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Michael S.: Hi, this is Michael Senoff of www.hardtofindseminars.com . I think you’re really going to enjoy this next interview, especially if you sell or offer a professional service. I’m here with Michael Mack, who is an attorney. As you know, I interview major players in the world of marketing and I think Michael and his company, Lawyers Marketing, is a real up and coming player in business building principles. Michael and his company offer a brand new perspective about how to get your message across and how to attract people to your professional service company, whether you are a lawyer, a CPA, a financial planner, or even a doctor. The business principles he offers are quite basic and yet require you to think differently about your professional practice. Mike will share some powerful proven marketing strategies just for lawyers; however, the concepts he shares with you are profit concepts many of the most successful businesses, not just law firms, use with enormous success. Michael Mack’s story is nothing short of amazing. He started his own law firm with zero capital in 1999, and he has grown his business in three short years so that he is doing business in three states with over 20 lawyers working in his firm. Michael uses the same direct marketing concepts with incredible results, which we offer you at www.hardtofindseminars.com . So let me begin.

Michael M: Well, Mike thanks for having me on. I really appreciate having the opportunity to share with you and your listeners some of my experiences and even insight. My story is an interesting one. Back in the late 1980’s and early to mid 1990’s, I was with a very large law firm located in the Midwest. They had at the time—I think they even have more now—150 lawyers and I was on track to become a partner. Everything was going well. I got into some business ventures which really I knew nothing about. I trusted the wrong people. To make a long story short and spare you the gory details, the investments which I was involved in went sideways and I lost everything essentially, and voluntarily and temporarily left my law firm to try to recoup some of my losses. In fact, my law firm represented me and that cost a fortune in legal fees. But before I knew it, I was looking down the barrel of enormous debt and I basically gave up on practicing law, had to file for bankruptcy, went through a divorce, and decided that I was going to get out of practicing law. For a time I was literally sleeping on the floor of a one-bedroom apartment, had nothing. I was working as a bartender at night, telemarketing during the day, and ironically my ex-wife and my brother said, hey, you’ve got to do something with your life, Mike. I thought about going and practicing law with another law firm and decided to start my own law firm. To make a long story short, again, I started with less than $500 and went from myself back in 1999 to a law firm, which has multiple attorneys in multiple states. We are in three states and we’re going to be moving into a couple of other states in the next six months. I’ve been very fortunate.

Michael S.: That’s amazing. You know I can relate to that telemarketing. At some point in my career—one of my lowest points in my career—I was doing telemarketing here in San Diego selling these vitamins for like 500, 600 bucks and there’s nothing worse than sitting behind one of those little desks or cubicle in a boiler room, knowing that what you’re doing is just—it doesn’t feel right.

Michael M.: You know that’s exactly right. I get calls now from telemarketers, and I’m much kinder to people that call me now than I used to be. Believe it or not, I’ve been in their shoes and it’s not easy. You’re calling people that really don’t want to hear from you. It was certainly a low point in my life, Mike, but I learned a lot, as I’m sure you did too. It was a learning experience, it really was. It allowed me to gain a heck of a lot of perspective today.

Michael S.: When your back is against the wall and the financial pressure is absolutely so debilitating, it’s almost like you can’t even think straight. And what you’ve done, that is amazing. So you went from absolutely dead broke, nothing, to widely successful in just a few short years. Can you tell me or anyone listening, specifically how you did it? What made the difference?

Michael M.: Yes, absolutely. Well said, Mike, in terms of it’s almost crippling and immobilizing if you allow it to happen is that feeling of dread, that there’s no hope. I’m here to tell you, without sounding too corny, that there’s a heck of a lot of hope. And when you ask me how I was able to turn things around, I was really lucky. I have to say it. Another way to put it, I was blessed. I had the right people that came into my life that taught me about how to run a law practice, how to market a law practice, how to build a business, and get it going essentially from scratch with little or no risk. When I decided to try to start my own law firm, I had decided to try to learn from other lawyers and didn’t have a lot of success in finding other lawyers who really knew how to grow a business quickly, who had experience in growing a business. And without getting into the details, I ran into some people who referred me to what I call “real experts” in growing a business, who understand how to grow a business using what I call and what you would call, Michael, “direct marketing concepts.” These are concepts where you can measure the results, you know if the results are working or not working right away, and they are tried and tested principles on growing a business with little or no risk and little or no capital. It’s amazing to me that most businesses don’t use these principles because these principles have been responsible for growing some of the most successful companies of our time. We could make a list and keep going for quite some time. These companies are widely successful because they use these principles and they use these principles on a regular basis to grow their business, to start businesses, and to make a lot of people a lot of money. So, that’s essentially what I did. I ran into the right people. I was very lucky to find the right people who led me in the right direction. Then what I did was I took those ideas and molded those to the specific area of law, of running a law business. I call it a law business instead of a law practice because it really is a business. It is a business and you have to look at it from a business perspective.

Michael S.: It’s a business about getting customers or clients. If you don’t have clients, you’ve got no business.

Michael M.: Absolutely. That’s the bottom line.

Michael S.: When we talk about marketing, what is marketing? What do you mean specifically? What is direct marketing and what do you mean by marketing? Is that like advertising, or what?

Michael M.: Good question. You know advertising is the Goodyear blimp. When you see a Goodyear blimp above you at a football game or a baseball game, that’s advertising. There’s no way to measure whether that’s working. If I were to put law firm up on a blimp, that really wouldn’t do me or my law firm any good. Marketing is really anything which is intended to increase the number of people who hire you, the amount they pay you, the number of times they hire you, the number of times they refer others to hire you, and by its very nature, Michael, as you know, it’s measurable. You can quantify your results. So, I teach every lawyer what I call the power value of a client. This is their lifetime value. I show lawyers how to bring in clients, how to use time-tested principles to bring in clients immediately, how to measure the results, and to know whether those principles which they are using are working and how to make fine adjustments—which are very easy to make—so that they have a predictable, consistent way to bring in clients day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. This can be any type of law practice, whether it’s personal injury, bankruptcy, divorce, any type of law practice where your practice is dependent on bringing in clients. These principles will work.

Michael S.: Now, when you say lifetime value, are we talking about how much money they are worth over the lifetime you service them as a client?

Michael M.: Right. The lifetime value of a client, for example, I run a marketing campaign…for example, free publicity—that’s one of the things that I teach lawyers—how to get free publicity and free advertising. I know that that costs me, for example, $50 and I have a client that hires me from that particular ad or that free publicity. That client then hires me to do something. I know that that client will refer me to other clients if I do the right things, and most lawyers do not do the right things. They don’t take the steps to analyze their client to say how can I get that client to hire me not once, but twice, three times, or how to get that client to refer me other clients. That client has such intrinsic value that most lawyers and most business owners completely ignore. They look at it as a one-time sale and that’s the wrong way to look at it. It is so embarrassingly simple to see a client and to say I know, even on a spreadsheet I can measure it, how many times that client is going to use my services if I do the right things, and how many times that client is going to refer me other clients, and then how those referrals are going to refer me even more clients. It becomes almost exponential when you look at it from that perspective. The potential is just simply enormous from one client how much revenue can be generated at very little cost.

Michael S.: What is it? I know talking with you earlier, before you found out about these marketing principles and used them to build your own practice and me the same in building my business, we’re all so focused on getting that customer, getting the money, and then leaving them; and then getting a new one, and a new one, and a new one. Why is it that we’re like that? What is it? Is it something about human nature that allows us to do this?

Michael M.: That’s a really good question. I’ve thought about that, Michael. I think that the focus by the so-called experts out there is that initial sale, and that many of us are not taught what the lifetime value of a client is. It’s not impressed upon us enough and we don’t see it. It’s before our nose, but we just don’t see it. We see it when we start to use these really simple principles for generating referrals, stimulating new business. But that’s a really good question. It may be human nature. It may be the way that the initial sale is ingrained in our head and how important that is. But, many businesses fail to understand that that initial sale is usually expensive in comparison to taking that initial sale and cultivating that initial sale into other sales and into other referrals, where a customer will refer other customers. And it’s so easy to do. It really is. It’s so simple to get customers/clients to refer you new business. And it’s so inexpensive in comparison to the initial cost that it takes to bring in that first customer or client.

Michael S.: Absolutely. And I want to talk about that cost more, later. But first, do you just share marketing principles with lawyers?

Michael M.: No. We share, Michael, how to increase your bottom line in as little as 30 days. I teach marketing and operational principles which will create a steady and predictable flow of clients—referrals and revenue. I teach you how to operate your business at less cost and more profit. Certainly, marketing is a huge part of it, but it’s really a basic approach to gaining ultimate leverage in your entire business, and your entire operational and marketing success is predicated on simple strategies, which most businesses just ignore or overlook. So, I show lawyers how, for example, to get free advertising. When most lawyers are paying for advertising, there are tried and proven ways which our law firm uses every day to get free advertising, to get free publicity. I show lawyers how to pay a fraction of what other lawyers pay for advertising. I show lawyers how to engage in joint venturing deals with vendors, with third parties; everything from employees to advertising, to other operational aspects of the business, lawyers or business owners can save enormous amounts of money and increase their profitability dramatically if they employ these simple strategies.

Michael S.: Absolutely. And any money you save in your practice is money you make, money you put in your pocket.

Michael M.: Exactly right.

Michael S.: I heard you say that owning a business is the best investment anyone can make. How can you say that? I mean, most businesses fail. What’s the statistics? Most businesses today won’t be around in four years, and those still in business, barely even make money. They just get by.

Michael M.: Right. Exactly. Well, I would have said five years ago that that’s a crazy notion to say that a business is your best investment. I would have told you that putting your money in the bank and getting a minimal rate of return on your interest is a better investment that starting a business. But, I’ve had some experiences in the last five years, which has changed completely my perspective. I can now speak from experience and the experience of other businesses that if you approach your business correctly and understand the basic principles which I teach you and other lawyers—and Michael you’re not a lawyer but I use that in a generic sense—but what I teach other lawyers is that if you look at your business in the right way and just seeing it, that a business can be the least risky of any other investment, passive or otherwise, including real estate or putting your money in the bank or stocks. And I do recommend that to a certain extent. But a business, if operated and marketed properly, can be by far the greatest investment return on your money that you can ever hope to obtain and the least risky. That sounds like a crazy notion to many, and it would have sounded like a crazy notion to me a few years ago, but it doesn’t today.

Michael S.: Absolutely. I would agree with you. And I think what it all comes down to is control. When you’re investing in the stock market or putting your money in the bank, all you’re saying is, here, I don’t know what to do with my money. You take control over it and give me a piece, if you make it.

Michael M.: Exactly.

Michael S.: So, I agree with you. Explain the notion that you can start a business with little capital or very little downside. Give me a little more detail on that.

Michael M.: Well, when I started my law practice in 1999 on my own with no one else, I started with $500, but in reality, I could have started with a lot less. It’s a mind-blowing notion for most businesses to recognize that they can start a business with little capital and that they don’t have to spend lots of money to make money. A single investment, for example, $200 can bring returns of 500% or 1000%. And if you calculate that return over one year and you begin to see how you develop wealth through a business with zero downside and with little or no capital, then you really start to see how that particular investment far outstrips stocks or bonds or real estate. If you increase the number of people who hire you from one person per ad to two or three people per ad without spending one additional dime just by changing the message of that ad, you can increase your wealth exponentially. The dirty little secret is that most lawyers and business owners don’t have a clue about marketing or operating a business. Let me give you a recent example that’s not legal related and I’ll give you some examples of those later, but this is an example, which comes to mind right now. I have a really nice lady who’s had a business remodeling bathrooms, specifically. She does everything from the remodeling to the wallpapering. It’s a nice niche business and my wife and I really appreciated what she did for us recently. I started to ask her some questions about her business and she started to answer those questions about how business had been booming for a while. A couple of years ago business was booming, she did really, really well, and lately she hasn’t been doing so well. She lamented the fact that business is tough. I asked her some questions about how does she bring in a customer. Does she have a referral system? Does she have a newsletter? Does she have a system of measuring? Does she do any ads? Does she have a system of measuring what works or what doesn’t in terms of referrals? And she didn’t have any systems, didn’t have any way of measuring what worked and what didn’t. Didn’t have an idea of why she was doing well two or three years ago and why she wasn’t now. So, really out of almost sympathy for her, she’s just a super nice lady, we decided to help her out a little bit. I sat down with her and we developed some very simple strategies. I was amazed at how she looked at me and said, wow, this is such a great idea. I don’t know why I didn’t do this before. We put together what I call referral packages. We had one particular strategy, which we used involving a doctor/client of hers who wrote a letter on her behalf, which I drafted, and it was a referral package. She sent out at least 50 referral packages that I helped her put together. She gained 11 new clients in one month. Actually it was less than one month, it was about three weeks, at an average net profit of about $2,800 per client. That was another thing that I taught her is look at what is the profit per new client that you are bringing in. Her downside was essentially zero and she spent less than $200 for these referral packages to make over $30,000. That’s one strategy that I can tell you; a real world strategy, which I used, and I’ve used a lot of strategies with other lawyers in my law firm.

Michael S.: That’s brilliant. She actually had a relationship with a doctor, and she kind of did a joint venture with him and asked him to send out a referral, referring her business to his clients.

Michael M.: Yes, exactly, Michael. Let me be a little more specific for your listeners to explain how we did this. We had a doctor. In fact, he doesn’t live too far from us and he was the one who actually referred this gal to my wife and I. He had said such glowing things about her. So, I drafted a letter with his letterhead that we sent to people that the doctor knew and that this lady knew. The first line said, I suppose you’re wondering why a doctor is writing a letter about a home remodeler. It was a clever letter, but it got to the benefits that this doctor spoke highly about this woman. It was from a doctor. Everybody who gets a letter from a doctor is probably going to open their mail, first of all. So, they got a letter from a doctor and this letter—the substance of the letter—was about this home remodeler and we also attached testimonials. We had plenty of people who said nice things about her that were included with this letter. We had a very simple high-perceived value coupon that we put with the referral package. And we put some other things in there too. It was very powerful. We set up a voicemail so that people could hear about her philosophy in bathroom remodeling. We also changed her business a little bit. I thought that perhaps even though she was a niche business in bathroom remodeling, we talked about maybe she could do some other things as well and that’s something that’s kind of in the works right now. It was very effective. It was very simple, but very effective. The focus was a doctor who already spoke very highly of her and put this together and it worked quite well with very little cost and really no risk whatsoever.

Michael S.: I can see how that worked. With a doctor’s credibility referring, it is like people will automatically listen, and you’ve got the credibility behind him.

Michael M.: Exactly. And you can do this in any business. This is just one of many, many strategies, Michael, that you’re very familiar with yourself which any business owner, specifically lawyers for me, can use and deploy immediately. This is just one strategy.

Michael S.: What about lawyers in particular? Aren’t lawyers truly unique in what they do? Can these principles that you teach work for lawyers in the legal profession?

Michael M.: Yes, that’s a really good question. It’s not an exaggeration to say that not one in a thousand lawyers use the principles that we teach. Lawyers seem to think, to devoutly believe that their business or profession is unique and somehow they need to simply follow the pack in order to succeed and that these strategies which are out there and available for them won’t work in their profession. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s really sad because they are missing out on such wonderful opportunities to run a business, to profit and actually enjoy what they’re doing. It’s arrogant to think this way and ironically and certainly ignorant to think this way, too. The fact is business is business. I can introduce and share with any lawyer an entirely proven way of growing a law practice. I can show any lawyer how to target clients so that their efforts are predictable and consistent. I can show any lawyer how to predictably and consistently stimulate referrals. It doesn’t matter whether that lawyer practices in tax law, or personal injury, or divorce, or any other type of law, Michael. It works. Business is business. If a lawyer is in business to make money, then I can show that lawyer, that law firm, something very special.

Michael S.: I want you to talk about this. I remember when talking to you, you had mentioned how you can buy clients. This is wild. What do you mean by buying a client?

Michael M.: When I talk with a lawyer, I say, how many clients do you buy every week? They don’t know what I talking about and I really wouldn’t have known what I was talking about either a few years ago. Buying a client really isn’t as wild a notion as it may sound. All it means is that I try to put a value on a client. If I have a personal injury client, for example, what’s that client worth to me? How much am I willing to spend to acquire that client? If I know that predictably I can spend $1,000 to bring in a client that’s worth $20,000 to me, then I’d gladly buy that client for a sum of $1,000 because that’s $19,000 in profits for me. So, what I look at is I look at is the cost per lead. I look at what does it cost me to create a lead source. If I know that five personal injury leads—these are people that may need my services for personal injury, or divorce or bankruptcy—that they are worth a dollar amount, then I’m willing to spend a dollar amount to acquire those leads. That’s really all that I’m talking about. And I get into greater detail when I work with lawyers, Michael. Keep in mind that I show the lawyers how to pay the least amount to get a new client to hire you, so they don’t have to pay anything in some cases to get a client. By all means, they should not pay what they are used to paying in acquiring a client. But, I also want them to understand, to recognize, the margins that they’re working on. Are they working on a 5:1 margin, or a 3:1 margin, or a 10:1 margin? The higher the margin the better. That’s all I mean by buying a client.

Michael S.: Maybe you can share your own results from the principles you now teach other lawyers. Tell us your story.

MM: As I talked about earlier, when I started out—and this is really interesting because when I look back, it’s really funny how it started. I was pretty excited about the prospects for starting my law firm. I had studied and learned from some wonderful people, some of whom speak at my seminars. But, I started with actually two strategies, Michael, that I used right off the bat. One was a low cost advertising strategy, which I was taught to use, and the other was a free publicity strategy. I remember in the fall of 1999, starting those strategies and waiting for the results and predictably, I think I brought in a fair amount of clients that I think I spent about $50. I’d have to go back and look at my records, but I know that I made about $20,000 in fees from something, which cost me essentially nothing; around $50 to get it started. The funny thing about it was, I thought well, when I start this; I know that other lawyers are going to do what I just did. I just couldn’t believe that this could be this easy, and if it was, that other lawyers would not follow me. So, I thought, well, now the horse is out of the barn and there is no way I can get away with doing this without other lawyers copying me. It just didn’t happen. I waited for other lawyers to do what I was doing, to use free advertising, to use low cost advertising, to use unique selling propositions, which I teach my lawyers how to develop a unique selling proposition. We can talk about that later. All these strategies which I had learned and which I started to deploy, I waited for other lawyers to copy me. And it just didn’t happen. It gets back to your comment that you made earlier about why people focus on the initial sale and don’t look at how to get referrals. I’m not sure what the answer is to that. We can speculate that it’s human nature; we can speculate that the focus is on the initial transaction, and so we ignore the potential, the power value, the lifetime value of that client. But to this day, I’m not quite sure, Michael, why people ignore the most obvious profit opportunities that they have. I mean, they are so simple and I always shake my head when I see lawyers who are dissipating capital and following the pack and trying to shout their way above the competition when there’s such a far easier, more enjoyable, and certainly more profitable way to do business.

Michael S.: Well, I think I know what it is. I think it’s a lack of confidence and they don’t have a mentor or someone who can show them exactly how to do that. Another thing, just being comfortable with where they are, but if someone does want to get ahead and they can find a mentor like you did, I think that paves the way for some real changes.

Michael M.: Absolutely. When you see what someone else has done, it sends goose bumps. When I see, when I talk with somebody who’s been successful, when you meet them, when you talk with them and when you see what they’ve done specifically, step by step, it really does inspire confidence, doesn’t it? You really say, hey, this is possible. I can do this. This person did this, so can I. I think that’s probably the answer.

Michael S.: If a business owner comes to you, or someone with a law practice, specifically a lawyer, what are you going to do for him, step by step?

Michael M.: Well, basically, I’m going to ask a lot of questions at first. That’s the first thing that I want to do. I want to find out as much as I can about their business. I want to find out what they’re doing, what they’re not doing. So, I’m going to ask a lot of questions. I have a very involved series of questions, which I ruthlessly demand the answers to. It’s an empowering experience because it forces you to look at your business in a way you didn’t before, often because you avoid the truth. People are in denial often of their circumstances. If I can get them to answer a few questions, I can really get them on the road to looking at their business in a whole new way.

Michael S.: That’s interesting. Don’t you find that many business owners are afraid to have you ask these questions because they are afraid of what the answers might be? How much do you think fear plays into this?

Michael M.: Well, I think it has everything to do with it, Michael. When you mentioned that earlier—just a few minutes ago—I think it has everything to do with why people don’t look at their businesses in the way that they should look at their businesses, which is honestly, truthfully. Many people would rather not know if they’re sick with a serious illness. I think I read an article interestingly enough about people and why they don’t get tested for AIDS. The reason is they don’t want to know if they have the disease. That’s a terrible way to go through life. If you have a business, denial can be comforting, but it’s also very dangerous. What I found when I work with somebody who is forced to answer these questions, it’s a tremendous sense of release. It’s a tremendous sense of relief and peace of mind in knowing, hey, these are some of the issues which I need to confront and they’re entirely solvable and great things can happen after we’ve answered just a few questions. And we’ve faced the truth, so to speak. So, for any business not making money, or not making enough money, my job is to motivate people so they see their business in a whole new way. And that starts with answering a few questions.

Michael S.: So, what do you do next? You’ve got all the questions collected and the information you need from that lawyer. What do you do next?

Michael M.: Once we know what’s under performing, what’s working, why it’s under performing or working, what you are paying to get new clients, what you’re doing or not doing, then I can give value. Then I can say, okay, based on my experience, based on the experience of others in Lawyers Marketing, then I can tell you, for example, how to create more revenue from referrals, or launch a law firm newsletter or promotion, do all these things. Once I know the hand that’s been dealt to us, then anything is possible, and then possibilities are quite literally enormous. And by the way, let me just mention the three main ways that we provide value to lawyers. When I say we provide value, we do it in really three ways; sometimes all three. We have home study materials, Michael, and they provide very intensive written materials, case studies, examples, audiotapes and CDs which explain what to do, step by step, how to do it. We explain the theory behind it. We explain specific examples of other lawyers doing what we’re teaching in the home study material. So, they are very involved. We also have consulting. Most people who order the home study materials also decide that they want a real person to talk to. So in conjunction with the home study materials, we offer consulting, and it’s wonderful because it’s like having a tutor. As you mentioned earlier, a mentor is really important in life. So, we provide a mentoring process for other lawyers so they can read about what to do. But they are also are just a phone call away from talking with our office—many times that’s me—about the materials that they’re reading, about what to do next. Sometimes it’s just good old-fashioned motivation and pushing them a little bit into doing something that they may be afraid to do. So, we can explain and help our customers troubleshoot and create strong pillars of profit and more pillars of profit by talking with them on the phone. And then lastly, the third main area is seminars. We have two what we call boot camps every year that we offer, one in the spring and one in the fall. And this is just an awesome experience. I highly recommend attending them because it’s wonderful to be able to network with other lawyers who are in your shoes, or have been in your shoes. It’s fully guaranteed. You don’t pay us a dime unless you see the value in what it offers you. I get to meet you. I get to meet other lawyers just like you. We have a fantastic speaker and experts there, some of whom you know very well, Michael. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great group of people, and it’s tremendously inspiring. If this doesn’t get you fired up, then you don’t have a pulse. It’s just an awesome experience and I highly recommend that, even if you take advantage of the home study materials and the consulting.

Michael S.: All right. Let’s get to some examples. Give me a specific example of where you have identified an aspect of a lawyer’s professional practice, which was under performing, and how you came in and produced some kind of profitable results.

Michael M.: I can give you a lot of them. I’ll just give you a few off the bat. Let me just give you…the first one would be an example of a wrong headline. I recently had the pleasure of working with a lawyer who was running an ad, a printed form of an ad, which was working okay.

Michael S.: What is a headline? Is that what you see at the top of the ad?

Michael M.: Let me explain what that is. The headline, for people who are not familiar with direct response, is everything in an ad, or even a letter, a direct response letter. A headline is what you see before you read the fine print in the ad itself. Some ads, as you know, Michael, don’t even have a headline, and that’s really troublesome. Talk about a waste of money. A headline is everything, and as you know, Michael, changing the word or just one word or the order of words can make all the difference in whether you get five new customers or 20 new customers or zero customers. In this example, we changed one word in an ad, which increased the response to this lawyer’s ad by 19 times. First of all, we measured what was this ad doing right now. We knew what it was bringing in. We did that first of all. We measured it. We asked the right questions. At no additional cost, we changed around a few things in a headline and that ad was bringing in an average rate of return and this law firm was succeeding in spite of itself. But they had no idea why it was working, and that’s scary. It’s also kind of exciting. So, by changing a few words in the headline, we were able to create a far more compelling ad which created a 19 times the response that the old ad was bringing in, and we didn’t spend one additional dime. That’s one example.

Another example is a direct mail letter, which we recently helped another lawyer with and this essentially doubled the profit for this lawyer to over $250,000. This is a personal injury lawyer who does pretty well down in the southern part of this country and he needed some fresh concepts. He was a little reluctant to change things because it was working. What we decided to do was an A/B split test. We kept his control direct mail piece. That was the mail piece that he was using before he came to us, and we tested that against another mail piece where we simply added to that mail piece another piece of information, what I call another benefit to the person receiving the mail. And that increased the response dramatically and again he reaped a windfall profit of over $250,000 as a result.

Michael S.: That’s amazing. It’s just giving people more reasons to buy. And your example of a headline reminds me of a story of how a shampoo manufacturer doubled their sales from every year on after they changed one word on the directions of their shampoo. Do you know what it is?

Michael M.: No, actually you’ve got me stumped on that one.

Michael S.: If you look on the back of a bottle of almost any shampoo, because most shampoo manufacturers and cosmetic manufacturers caught on to this one word when it comes to shampoo. If you look on the back, it used to say, wash your hair and rinse. Then someone came up with the idea to do wash, rinse, and repeat.

Michael M.: Interesting, interesting.

Michael S.: So one word actually doubled the volume because people were using twice as much shampoo as before.

Michael M.: I’ve got to write this one down. Usually I pride myself in knowing these headlines here, Michael. That’s just fascinating.

Michael S.: Look on the back of your shampoo.

Michael M.: That’s fascinating. There’s another one. I know Smirnoff Vodka in the early 60’s—my dad told me about this one—they were trying to sell vodka in the early 60’s or maybe it was the late 50’s, and they didn’t have a lot of success. I think they ran a headline that said “Try Smirnoff Vodka” or whatever. So, they decided that the people that were drinking Smirnoff vodka or any other vodka would drink vodka at lunch. One of the benefits of vodka at lunch—they used to have these martini lunches back in the 60’s, which are no longer in vogue—is that you can’t smell the alcohol on your breath. So, they came up with a headline that said “Smirnoff Vodka … it takes your breath away.” That was a clever headline that also had a specific benefit to the headline, which is that you can’t smell the fact that you may have had a martini or two at lunch. Headlines can make all the difference in the world. In this case, with this lawyer, it certainly did.

Michael S.: That’s great. That’s what we call a hidden benefit. There’s the benefit that people talk about, but there’s a hidden one that they don’t teach you.

Michael M.: Exactly. Exactly right.

Michael S.: How does a lawyer get people to respond quickly and without a lot of cost, especially in today’s society? We are bombarded with advertising and common sense would tell us that people just don’t pay attention to what’s being advertised.

Michael M.: Exactly. Really good question. When we talked earlier, Michael, I mentioned the unique selling proposition. Your question is one that we could talk about for the next couple of days because there are so many valuable concepts and ideas you can use to separate yourself from your competition. But the basic principle that you start with, the basic ideal, which I teach other lawyers to start with, is a unique selling proposition. Once you develop a unique selling proposition then your entire operational and marketing success is based on that USP. The USP, for those listeners who are not familiar with USP, is an idea. It’s a compelling idea. It’s the answer to the question, “why should I hire you” versus the other law firm or versus doing nothing at all. In answering this question—why should a client do business with you—is one, which requires a very crisp, very specific, very succinct answer, which clearly communicates a valuable and unique benefit, which other lawyers do not offer or do not communicate effectively.

Michael S.: So, USP, playing the devil’s advocate, is a slogan.

Michael M.: No, as you know, Michael, it’s not. A slogan is meaningless for the most part. A slogan doesn’t really tell you anything. A unique selling proposition, on the other hand, is an idea, which is distinct. It’s unique and highly compelling. When I hear unique selling proposition, a good one, I’m almost curious to hear more. I want to know how do you do that? You just said something, which to me is rather mind-blowing. When you tell me that, how do you do that? A unique selling proposition should evoke curiosity; it should make you say, hey, tell me more. A unique selling proposition should permeate your entire marketing and operational success, as I mentioned. It makes an emotional connection, which causes people to want to do business with you and you only. And you’re very aware, as I am, of the unique selling proposition, which Domino’s Pizza used with great success. They built an entire pizza empire on that. Their unique selling proposition was very simple: Fresh hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less guaranteed. Look at what this simple, single sentence accomplished. It made Tom Monahan, the owner of Domino’s Pizza, rich beyond most people’s comprehension. And it was one simple sentence, which separated Domino’s Pizza from everybody else. And it answers all the right questions, which his competition did not answer. It answers why you should do business with Domino’s, and the benefit is very specific. It doesn’t say the pizza will be there fast, it says it will be there in 30 minutes. It doesn’t say they will try to get it to you in 30 minutes, it says it’s guaranteed to be there in 30 minutes. It doesn’t say the pizza is good, either. It just says, hey, it’s going to be there in 30 minutes and it’s guaranteed to be there in 30 minutes, at your doorstep.

Michael S.: I agree with you. Because people want their pizza, they want it hot, and they want it fresh. I totally agree with you, but what about lawyers and professionals who don’t sell pizza? How do they profit from a USP?

Michael M.: Well, I don’t want to sound arrogant about what we do. But, the fact of the matter is, it’s really simple for a lawyer to create a Unique Selling Proposition, which creates blockbuster results. The reason it’s even more simple for a lawyer to create a Unique Selling Proposition is because almost all lawyers, as I mentioned earlier, not one in a thousand lawyers has a Unique Selling Proposition. Even though there are a lot of lawyers out there practicing law, there are very few lawyers out there marketing very well. Most lawyers don’t have a Unique Selling Proposition. So, on that basis alone, you’ve got a tremendous advantage over the competition because most lawyers don’t even know what a Unique Selling Proposition is, and if they do, they don’t articulate a Unique Selling Proposition in a way, which brings in clients. I’ll give you an example of a Unique Selling Proposition, which we’ve used for personal injury in our own practice and now with some other lawyers that we are working with. When I first started to get into personal injury, I was glassy eyed at all the personal injury lawyers who are out there and competing for clients. They all say essentially the same thing. I tested a few Unique Selling Propositions for personal injury and I had okay results, but I knew that I was just an idea away from a breakthrough. I started to ask questions of personal injury clients and why they hired one law firm versus another, what was important to those clients, why would they call one law firm over another. And the results that I got back—the feedback that I received from personal injury clients was shocking and quite insightful. It helped me develop my own Unique Selling Proposition, specifically for attracting qualified prospects who needed a personal injury lawyer. So, this USP—Unique Selling Proposition—for personal injury lawyers has clearly created a connection with people who are injured and need a personal injury lawyer, and its clearly separated my law firm and the other lawyers who are using this Unique Selling Proposition from other personal injury law firms. This USP creates an instant relationship. It makes us look good, too. We don’t look like some of the obnoxious ads out there where we’re shouting with the competition and trying to be seen by simply shouting louder than the competition. It’s a far more pleasurable way of doing business. So one of the things I do with lawyers is I ask them in a minute or less, tell me what it is about your business, which gives greater advantage, greater benefit, and greater results to your clients. Most lawyers will say something general, or vague, or nothing at all. I had one estate planner who told me he makes “dreams come true”. Laverne and Shirley had that on the beginning of their show back in the 70’s and that show got cancelled. They made your dreams come true, also. That’s a nightmare of a Unique Selling Proposition. It’s meaningless. That USP needed an overhaul because it said nothing and meant nothing. Instead, what we decided to do is develop a Unique Selling Proposition for this lawyer which was specific and which got the attention of the listener or the reader. We’ve worked with a couple of them. One of them is how to gain an income for life, which is fully guaranteed. That’s the Unique Selling Proposition, which we’re working with with this particular estate planner, and it’s worked very, very well. That’s a simple headline which we’re using, which is very specific, and which clearly communicates a benefit to a potential client which is different than the other benefits that are being communicated by other lawyers.

Michael S.: Michael, tell us about joint venturing. How does that work for business owners, and lawyers in particular?

Michael M.: Joint venturing is about allocating or sharing risk with your law firm and with others who stand to profit from your efforts. And what I show lawyers how to do, Michael, for example, is how to get a TV station to share the risk with you so that if the ad is not as profitable as you projected, your downside is cushioned. Conversely, if your efforts are profitable as projected, the TV station makes money, too. It’s really a win-win situation without trying to sound too much of a cliché. Joint venturing is a topic, which we fully developed, and share with all of our lawyers we choose to work with. Joint venturing is a fluid concept. We’re constantly trying different strategies, different joint venturing concepts, because we’re always experiencing trying different joint ventures, trying to see what works and what doesn’t work, and we also get the feedback of lawyers who we work with. As I mentioned to you before we started the interview, I’ve got a lunch appointment right now with a radio station, which is going to do a joint venture with us. So joint venturing really works. Most lawyers completely ignore joint venturing as a way to minimize their risk and get on major media and major print and other forms of media with very little risk.

Michael S.: Let me ask you this. We know TV is an incredibly powerful way to generate new clients. Will joint venturing really work with TV stations?

Michael M.: All the time, Michael. We insist, when we approach a TV station, what irritates me is many reps will say to you when you approach a TV station, what are you willing to spend? Well it’s really a silly question. When I have an ad rep ask me what am I willing to spend, I get a little irked. I’m willing to spend a billion dollars on TV if I can get a rate of return of $5 billion. So the question, what are you willing to spend is a question which has victimized more lawyers than you can shake a stick at. What are you willing to spend is the wrong question. The right question is, for every dollar I spend, what will be my return on investment? And ad reps don’t want to answer those questions. But if you ask the right questions and if you know some very simple strategies, you can go in and negotiate a deal quite easily with TV stations who will agree to allocate the risk, who will agree to look at the question from a different perspective. So it becomes a win-win situation. And it isn’t what are you willing to spend, which is another way of saying how much money are you willing to risk or waste, it’s what will the rate of return be and if I get this rate of return, what will I agree to pay your TV station. And we teach all of our lawyers how to joint venture, how to minimize the risk, and go in, ask the right questions, and get what they deserve.

Michael S.: You talk a lot about lawyers paying too much for things. So let’s talk about how lawyers can make money by saving money, specifically with advertising. How does that work?

Michael M.: Well, that’s a little different from joint venturing. If you know how a media source works, there are specific ways to pay far less than what other lawyers are paying for the same service. We can show you how to pay pennies on the dollar for advertising, which your competition may be paying through the nose for. I can show you specific case studies from our own private files where we paid less than 45 cents for a 30 second television spot that cost very little to produce and pulled in multiple clients for our law firm and yet our competition was paying anywhere from $200 to $1,000 for that very same spot. So there is inventory to be bought for pennies on the dollar if you know how to ask the right questions and negotiate the deal so you pay pennies on a dollar versus what the competition is paying.

Michael S.: So lawyers not only fail to market effectively, but they are often paying way too much for money spent on advertising.

Michael M.: Exactly. No doubt about it. Lawyers don’t know how to get across the right message to the right audience, and if they do, Michael, they pay way too much to do it. And that’s costly, obviously. So, life is way too short to run your business like that and I have a philosophy that I hope to share with other lawyers because I actually do care about the lawyers I work with. These are people just like me. They have families, they have mortgages, they have payroll to keep, they have clients depending on them, and they have their names on the line. And I want to make lawyers lives more secure by giving them one of the greatest gifts that they could ever receive. The same gift that I received a few years ago and it’s completely turned my life around. There are a lot of people that say well that sounds awfully dramatic. My response is, it is awfully dramatic. We’re talking really about life altering concepts. These are concepts, which can completely turn your business and your life around if you allow them to do that.

Michael S.: When you say gift, what do you mean exactly? What does a lawyer or business owner receive from you if they decide to work with you?

Michael M.: As I said, the gift that I give people is the same one that I received a few years ago. I give you a system, which directs you step by step how to get any law practice going and growing with little or no risk and little or no additional capital investment. We’ve talked about some of those concepts, but there are a lot of them. Here are a few others. You can learn over 51 proven strategies to stimulate referrals on demand. These are specific strategies, Michael, to stimulate referrals, to create referrals predictably and consistently, in any type of law practice. You can learn proven headlines. We’ve talked about the importance of headlines. And it’s interesting to me how many businesses don’t understand how powerful a headline is, whether it be in an ad, whether it be in a TV ad, whether it be in a direct mail piece, proven headlines make all the difference in the world. And changing a few words around can make the difference between clients calling you or not calling you. Also, we show lawyers, proven, what I call remote control marketing methods, which allow you to use voicemail to screen qualified clients and to screen people who are really interested in hiring you versus people who are really wasting your time. You can learn a specific way to get your Unique Selling Proposition created. We work with every single lawyer who decides to work with us, and we decide to work with them. The first thing that we want to work on is developing a Unique Selling Proposition. That’s important. It doesn’t matter whether you’re practicing personal injury, or tax law, or all those areas, you should have a Unique Selling Proposition for every division of your law practice. In fact, when you practice different areas of law, we teach lawyers how to have different divisions, so each division is a pillar of profit which stands on its own merit and which has its own Unique Selling Proposition. I can go on and on. I show lawyers how to use firm newsletters and promotions to create new clients. That’s an awesome way to bring in clients, which costs very little to do. It’s a way to bring in new clients and referrals. I show every lawyer proven concepts to start another business, which is separate or synergistic with your law practice. I just started, for example, a car dealership and I have almost no risk. Any lawyer can do the same. I can show any lawyer how to use these business principles to build their law practice, but also use it to build other businesses, and we have some really innovative ways, exciting ways, to make money practicing law.

Michael S.: That’s amazing. Mike, look, I know your strategies work. I’ve been in marketing for over 15 years. I’ve tried them myself. What about the lawyers listening to this who are skeptical, who think that this is too good to be true, who may have information overload from listening to this recording. What would you say to them?

Michael M.: What I say to them, Michael—and I have that question that comes up on a routine basis—and I say, work with me and judge for yourself. If it doesn’t work, then every dime you’ve paid to Lawyers Marketing, my company, will be gladly returned without any hard feelings. So, I take away the risk. Just give it a chance. Give yourself a chance. I also tell you that if you’re listening to this right now, you need to be open-minded and make a commitment to learn these principles. Give it half a chance. That’s all I ask. We’ll do the other half. And I know this sounds a little corny, but I care about my consulting clients, I really care about each and every client that I work with. I take my clients’ success or failure very, very personally. In fact, failure is not an option. If you give this a chance, in my opinion, it will not be an option. I know that these strategies work. They work for my law firm; they work for the other lawyers that we’re working with. And once you start this process, and you get your first taste of success, you get your first client from one concept and then you see how this works and how this multiplies, and the money that you can make down the line, and how much easier it is to run your business, then you start to become truly excited, and then you see the possibilities for the future.

Michael S.: That’s exciting. Michael, if a lawyer or a professional practice owner wants to contact you, what do they do?

Michael M.: Just give our office a call. We have an 800 number that they have before them. Dial the 800 number and listen to what we have to say. It’s not intrusive. We’re not going to pressure you. We’re just going to listen to you, ask you some questions maybe, maybe give you a few ideas, that’s usually the case. When I talk with a lawyer, I can’t help but start to throw out ideas that I think they might want to try. So maybe you’ll get one idea for free, if nothing else, you’ll call and maybe you’ll learn something. My office recently got a call from an attorney who wanted to get on board and work with us. We offer from time to time, incentives to call. It’s important, if you’re going to call, call now. When this lawyer called, he had waited some time before calling, and he’d called about a specific incentive, a free incentive that we give all lawyers who call within a certain deadline, and he wanted this bonus, this incentive, to be thrown in at no charge. And the time unfortunately had expired to receive this incentive, which he had wanted to receive. And the reason he didn’t receive it is because he waited. So, that’s another reason to call, but the most important reason to call is because your career is on the line. And the longer you wait, as we’re talking right now, Michael, that person could be losing revenue. That person could be paying too much for advertising. That person could be losing out on opportunities, which make all the difference between making a million dollars a year and making very minimal income and just surviving. So, if it’s not reason enough because of your career, we do offer incentives to call. We have wonderful bonuses that we offer at no additional charge for people that get on board Lawyers Marketing, but first and foremost your career is important, obviously, and this is again about changing your life, about a new direction and a new way of doing business, which is the only way to do business in a law practice.

Michael S.: Mike, I appreciate it. This has really been incredible. It’s been an intensive marketing education for me related to attorneys and it’s fascinating.

Michael M.: Well I appreciate, Mike, the time. I look forward to talking with you again and, again anybody that’s listening to this, we’d be privileged to talk with you. Just give us a call and explore this a little further.

Michael S.: Look, I know you’re busy, I’ve just got to ask you some question. I was reading your practice primer. Tell me the stories about your cars. How many different cars you got now?

Michael M.: Um, I’ve got…

Michael S.: Why are you such a car nut?

Michael M.: I love cars. When I was younger, my mother tells me the story that when I—the first word I spoke was car. The first full sentence that I said was “car broken, fix it.” So, I’ve always loved cars. I’ve just been fascinated by cars. When I was down on my luck, I used to go to bookstores and read magazines that I couldn’t even afford to buy, believe it or not, things were that bad. And I’d drool over the pictures of cars. I just love cars. I appreciate cars. Cars to me are works of art on wheels.

Michael S.: What was your first car as a kid?

Michael M.: Well, the first really nice car when I was back working for the large law firm I was looking for, I had a BMW which was a nice BMW. It was a wonderful experience to buy that car. Since I’ve had the opportunity of starting my own business to benefit and to be terribly blessed with success, I’ve got a Ferrari right now. I’ve got a Hemi Cuda I bought from actor Nick Cage. I’ve got a ’32 Ford hot rod–it’s beautiful. I was at the Peterson Automotive Museum, Mike, in LA. I’ve got a Mustang Cobra. I’ve got a Porsche GT-2 which is a mind numbing car. That car is just brutally fast. I’ve got a car that I drive—it’s kind of my wife’s car—I’ve got a CL-55 Mercedes which is a fun car, fast car, 500 HP, 4 passenger Mercedes AMG CL-55, and that’s a cool car. So, I’ve got some neat cars. I just love cars. I don’t have my cars so that I can be seen. I keep my cars in my garage and I don’t wear expensive jewelry or clothes, but I just love cars.

Michael S.: Hey, everyone’s has to have a vice, right?

Michael M.: I know. And that’s my vice. My wife always says you know as long as you take care of us, the kids, and you couldn’t be a better—this is a wonderful compliment—couldn’t be a better father. Father’s Day has just passed, as you know, but sometimes I feel like wow, this is too good to be true. I am so blessed, I really am.

Michael S.: Well, you deserve it. You took action. Now without telling me the answer, do you have a favorite, one favorite out of all those cars?

Michael M.: The Ferrari. I think the Ferrari. The Ferrari is special. The Ferrari—the Italians had a philosophy with building cars, and it’s not just the function, but it’s the form, as well. The Germans look at everything, the thing’s got to run right, it’s got to perform, and how it looks is maybe secondary. I think the Italians look at the whole experience of driving the car, from the visual appeal to how you feel when you’re in the car, the smell of the leather, every aspect of the car is considered by the Italians. So when you wind up that Ferrari at 9000 rpms and you hear this engine behind you screaming, it’s almost—it’s orgasmic.

Michael S.: What color is it? Is it red?

Michael M.: Actually, mine’s fly yellow. It’s a yellow spider and that thing just winds up and sounds just awesome.

Michael S.: Have you ever gotten a ticket driving any of your cars?

Michael M.: I have. I did get a ticket. I got a ticket from a police officer and I used to be a prosecutor before I started this law firm, I was a prosecutor, and he stopped me and I was going too fast and he kind of recognized me and said what’s the story. I said story is I shouldn’t have been going that fast and it was off on kind of a country road and he happened to be coming from a call somewhere. I normally don’t go fast. I never go fast in the city or take undo risk. But I went out on this road that I never would have thought was inhabited by police. Normally most people aren’t out there. I turned off my fuzz-buster and there he was. He ended up giving me a warning, which I was really fortunate. The temptation is always there to drive these cars fast. The neat cars are the muscle cars. The older 60’s and early 70’s cars, Michael, are really making a comeback. If you look at it from an investment standpoint, the old muscle cars are just unbelievable, what they’re bringing in value is just unbelievable. This car I bought from Nick Cage, I bought and it’s probably worth about $40,000 more than I paid for it. In fact, his agent called me and asked if he could buy it back, and I turned him down. I found a script in the trunk of his car, along with a half eaten apple, and a Starbucks coffee mug. Must be nice to be an actor in L.A.

Michael S.: You know it’s funny. I’m sitting here thinking we’re talking about cars and the power behind them and you can take that analogy and relate it to your law practice and that’s exactly what I think you’re going to show people how to do and what you’ve done for yourself. It’s almost like stepping on a pedal of a Ferrari and having your business take off.

Michael M.: Yes, it really is. I look at it, you know, and I have people who I will talk to on the phone and I can hear their skeptical voice, and I don’t blame them. I mean, there are so many come-ons and pitches in this world, and you have people that tell you they can do this for you, and they can do that for you. And what I want to do is I want to step into their shoes and say, hey, give this a try; let me show you. If I parachuted into your city today with nothing, I could do this; these things are simple to do. It’s like I want to shake them and say just give this a try. And I think some of the people that don’t try it, really if they were honest with themselves, aren’t sure they’re ready for success. I think at some point in time, you have to figure out why it is you’re not getting to where you want to go. I heard Tony Robbins say that anybody can be wealthy. There’s got to be a hidden reason, a reason you’re not coming to grips with, or why you’re not achieving wealth. Maybe you think deep down that you don’t deserve it. Maybe you think that it’s going to be lonely at the top, as Tony said. There’s a multitude of subconscious reasons why people sometimes don’t take the steps that they need to take. When I talk with somebody on the phone, I want to just say to them, what’s really holding you back here? It isn’t about these principles. On the other hand, as I said before, there’s a reason always to be skeptical and that’s why I say to everyone, hey, give this a chance. If it doesn’t work for you, no hard feelings. We’ll return your money. And that hasn’t happened yet; knock on wood. No one’s asked for their money back, and if we do our job, and if they just give this a chance, it shouldn’t happen.

Michael S.: Let’s address this, because this is really important, and I know you’ve got to get out of here and we’ll go.

Michael M.: No, I have plenty of time. I was getting paged as I was talking to you and that was my secretary and I hit the DND button.

Michael S.: Your business has taken off. You’re making an incredible amount of money weekly. So what is it like? Is it lonely at the top? What are some of the negatives? There’s got to be something and can you prepare other attorneys maybe through a listening stick what they might experience once they are there?

Michael M.: The amazing thing is it’s not lonely at the top. When you start to succeed it creates so many opportunities. You meet neat people; people that you maybe didn’t have the opportunity to rub elbows with. The whole saying that it’s lonely at the top, I think is a metaphor for that not a lot of people get to the top. But, it’s amazing. I’m so blessed. I come home at night and I look at my life or I take a day off, and I say I just can’t believe how blessed I am and how fortunate I am. Stealing another line from Tony Robbins, he talks about how the most successful people have an attitude of gratitude. And I certainly have that. And without trying to sound corny, the reason I love what I’m doing with Lawyers Marketing and working with other lawyers, is it’s such a kick to see other lawyers succeed. It is so phenomenal to hear from somebody who’s used an ad or a simple strategy. We have a guy down in Louisiana, they have a different type of law, they have a code down there as opposed to the statutes that we have in the Midwest. He had filled out the questionnaire and had articulated what he wanted out of his practice and out of his life, and when we saw it, it was like looking at myself a couple of years ago. And so I could just dig right in and show him exactly what he needed to do, and things are working out really nicely for him. That is such a great feeling to have those kind of people come to you, people that I was in their shoes a few years ago, and it’s just awesome. I look at my life and I’m just so blessed, Michael, and I’m so fortunate to have what I have. And I do believe that I have an obligation to give back to people, and certainly make a living out of it, too. I joke around and I tell people I love marketing a lot more than I like practicing law and it’s really true. I love marketing. I love growing a business. I love looking at a business and saying, okay, how can we turn this around. How can we make it even more profitable? Maybe your business is profitable. How can we it even easier for you? How can we build in systems? I’ll give you another example. Talking about cars. There’s a—he’s actually become a very good friend of mine—his name is Colin. He has a classic car company called Classic Auto Sales, and it’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In fact, his website—I’ll give it a plug—is www.classicauto-sales.com . Well, I’ve bought a lot of cars from Colin and Colin has a very successful business, but he is a slave to that business. The more he feeds the business, the more the business demands of him. The more the business is successful, the more time he needs to give back to this business. And that in my opinion, is no way to run a business because how do you enjoy life if you can’t take a step back and away from your business from time to time and spend time with people that are important, and spend time on things you want to do. He loves cars, but he’s involved in this business. What I’ve been doing with Colin lately is helping him set up systems in his business, even though it’s not a law practice, this is all about the same concepts, Michael, as you know. Setting up systems in his business, which allows the business to run itself without Colin having to be in that business all the time. If you’re a student, like you and I are, of direct marketing and the principles that we talk about, there’s a difference between being in the business and working on your business. If you can work on your business without being in the business day to day, then you’ve built a business without the entanglements which many businesses, even if they’re successful, demand. And those entanglements can really take a lot away from the quality of your life. So, what I try to do with lawyers is not only show them how to make money, but how to make money and enjoy their life, as well.

Michael S.: That’s great. I was going to bring that up because you think being an attorney or in a professional practice, some forms of this career are very labor intensive. There’s filing dates, there’s a lot of detail work, there’s showing up for court, there’s trying cases, and you’re going to show us how to streamline that by getting other attorneys to work with you and help you?

Michael M.: Oh, absolutely. And it’s really true. Being a lawyer is demanding. If you build a law practice and you’ve got a couple of associates or a paralegal, or a secretary, you’ve got those human relation HR issues to deal with. You’ve got deadlines that you have to deal with. You have clients who can be fickle by their very nature, who can be unreasonable by their very nature. And there are systems. You’ve talked with Rob who is our operations guy before, Michael, so you’ve talked with him and you know what a genius he really is. I think the word genius is used too often in our society, but Rob certainly falls into that category. I’ve been blessed to have him. I’ve now got him working on Lawyers Marketing. I’ve taken him away from the law practice because he’s done such a fabulous job of setting up systems where he now shows lawyers who are involved with me in Lawyers Marketing how to set up systems in their own law practice so that they do not have to become a slave to their own business so that they can have the freedom to do other things. I mentioned earlier about one of the aspects that we talked about at our seminars. This is really fascinating because this is so popular, this part of the seminar, is how do you set up other businesses, which may or may not be synergistic to your law practice which allows you, or affords you, other pillars of profit. I talked about me buying a car dealership recently. Once I learned these business principles—and Michael, your living proof of this as well, you’ve got several businesses in play right now—you can set up any business. You can set up systems in your business so your business doesn’t control you and you make money from that business. And you do it in such a way that there is no undue risk and little capital at stake. So, we show lawyers how to get into other businesses. For example, how to sell information and to get free radio advertising, get on radio stations during talk shows so that they can sell a book or sell information. We have a CPA that we’re working with who is also a lawyer who has become fascinated with marketing. We came up with this crazy idea and I think it’s actually going to work where he’s going to set up a marketing company to show small and medium size businesses how to better market their business. So, he shows them not only how to save on costs, and how to save on taxes, but it’s synergistic with his accounting firm. He can show those businesses how to market better, and he gets referrals for his CPA firm. And his CPA firm gets referrals for the marketing firm. Each business feeds off the other. So there’s some amazing things you can do once you get started. It just starts to feed off itself and starts to take off. The momentum—once you get it started, you can’t even stop it. Unless you really try to screw this up, it’s going to keep going and make money for you.

Michael S.: That’s wonderful. We’re going to wrap it up, and I just want to say it is absolutely true that once you understand the fundamental principles of marketing and have tactical blueprint like you say to follow, you can market anything. The world is yours. All you have to do is choose what it is you want to market. Because marketing and selling is human nature and people don’t change. They’re the same; they’ve been the same for millions of years.

Michael M.: Well said. Well said Michael, exactly. It really is. Human nature is immutable and they’re always going to buy for the same reasons that they bought 200 years ago. Well, said. I really appreciate this very much, Michael. Thank you so much.

Michael S.: I want to thank you for listening to www.hardtofindseminars.com . If you want to get in touch with any of the people we interview, please contact Michael at www.hardtofindseminars.com by email. You can emailor you can call (858) 274-7851.