advertising, like TV, radio, and billboards. So we went all in on that, you know, that our goal was like, how can we help, you know, these great firms with great attorneys, that just didn’t happen to be great marketers, and maybe not even great business owners, but, you know, they really wanted to help people. And it was in the best interest of their communities, to be able to connect with those people, but you couldn’t really hire them if you didn’t know they existed. So that was really how Crisp was born, at least, you know, it kind of that legal pivot. And, and since that time, and then we’re 100% of law firms. That’s the only work that we do. And, you know, we realized, I guess the the evolution was, you know, we started with these great videos that are almost like these movie trailers that are story driven, and cinematic that you know, going on, you know, law firms website, and social and so on. And that was really like the story. And we found that if you could articulate what sets you apart, why someone should hire you why you do what you do, you can establish this level of authenticity and connection. But right after that, we saw a major problem in the sense that, you know, the videos were great, but if they didn’t get in front of, you know, law firms, ideal clients, you know, they, you know, they’d be great at cocktail parties, but they wouldn’t necessarily help to drive more new business. So we realize we had to get good at the marketing side, and we kind of expanded from the video company, to the video marketing company, but then, you know, you see another barrier. And we found that, you know, you could be you could have a great video and great marketing. But if you don’t know how to answer the phones properly, if the intakes not right, if the culture is wrong, if the leadership isn’t strong, if there’s no operations, all those different things, you know, the ROI of the marketing was largely dependent upon what was going on internally within that firm, and oftentimes would become a bottleneck based on the capabilities and the capacity of the leader. So that’s how we expand into the coaching. So it’s like video to marketing to coaching, which always seemed like seemed like a natural progression to me. But like this, I think, you know, at least, companies within the legal industry like this a lot more than we were just the video company. Yeah, right. Yeah, I got invited to less parties as we kind of went through this evolution.
Luis Scott 9:04
Yeah, as soon as, as soon as you become a competitor, people stop inviting you to things, that’s for sure. And that’s, you know, it’s strange how that works. You know, you said something interesting about how you went to pre med, you’re going to go to medical school. And I think a lot of people fall into that category where they feel like society tells us that this is what successes, and we don’t push a lot about entrepreneurship. You know, you you hear this about, don’t be a workaholic, nobody’s ever died, wishing that they worked more. And you know, but yet we celebrate actors and celebrities who are working all the time we celebrate when the NFL plays on Thanksgiving, we celebrate when the NBA plays on Crisptmas Day. But if you want to do something for your family and your business, all of a sudden you’re this bad guy. What do you think that comes from?
Michael Mogill 9:45
You know, it’s interesting. I think that I agree with you in the sense that like, you know, there’s while sometimes I think work ethic or even you know, in terms of growth can be demonized in some ways. I think what people really do admire is is ultimately the end result, which is oftentimes a byproduct of those of those very things. So it’s, it’s, I think that’s why it’s so rare as well, because it’s such an uphill climb, you have to not only change your environment, you have a lot of people that are critical along the way. I mean, basically, what you’re doing is you’re becoming the outlier, right? Like to really become successful in anything, you’re the outlier, which means you’re not doing what’s as prescribed, you’re not kind of in that homeostasis where, you know, if you don’t, if you kind of stay within the boundaries of like, let’s say, mediocrity, you know, people kind of leave you alone, right? That’s like acceptable, as soon as you start doing like late nights, early mornings, all the all this stuff people like, why are you doing that or like, you know, someone doesn’t agree with it, or, you know, whatever it is that you start to see, hear that criticism, which is, which is tough, because at the time, once you start doing those things, there’s a lot of uncertainty and you’re taking a lot of risk. You know, if you’re building a business, you don’t know the outcome, you already have doubts, you already have uncertainty. And on top of that, you’re getting criticism. So I think that’s why it’s so difficult to overcome those barriers. Yeah, I
Luis Scott 10:57
mean, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting, because mediocrity loves company, man, it’s amazing how when you’re mediocre, nobody really does says anything to you. Nobody criticizes you. nobody says anything negative to you. As soon as you step out, it’s like you’re challenging that person, you know, you’re challenging them without even saying anything to them. So, you know, you talked a lot about kind of like this media conglomerate business that you have, I mean, best selling author of a book, you have your own podcast, you do videos, you do coaching, like what what excites you the most about your business? What gets you up every day?
Michael Mogill 11:29
Well, and this is gonna potentially sound like cliche or cheesy, because I know what it sounded like to me when I would hear what I’m about to say. But I think the most exciting thing to me, I mean, one impact for sure, right, I think there comes a point where, you know, at first, there perhaps, is a motivation to either prove somebody wrong. And I think, you know, as you kind of evolve, you care less about that you’re doing things more so because they align with like your purpose and in the impact you want to make. So being able to help people is very important. I’ve also just very big growth driven in general, I think that that in itself, like it’s exciting to make progress, it’s exciting to evolve, it’s exciting to, you know, the thing that’s driving me, and this is kind of the, the core of nearly everything we do at this point is that I believe that like success is really about helping others win and helping others succeed. And that’s everyone around you. It’s your team members, it’s your clients, it’s, you know, it’s your industry and so on. So, whenever we’re deciding, you know, where do we what do we do next? And kind of how do we kind of evolve? A lot of it is based on what are the challenges or the pain points that our clients are experiencing? Where can we add support? Where it How can we help people? I mean, even things like, like, the podcast, and podcast is free, right? I mean, anyone can listen to that. And, you know, that really stemmed from the idea of like, you know, I believe that people would be interested in hearing from market leaders and listening to, you know, how do they make decisions, how do they, you know, manage their teams, how, you know, essentially, you know, all those different aspects, because you can learn a lot of things from them. The book really stemmed from the fact of like, just putting all of our knowledge, all the things that we learned on the marketing front, into kind of like a do it yourself book. And then even with the coaching, it’s like, yeah, I felt that people could benefit from a supportive collaborative community of like minded people that are, you know, also ambitious, and, you know, some of the best growing firms in America. So, I don’t know, for me, that’s exciting. And I think it’s also when you know, yourself, I guess I kind of relate to, like, I don’t wanna say, necessarily younger Michael, but I experienced a lot of a lot of pain on as we grew, like, from, from where it all started to where it is today. I mean, I started $500, to my name with the business, you know, in my apartment, I didn’t have anyone and have any support, I couldn’t even understand the cause and effect behind different decisions. Like I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell you what good businesses or bad business decision, I was just making decisions, but like, I wouldn’t know why some people worked out others didn’t work out, why the phone ring more why the phone ring less. And that it’s almost like this is place of misery that you’re in because you feel like you don’t have control over your outcomes. And as I learn more and more and like as I you know, everything from like reading to conferences and seminars to like mentors, and so on, it just, you almost start to see the matrix, it’s like this veil has been lifted, and you go from singing black and white to sing in color. And I’m like, wow, this is a lot more fun. Like, it’s, this is a lot more enjoyable when you like, you can actually understand how all these dynamics work. So, you know, as we work with other business leaders, I see that same suffering, and maybe, you know, maybe to a degree, this is all about, like helping others avoid that type of suffering, right? To an extent is that because that’s, that’s what you know, would have been so helpful to me at that time. But it’s just comes down to just realizing that we control a lot more of this than we think. And, you know, a lot of is a function of just the leader itself, like we are the bottleneck of everything around us. Like it’s not, you know, Suzy or Crisp or whoever it is, right. It’s it’s always us, it’s always the leader.
Luis Scott 14:38
At the end of the day, that’s absolutely true. And we have to find people who can supplement us and get us out of the way. You know, you said something in your response that you didn’t say this word, but this is the word that you said. And then in Thai responses, the word give, you know, you have really developed a reputation of being a giver as a client of yours. In your coaching program. It’s kind of remarkable how to what extent your company And you you and your wife go to to give to people. Everything you said was about giving, you know, the free book, the free podcasts, all these things. What What role does giving play in the life of an entrepreneur and a business person? Because there’s somebody right now listening to this podcast, and they’re saying, How do I become this huge success? You know, you’ve gone from, from nothing to multi 8 figures fast tracking to nine figures in revenue. How do I become that success? I think giving is one of those one of those keys. What would you say to that person who’s who’s you know, asking that question?
Michael Mogill 15:30
Yeah, I think it comes back to to mindset, which is, which is like this is this word that anybody who’s a fixed mindset doesn’t want to hear, right? Because they want to hear some tactic. They want me to say, No, you should really do this email strategy, or this Facebook strategy. But no, but it’s truly his mindset. And what I mean by that, it’s just like, the mindset you have, you know, just towards the decisions that you make in terms, your clients and to your business, and so on. Like, I’ll give you an example. So from the standpoint of, you know, when you’re deciding what investments to make in your law firm, for example, there are ways and I see most law firm owners focusing on how do we limit our exposure, if we can’t see like, we can’t put $1 in and get $1 50? back right away? We’re not going to do it. And then at the same time, well, how do we essentially keep as much profit as humanly possible, right, like, wrong, wrong, wrong, like minds, right? Because Because here’s the thing, that is a very selfish mindset, it is, it is the mindset that essentially says, How do we give the least and take the most right, rather than instead saying, What’s going to lead to the best outcomes for our clients? What leads to the best experience for those clients? Who then become referral sources? How do we help our team members to succeed and grow? Right? How do we help impact our community when you make decisions from that mindset, and this is a tough thing to buy into, because I would understand it, you know, if anyone’s listening, and they, you know, let’s say they’re struggling, they’re not in a good financial situation, hearing this type of thing, it’s like, you got to give it a go to how to reap the rewards from it, and you don’t see those rewards immediately. But it but it is the way to go, ultimately. And the other thing I’ll say, is just that so much of this is this belief that it’s not all about today, it’s not even all about you, you know, when if you can focus your your goals and your purpose around helping somebody else succeed, that’s what creates cash confidence, you know, every successful law firm owner that I speak with, if you were to ask them, How do I make sure I never worry about where the next case is coming from? Like, how do I make sure I never ever have to worry about that, again, that thing that they always say, it’s not even a marketing answer. It’s always from the standpoint of, if you’re helping your clients succeed at the highest level, you’re helping them get the best outcomes, and sometimes the best outcome isn’t even the case results. Sometimes it’s just literally the experience they have with you, you do that every single time your team is consistent every single time, then, you know, you start to build a reputation, right, reputation precedes revenue, you know, you’ve now have established this level of trust. People like you, you know, as your marketing people know, you, all these different things start to happen. And then before you know it, you know, your clients are referring to other lawyers are referring to you and so on, just because of the minds that you’ve had that it wasn’t about you, it was about helping them win. And I mean, this truthfully, because this is like a mindset warp than anyone who’s thinking about it, who’s hearing this and is thinking, How do I make the most money possible? Hmm, that kind of mindset is, I never see someone succeed with that, right? Because I find that if, if the goal is primarily money, or revenue, or whatever it is, that person has an end destination, meaning that whenever they get there or to some amount, they let their foot off the gas, the person who’s driven by helping other people succeed, person goes forever, right? Like that, is it that is a dangerous adversary, because they’re insatiable. And, you know, they could double their business, they could triple it, and they don’t stop, right, they don’t retire, they keep going. They want to help as many people as humanly possible. So I think, you know, bringing this all together, the the mindset around giving is really around the fact that when you’re making decisions in your law firm, it’s not thinking about what allows us to keep, you know, maximize the profit, or what allows us to invest the least in our clients. Instead, it’s the exact opposite of like, how do we help support them at the highest level? You know, the example that I’ve given before is, and we’ve done our conferences, you know, annually in Atlanta, you know, we do an open bar, you know, you do an open bar for over 1000 lawyers, that is, you know, it’s not inexpensive. I mean, I think it was over like $170,000 to do an open bar for an hour for 1000 lawyers. And, you know, someone asked me, they’re like, what, you know, what’s the ROI of that? You know, I am, I don’t know how to possibly calculate the ROI of an open bar versus a cash bar. But I’ll tell you that like those details, and those experiences matter, right, like getting each of those touch points, right, matters remember people’s birthday matters, like all these different things, because you’re focusing on like on them over you and and that’s been a recipe I think once I realized that once I finally understood that I realized it wasn’t something that just wealthy people say, I actually realized that that’s how the wealthy will became wealthy.
Luis Scott 19:38
Absolutely, you know, and and I’ve been to your conferences, and I can tell you one of the best parts of it is those cookies that you guys serve. I mean, I took half a dozen of those. I wanted to make sure I had my share and it’s you know, it’s the little things you know, it’s giving those little things it’s kind of amazing, you know, hearing this story I you go from nothing $500 to your name, to literally on track to do nine, nine figures. In revenue like, that can be overwhelming for new entrepreneur, like, you know, they want to know, what were the hard points, like, you know, tell me what, what was the hardest thing you’ve had to overcome in this experience? And you know, what did you learn from it that somebody can take away and say, you know, I can do it, I can make that happen?
Michael Mogill 20:16
Yeah, I mean, without a doubt, if there’s, if there’s a person who’s made mistakes, and you know, hundreds of thousands of them, it’s me. I mean, it has been so many stumbling blocks, there’s been so many things that I think a lot of people from the outside never see, right. Because, you know, when you got the highlight reel on, you know, on social media, or what have you, you’re seeing all the good moments, you’re seeing the announcements, you’re seeing the things that have worked, you just seen the awards and so on. But, you know, but there’s, you know, there’s always those daily challenges, and you grow to different levels of the business. I mean, what starts out early on, is this challenge around, like, how do we just make the payroll, right? How can I hire somebody and employ them and you know, be able to afford, you know, their salary salary that goes beyond even just one other person to then you know, you have challenges where, you know, that expands to, you know, 7080 plus people, and then you got, you know, larger marketing budget, you got a lot more things in motion, you know, all these different things. So, but those are very, very different types of challenges, I find that the problems don’t go away, it just kind of, you know, upgrade to new problems. But I’ll tell you that one of the big, like, pivotal moments that I had, it was back in 2016. And we had decided, so we were I mean, we were growing from 2012, you know, on, we’re growing at a certain pace, but I felt that, you know, we weren’t growing exponentially, right, we weren’t, you grow incrementally a little bit, and so on. And you can do things where you say you invest a little more in marketing, and then you kind of go through incremental levels, but it’s like, how do you double, you know, how do you like triple? And how do you really, really scale impact, and we had this idea for, for a referral program, and it was client referral program. And you know, what the first one, so there’s no other companies that were giving away like Amazon gift cards, and, you know, apple, like, you know, iPads and things like that. And we had this idea, and I’m like, What if we gave a car away, and once I got that idea in my head, I was like, Alright, we got to do it. And we said, we’re gonna give away a Tesla Model S. And this car, remember, this thing was $77,000, I had to clear up my all my savings, because I thought, this is brilliant ideas. Like we’re gonna give away a Tesla, our clients, you know, photos, they can win this car. And I remember driving down to the dealership, and I stroked the check for the car, and I drove it back to the office. And then like, from that point, it was the end of 2016. All the way to when we gave it away in April 2017. My eye twitched every day, okay, like, like, so I thought it would be this huge success, right? Right off the bat. I was like, man, we’re gonna get tons of referrals and everything. first month, we announced this thing, we didn’t get a single referral, right. And I remember driving up to the office because I parked the car up front, and you got like this reminder, right in front of you, you better make this work, right? You better figure this out. Because if it doesn’t work, you know, you’re gonna wipe yourself out. And you know, but I will say that that ended up being one of the best things we ever did. It wasn’t even so much because the car and ultimate the program was, you know, was a huge success. And we gave it away at a conference the following year in April. And you know, and that went really well. But I think the reason why that was such an important moment for me was that that was the first time that I really went big, you know, that was like the first time where I mean, I was probably it’s like the difference between like, you’re sitting at a blackjack table gambling and $5 chips, and then you upgrade to grant down with the thousand dollar checks, right? And it’s like, this moment of courage where, like, yeah, you never know how something’s going to work. But I was tired of playing small. And you know, and doing something like that, that was an orders of magnitude bigger than anything we’d ever done before, like it was at the time was the largest investment in the company. It terrified me. I mean, you know, I guess I zeroed out all my savings over it. And to see that succeed, I think was so important, because it built confidence to not only do that again, the following year, but because we did it with a you know, the first one was the Tesla Model S, the second year was a Model X, but then to do it again, with three Tesla Model threes, and then again, with three Tesla Model threes in a Ferrari. And then again, you know, I mean, so we get nine cars away in the in the years that followed, it led to the confidence to write the book, it might have the confidence to host the conference, and then host another conference. But I think it all stemmed from that first decision to play big. And then, you know, once you because all it takes is really courage, right? So right, people want confidence. Confidence is like a byproduct of your results, right? Like but but you don’t ever get that if you don’t have the courage to do something that comes with a great degree of uncertainty and discomfort, you know, so that I feel like sometimes people feel that comfort is a is a necessary to make a decision when I couldn’t disagree more, I think like some of the most important decisions you’ll make are going to be the most uncomfortable decisions you ever make. Because you never know the necessarily the outcome of something like that. But it’s hard to ever really get there. Unless you start to play bigger. You know, it’s you know, I’ve seen and I know, Luise, you and Seth do an amazing job of this. I’ve seen people that are deliberating for a year over bringing in an office manager over hiring one employee, and you guys go and hire 30 people at once, you know, and it’s like, yeah, you know, think about this, when you think about decision making, like the speed at that of those decisions. versus you know how sluggish it can be. So one person has spent a year making one hiring decision, while another firm owner, you know, brings in five people at once, right? They make for progress, even if let’s say those people don’t work out, they figure that out faster, and they’re able to make many more decisions before the first person has even made one decision.
Luis Scott 25:16
Absolutely, you know, and going back to employment, we hired 40 people in a matter of three weeks. And we not all of them stayed, right. I mean, like, 50% of them were probably gone within six months. But what we learned is we had to be better at hiring we had to be you learned so much from those experiences. I remember Tiger Woods saying that, that the reason he knows he’s going to make a shot is because he’s made so many shots before, like, confidence does breed more confidence. And I love how you stopped one car short of the the pinnacle of car giving, you’re about to give away a Rolls Royce ghost at your next conference. So tell us a little bit about that.
Michael Mogill 25:53
You know, I feel like we’re all you know, we’re all addicted to something. And maybe it’s you know, so I’ve seen people, you know, business leaders that are addicted to maybe cortisol and like that stress, they feel like they have to do that to themselves to make for progress. Maybe that’s me. I don’t know. But I will say that, yes, we are giving away a Rolls Royce ghost now it’s probably the biggest one we’ve done. Because I mean, last year, we thought we’re going big with the you know, the Ferrari. But the interesting thing about this one, you want to talk about discomfort it was when we actually bought the car. So as we know, COVID hit this year, right? You can talk about global pandemic, and I remember being dealership February 29, I remember this because it was like a, it was like a leak. And I got it then and I parked in my garage. And then you know, we have this global pandemic that hits. Right. And that that changed things dramatically. I mean, you know, for one, we ended up moving the conference from November this year, to May of next year. But you know, then you’re like, Okay, well, was that the right decision to buy this thing? And then this happens, right? It’s like, we actually held off from marketing it for a long time. Because, you know, you got, you know, the world on fire and crumbling, and it’s like driving around a Rolls Royce. We didn’t know that was, you know, good taste or not, but, but I will say it’s, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things in, I think the car is getting a lot of attention. But I think if someone’s listening, and you know, let’s say the thing, why can’t give a car away to my clients, or whatever it is, it’s less about the car. And I think it’s more about doing something that, you know, not only brings attention and gets you known and so on, but it’s also something that again, all these cars are going away have gone to clients, right? Like the winner of the Rolls Royce goes like that will go to a client. And it’s, it’s not even so it’s interesting, when you think about how that, that contest works. It’s, it’s a transformation contest, people are literally documenting themselves and how they’ve grown and transformed and so on, and there’s gonna be a public vote of other law firm owners. But you look at that, and you’re like, well, Mike, how you monetizing that? Right? It’s not based on referrals. And the interesting thing that comes back to the aspect of giving, it’s not being directly monetized. It really isn’t. I mean, there’s not, you know, a referral that comes directly out of that, or anything like that. We wanted to do it, because, you know, you see a lot of people that are kind of weighed down and maybe tired, you know, from what 2020 has been, you know, the business leaders that kind of, you know, you’re having to really step up as a leader, you know, not not only to your team and your family and your communities and so on. And we wanted to give people something to rally for, right, and it’s like, Guys, get up and let’s go. And I think to me, it’s exciting to be a part of that conversation. But it’s just more so thinking about, okay, what’s going to get your clients excited, what’s going to make those moments memorable, what’s going to make those experiences special, and so on. And then, you know, as long as you’ve got, let’s say, the internal aspects of your business together, like the especially the operational aspects of it, everything else does fall into place, everything else does work out. I really, you know, it’s interesting, you have two different stories, like the person who I mean, how often do you hear about the person who was giving and giving and helping support the clients and communities and their family and their team members, that person things didn’t work out for them, versus the one that was literally putting all the money back into their pocket, you know, buying all sorts of stupid shit, you know, like cars and houses, and whatever it is, and instead of reinvesting it into their people, and so on, and like, it’s always the form of the 60s, not the ladder, right? Of course, because of the difference of mindsets.
Luis Scott 29:02
Yeah, and you keep saying that word, mindset, mindset mindset. And I think it really does come down to mindset. And, you know, when you think about building a business, you get a lot of criticism, and we’ve talked off camera about criticism, you know, I’ve even I’ve sent you personal text messages, hey, you know, how do you deal with this situation? Because people are so critical of you, in every aspect, not just you, but like any entrepreneur, what would you tell an entrepreneur or law firm owner, small guy who’s scared of playing big, because of the criticism, they’re going to get that the competition like, what would you tell that person? what’s the what’s the right mindset? You know,
Michael Mogill 29:33
I think there’s two sides to it, you know, because there’s a difference between really, you know, like feedback where if, you know, let’s say, like American Idol, and you’re a terrible singer, and people are, you know, saying, Hey, you know, hey, this, you know, this isn’t for you. I think that is that can be very, like, that’s, that’s candor, right? versus somebody you know, criticizing you because they’re envious or what have you, I mean, or, you know, let’s say you’re you’re growing your firm, and as it turns out, you know, a lot of the social circles that used to be a part of those people, let’s say may not You know, invite you as much and they may not be as supportive of you because guess what, you’re pulling a lot of business away from them, right? Like maybe as a result, you’re making things more difficult for them at because you’ve now built a larger organization, you’re more competitive, maybe you have less things in common. But, you know, as we’ve said, it’s, you know, you don’t want to necessarily take criticism from anyone that you wouldn’t go to for advice. And I find that a lot of like, criticism and a lot of these things that comes with the territory, you know, it I think it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and to put yourself in terms on like, a public stage and, and really just, uh, do anything, you know, if we’re talking about even at the start of the podcast that, you know, if you didn’t want any criticism, just like what do nothing, say nothing, be nothing, right, I just fall in line, you know, it just, you know, be quiet, don’t ruffle anyone’s feathers, and so on. You know, if we stayed the video company, at conferences, everybody loved us. There weren’t really any other legal video companies and we weren’t, we weren’t stepping on anyone’s toes and anything like that. We are everyone is fine. And in what’s interesting is I think a lot of growth doesn’t necessarily come as a result of what we want to beat this other organization we want, you know, like, what have you I’ve it just stems from the fact that we talked, you know, back to like giving it’s, we want to support our clients at a higher level, you know, that’s, that’s what we’re focusing on. And you know, and if it grows, it expands. And this capacity would have you, it’s not about any competitor, it’s, it’s really more so about how do we help our clients, and it’s also kind of a notion around competition, I find that, you know, you can have this competitive mindset where, you know, you you view that essentially, like, if someone else or another firm gets one case, that’s one less case for you. But I found generally, that if you instead have a collaborative mindset, that in itself is what leads the most growth, like you can support other law firm owners, you can refer them cases, they can refer you cases as well. And then the most important thing is, you know, what we’re really in competition with is ourselves, you know, there is no one. And I truly mean this, there’s no one in your market that could do more damage to you than yourself, you know, and most successful farm owners, when I speak with it, I’m like, What would it take to put you out of business to take out like these guys at the top these market leaders? And they’re like, it would be them. Right? Like, they’d have to make some serious mistakes, serious errors of judgment, whatever it is, but they don’t, they’re never mentioned competition. Because right, you don’t control that you control what you do. You control your effort, you control what’s going on your organization, how you treat your clients, all these different things. And, you know, when you focus on that, everything else, you know, falls in place, but come back and coming back to criticism. At first, I would say that, you know, pained me, I hear this stuff. And I hear these things that aren’t true, and so on. And, you know, really bothered my wife too, because she’d hear the stuff and like, She’s like, well, how could they say that that’s not true? Like, you really helped this person or whatever, whatever it is. And and I would start to question myself, I’m like, did I do this person wrong somehow, like, you know, really, you know, like, just really thinking about this stuff. And in the end, what I realized was that, okay, I wasn’t getting any criticism when we were, you know, $500, back in 2012, in my apartment, every year, as we grew, you’re getting more noise, and you’re, you’re hearing more and more criticism. But that’s just a byproduct, I think of the fact that, you know, you’re putting yourself out there, and you’re gonna make some people uncomfortable, because, guess what I mean, you’re growing and innovating. But I think john Morgan mentioned this a while back, it’s like, when he comes into a market, everyone gets so nervous. Everyone’s like, oh, man, like john Morgan is coming in. And he’s like, you know, there’s whole CLS dedicated to what you should do. JOHN Morgan comes into your market. And it’s like, like, I’ll shortcut this thing for you. And he’s so right when he says this, whether you like him or don’t like him, if he says, like, just here’s the solution, just get better. You know, like, yeah, just elevate your own organization, elevate yourself as a leader, all those different things that people, you know, it’s vice versa, I think about this all the time, I think, you know, true competitors, like people who are just love the sport of competition, love making a great impact. They love a worthy adversary, because that’s what forces you to level up your own game. You know, competition is good for communities, it’s good for the public, and so on. It’s what leads to innovation. So from that standpoint, I think it’s a great thing.
Luis Scott 33:51
Yeah, I mean, you need competition, because competition actually makes a better experience for the client, if you really are, are about the client experience. Imagine somebody coming in and providing a better client experience, you’re going to then have to perform at a higher level. So competition is really good for the client. Now, you mentioned your wife, and it’s a it’s interesting, because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs out there who start many law firm owners Believe it or not start with their wife being their first office manager, maybe their own legal system. Your wife is the CEO of your business, a multi 8 figure business, she she manages 80 plus maybe 100 employees. Tell me about that experience. And what would you tell someone, a law firm owner or any business owner, who is thinking about having their wife work with them?
Michael Mogill 34:35
Well, so there’s two ways to answer this because there’s like the wife conversation and then there’s like the kind of like your, your second in command conversation. So on the second command said, I would say play to your strengths. You know, I’m good at very few things like very, very, very few things. And I realized that way, when my wife came on board, it was back in 2014. I mean, culture was a mess. We didn’t have any processes like it was just I mean, I was, I was almost like reluctant to get out of bed every morning because I was thinking what fire like lies before me today, right? Like It is all because it was promised to promise your problem. And, you know, she came in and you know, she not only created the processes and all these different systems and functions, she’s very operationally minded. But it’s just also the most important thing is she freed me up from having to think or worry about any of that stuff. And I was able to focus on my strengths, when you think about long term strategy, playing the role of a visionary playing the role of like, you know, everything from sales and marketing, and so on, that’s how the whole thing really scaled, that I was no longer trying to do everything, I was just focusing on the very few things that I was good at, and then hiring around me. Now the conversation on on wife, I’m a firm believer that our choice of spouse is one of the single most important decisions we will ever make in our lives. And what I mean is just that, either this person is going to take you to new h8s, or they’re going to be the greatest anchor that will prevent you from ever achieving anything you ever want to do. So I make that decision carefully. And, and I will say that, you know, what’s, what’s worked well, for us, especially like, you know, in the business and so on, is that we have two very distinct lanes, you know, and she’s, you know, she manages really the back of house of the organization. And I focus largely on a lot of the aspects of the front of the house. But you know, we, we generally don’t interface as much on a day to day basis. She’s got, you know, her departments and team members that she manages, and vice versa. And then focusing on I mean, she, at the same time, the things that she, you know, loves to do, are things that, you know, I’m not my strengths, and vice versa, the things that are not her strengths that she would say, just does not enjoy doing, never wants to do, I’d love to do. So it’s, you know, it’s finding this, like, you know, this balance of focusing on on strength themselves, but, you know, overall, it’s worked well, I’ll say that it’s, it’s good to have somebody like that that’s in your corner who’s like with you, I think that when you you know, you bring your spouse to the office, it’s like dog years, you know, in, in relationship beers, you know, because it’s not, you know, you’re, you’re together, when you’re at work, you’re together when you’re at home, so it really does test the relationship. So it’s, I’d say, it’s not for everyone, but if you have established like out of those those boundaries, or guardrails, if you will, and that kind of clear the findings of like, accountability is really who does what, and so on. It could work really well with the right person.
Luis Scott 37:10
Yeah, I think the key word that you said is boundaries, I mean, without the boundaries, that you’re going to be stepping on each other’s toes. And, and that, obviously, is not a good recipe for for any relationship, whether you’re married to them, or it’s just a business relationship, you want to make sure you have good boundaries. Now what I know that for me, there’s been a lot of mentors in my life that have helped me, you know, progress. And that’s been the case, in my experience with a lot of very successful people, they have mentors, I remember, somebody recently told me that, that the the issue with people getting to the next level, is really nothing to do with money or access or anything like that. It has everything to do with mentors, the mentors they find in their life, what was a mentor of yours that really, you know, was a catalyst for you? And what did you learn from them that really took you to the next level?
Michael Mogill 37:53
Yeah, and I think you, you know, this person, but I will say that, you know, it’s interesting, one of my regrets actually, is that I didn’t really bring on a mentor until much later in my business career, if I could go back, you know, I would have brought one on right from the onset. And sooner or not, I advocate that if you don’t have some sort of mentor, mentor could be anyone it could be, you know, another business owner that you respect, it’s got already been to where you want to go, and so on. I mean, it really could be anything. But with this person, this was somebody that came from similar, similar background to mine, much older than me, but had been there done that I’ve seen many of the pitfalls that I was experiencing, he’s someone that has scaled, his organization came in as like the lowest paid employee, and then grown it to, you know, over 100 million dollars. And I think the more important aspect, also family, you know, Barry’s much focused on his family, and so on. So for me, I think a lot of the lessons really came from just realizing and understanding that, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know, I think there’s a lot of blind spots that many of us don’t see. It’s, I think, the it’s almost like the audacity that some of us have to believe that we know how to get to a place that we ourselves have never been, you know, I mean, right? That’s really basically what leadership is, right? I mean, you’re, you’re guiding people down, you know, a journey to a destination that maybe in many cases, you’ve never even been to yourself, and, and I think in order to do that, you have to have the right people around you, you know, you have to have people that have done it before that can share those experiences, you know, and even in different areas and different facets of business. I mean, there’s, you know, there’s people who are very operationally minded Luis, like yourself, there’s people that are, you know, let’s say they’re very much focused on, you know, marketing strategies, there’s ones focus on culture and hiring and so on. So, you know, I think it’s just having the humility to reach out and ask for help and to take that help. The most successful people I know are the ones who asked the most questions asked for the most help and take the most notes. Without a doubt. I
Luis Scott 39:40
absolutely agree. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Now, there’s someone right now listening to this and they’re saying, How do I start a business from scratch like you did? How do I how do I lead it to high growth? You don’t have goals and dreams you mentioned, you know, not to have a destination but they have goals and dreams for their life. What would you tell that person who wants to start that business from scratch? Well,
Michael Mogill 39:58
first say that It’s one of the most important decisions you can make is to really know if like, kind of knowing oneself. Gino wickman, who wrote the book traction, he has another book that he released recently, it’s called entrepreneurial leap. And it’s knowing if you are the, you know, the visionary, if you’re, let’s say, an integrator, if you are the God, say, the business leader, right, like, meaning, like if you’re, let’s say, if that’s what you’re cut out for, because there’s a lot of other things that I think people can do that lead very happy lives that don’t involve right and a tremendous amount of risk and stress and everything that comes with starting a business that, you know, maybe it’s, it sounds good on paper, but then when you’re in the weeds of it, I mean, we see this with, with attorneys all the time, we see a lot of amazing trial lawyers that love being in the courtroom, that decide they want to be the CO CEO and, and it’s just, they don’t enjoy it, they want to be in the courtroom, you know, and one of the best things that they could do is find a great operator, right? Like just that. So like you could focus on the things that you enjoy that you’re not trying to do this, like square peg into a round hole, I think it’s to me, if someone’s thinking about starting their own business, it’s one of those things where it’s never like a, you know, you’re never doing like a SWOT analysis, you’re not doing lists of pros and cons, it’s just like, it’s just the way do you don’t have to convince yourself, if we go back to my, you know, experience, taking the MCAT and like, pre med and everything like that, I found and you know, looking back at this now that I have to work twice as hard, as you know, all my peers, to get the same results. I mean, I made good grades, but I was studying twice as long as these guys were and you know, everything like that. And, and it’s when you’re kind of working against yourself and you’re not working to your strengths. That’s what the road is, it’s not to say you can’t be successful, but there could be a better path for you that kind of is more aligned with the things that you love the things that bring you energy, the things that you could be really the best at. Whereas, you know, when I was starting a business, don’t get me wrong, that comes with you know, its own challenges, and you know, adversities, and so on. But I’ve never once ever in my life ever felt that I was in the wrong role ever. Like it, no matter how bad it is, no matter how many problems are gone. I always feel like you know, Bruce Willis on the, you know, an Armageddon on the asteroid. I’m like, man, I gotta be doing I gotta be drilling, you know, into this asteroid putting, you know, putting the nuke in like, it’s just, it’s just, you know, it’s always feels right, it didn’t require a lot of convincing. So I would just make sure that like before, committing yourself to something like that, not only do you understand what that is, but that you just kind of know yourself and know your strengths. Because you can avoid a lot of pain and misery. And just, you know, finding that right role for yourself and, and hiring around yourself, you could still own the business and have a great CEO and a CEO and so on. And you know, and just focus on the things that you enjoy doing that you don’t have to be the the guy or you know, the girl or what have you. And I think there’s a level of just humility and putting ego to the side that can lead to just much greater fulfillment.
Luis Scott 42:46
Yeah, I absolutely agree. It’s, it’s so funny when you see that happen, where people are stepping into roles that they think that they should do, and really they just need to step out of the way and just keep operating the business or, and so forth, and just be in their passion. So well, thank you so much for being here. It’s been a real treat having you on and we’ve been talking to Michael Moga, the owner of Crisp video, he also runs a coaching company, Crisp x that helps people elevate their businesses. I know that you’ve told us before you want to have a billion dollar impact 1000 law firms with at least a $1 million impact in revenue per year which is a humongous goal and I know you’re going to be able to accomplish just with what you’ve done in the last 8 years. So where can people find you if they want more information about your coaching program, your videos your podcasts your book,
Michael Mogill 43:31
man so throughout a lot of websites but I would say with the book with the book and with the podcast, you can just go to game changing attorney.com the books also on Amazon and audible and so on podcasts like on iTunes and Spotify Our website is crispvideo.com you can go straight to the coaching at Crispcoach.com And then we recently launched a website for me We didn’t even you know announce this publicly yet because I you know I was a little you know I’m still even uncomfortable some of this stuff and it’s just my name like Michael Mogill.com and you know you can you can learn more there but I would say that if there’s anything I could ever do to help anyone or support anyone more than happy to you don’t have to become a client it’s not you know, it doesn’t come with a price tag just literally you know happy to do it and and I’ll say I just I just genuinely enjoy this stuff. I think every conversation I will use I know you’re the same way like every conversation you have with somebody whether it’s even at work outside of work it’s like something to do with the business something to do with innovation something to do with ideas and creativity and strategy so it just you know when you’re doing that and that’s what you spend the bulk of your time doing it’s you know I think this leads to a lot more happiness
Luis Scott 44:32
awesome stuff so worst case scenario if you didn’t get all those websites Michael Mogill calm you can find the the media conglomerate international best selling author of the game changing attorney. There you have it guys from nothing to 8 figures on his way to nine figures. Michael did it you can do it to guts, courage and hard work is what it takes. And remember if you love this episode, be sure to subscribe and never miss a show. You’ve been listening to The Guts and Glory Show.
Outro 44:56 You’ve been listening to the Guts and Glory Show with Luis Scott, if you enjoyed the show, be sure to share. For more information on this episode, please see the show notes at ww.gutsandgloryshow.com and join us next time as we talk to another leader in business that had the guts to overcome all odds for the glory of success.
