Jay Berkowitz: 00:00:00

How do you get your business to $200 million, and I saw Mike speak last week, Mike Morris at National Trial Lawyers. And Mike gave a lot of credit to EOS for getting his firm to over $200 million.

Troy Lacher: 00:00:17

Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast, featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now, here's the founder and CEO of 10 golden rules, Jay Berkowitz.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:00:38

Well, welcome everyone and to our guests. Our panelists, thank you so much for being here, we have one of the most awesome panels we've ever assembled for one of these. I'm going to introduce our guests in just a minute. My name is Jay Berkowitz company's 10 golden rules. And we've been on an EOS journey, the Entrepreneurial Operating System for I guess about two to three years. And I'll explain my journey. And then we're using EOS as a digital marketing agency. But the three experts are all either law firms are consulting with law firms and how to use EOS. So that's our goal today is to talk about how you can learn about it and how you can use it or how you can take it to the next level if you're already using EOS. So I will introduce Mike a little bit more in detail. But Mike Morris is the owner of the largest pie firm in Michigan. And he used Eos, and he's written a book about it called fireproof. So we'll learn a lot more from Mike in a minute. Gerardo is our EOS implementer. And he's one of the guys who really introduced me to us. And he is a spectacular explainer and energy guy. And he can really take us to the next level. So we'll again hear from him in a minute. And Tyler is one of the original US clients, along with Mike working with the author of traction, Gino Wickman. And he's an attorney who used it in his business. And now he's become one of the world's leading implementers helping companies use the OS. So more about all these rock stars in a minute, little bit more about my journey and my background with us. So I guess seven or eight years ago, I got the book traction and saw a presentation actually, it was Toronto's partner, see Cesaro, who made a presentation at my CEO group. And we all got a copy of the book traction. And like a lot of people, you know, actually have a couple of copies here. It sat on my shelf, and I'm trying to read it, you know, and sometimes there's those books and y'all Y'all know what I'm talking about where you keep hearing, Oh, he got a retraction got a retraction. And I read a chapter and read another chapter and reread the first chapter. And everyone kept saying it was so good, but I just couldn't get through it. And then you're a couple years later, I found out why. Because the second book, get a grip is written in the parable, or a story format. And it's a case study, and it talks about a real company implementing Get a grip and implementing EOS. And that I read, and I tore it apart. And I took notes tonight, you know, it's all over it. You know what I'm talking about books like this. So you know, here's my first tip is, if you are a founder of a company, if you're the idea guy or gal, if you're the energy who goes out and, you know, comes up with great ideas and brings them back to the company. And then you've got somebody in the company who executes really well. You are what POS calls a visionary. And you have an integrator in the company who helps you get things done. And it's a classic CEO, CEO, oh, Chief Operating Officer type relationship. Well, if you're a visionary, you got to read Get a grip first because it'll it's written for you and B. And so the mistake I made was trying to digest traction. So I lost a couple years. But then we then I got to know Gerardo, we started making some progress. So what's EOS all about? Well, first of all, there's a thing called level 10 leadership meetings, talk about that in a minute, and a scorecard and quarterly rocks. And that's kind of like for me, that's the heart of, of what is so valuable in this system. So the level 10 meeting, Gerardo and we started us formally like with an an implementer with Gerardo as an expert training our team and orienting our team to how to do this properly. We've been, you know, dabbling with self implementation for the last couple of years. But we had our first level 10 meeting last week, and it was the most spectacular meeting, we just celebrated our 20th anniversary. It was the most spectacular meeting we've had in 20 years with our company. So there's a structure to the meeting that basically plays off of all of the great business training. When Gino Wickman wrote traction, and when he does the iOS training, he uses a number of the best practices from all the historical business experts and then compiles it into an operating system that works phenomenally well. So we'll learn more about that. again from the guys who are really the experts. The second piece to us that we've been using, but we were find it again with Gerardo, is what's called a scorecard. And basically every meeting, you track your key metrics. So as you're going along, this is just a sample of what a law firm scorecard might look like. So you might look at how many people came to your website, how many phone calls you got, how many chats you got, this is the goal, how many leads, how many professional referrals, how many past referrals, how many signed clients, how many Google reviews. And of course, there's also going to be business metrics as well. These are more like marketing metrics that we would look at directly with our clients. And my friend Josh Nelson says what you measure gets attention and improves. And so the scorecard that you're going to look at, in your management meeting with your with your leadership team every week, allows you to focus on the key metrics, and then take, take up a section of the meeting to discuss the things that need improvement. So it's, it's this is obvious a lot of this stuff is is common building blocks, right. And then the third piece is what are called quarterly rocks. And I think this goes all the way back to Good to Great Jim Collins are the guys will tell us which expert you know, came up with this term rocks. But essentially, the way we've been using rocks for several years in our company, is identifying the top five things that we can improve in our company in the next quarter to achieve our goals. And we have a whole brainstorming exercise. I've gone through that in our planning a webinar, which you can find on our YouTube channel. And we have been tremendously successful in focusing on these big picture items for a quarter. So for three months, you know, we assign a leader, we assign a cross functional team, and we get two big things done, and those have moved our company ahead appreciably. So just really quickly, a couple of things about 10 golden rules and a couple news things. And then we'll beat the rock stars. We're here to see we are doing our live event. We haven't done it since before COVID. So I'm really excited. April 25 and 26th in beautiful boca ratone. It's called tgr live law firm growth strategies. And we've got four blocks of content. We've got two of the best people in the world to teach you and me artificial intelligence for law firms. Dr. Kane Elliot is the AI futurist at file vine, Justin lovley is an amazing Rockstar attorney who's actually functionally using AI in his firm, and he's gonna teach you how to do that. We've got Jason Melton, who's an attorney in Florida. He has this Instagram following has blown up to over 2 million followers. And we were waiting for confirmation from one of the most famous tick tock lawyers. He said yes, but he's got to check his schedule. He has over 50 million views on tick tock. Then on day two on the Friday, we're going to meet John McCarthy, who's a tremendous business of law trainer. And Dave Thomas is going to lead a panel of niche law experts. many of y'all know, Big Dave from law tigers, and their niches motorcycle. And then in the afternoon to day two, we're going to do new technology things like Ott, which is like the Hulu and Netflix ads that are really breaking through Josephine's got it working for her law firm, and Patrice Gimenez. Again, technology Rockstar, she's gonna lead a panel, we're gonna talk about new technologies for law firms. On the Thursday night, we're celebrating our 20th anniversary at 10 golden rules. So this is gonna be a lot of fun. We'll have information up on 10 golden rules. We're sending it out to our clients as we speak a couple other quick super quick bullets, the recording of this, you might be watching this sometime in the future. Our YouTube videos have done incredibly well. About 10 days ago, I took this screenshot and this video had been viewed 37,000 times last night has been viewed 50,000 times. So if you want to learn more, as I was saying like our digital marketing plan, web shot, this is a case study. This is how to get listed in Google Maps and local service ads. There's a tremendous amount of content available on our YouTube channel. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce my good friend and absolute EOS Rockstar, Gerardo. The first thing I want you to know, is this guy brings a ton of energy and a ton of expertise. And he's awesome. And he's an entrepreneur and he really used EOS in his businesses. And he built these multimillion dollar two multimillion dollar businesses using us, sold the businesses and then became we're gonna want to share his expertise and became what's called the implementer who's it outside experts who helps your team implement EOS? So, Gerardo? I hope I did you justice with that introduction. And you can tell us a little bit more about your background and give us the framework for what EOS is and and how you use it at a law firm.

Gerardo: 00:09:53

Absolutely. Thank you Jay for the introduction and the kind words and congratulations for the 20 years anniversary. or, until your audience and fellow panelists, thank you. I'm excited to be here. So a little bit about myself. I've been involved with EOS worldwide as a certified EOS implementer for the past four years. I met EOS 11 years ago, like you said, graduated from law school, which it's probably a connection here with your audience. But I decided to go in the finance world. So my first business 20 years ago was a financial advisor firm that helps people achieve financial freedom. So we manage investment portfolio, I grew that firm, we were 25 people, we were managing more than 100 million US asset under management. When I shared that in the US, it's not that much. But when you take that to Venezuela, which is my original country, that's a lot of money. So I probably should say that as a percentage of GDP, but that that firm grew, and it was ruined, running smoothly. So I decided to find a second business when I became 30 years old. And this was a paper distribution firm. And this business, I started to face all the challenges all the reasons I became intrapreneurs. I was not getting it from this room. We grew this firm this business to more than 80 employees. But I was doing everything I was wearing all the hats in this business. I was complaining that I was having people that they were not accountable for what they're supposed to do. And then I realized I was the only one to blame. I was not providing clarity of roles. I was also saying that a people are not aligned through a vision. No wonder why I was not sharing the vision. I was keeping up here. And I was not sharing with my people. So that's when I realized, hey, something needs to change. And that's a try many things try consultants try making see and didn't work. And I remember like you J A friend told hey, Gerardo read this book. I had on my shelf for a couple months. And then I read the book, I decided to read it. I remember the first time I read traction. I cried that night. Like all the challenges all the pain that Gino mentioned in the book, like that was me. I was going through all of that. So this was many years ago, there were no implementers in Venezuela. So I decided to self implement by reading the book. And there are a lot of benefits, you can try Eos, you can self implement. EOS Huawei also provides Basecamp where you can have videos for you to learn the implementation side. So I started myself implementation. And in the first year, wow, it was amazing what he was there for me. So I grew revenue, yes, we double profit. But what EOS really differently. And I will share more about this when I see it with my love from clients. It decentralized me, it got me to a place that I could trust my leadership team, the centralized me, I started running both business by only assistant that weekly meeting that you mentioned before J or level 10 meetings. So a year later, I decided to run an implementer and now we have more like Skype, we had a virtual infrastructure. So I was receiving coaching from an EOS implementer. And I realized implementers there shortcut implementers are there just to ask the right questions, not to provide the answers were there to facilitate a conversation coach or clients sometimes I learned is difficult to know what's working, what's not working in the system when you're part of the system. So when you're asking an implementer, that's when boom, the magic happen. I was totally out of business. In my structure. I went to the older spots, we can talk more about that. And it what he always did for me was was incredible. So then I become a father, I became a father and I realized that this was not the right place. raise my kids. That's when I decided to move to the United States, I got the opportunity with a private equity real estate firm. And the first thing working with them I saw I was like Guys, wait, you don't have a clear vision, you do not have structure. Have you heard about us. And I decided to help them in their US journey. And that's when he hit me. This is what I want to do for many, many clients. And that's when I became an EOS implementer. However, I didn't want to do it alone. So I decided to create an EOS firm here in South Florida. It's called the proper recipe. And three years ago, we became the biggest EOS firm in South Florida this year and we became one of the biggest EOS from worldwide we have empower more than 200 companies. Currently we have more than 120 active clients. And like I tell people, it's doing what I love with people I love. So in my journey, what I learned is EOS is going to help any company in three main areas we call a vision, traction healthy vision is where are we heading as a company? What's the plan? How are we going to get there and the most important thing is making sure everyone is aligned to that vision. The traction is the execution of that vision traction is has been discipline focused on accountable having ownership of everything we do. And the healthy part is how we behave as a team is as being a very healthy, cohesive functional team. So those are the three main areas that EOS is going to help me company love firms, and they're a Western. So when you read the book, what you find out is that Gino, he says that any company in that journey of scaling or becoming better, they're going to face many issues. But if we'll work together, daddy strong seeks key components of our business of our law firm. All of those issues falls into place. So what are those six key components? The first one is the vision component. Like I say, where are we heading? What's the plan? So we call it the tools that we teach your clients. It's the eight questions. And we keep the answer to those eight questions in a two page documents that we call the vision traction organizer. So how do we help our clients? How do we have law firms define their vision. So the first thing is to discover their core values, their guiding principles, how to do things, we teach them, how to activate them in behaviors, how to hire people, based on those core values, review people based on core values, reward them and lako people that they do not live those core values. That's how you create culture. And that's how you become unique, a unique law firm. And that will help you with your employee retention and engagement. Then we teach our clients how to share that vision on a consistent basis, making sure that vision is shared by all. And that's them every 90 day gathering everyone in the law firm, everyone, all of your employees, we tell them a story. Hey, where did we come from? What happened? Last word? What did we learn? Let's celebrate the winds and what were the learnings, where we are and where we had. So those are the two tools, the eight questions and making sure it's shared by all that we teach our clients in the vision component. Then comes the second component, which is the people component. And here we talked about having the right people in the right seat to Jim Collins constant, very simple, right people, people align to our core values. And we teach our clients a great tool that we call people and allies, how to bring something very subjective like into objective and making sure everyone is aligned to our core values. And rice, he is providing our people clarity of roles. Sometimes we complain, people are not being accountable, and we're not providing them. And we're not setting the right expectations. They don't even know what they're accountable for. So in the right seat, we teach our clients the accountability chart, which is defining the structure. Now we come in, and we do not ask them, What do you have? No, we look ahead, looking ahead six to 12 month, fourth month, what is the structure that we need? And first, we work the structure and then the people. So we ask people to detach from the roles. And that's how we come up with the structure. And then how do we put people in those functions, we make sure they get the roles, they want to do it, they love doing that. And that they have that capacity, which is about time and resources. We call it g WC, get it one and capacity. So in the people component, those are the tools we teach having the right people, making sure they're aligned to our core values, and RHIC, providing our people clarity of roles, and making sure they have the skills, they love doing that. And they have the time and resources. Then comes the third component, which is the data component, and you were mentioning this when you were talking about the scorecard G in the data component, we have the scorecard and measurable and you're totally right, we cannot improve what we do not measure. So when we use numbers we're measuring with logic and facts. We're rooting out emotion and subjectivity. The way we work a scorecard, you're going to have a leadership scorecard for your law firm. What are the key indicators that we need to be aware and they give me a pulse of my law firm. So you give great examples. Other examples I see is Hey, open open cases, retention client churn. So those are defining the key indicators that give me a pulse. Now we keep track this indicators on a weekly basis, because this is different from a p&l. When you have your p&l and you see net profit negative, it's money that you lose, and you cannot do anything, you cannot go back time. So the idea of reviewing this metric on a weekly basis is for us to pivot. What can we do this week to make sure we're hitting those numbers. So every measurable we keep track on a weekly basis, every measurable has an owner. And that's going back to the accountability. And we identify a goal for this measurable, which is what's critical that we accomplished in that week. And then we make sure if applicable, that everyone in our business almost a measurable. So that's how we measure that's how we measure effectiveness, we get to efficiency. So this first three component vision people and data when our clients are going through it, they're becoming a much transparent company. And what they're doing is they're smoking out issues, and this is our fourth component. Now in Eos, it's just it's not a negative thing. We want a culture of open and honest where everyone can say hey, we have an issue here. Let's identify the root cause, discuss and solve it. Because better Aussie then define the issues than our clients. So in the issues component, we teach our clients where to place those issues we teach them, we talk about the issues list, mindset, when we're talking about the issue, let's make sure we do three things. And we call it ideas. We love acronyms and EOS. So the IDS stand for identifying, hey, let's dig, dig, dig, what's the root cause of this session? Now that we got to the root cause, let's discover one team without pointing fingers without blaming, taking responsibility. And then we move to a solution. So in the issues component, we have the issues list and the ideas, then we go to the fifth component, which is process, everything we do repeatedly in our law firm that has an impact either to our clients or our employees, we want to document those core process. So here we teach our clients how to document them, and how it guarantee that those processes are being followed by all we teach our clients how to train people in core process, how to measure how to manage them, and how updating their core process once, twice a year. And then we get to the last key component, which is the name of the book traction. And this is the execution, this is bringing the vision down to earth. And here you also mentioned the tool we have here, the rocks and the meaningful rocks is our 90 Day priorities. And this comes from the Steve Covey analogy, right, where he's talked about the rocks that they will defend in the water. And the way I like to describe it to my clients is the pebble descendant of water, those are the distractions, the noise that we always going to have in our law. And the rocks is what moves the needle for us that we need to focus on, put our energy there. And then we have the meeting, pause that you give us a great overview of the agenda. And this is the time where we come together, share, collaborate, solve issues, and move forward, just to make sure we're not working on silos. So these are the six key components. This is how we teach our clients and we take them through the EOS journey, learning and implementing all these tools that they know them Jay, this is now flavor of the month. It's just putting all together in a very simple and effective system, that it's all about people. It's all about managing human energy in the business. So the last thing I'm going to say is imagine everyone in your law firm being a little light a little light. What EOS is doing is gathering all those lights and putting them on the same direction. So we can have everyone rowing in the same direction aligned to our vision executing on that mission. Well, that's a simple overview over us. I don't know if I extended their day. I'm sorry. I'm passionate about this.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:22:42

Perfect is 1012 minutes. So you said something interesting. You said you read the book traction brought tears to your eyes. And I said I read the book traction and kept coming back to it. I couldn't get through it. So I'm a visionary. You're an integrator in your in your business. Your partner's the visionary, you're you're a he's a visionary. By the way, everyone, don't don't. Don't mistake. But why is that and explain to people like how can they get it? Why are we so excited about EOS?

Gerardo: 00:23:09

Very good. So to understand, when we talk about the visionaries, we're talking about people that they're great with ideas, they're always in the future. It's all about emotions. When we talk about integrators, we are good with the execution with a follow up with the logic part staying in the present. So you say something very interesting. Get a grip. It's a book for visionaries, because it's a fable. And when visionaries go through the story, it's impossible not to resonate, like oh, that's me. But going to the practice, integrators were a little bit more Hi, Fi finders. So in the attraction books, it's more about the concepts, the psychology behind this concept and how to implement it. So that's why probably one book resonates more with either your visionary or an integrator. I think what Gino does very well in this books is hidden the pain points. Like every entrepreneur goes through this challenges when they're building a firm. We you know, we don't have unlimited resources. So we wear many hats. We're doing the finance, we're doing also the marketing, we're doing the business development, the intake of clients. So when we do that is mark our capacity goes very thin, right? So we feel like we're doing everything. So I think that's why when visionaries and integrators either one when they read the book, it's impossible not to feel like this is me.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:24:33

Fantastic. So last question I have, and just so everybody knows, we'll open it up to questions at the end. And, and we'll ask some more questions of the entire panel. But the last question I have is, you know, I've seen the one of the reasons why I think this is so important why we did this webinar this month. When I go to a lot of conferences with a lot of lawyers and there's a panel on Eos, and they asked the hands go up how many people are using us. I look around the room When like, let's say there's 50 guys in the room 10 of the most successful law firms are the hands that go up. I'm a member of a mastermind and Gerardo has coached our mastermind for agencies. And when you same thing you there's like 207 figure agencies, and your hands up how many people are under us? You know, 10 or 20 of the top most successful agencies are on EOS. So what's the difference between EOS and just hiring a business coach? Very

Gerardo: 00:25:26

good. So great question. So the first thing I actually I was in a session yesterday and division, and I text me after the session like Gerardo, really, I don't know how companies do it. Like without e os without an operating system. All operating systems are great J. They all bring clarity. They all help people like identify what are the rules, and they all help with the execution and distraction. I think what I love about EOS and every implementer, we always say implementers. We have three roles where teachers with a coach, and we're facilitators, I think that the great distinction with EOS come from consultants from external parties. And I think my learning, sharing from experience, what EOS is so effective is the answers are in the room. The experts are the people working in the business. So us as implementers and EOS tools, just give us a framework to ask the right questions. But we're the one with the knowledge. And I think in my experience, that's what the US does really great. And is different from consultants, sometimes consultants, they come with the answer on a business that they haven't been there for so many years for so long. And yes, sometimes systems works and all that. But the difference for me was that when I hired a consultant, they were like drawn to it many years ago, 10 years ago, this is your vision. And I go like, Oh, this sounds amazing. Yes, I want to be a $200 million. How do I get there? And they like, oh, no, that's when you will you have to hire the people we don't know. And no ELS shows you the way. It's a framework. And it's all about managing the human energy. And the answers are in the room in the people that are running the business. I think that's a clear distinction between EOS and a consultant.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:27:10

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And I'm sure everyone will join me in around a round of applause. Now. It's interesting. You just threw out a number $200 million. How do you get your business to $200 million. And I saw Mike speak last week, Mike Morris at National Trial Lawyers. And Mike gave a lot of credit to EOS for getting his firm to over $200 million. So he's an attorney based in Michigan. And I've read the book fireproof. I've watched a bunch of videos like I got to see him speak last year and this year and national trawlers and I knew he'd be an awesome addition to this panel, because they've used EOS and he's one of Geno's first clients if not his first law firm client. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome and introduce Mike Morris to the panel. Jay, good. Tell us your Eos journey and a little bit about your background and your firm.

Mike Morris: 00:28:01

Sure. Been a lawyer 31 years. The first 16 years I did it on my own. I didn't have a coach didn't have a consultant. And I got to about 26 employees. I was settling about 15 $16 million for the cases a year. But I was doing everything. I was trying every case I was signing up every client I was rainmaking I was hiring. I was firing. I was going to Costco to get the paper and the coffee and I did everything. I went and saw Gino talk. When he actually used to have to go out and get clients. We were at a big, big symposium room. There's a couple 100 people in the room and I heard him talk and I was very impressed with him. And I went and talked to him afterwards. And I wasn't ready at that time. In hindsight, I wish I had hired him a year and a half, two years earlier than I did but I wasn't ready to close down my firm for a day I was ready to spend five or six grand a day to do all of these things. Then my business kept growing and growing. And I said Finally I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna hire Gino Whitman hired him. And in the next 1516 years I went from, you know, knowing nothing about a business knowing you know, one of the one things that I don't think what's been said yet is that every lawyer on this call, who doesn't know business or went to business school or work with a business coach is pretty terrible at business. I never heard of an org chart. I never heard of vision a visionary integrator. I didn't know what any of this stuff was. I didn't know how to hire fire properly. I didn't know anything. I didn't keep my numbers. I didn't know how many cases I was signing up how much my average fee was how much my average time on desk I knew nothing. I didn't know how to delegate. I didn't have a leadership team. I could go on and on about all the dumb things that I did those first 1516 years but I won't I hired Gino and He says, All right, great. I'll see you Friday 9am My office in Livonia bring your leadership team click. And I was like, what's the leadership team? And I literally grabbed three other people in my office and said, Come on Friday, we got this and they're like we have work to do. We can't come with you for eight hours and play. So I made him we did. I was still the boss. And we went to Livonia. We sat there for eight hours. And Gino took us on, you know, the, you know, the first day I think he calls it the discovery day or whatever that first day vision building day. And we you know, we talked about the vision, we talked about what made us successful. And that was our core values, right? We wasn't like what we hope to accomplish. We looked around the table and say, Why are we a successful law firm here in Detroit. And we came up with six core values. They're still our core values today, never changed once even though you can change it, which is kind of remarkable. Some of those people on my team, two of the three of those other people are still with me today. And so that journey took me for the next 16 years. You know, a year later, I still hadn't hired my number two I hadn't hired by integrator. And I had a fire my office building burned down. And we went and saw Gino pretty quickly after that. And he says, Michael, I know you're resisting hiring that number to that integrator. But you need to now is the time there's no way you can run the firm, rebuild your building, move out of your practice, et cetera. And so I said okay, I find my number two pretty quickly, John knock Hazel he's still with me today. 1617 years later. Gino still works with John and I every single quarter. Gino wrote about us in rocket fuel several times are mentioned in Geno's book rocket fuel. Saying that we're the best visionary integrator duo has ever met. Still to this day, which is proud of and it's a nice, it's a nice compliment. I'm gonna you know, fast forward for the sake of time and questions that, you know over the next 1516 years. My practice grew from 15 to $17 million with the settlements to 200 million last year. Our scorecards is ELS calls it we call it and fireproof our jumbotrons are very robust. We manage our firm's from this process four years ago 2018 Right before COVID. Coincidentally, John and I wrote this book, fireproof, we were we the firm was running on its own. We did such a good job of delegating and elevating the right people and setting up teams and all of our processes are captured. And most people if not all, people are on the right seat and everybody around that leadership table. We're we're superstars. We were born, we wrote a book, no desire to coach just to give back to our Community Give Back to the legal community that we loved. The book was a success. It has sold 10s of 1000s of copies. I started having lawyers from around the country call me and say Michael, we want to go quicker than what traditional coaches can do even EOS. Now mind you, I'm gonna give a quick caveat. Massive EOS fan couldn't have done it without EOS Gino Whitman's a dear friend, I still just see Gino we can Wickman every quarter. There are limitations to EOS that I'm that I'm not afraid to talk about here just just for clarity because this is an EOS podcast. You know EOS is four times a year, you're not seeing pretty much not talking to your coach much more than four times a year. If there's an issue a problem of course, that person is usually available. But I talked to Gino four times a year, eight hour days, the fireproof method, we do feel we basically came up with our own style. EOS is definitely an underlying component. But we are weekly, twice a month meeting sometimes we do. We do summits we get the legal community together. We talk about deep issues together, we feel it we created a community of lawyers, mostly personal injury lawyers, some immigration criminal and divorce as well. But my once people started calling me for coaching, I was like how can I make this faster than 17 years took me 17 years to get to where I am and I basically at this point delegated myself out of a job. But if somebody's just starting, and they're not all that self motivated, it's interesting. And I'd like to hear from Gerardo and Tyler later about this question. Because when I started it, you know, I did the quarterly and it got me to where I'm at. But we were self starters. I had great people on my team. I find there was no cell phones when I started let's talk about that right? There was very little cell phones then and it wasn't like a How about now? World. Now it is, you know we I don't even remember having laptops that many back then. And now people want to go quicker. And there's so much more information. There's so much more technology that people don't want to meet and come back 90 days, they want more regular cadence. And EOS doesn't offer that they won't offer that they can't offer that if they want to be pure EOS. So we are now meeting with our clients much more regularly we are we are helping them with their level 10s We have coaches who will sit in on a level 10s Will scribe for them will teach them how to use our software that we have created for lawyers. It's different than the Eos. Our check ins are a little different issues in jumbotrons and whatnot are a little different. But it's all underlying is Eos, which is amazing. And I wouldn't be where I'm at today without Gino without EOS without all the tools. Without the people analyzers without all of the delegate and elevate exercises, and all of those things. It has made me go from a lawyer who who couldn't couldn't, you know, was hitting the ceiling constantly. couldn't do any more. helping hundreds of people a year to now helping 1000s of people a year and dialing in my numbers, dialing my profitability numbers, dialing in everything and knowing exactly what to focus on every week in every quarter, setting great rock setting great goals for the year. And it's absolutely working in my practice. I'm excited and thrilled that more and more law firms are coming. When Gino and I started working together. He didn't know a single other law firm who was working on Eos, he wasn't coaching one. And you asked an interesting question, Jay, that I wanted to chime in on when you asked Gerardo the difference between a general business coach EOS. And the interesting thing is that I love that you're out as a lawyer, right? And we're just meeting today for the first time. I love that he works with law firms. But the true EOS system, it doesn't matter. You could be a law firm, you could be an architect, you could be a dentist, you could be a waste management company. It doesn't matter

Jay Berkowitz: 00:37:07

digital agency, digital

Mike Morris: 00:37:09

agency. Whitman doesn't know the first thing that he doesn't know that there's been an auto accident have gone by. And he's been the best coach I could ask for for 17 years. So it's to me that's fascinating, right? So so when I asked, you know, he doesn't if I'm having a an issue that has to do with law firms at law firms face all the time, he can't help me. And he doesn't help me and he and he doesn't help you with the scorecards, and he doesn't help you with a lot of vendors and he doesn't help you know, it's it's the structure. That's what they're teaching in fireproof. If somebody needs, Michael, I need a great digital agency for law firms Aegina wouldn't know who to ask for obviously, Jay, I know you and I know other people in different industries and different services, you need a phone number, I got the guy for you, Paul files that ring, boom, boom, he's gonna get you the best vanity number that you can get. If you need swag, I got the guy for law firms. And it's it's it's that's what I think law firms.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:38:09

It's a next level of execution, right? It's

Mike Morris: 00:38:11

the next level, right? That's what we're trying to do. But it all starts with us. I'm not trying to take anything away from it at all. And

Jay Berkowitz: 00:38:20

the big question, because I think you touched on it, but you're probably one of the great seats to differentiate, what's the role of an implementer and an integrator. So you probably had two of the best ever. Obviously, Gino is your implementer he got the guy who founded the system. And then John, I'm going to knock Hazel Yeah, correctly. And you presented with him on stage. And you gave John a lot of credit. And you mentioned earlier you hired this, you know, great CEO and integrator in your firm, an MBA from Michigan, you know, talk a little bit about the different roles for those two and try and dimensionalize it for people. Why do you need an implementer and an integrator

Mike Morris: 00:39:01

with a completely different roles? I mean, the implementer, which is what Gerardo and Tyler are right there, outside consultants, coaches who are coming into the firm, and giving, you know, to holding you accountable. Running your meetings, give you great advice. The integrator is your number two, and it's in your firm. He's an employee of the law firm, or business. And it's probably the number one job that a visionary like myself needed to hire. If you said to me, what's the number one thing you did in the last 17 years to get to $200 million? It's hiring an integrator. And I resisted it. I was I just resisted it. That's a different story for a different day we talked about in the book fireproof, but I didn't think I deserved it. I didn't think I needed it. And boy, was I wrong. I couldn't do what I'm doing. Couldn't have done what I did without without my number to every business, every law firm. I get calls all the time. You know, Michael, when will I know if I need one? Right and I I buy responses. I've never met a visionary owner of business law firm who said I did that too soon. It's never too soon, it can be too late. But it can't be too soon. If you can afford that number two, hopefully it's somebody in your ranks, if not go out and find one, which is what I had to do. I did not have a number two, because it's completely different skill sets. There is so much learning about that relationship. You can you and I could do the five, four of us can do 10 hours on that. And that's the rocket fuel book right talking about the difference between the two which I had to learn, I had to have Gino explained to me over and over again, that the integrator is the one who breaks the ties in the firm, right? It's a simple concept. It's a simple concept that took me years to understand. I'm like, what what do you mean he's he's making the top that's my for my name's on the firm. What do you mean, he's making the decisions. We used to have battles over that stuff. And then finally, when I let go of that, and I let him run the company, and I trusted him, even though he wasn't doing it the exact same way I would have, which was hard because this was my baby, this is my firm. It life got so much better. There's a lot of ego purging you got to do, there's a lot of work you got to do to understand that relationship. And then I don't know if you're trying to get to this J but you know, the implementer like John Locke. Hazel is a coach for fireproofing runs level 10s and runs quarterlies and runs annuals for law firms. So why don't I have him run my and why do I have run to Him? Because I want Gerardo or Tyler or somebody in fireproof running the quarterlies to hold you accountable. If you're paying Gerardo big dollars to come into your firm, you're going to make sure you got your rocks done that quarter, you're not going to sit there and be Oh, I didn't do it. I didn't get to it. You're not going to be sloppy. You're going to show up on time, you're going to have your phones off, and you're going to pay attention and have a really great seven, eight hour day. So I'm a huge believer in having that outside person in the firm. For as long as you can. And another funny, weird tidbit is that Gerardo and Tyler and Gina will come in and say, you know, my average client is two years, let's say. And these guys can correct me Of course if I'm wrong, but let's say it's two years and Gino told me that I'm like, oh, so we work with GM for about two years. This was a 2007. I just had my annual Gino two weeks ago here in Detroit. 17 years later, I'm still working with him. I think it's the best money I spend every quarter. So yeah, long winded answer on that one. Jay?

Jay Berkowitz: 00:42:44

Well, one more question. And then what we'll get to Tyler and we'll come back to the panel. But one of the things that I love the most about Eos, and we read another book, what the heck is EOS and we actually did it as a book club. So everybody in the company read it. And every week we met and discussed one of the chapters, one of the things I found was, very quickly, we all learned the terminology. And now it gave the company a very common terminology. So a lot of things that were in my head, for the ways we should run the company, the ways we should handle clients, the ways we should track and report on things. We had very common terminology. And it really helped culturally. So talk about how you you roll it was down through the company, and how it affects the culture.

Mike Morris: 00:43:28

I mean, that's change, and not everybody likes change. And, you know, rolling it out is a very tricky process. You know, we changed everything, right? And we rolled out core values, we rolled out everything. And, you know, we do we call the state of the firm, every quarter, we stand up in front of the firm, we we tell everybody, this is where we were last quarter, if these were our goals is what we hit. These are our goals for this quarter. These are goals for the year, I'm doing this next Thursday, in front of my whole firm, we all gather into a big room. And I'm speaking and I have a couple extra little speakers. And we go through everything. And I had to do that on day 117 years ago. And I said look at this is our new org chart. This is our leadership team. This is the things that are changing. As you know, it's my firm, there's 27 employees. Yes, of course, I have an open door policy. But guess what? That open door policy is changing based upon this org chart. And that was one of the hardest things for my employees to understand was that the firm that I built, it's called the mike Moore's Law Firm still is. But I realized and learned for the first time that I'm the visionary, right, and I'm at the top of the food chart, top of the org chart under me as the integrator than all of us managers and then all of our beautiful employees. And those beautiful employees I hired some of them are my best friends great friends, but if you want to do this pure, those people are not allowed to do really come to me. We call that an Enron. So they gotta go to their managers and their managers then go to John. And if John can't figure out he comes to me. And by just sitting up as setting up a simple org chart, I walked out of that first meeting with 50% Less stress, work and responsibility. So that was my tear moment, Gerardo, when I walked out, wasn't reading the book. It was realizing that I needed help. I asked for help. Gino taught me how to ask my people for help. They raise their hands, just by being asked or seeing the pain that I was in, but, but I didn't know how to tell them I was in pain. I don't even know if I knew I was in pain. I didn't know what hitting the ceiling meant. But once I realized all of these things were going on in my world in my life in that my firm was stuck. It made a ton of sense. And then once I delegated 50%, on that first session, I'm not kidding. It was 50%. So then I went. So then my energy, my calf was here. So I had all this room to do whatever I want. And we tell our fireproof clients, it's up to you. Do you want to go try cases? You want to go get more cases? Do you want to go golf? Do you want to raise your kids? Do you want to never miss a sport with your kids, which was mine, I had three young daughters and I said, I never want to miss a recital. I never want to miss a carpool. I want to make lunches every day. And that was my reason for doing all this. And to hold the big relationships and do all the things I needed to do in my firm. And then I started hiring people better than me smarter than me to do all of the other things. We now have 220 people $200 million in settlements and verdicts. Last year before cast, we have an amazing Jumbotron. Everybody's in the right seats, everybody. We have amazing meetings, we've never missed a meeting, Tuesdays 8:30am, same time, same place, they start on time, they end on time. These are the things that EOS teaches you all of these non negotiables that I've been doing for 17 years. And it really is teaches you discipline

Jay Berkowitz: 00:47:09

at the end of the day works and you're proof positive. So let me get to Tyler. And then I see some of the questions are coming in. Awesome job, Mike. And thank you for making it all real for us. And please, folks, you can drop questions in the q&a. And we'll get to the panel as I mentioned shortly, but I want to introduce Tyler Smith and Tyler is also an attorney also want to Geno's first clients. And then he worked has worked with the company, the US company and now he is a certified implementer. So like, like Gerardo had similar, tremendous success as an entrepreneur, as an attorney, and now is helping firms do this. So Tyler, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey. And you've now have a couple different perspectives on EOS. And you can you know, sort of build on that for everyone. Yep,

Tyler: 00:48:03

thank you so much. So my journey started 25 years ago, right out of law school, I started entrepreneurial company and we were one of the first three to bring in Gino at the time, his business was called the business accelerator. And he accelerated us right into the ground, we had a failed business model. And he made us fail in six months instead of six years. And what we did was we took that knowledge and skills in what was to become EOS and applied it to our second business model. And that one was a great success. So that one drove us to inc 500 startup entrepreneur of the year finalist twice, we had a really great 10 year run until we didn't. And so when it was no longer fun, and we no longer loved it. We sold the majority of the business, my partner and I separated. And I started doing three things. I actually joined EOS as a fractional CTO or technology officer, I started doing EOS implementation for clients. And I started a technology and marketing firm in the next 10 years, so leading up to 2020. EOS kept using more and more of my firm's time and my personal time and so ultimately ended up selling my company to EOS in 2020 I spent about two years moving my staff company over rebuilding the backside of Eos. And then left in replace myself with two people a Chief Product Officer and Chief Information Officer at EOS. And now I'm a full time implementer so that's the quick background story of where I come from. There's a couple points I really want to just hone in on from Mike's presentation some really beautiful points as to EOS and law. First. I hope it really comes across that Mike success in his outlook on Eos, the legal world and the work that he's doing is this very abundance minded. It's very give back and that's where EOS comes from As well, we one of the things that differentiates us as implementers, from Coaches and Consultants is we have that same mentality is that we are here to give back, make the organizations that we work with better. And just believe that a sort of core level that all of that work and all of that good back much like Mike is showing and doing with with fireproof, it just builds it better for everyone, all boats are rising within the world of law and EOS. And that's our approach. So when we look at Eos, and we see it in the world, that is how we perceive it. Secondly, I really want to point out my key was, if not the first, a very early legal client for Gino, and I think, is really responsible for some of the thinking we still have today. Because the three industries that are very difficult to penetrate are legal dentists, and medical. And we find this because they, the lawyers, and the doctors and the dentist are these very, very highly educated individuals. And they have to get their arms around this concept of the accountability chart that Mike was talking about, where, because of their education and their background, if they're looking at a traditional organizational chart, they are feeling very strongly that they should be at the top of it the senior roles. And when we come in with an accountability chart, and we throw away those thoughts and say, Hey, what we need you to be, if you're a dentist, we need you to be in a seats. If you're a lawyer, we need you to be writing contracts, we need you to be trying cases. And that's where your time is best spent. And so that understanding that Mike really brought forward and helps really flush out for how do you deal with the super highly educated individuals in a large firm, and understanding that what they're best at what their God given talent, their background in your education is, is our job is to make sure that they're in those seats all of the time performing, performing the best for the firm. So I just want to shout out Mike for that insight and helping me getting us there. And two more things I want to talk about with what Mike presented was he talked about his relationship with John and I think I really want to bring to light that the second in command right the implement the integrator within the company. So implementer integrator, two totally different things, every implementer still messes up the terms. But the integrator is the last decision making in the process of an organization. And I want to just talk about why that is. So Mike visionair is on the treetops, he is looking out miles in advance as to where this organization is going. And so in that he's setting that direction for us, but what he's not seeing is what's on the ground. So his integrator, John is whacking away at the bushes. He's cutting his way through the jungle. And what John has the ability to see is that there's quicksand in front of him. And so we have to allow John to make the final decisions, because he knows he makes it make a quick jog around the kickstand. Mike is saying this direction, this direction, John is saying, Yes, I hear you and we're going in that direction. But sometimes I need to go to the left. Sometimes I need to go to the right, I'm following your vision, but you have to give me the ability to go get there based on what I'm seeing on the ground. And lastly, I just want to talk about the difference between using an implementer or not. And so I like to akin this to representing yourself in court or hiring professional. Okay, this is the difference we're talking about. You can do the work yourself. implementers are the absolute experts in taking the system and driving it into your business and making sure it executes 100%. They are really independent in thought they are not tied into those emotions and the issues that you're facing. And so they just have this clarity. Much like a lawyer facing a judge. They are not intimidated by the courtroom. We are not intimidated by the issues that you're facing in your business. It's very hard to get to you by yourself. I believe it's why Mike is still using genome, he still comes in clean of mind not tied to emotions, just providing the best advice that he can and facilitating us within the organization. It's the same way we look at why we hire a lawyer. It's why we hire a doctor. It's why we hire implementers. So just wanted to follow up on those few points from

Jay Berkowitz: 00:54:15

No, no, that's perfect. Can you share a couple of maybe transformative experiences maybe with a law firm or maybe for other companies? And you know, you've had a unique view of us seeing it sort of in house and then working there. And then now as an implementer? Sure a couple of transformative experiences for companies. Yeah, so

Tyler: 00:54:33

for some of my law firms, for a couple of them. It has started with every partner in the room. So 13 people on a leadership team, right thinking that they want to run the business, same thing that we're talking about here with the org chart versus accountability chart, they think because it's a leadership team meeting that everyone should be there. So the good news is after the first meeting, or after the second meeting, we're typically down to our five or six after we run through the focus day and we've set that accountability chart It's a super interesting exercise, we say, hey, to run this business. So thank you all for being here. You are absolute experts in, in your business. Now you're all fired. But before I fire you, I'm going to suck out from your brains that if this were a $20 million law firm, what's the perfect structure to go run it. So all the lawyers can be lawyering and all the office staff can be office staffing, and that this organization is running perfectly. And we all build it collaboratively together, right? So we say great, it typically looks at like five or six roles just depends on the organization. We know it's at least five from running on us. And then we go start hiring people and decide who actually wants this role, who wants to be the CFO who wants to be the CEO who wants to be that Rainmaker, and all of a sudden, it becomes real clear that a lot of people in that room, just want to go be lawyers, lawyer at trial court, whatever it might be. And so that's super transformative to start in a room with 16 leaders. And the next time that we meet only five or six people, that's pretty crazy work to do. And it's a super stressful, super interesting never know how it's going to come out on our guide as to how we implement it. There's a time variation for this implementation. It's somewhere between two to seven hours to get this work done. We have no idea what it's going to look like until we dive it.

Jay Berkowitz: 00:56:10

That's awesome. Well, maybe I'll ask Mike and Gerardo the same question. Can you share? You know, Mike, obviously, you're it was transformative for your business. But do each of you have an example of a real transformative scenario where before and after us? Mike, you want to go first?

Mike Morris: 00:56:27

I mean, I kind of gave you my number one story about understanding how to delegate, you know, the lawyers on this call have big egos, especially the ones who own their own law firms, we all do. And we all think we're the best at something I've been in. I spoke in Phoenix last year, there's 300 people in the room. It's been our lawyers, and I said, How many here business owner lawyers believe that they're the best of it's several things that they're from that nobody can do, as well as that. Every single hand went up in the room, everyone, not surprised I expected every hand to go up in the room, my hand would go up like this, I can tell you 10 things. Nobody is a better trial lawyer. Nobody could talk to clients better than me. Nobody could negotiate with adjusters better than me, etc. And that's why most law firms are small. That's why most law firms don't hit their goals. Let's be honest, 99.9% of law firms don't have goals. Okay, they just don't, I learned what goals were. I learned what KPIs were. I learned what a number two was, I learned what a visionary was, I learned how to delegate. I could go on and on J. But all of these things were transformational for me. I mean, I was and I believe that's, that's one of my missions it with the book fireproof and our conferences and our teaching. And that's so easy for me to talk about, because I've been living it for 17 years. I don't have any notes. I didn't prepare for this today. Because it is it's it's it's just in my blood now. And I can talk about this all day, there's not a single legal question that somebody who called me about about running a law firm that I couldn't answer, like, not a single question. And whether or not I had the exact answer, I had the ELS tool for them, or I have a fireproof tool for them, where I have a business contact with them call or a vendor to call or just a tool or something to think about. It's it's way more than getting a master's in business, right? It's I don't even know the analogy. Maybe that's it, but I feel like EOS has given me the foundation, I think I I have taken it to the next level. Because EOS again is very specific. It's four times a year, and you just have to know what you're signing up for. And it's great. And if you need more hand holding, there's other programs, or you want other, you want more hand holding, but it's you've got to start somewhere and it's a great place to start

Jay Berkowitz: 00:58:59

and Gerardo, do you have a transformative story you can share with us? I

Gerardo: 00:59:04

do. So an insight I have seen working with law firms is visionary sometimes rediscovered their purpose. And this is tied to what Mike was saying, right? They do not teach you how to run a business in law school. So when you start your law firm, by accident, you start growing and growing and growing. And then you either catch yourself, running the business, not being able to do what you love, which is probably being there in the cases with your favorite clients. So what EOS brings is the ability for this founders and visionaries to decentralized themselves, like created a team that they can trust. And that can either be now that I have my team. I just want to slowly vindicate and run this firm, or you can run to from I just want to be in the cases with my favorite clients. So I'll share from experience with two of my clients. One has been with us for three years now. And he discovered his purpose was he wanted to transition going out of the law firm, and Eos, we talked about the EOS live doing what you love with people you love having the time for all their passion, good discoveries, his other passion was creating an offshore talent company with an amazing culture all about people. So thanks to Eos, he mentioned how to get out of the business and found this other company. And that's where you love. That's where he finds his true purpose. Another case, another example, another visionary that her purpose was working with nonprofit. And her firm grew from when they started with us, they were doing $1 million revenue three years after when doing $12 million revenue. And I was like, wow, this is big. And sometimes it gets scary. And Mike mentioned some of the things that EOS like some of the resistance that we see in our clients first is it's hard to let go. It's your baby, you start doing everything. And so now you have to trust people, because in order to let go and delegate successfully, things must have to be in place, you must have the right person in the right seat and they must be clarity, clarity of expectations. If you do not have this, you cannot let go or you delegate on successful. And that's why the fear to this. Then the other thing is, you start thinking that oh, I'm losing control my firm. I'm not I don't know what's happening down there. Some of my visionary constantly Hey, Gerardo. Now, my lawyers, I'm not coming to either come into my integrator, I have no idea what's happening in my law firm. But in that journey, there were discover, oh, but where's my heart? My heart is working with nonprofit, this is what I love to do. And EOS allows us to do that. Those are two examples with my clients. That's

Jay Berkowitz: 01:01:36

awesome. Just a quick answer to this question for each of you. And we'll start off as Tyler first. What should someone do if they're watching us? And they're kind of on the fence and they want to get started with us? Yeah,

Tyler: 01:01:48

so for sure. So the first step in our process, and the proven process is what we call a 90 minute meeting. And so this is an overview of what ELS looks like that model up there. We just go through all of the tools and how we implement ELS and what the future full day sessions will look like. So it's always the first starting process is an overview to see if there's a fit for the EOS process in your organization. Mike,

Jay Berkowitz: 01:02:13

same answer what how would you want to get started? Yeah,

Mike Morris: 01:02:16

I mean, it's ours is a little bit different. If you if you want more information about fireproofed. Feel free to email me I'll put my email in the chat. But it's, you know, we have a discovery day and we definitely want to fit just like Tyler mentioned. Not everybody's a fit. Not everybody's big enough. Not everybody's ready for fireproof. I don't know if I think most business I don't know what the limitations are with EOS and how small or how big are revenue goals or people goals? I'm not sure if if they're as picky we're a little bit more picky. A three person firm making 102 and $1,000 a year is not going to work for fireproof. You know, we want people to 3 million in revenue wanting to get to 10 million and above in revenue. You know, we have certain parameters, because we don't want to waste our time. We don't want to waste your time. So if you want more information fireproof performance.com, email me,

Jay Berkowitz: 01:03:03

Gerardo same question. How does someone get started? If they're, you know, thinking about jumping in?

Gerardo: 01:03:10

Yeah, so two things. One, if you're a high Fact Finder, you can start reading the book traction is, if you have that question, Is this from me? Like probably I'm not getting a lot of information and is where we are. So let me read the book. Now, you mentioned something, Jay, how long it took you to read the book, more than six months. For me, it was a couple of months. So I'm gonna piggyback on what Tyler said. In that 90 minute meeting, what we do is we take you through four steps. We talk a little bit about us about Eos, how we got involved with Eos, then we want to know about you we go through your challenges, we go through your strengths, what makes your love from great. If you're working today, looking back into yours, what needs to happen for you to say, hey, we did it, we're successful. But we hear about you that number three is now we show you the model and the tools. And this is the way I tell my clients, we get to summarize the book for you, if you don't have the time to read it. If you're a visionary, that you don't love reading concepts about this, Hey, we'll come here, we'll summarize the book for you. And you will get a lot of value out of this meeting. And then step number four is showing you the process. So definitely those are the two things either read the book or book an item in it. So you're just gonna have the summary version. And like Tyler said, this is absolutely free meeting packet value.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:04:24

My answer is, you know, read this book, get a grip because I think 90% of the people on this meeting, you know, probably heard about this book traction, which is like the New York Times bestseller, but get a grip is written for the visionary. And I see some of the folks on here like my friend Eric shore and her Boger and I see a bunch of, you know, law firm owners and visionaries and get a grip will bring it, you know, bring it to where you get it, want it and gotta make it happen. So we got a couple questions in the q&a. And we've got several people on here and several people on the LinkedIn. First question is How do you get the rank and file on board with the law firms ultimate goal of making more profit for the owners? Mike, you want to start with this one? Yeah.

Mike Morris: 01:05:08

I mean, John, you were at the speech last week, the talk last week in Miami, and that's the integrators number one job is to make the profitability margins exactly whatever your goals are. For law firms, the typical is 20 to 25%. We strive to get our fireproof clients to the 40% mark, my firm's fluctuates between 38 and 42%. But number one, you got to know your numbers, right. Most law firms on here don't know what their profitability margins are. So just starting that conversation, but getting your employees that's not how we I don't go in front of my employees and say their number one job, everybody's to make me more money. We don't talk like that we are, we are smarter than that. That's not the number one goal. The number one goal is you know, they have a happy workplace and make sure our clients are taken care of and do the best thing we can for our clients and all the other things fall in line, we have our processes, we have our goals in the internal meetings, the internal meetings, your level 10s are private, you're not recording those and sending those out to the masses. You know what your goals are, you know how to get there, you know, all the things you need to do to increase process profitability is one of your goals for 2024. And you're at 25%, you want to get to 30%. Right? How are we what are you going to do all year long to make sure that your profit increases 5%. That doesn't have to do necessarily with your employees, right, that has to do with certain measurables certain expenses. That might be less employees, it may be cutting costs on the copy machine, I don't know what your costs are. But we have those, we absolutely have those, but it's not getting everybody on board. It's your internal leadership team, knowing what those goals are, and figuring out a way how to accomplish that. Either

Jay Berkowitz: 01:06:45

Georgia and want to take that one out to get rank and file on board with the ultimate goal of making more profit for the owner. I

Gerardo: 01:06:52

love something that Mike mentioned, versus identifying. What's your goal? What is it that we sometimes need? We need growth, we need to sacrifice cash and profit. Sometimes, yes. If we want more profit, yes, we need the cash and growth. So that's the one thing it then define what is it sometimes I have clients that it's all about getting better, not only about getting bigger, it's this. It's all about the core process. So that's the one thing and the second is identifying the accountabilities. So yes, profit usually is a role under the integrator, because like we say, hey, visionary should have the composer of a symphony integrators, that director of the orchestra and that orchestra is that leadership team. So integrators holding accountable for the revenue, business development to bring the more cash possible, the more revenue, and then the operations and legal to be the more efficient. And that's why integrators are accountable for profitability. So is identifying those accountabilities and making sure that the person accountable for that, number one, he gets it as his skills. He wants to do that. And then he has the resources to do it. That's what we call having the person in the right seat. I

Jay Berkowitz: 01:07:54

love that, would you say integrator is the director of the orchestra? And the visionary is the conductor composer

Gerardo: 01:08:00

of that beautiful saying, I want to be the leadership team?

Jay Berkowitz: 01:08:05

I don't want to run the title, you want to take that one? Or go to the next question? Yeah. So

Tyler: 01:08:11

I just think there's, there's two parts to it. In none of my clients, is there a goal or a core focus that says make the owners more money, like it's just not a motivating driver for an organization to have that sort of publicly in their face. So it's sort of an also, like, in my mind, for all the organizations I work with, it's just part of the DNA, right? We want to be profitable, we want to make revenue, we want to take home money, everyone at the organization looks at their job and their role that way. So I don't think it ever really needs to be called out quite so specifically. And we really try and shy people away from having even tenure targets their revenue base, we really want them to be, you know, these big, hairy, audacious goals that are going to drive the organization forward. And it's never that the owner takes home a lot of money. That's really the byproduct of a really successful and well run organization. So we want to go focus on all those things that allow the organization to be successful. And the byproduct is the owners get to take away a lot of money.

Mike Morris: 01:09:12

I thought it was done. Okay. Yeah,

Tyler: 01:09:14

rolling out to the organization. This is like, Hey, this is the bus we're on. Okay, this is the fireproof bus. This is the EOS bus. You want to be on this bus. You like what's going on here? This is a fit for how you want to operate in the world, or it's not right. And so this is where ELS gets a little black and white and says this is what our bus is going to look like. And I think Firebird the same way. This is how we're going to operate. And if this is not for you, it's okay. Right? We're not mad. We don't hate you. I hope you don't hate us. But this is how this organization is going to operate and it just draws people in and it pushes people away.

Mike Morris: 01:09:47

Listening to Tyler is like listen to Gino. I hope you take it as a compliment. But you guys are very similar in your mannerisms. And I don't know if you do the bump up at the end of the meeting. But let me tell you one One inside baseball tip, that's not all that much inside baseball that reminds me what Tyler was talking about. And we were talking about profitability, which is super important to owners. And like Tyler said, not super important to employees, and you're not going to go out there and say this is the goal. However, a EOS tool, being a st page meeting, let me just talk 30 seconds on St. Page meetings, Jay, your visionary, and your integrator should be meeting once a month, off site, quiet so people aren't coming in the room phones down for 90 minutes to two hours or three hours, those meetings can be as long as you want. And the owner and the integrator is on the same page. You don't have to write anything you're not creating rocks should I creating to dues really, and if profitability is one of those things, and you guys have a private off site meeting, let you know, hey, I'm at 32%, I'd love to get to 35% 38% 40% then your integrator, your smart, smart, smart number two who's running your organization is going to go in make sure that that happens. And if it's really important, he better make it happen or not. You're right integrator. And and that's it. So you can have private offline that you don't stand up at the low in front of the firm and say, this is one of our goals, this is one of our things is he's going or she is going to do that for you. Because she knows because you guys had that private meeting, she knows what's important in the visionaries heart. Because that person's job is to make the vision happen. I forget that sometimes it's not to make their vision happen. It's not to make them happy. It's to make the visionary happy. And make sure that the vision like I loved how, you know Gerardo and Tyler explaining that that's their only job is to conduct that beautiful piece that you wrote, not their piece, that their side hustle, not that anything else about them. It's all about the visionary. And I'm telling you over the last 17 years, I've lost sight of that. So that's why I'm a little passionate about that pitch.

Tyler: 01:11:59

So we build this around visionaries, right? Every other role changes, visionary is always a constant, right? They're the person that sort of drives the rest of that organization, what it looks like how it operates, what it needs to do to achieve that vision. It's the visionary is, is in the driver's seat. We are all passengers on their bus.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:12:18

Let me ask one one final question. And, you know, let's step out a little bit of, you know, specifics tos. But, you know, what's one thing that you're seeing, you're all consulting with law firms. What's one thing that's going to move law firms forward? In the rest of the year, Gerardo?

Gerardo: 01:12:35

Yes, for me is, I'll say towards you asked for one party on the alignment party. Where do we want to go? What are the most important things we need to accomplish this year, that's going to move the needle for us. And then the alignment, get everyone on board and rowing in the same direction? Those are the two things that I'm seeing this year. So

Jay Berkowitz: 01:12:57

what's one thing is gonna move law firms forward for the rest of the year.

Tyler: 01:13:00

So don't take this in the wrong vein, I tell all of my clients, please look at how AI is changing the workplace now not writing your legal contracts, okay. But as it pertains to marketing, and how you're writing content and how you're sending out marketing content and receiving feedback, and all of those pieces start working together. Now, I'm a technologist. So just admit that right off the bat, but it is amazing to see what is happening on the AI front.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:13:28

And, Mike, I'll give you the last word. What's one thing that's going to move people rocket fuel is another EOS book, what's the rocket fuel for 2024? Knowing

Mike Morris: 01:13:38

your data, most law firms that come and talk to me don't have a scorecard. Don't know. I mean, when a lawyer calls me I'm gonna give a little insight baseball, right? I say, Okay, well, what was your revenue last year? I was around two, 3 million red flag. How many cases did you sign up? Well, we say, red flag, what's your average fee? Well, you know, it's a big case, red flag, right. And I could go, I could list 10 You I could lose 10 j, then I know that they are just a disaster of a law firm and they have no idea what they're talking about. When it comes to data. There's no way they could run a good law firm. Know your data. I could talk days and days on this. Know everything these I don't know how you make decisions. Without knowing your data. It's changed me. I mean, I can't stress it enough.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:14:29

It's been huge for us measure the right things, but attention on it with the leadership team and cascade that down throughout the organization and what you focus on gets attention and improves. Guys This was awesome for me it brought it all home. I hope everyone here live today on zoom in on Facebook and LinkedIn is has enjoyed it. I know you have and if you're listening to this sometime in the future, on our YouTube channel, or on our podcast, you know, please give give me a shout out Oh, you can find me at 10 golden rules. Maybe last question for everyone. Tyler, where can people find you?

Tyler: 01:15:06

Yep, so you can find me at EOS worldwide.com There's an implementer directory and just put my name in for all those names and do a search and we'll come up.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:15:16

Mike where to folks find you?

Mike Morris: 01:15:18

I put my email in there my private email Mike at 855. Mike wins that calm fireproof, performance calm if you want to check out some of our stuff. And I'm happy to get on a call with anybody anytime.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:15:28

And if someone's injured in Michigan, where do they go?

Mike Morris: 01:15:31

855 Mike wins.com Thank you, Jay. And you know, it's snowy and icy out there. So if you need us, we're here. Dorado

Jay Berkowitz: 01:15:39

my favorite. Where can we find you?

Gerardo: 01:15:42

Thank you, Jay. So same EOS worldwide website and also the profit recipe website. www dot the profit recipe they'll come something we do for our clients local clients in South Florida we provide community. We provide our clients and integrator masterclass. So they can come and share with other integrators. We provide an IDS mastery session so leadership team members can come and share with leadership of other companies either in the same industry or different industry running an EOS. We provide deep dive in Eli's tools, and we also have events and workshops for our clients. So visit the proper recipe.com I'm happy to serve you.

Jay Berkowitz: 01:16:20

Thank you guys so much. This was great.

Gerardo: 01:16:23

Thank you Jay for having us.

Unknown: 01:16:27

Thank you for listening to the 10 Golden Rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. Please send questions and comments to podcast at 10 Golden rules.com That is podcast at t e n Golden rules.com