423. AMMA — How to Actually Scale Your Standards

(upbeat music) - Everybody says I wanna be great, I wanna be world class, I wanna be top 1%, all those different things, and I don't know the most truly understand the amount of details you have to get right, that all end up adding up to create what people deem world class. (upbeat music) I'm Michael Mogul, founder and CEO of Crisp, the nation's number one law from growth company. I've built my business through practice, not theory. Crisp started which is $500 to my name and has grown to over eight figures in revenue over the last few years, earning a spot on the Inc. 500 lists of the fastest growing private companies in America. Our approach has been to take everything we've learned about generating massive growth within our own organization, and help the country's most ambitious and committed law firm owners do the same for theirs. In each episode of this podcast, I sit down with innovative market leaders from the legal industry and beyond to learn from those who thrive in the face of adversity, challenge the status quo and define what it means to be a true game changer. This is Jessica, head of coaching strategy at Crisp, and today we're flipping this script for another special edition episode to get Michael's take on, handling small but persistent quality dips in a rapidly growing firm, scaling a firm's training process without sacrificing the quality of new hires, and the dilemma of a good enough higher when the team is critically understaffed. Anytime I've hired somebody that was like, okay, they're fine, they've never amounted to the greatness ever. And if you wanted to build a truly, truly great organization, kind of like zoom out. If you didn't have the resource constraints, you didn't have the time constraints, money constraints, et cetera, and you could build the organization with anybody you possibly want. And there's going to be some people who takes you longer to find how would you build it? If you could build it one time, we'd truly excellent world class, five years in today, you had to be the best. You wouldn't have any fine people. That's coming up on the Game Changing Attorney podcast. - All right, welcome to another AMMA. This one is actually the last one of 2025. So Michael and I were actually just sitting here talking and reflecting a little bit. And I thought this would be a really great point for you to kind of bring on the podcast as well, Michael, of thinking about just lessons learned this year. - Oh wow, what do I begin? We could probably do an entire podcast just on this. But if I had to go like one overarching lesson from this year, there's probably had the single greatest impact on me. And look, this is going to be the kind of thing. I think that somebody listening to this podcast is going to be few that not along and some that are like, hey, that sounds like some meta-cute little thing. I don't know how that's applicable to me. And what I've realized is, there really is no finish line. And I say that in the sense that it's like something you always kind of know in the back of your mind, right, because it's good to have goals. Obviously, you want to have some sort of direction. Like we always talk about the importance of vision. That's important to have. But we talk about an ever-expanding vision in an infinite vision. So it's not something you ever really reach and achieve that it can ultimately once you hit one mile so you continue to expand and go beyond. And it's the same thing I think with many areas of life. When you're just getting started in business, I know a lot of entrepreneurs have a goal of getting to a million in revenue. And what happens when they get to a million in revenue? You think all their problems are going to go away. And then they get to a million to say, all right, cool, let's go for two million. And then two million becomes five billion and five billion becomes 10 million and 10 becomes 20 and 20 becomes 50 and 50 becomes 100, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And at every step of the way, you know, Morgan House will talk about this, who we've had on the podcast. And when people ask them, they say, like, you know, well, how much money is enough money? And he said, the answer is usually, like, the people give is twice the amount of money that they have. Right, they think that whatever, if you double the number, that that is what will make them happy. And it extends at all levels. Like if somebody has, I don't know, $100,000, they think that I had $200,000. If they have a million dollar, they think two million dollars. They think 10 million would be 20 million. And then there's people that have a billion dollars. They say, if I only had two billion dollars, then I would be happy fulfilled, et cetera. Yeah. And we're all guilty of this, right? Because you see this to some extent, even in like consumerism, you know, when the new iPhone comes out, you think, man, if I just had this new phone, my life is going to get instantly better, right? Better camera, faster phone. It's got some cool features, right? And then you get the phone. And it's pretty cool, you know, for like, you know, a few hours. And by the next day, you're like, just like my last one, right? It's just a phone. The same way where you're like, oh, man, if I had that cool sports car, you know, I know a lot of guys like on the way up, they see these cool cars and they're like, man, if I had that Ferrari, I had that Lamborghini, I had that whatever, you know, whatever they're sitting. And then there's something genuinely appreciate them, right? Like they're just the same way of, you know, people, I know guys that really appreciate watches, like I like watches, but there's something about it. Like the ones that I find get the most value from them are when they treat them as like milestone pieces, right? Like they got this watch, not just because they liked the watch, but because they achieved some sort of milestone and they wear it on their wrist as a reminder of the progress they made to that point. But everything, I mean, any car, anything over time, like eventually you just get used to it, right? Even a nice meal, you get used to a nice meal. You go eat an Michelin Star restaurant, blows your mind, then, you know, the next time you go out to a restaurant, like another Michelin star, you're like, oh, it's pretty good, right? Like it was, you know, and then after you got a three or four or five, you're like, it's not as transformed as the first time, right? That's just, that's the psychology of human beings. So as I've, you know, reflected on this over the years, and I think even especially this year, it's not about like any sort of destination, because recognizing like, yes, you want to have a focus in a direction, but it's not so much this idea that once you get there, that you're finished, the really is no finish line. It's thinking, okay, what, what do I want to ultimately be doing? How do I want to be spending my time? And then you get into the, okay, well, there's the people that say, it's about the journey. And sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't, right? Sometimes you go, and you're in this, like, I mean, growing a business can be some, like, so oftentimes one of the most boring things ever, right? The novelty wears off very quickly. The things that really help to grow a business are sometimes the mundane boring things that have to be done on a consistent, you know, continuous basis that compound over time. And those that aren't willing to stick with those things, like how many times do people want to go and do, you know, executive meeting and a corporate offsite, and like, and sit quarterly targets and monthly targets, and then you sit there and review accountability charts, and you're creating new compensation plans and updating KPIs and, you know, writing new SOPs, and you just, people are like, what do you do all day? And, you know, when they're outside looking in, they think like, every day is so exciting. When in reality, sometimes it's just like, if you do what needs to be done. And a lot of it is, is not very exciting. It's very mundane. - Yes. - So, I don't even know so much that it's about the journey. The company for sure, like, the people you do it with, absolutely, I think that can dictate, like, whether you are just enjoying the process, like when you're surrounded by really capable, driven, intelligent people, it's a lot more rewarding to do things that way than when you're trying to pull everybody along or you feel like you're the smartest one of the room. So, ultimately, this is all a game that we play. All right, now I understand in terms of, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, there's a point where, you know, you're doing this because you want to create something and create a life for yourself and create a life for other people. But once you accomplish some of those milestones, then it's like, well, what keeps you going? And that to me gets really interesting exciting because it's like, well, then you've got to have a, you know, a much larger and grander purpose to push ahead when you're not doing this for survival, right? And I think when you look at it that way, then you have to figure out, okay, how do I want to spend my time? - Yeah. - And is this, you know, engaging and exciting to me? - Uh-huh. - And are the things that I'm doing, genuinely things that I, you know, I'm passionate about, right? There's a quote, wrote it down, let's see. I think it was Steve Jobs who said it, and it was along the lines of, it says, "Mediacuity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it." And I put Steve Jobs' question mark. Right? I'm pretty sure it was Steve Jobs. So there's a thought around when you ask entrepreneurs like how much would someone have to pay you in order for you to sell your business? And I think the definition of passion is not someone paying you a lot so that you can sell your business. It is some of these guys, when you look at like some of the most passionate, is there's no amount of money that you could pay them to stop doing what they're doing. There's no amount of money you could have paid Steve Jobs to stop doing Apple. - Yeah. - And there's no amount of money you could pay like Elon Musk that stopped doing Tesla and SpaceX. - Right. - Right? So I think it's less about what amount of money could someone pay you to you ultimately sell the business and recognizing that the most passionate people, there's no amount of money you could pay and they stopped doing what they're doing because it's not strictly about the money for them. So anyways, we reflect that's probably one of the biggest insights of just recognizing that there is no finish line and really being mindful of like the people you're spending your time with and the work that you're doing and ensuring that you surround yourself, people that excite you and energize you and you're solving difficult problems that are interesting and exciting to you. So as being our last MMA for this year before we go into the new year, there's something to reflect upon. As you go into the new year really thinking about if you could do this forever, what would it need to look like and all the people you would surround yourself with, what type of work would you be doing so that there really is no finish line. It's just something that you enjoy doing every single day. It's meaningful, it's impactful, it's challenging all those things. - Awesome. Well, thank you for that as the opener for today. So do you want to jump right in or you want to? - Yeah, well, you know this is the end. - Got a little bit to go. - Yeah. Well, so if you're listening for the first time, you guys submit the questions. You text us at 404-531-7691 and Jessica compiles them and we answer them. And then of course this is one of, I guess three types of episodes on this podcast. We've got our traditional interview format where we bring on guests from the legal industry and beyond. We ask some questions, it's a podcast. And then the on-core additions, we bring back some of our most popular episodes back here on to the podcast. And what's the last thing? There is a fee for the show now. I was actually going to remind people, you know, we used to talk about the podcast, being free and how we wouldn't run ads. Well, starting in the new year, there is a fee. And the fee, is if you get any value from the show, could you please share it with somebody that you believe would also get value from? It could be a colleague, it could be a friend, just share this episode or another episode that you get value from, be making laugh, make you cry, or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That is the fee, okay? It's free, 99, all you gotta do is if you get any sort of value, just share it with a friend, or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It just helps us reach more people and get great guests on the show. - Awesome, and with that, we will get started. So question number one. Michael, I own a criminal defense firm in Georgia and we've doubled our caseload this year, but with that growth, I'm noticing a lot of small issues that used to never happen. Emails going out with typos, client calls getting missed, documents that are technically correct, but not as polished as they used to be. Nothing catastrophic, but a lot of little things that really bother me. My office manager says I'm being too picky and these are minor issues that don't really matter, but this is just not how I operate. Should I be concerned about these small quality dips or am I overreacting to inevitable growing pains? - You know, so you should only be concerned with some of these paper cuts if your goal is to build a great business. If your goal is to be mediocre, or ultimately go out of business over long enough time of horizon, then yeah, don't worry. And this is always suppuzzling to me because if people don't really understand the true price of mediocrity, like most people don't understand. I think on the converse, I think what's even more interesting is most people don't really understand what it requires to have true excellence. Like to have to be truly world class. Everybody says I wanna be great, I wanna be world class, I wanna be top 1%, all those different things. And I don't know that most truly understand the amount of details you have to get right that all end up adding up to create what people deem world class. And it's down to typos and all the little things that add up. It's not just the big things, it's all the little things that constantly add up. It's interesting. We've been watching the show on Apple TV. It's all about Michelin Star restaurants. - Yes. - What's it called like knife-sedge? - I think it's nice, knife-sedge, yeah. - So they go and visit these different restaurants that are competing for Michelin Star or multiple stars. And they go inside these restaurants kind of show what they're doing and how they operate. You go into the kitchen, you see the chef, you kind of get a sense of what every kitchen is like. Then there's the Michelin ceremony in every single market. And then there's restaurants that are awarded their first star. Some restaurants that get a second star. In some cases you can lose the star. You have to qualify in a requalify every single year. And they're chasing these Michelin stars which are deemed like perfection, right? To have one star in a market or two stars or the prize. Three stars is you're just like a world class restaurant. You're literally a destination that people go to. And it's transformative with an impact getting these stars has to these restaurants because you take these restaurants that are struggling financially. And like just from the standpoint of like, can we get enough like reservations and tables filled. And then they win like a Michelin star or a second star and they're set. - They're, yes. - That's it. Their dream is realized. But they're not the only one with that dream. Everybody wants a Michelin star, right? Like all of these chefs do. And I think we were watching one just the other night. It was one of the, it was kind of like the Nordic countries. And there was a chef that had already had two stars. And for years I'm trying to get a third Michelin star. Now if you, they show a part where like there's a dish about to leave the kitchen and go out into the, you know, to service. - To service. And he's like, hold up, stop. And he sees that like there's a piece of like a tiny piece of caviar. - Yes. - Right. That is like on the side of the plate, right? And he's, and his team is like, what are you guys doing? And he makes a joke. He says like I should have like a record player in here. Because I keep saying the same thing again and again and again. So I'm watching, I'm thinking. - I feel this show. - Like, this is what it takes. - Yes. - And I sometimes believe as entrepreneurs, we believe that we're the only ones pointing this stuff out. And there's an organization somewhere where somebody is not on people's asses and someone's not obsessed with the details. And things just get done right. Things get done right because there's somebody on top of the details. - Yes. - Right. So when this chef is pointing that stuff out, right? That's why they're a two star Michelin restaurant. And by the end of the episode they get the third star. - Well, the alert. - Right. - Yes. And it's because of that. So should you feel bad for pointing this stuff out? I mean, again, it's like do you want to truly be excellent? Like there is a standard. Most human beings gravitate towards homeostasis. Like, can you look at this in any organization? We saw the same thing with the University of Alabama, you know, with Nick Saban, who we've had at the summit. Like you see like what is required to have a level of excellence and everything behind the scenes is constant reinforcement and constant like just again and again and again. And you're pointing things out to people over and over again. And these are excellent people you're pointing it out to. It's not like these are lazy people. - Yeah, I think this even ties back to what you were saying at the beginning. This is the mundane. This is the boring. This is the checking every detail part of what makes you excellent. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So that, I think that is something that if more people would realize that when they look in their own business and they think, well, there must be an organization out there where someone's not having the point to stuff out. But the ones that are truly excellent at the top of their game, that's what is still happening. And that's what makes them world class. Because there's a person who cares enough whether it's the founder or somebody else or another leader. They care enough to consistently say, this is how we have to do things to get things right. - Yep, good enough is not good enough. All right, question number two. Hey Michael, I'd love your take on something that I can't crack. I have a PI firm in California and when we were smaller, I've personally trained every attorney we hired. We're approaching eight lawyers now and I just don't have the time to be involved in their development like I did in the past. I handed off training to one of my lead attorneys but it's just not the same as when I was personally involved and it's driving me crazy. How do you replicate your own standards when you can't personally be involved? Realistically, I know I cannot hold onto this forever but I also don't trust that others can do it the way I want it done. - So there's really two ways to go about this. And one way is you have somebody that's, you train under your wing for many, many years and you train them on your standards and they can continue to reinforce said standards because they learn from you and you're essentially creating the next leader if you will. That is, I think it's a very, very common way to approach this. Alternatively, if you want to save yourself a lot of frustration in the sense that if you're a person that's extremely high standards, what I found is it's the only way that you will be able to remain sane in terms of things like this and in terms of like training that next level of, in this case, the attorneys, it could be any staff, it could be reinforcing really any sort of standard is to find somebody who has even higher standards than you. - Yes. - Like that is, that's the secret 'cause there's not just one of you and there's somebody obviously who has higher standards than you do and if you're like, no, it's impossible. Like you're telling me there's not a morally trial team in the world than your firm and if there is then there's probably somebody who has higher standards than you do. So I think if you can find somebody, 'cause that way you're not having that continues to reinforce the standard when their standard is even higher than yours. - Right. - Their attention to details higher, the way they coach, the way they train, et cetera. So that's how it would go about it. I mean, those people obviously are not easy to find but they're out there in the world. - Yes. - So again, it's a question of like, how do I not have to worry about this in the future? That's really what I'm looking for. Every time we look at that or see suite, we look at leaders across the organization. Like I'm interested in people that are more capable than me, smarter than me, have higher standards than me. Right, 'cause you don't want to be going around and like, you know, sleeping up after everyone. Right, you don't want to be like the one that's having the like, manager managers and that seems silly. And the only way that I think you can avoid doing that is to have people have exceptionally high standards of what great looks like and vetting that through the hiring process of being able to determine like, you know, 'cause there's people you sit down with that in an interview that you are literally learning from. I think that's a good sign when you're meeting with somebody and it's not just like, well, why do you, you know, what are your qualifications for this role? And like, what do you, you know, why do you think you'd be a good fit here? And you're gonna work hard and like, you know, all the silly stuff you probably shouldn't ask anyway. Like you should already know. But when you're sitting down with something like, whoa. - You're like taking notes to interview. - There's levels here, right? There's levels to the game. Like this person, those things that I don't and they've been trained in the school of hard knocks and like, get up by the, you know, then another realm at a higher level and they've already operated at a higher level and they can bring that insight and knowledge here? Like that's how you know you got somebody some high standards. - All right, so close this out today with the question number three. Hi, Michael. I have a boutique practice that specializes in divorce law and we are desperately understaffed right now. I mean, desperately. Everyone has stretched then and overwhelmed, including myself. I'm trying to hire help as quickly as possible, but I need your advice. I have a candidate who could start immediately and my team is pressuring me to make a decision so they can get help faster. The candidate is fine. There's nothing wrong with her, but I also feel like she's not that great. I don't know how to describe it. My gut is just hesitant to bring her on board, but I know we're in pain and need help now. Am I being irrational? Should I just fill the seat now to solve the immediate problem and find someone better later on? Tail is oldest time. - Yeah, this is a tough one because you're having the battle. You're not the only one feeling this pain. That I think that's what makes this tricky. So, meaning that if it was just you, you know, it's easy to say, "Hey, then you should suck it up." But it's also your team that's spread thinly. So it's impacting them. And then the longer this goes on, like how long can they hold on? Well, they leave and now they're spread even more thin. And now you've got people drawing multiple roles. It's a tough position to be in. We've been in it. It's tough. Now, that being said, it's hard to know what the right decision is at this point in time as you're making it, right? Like if you look back later, like if this candidate you talk about, let's say you hire them and they work out great, or you know, everyone's patting you on the back saying great decisions so glad you got them in here, right? And if they don't work out, that everyone's like, I can't believe you brought this person in and we had to train them and invest in them and they didn't actually help them lighten the load and ultimately they were poor culture fit and then as a result we had to replace them and then hire a new person, source and train, etc. Right? So it's a tough position to be in. I would generally say that from my experience and just you can correct me from wrong, well, you really shouldn't hire people that you're not really excited about. I agree with that wholeheartedly. Like if you're, if you're saying like in this question that they're fine, if someone were to describe your team and these, would you describe them as fine? Right. Right? Not terrible. It's tough, but the reason like, you know, what it requires to actually bring in excellent people is to not compromise on fine people. But I also think what can help here is, you know, meeting with your team and being very, very transparent in terms of what your goals are for the organization and that you really want to bring in somebody that is going to be a value ad that you feel excited about and really letting them know. Here's like the time table. I'm working on like, because if you just say no to this person, they're like, wait a second, like we're here struggling, like we need help. And then this person's not filling the seat like, oh, man, you know, they're going to judge you, etc. Like what else is new? Anytime I've hired somebody that was like, okay, they're fine. Yeah. They've never amounted to the greatness ever, ever, ever. And if you wanted to build a truly, truly great organization, it's kind of like zoom out. Like if you didn't have the resource constraints, you didn't have the time constraints, money constraints, et cetera, and you could build the organization with anybody you possibly want, right? And there's going to be some people who takes you longer to, you know, to find how would you build it? If you could build it one time, we'd be truly excellent in world class. And like five years from today, you had to be the best, right? Correct. Right? You would go one by one by one and you're sure that everybody is like, it's somebody that raises the bar that you're genuinely excited about. And sometimes like, if you rely on your gut, like, you're going to be wrong. But even so, I'd rather be wrong. And like, let's say we did all our due diligence on this candidate and like we're excited about them and then they don't work out for whatever reason, right? You're still dealing with human beings. But at least then, like you create the greatest probability for yourself, like to actually have the right person in the seat as opposed to somebody that you already kind of feel 50/50 about. And though way I look at that too is the time that you're spending, investing, and training this person that you feel about. That's time that you're not spending trying to find the right person. Yeah. So you're losing your time too. Does an opportunity cost? When you look at it that way, again, you should genuinely be excited. When you think about, I mean, here's another thought experiment you can do. Like, you think about your best people, like the absolute best people that you have in your firm today, when you were hiring them. Did you feel like they were fine? Yeah. Or were you like, hell yeah, I can't wait to get this person in here. We're going to be so much better. Now, in some cases, like there's people that surprise you. There's people who are like, okay, I think they'll be pretty good. And they, you know, they have returns that are just go well beyond what you would have expected, right? Like, outsize returns. And then there's going to be some people that you're really excited about that underwhelming you. Oh, this person came from Google, like they should be phenomenal. And then they become extremely mediocre. But I would genuinely say that like when you hire somebody and they accept that offer letter, you should genuinely be excited as opposed to whatever. Agreed. All right. We'll see you next time. Until next time. You've been listening to the Game Changing Attorney podcast with Michael Mogul. If you found this episode valuable, here are three free ways that we can help you grow your law firm. Number one, download the first chapter of Michael's book, absolutely free at Game Changing Attorney dot com. Number two, you can shoot Michael a text at 404-531-7691 and ask him any question you'd like. You might just hear the answer on the next episode. And finally, number three, if you can leave this podcast a five star review, it will help us gain access to more influential thought leaders and bring their lessons learned here to you. For more information on this episode, see the show notes in your podcast app or visit legalpigast.com.