Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Money Gurus. I'm Matt Jhadif. We're looking for voices who bring practical insights, real case studies, and actionable strategies that help our viewers strengthen profitability, improve
[00:00:12] Speaker B: financial systems and lead their business with confidence.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: We want to hear your story and help share it with a national audience. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television.
[00:00:21] Speaker C: Hello, everyone.
This is the Money Guru Show. My name is Harsh. That's my brother Matt, also my partner. We're here to actually talk a little bit about business strategy, what small business owners do to be profitable, to grow their business. I'm going to be interviewing Matt here to help him, have him actually explain a little bit about what some of the strategies are in terms of customer success, in terms of marketing, in terms of sales, how to actually put it together. So I'll ask him a series of questions and he'll go ahead and answer them and then hopefully we'll get some good information coming your way. So let me go ahead and turn it over to Matt here. Matt, you know when it comes to sales, right, you've got small business owners, especially startup type companies, people just getting in the business. What is probably something you would recommend that they do right out the gate to maximum profit?
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, great question, Harsh. And I'm excited to be here and share these experiences.
I think the number one thing when you're starting out is to understand your lead flow.
Who are your customers? What's their avatar, what's their profile?
In my experience, a lot of customers tend to throw a wide net because they don't understand the archetype of their customer. I think it takes some diligence to understand who that is, how to ingest and market to these customers and bring them in and effectively qualify them. Because at certain points, certain leads are unqualified and you're going to be spending a lot of time on it. But my recommendation is to make sure that you qualify them in some capacity so you're not burning calories but really managing that lead flow.
Then we can get into operations and then we can get into adoptions and then we can get into renewals. But that's very critical at start.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: I keep hearing about niche, right? I keep hearing small business owners, like you said, trying to cast a wide net. But is it better that they think about maybe focusing on a niche early for focus resources, target their marketing at that type of customer? What do you think about that?
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting that you brought that up because it's not a one size fits all. It's what the customer's intention is, and certain times a wide net can work. And that's a lot of times customers test the market that way and they understand what their customers are looking for. They understand what type of customers are interested in their service or product.
So it's not a one size fits all. But ultimately you have to understand who
[00:02:42] Speaker C: you're selling to understand and when it comes to customer success, your background, right.
One of the other issues that comes up for business owners is client retention. Right. So they're pretty good maybe at bringing a customer on, client on, but over the long term, they lose them maybe six, seven months down the ways because maybe they're not providing enough service or maybe there's more competition in the space. Is there anything you would recommend for retention purposes to have that retention flow happen for a longer period of time, you know, have a more stronger recurring revenue stream?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah, very common.
I think a lot of customers think about net new customers, they think about banners, big customers that they could add.
But retention is critical because in the life cycle of a company, you hit a critical mass where a lot of your revenue is reoccurring. So how do you protect that? And you protect that right off the gates. So adoption is very important, making sure that you're using data in a meaningful way. How are they utilizing your product? Right. And then lastly, I would say talk to your customers because sometimes data is not the only source of success.
You may have customers that are using your product, but they don't really like it. So how do you know that? It's by really reaching out to your customers. It's through surveys, it's through net promoter scores. So you have to take that balanced approach. By the time you get to renewal. You got to know what's worked for your customer, what hasn't worked, and then mitigate any kind of issues before you hit that renewal cycle.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Another thing that pops up too, right, Is when we're dealing with our customers, our client base, they're always trying to help us or help us explain, like what is the better solution? Is it paid ads? Is it trying to grow your business organically?
My feeling is always that paid ads is the better way to go. Especially if you don't have a strong customer bid based already you're investing, you know, and growing it quickly using Facebook or Meta or Google Ads, something like that, to grow it. Do you have any thoughts one way or another? Because I do know that when it comes to the cost, right, the lead cost, it's getting higher, right. Over time. Do you have any like Thoughts about, you know, whether it's a better way to go between those two.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
What we call an industry is cac. Right. Is customer acquisition cost. And you're right, you have to be very careful about where you're spending your money.
The Google Ads, the Yelps, the search, those are all proven methodologies. Right. So it's almost like you're compelled to start with that.
I don't think it's a bad thing. Right. But I think you have to look at your traffic, your leads, and you have to look at the lead conversion as well, maniacally. Because you may be going down a rabbit hole where you think this is successful, but if you're not analyzing it and seeing what's converting into opportunities, you may going down the wrong rabbit hole.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that makes sense. That actually makes sense. And I think we deal with a lot of medical professionals and I think many of them just don't want to invest the time in trying to learn how to actually do ads and grow their business socially. They maybe will hire out to an agency to do some of the work, but ultimately they try to go down the paid ad route and it seems to pay off over time. I mean, I think one thing we realize is that it takes at least 90 days of an investment. It's not going to happen overnight, but it may be 90 days of a, of a constant ad rev. Ad source. You know, I think you do get some revenue generation out of it over time, but you got to be willing to invest the time into it. Right?
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Yes. A question for you though, like, what are, like, you know, when you, when you start to hear objections, you know, about lead sources, lead generation, like maybe not wanting to invest in that route, how do you persuade them? Or like what is your mindset around convincing them to go down a certain route?
[00:06:39] Speaker C: You know, it comes down to cost, it comes down to benefit. Right. At the end of the day, ultimately, you know, I think you bring up a good point because I think many entrepreneurs are worried about the cost side of it. And the very first cost they cut is marketing, which is really hurting them in the long run. So in my opinion, what we do is we try to look at both sides and look at the cost benefit. I mean, if you're investing in marketing at this point, ultimately over time, it's going to pay off. If you do it right, if you're doing it with the right rigor, with the right testing and of that type of method, I think you do see that element happen and you start to see the growth happen. But you have to be willing to invest in the time.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: So what I see, when it comes to like maybe a startup company versus one that's maybe scaling to the next level, do you find like, you know, the process is different for marketing?
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yes, a lot of things are different. Right. I think companies that are scaling up have more resources than companies that don't.
They have a roadmap by now. They understand what their customers want, where their product material maturity is in that life cycle or service.
And they have to scale. I think they have to empower their employees. They have to be crystal clear on their vision, they have to execute on that vision, they have to be. And especially in that mode, they have to be nimble, they have to be agile. So iteration is key. If something's not working, can you quickly change on that? And that's an operational philosophy. Right.
I think that customers are, I mean, sorry, I think owners are very deliberate at that point, but it's all through a lot of trial and error.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Do you think when they're scaling, does it make sense to invest in your sales force at that time or are you still continuing to build it on your own? Is it maybe the, you know, working with maybe an agency or something like that to help you build? Do you have any thoughts on like maybe what time a business should start thinking about expanding their sales force?
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So one of the interesting things about this at this time now is we have a lot of technology.
So employing technology is important before expanding your salesforce. Because if we look at scale, you know, if you have 10 customers and one salesperson brought it in and you have, then you find you have 20 and you bring in another. You can't keep scale scaling sales. But how do you automate with that? Right. Drip, nurture marketing campaigns? Right. Is there self service the customer can do?
Is there anything that you can do to accelerate or create velocity in that sales? So I would look at expanding the salesforce, a secondary option after you've looked at all the automation and technology you can employ.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: I think you brought up a really good point and I think we're going to touch on this in our next segment, which is maybe looking at automation, looking at AI as potential tools to help you in terms of the marketing effort. Right. I mean, there are so many new opportunities when it comes to software. Right. Software usage where you can use AI to do a multiple amount of work that you would normally pay somebody to do at some point. Right. So I think that that is something we'll talk about in our next segment. To maybe talk to understand a little bit more about how AI provides that value.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Sounds great.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: All right, we'll be right back with more financial insights, strategy and tools to help build a more profitable business. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television. And we're back with more financial insights, strategy and tools to help build a more profitable business. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television.
[00:10:22] Speaker C: Welcome back. We're going to continue our discussion about automation and AI.
Matt, you were talking earlier about some of the different types of opportunities there are in implementing AI and automation to grow like maybe a small business. Right. What are maybe some examples of maybe you've seen where clients have implemented AI? Well, on the marketing side of it, how have they actually used it to grow their sales?
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question and I just want to start that answer with a little bit of a statistic.
20% of companies are seeing real value out of AI, yet 80% of companies still want to invest in it. So we have to keep in mind this is a new technology.
A lot of the Fortune 500 companies are gone deep into this. They've got the resources to do it. But from a small business and a mid sized business perspective, we really have to think about what the outcome that we want out of AI.
Right now AI is an incredible productivity tool, brings in, collates a lot of information and makes you make better decisions.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: So from a sales perspective, I think the intelligence, the data that you get from AI is really going to help you serve that customer because you want to treat every customer authentically. So the more you leverage that data, the better your conversations are going to be.
I think in the future, from an agentic perspective, I think there's going to be a lot of automation that, that runs it. But I always think that you have to run deliberately. Right. Understand what the technology is, how can you implement it and then start to iterate off of it?
[00:12:02] Speaker C: I think so. And I think, you know, like along with AI, there's also some great solutions already in place like CRMs. Right, Right. We're seeing a lot of really successful entrepreneurs using their CRMs very effectively where they're capturing, you know, customer data.
Each interaction they have, as they're servicing them, as they're selling to them, they're able to create some upsell opportunities, cross selling opportunities. So we see CRMs being utilized in a really strong fashion. And I think most of our most successful founders that we work with, that is one of the very first implementations that they do.
Now I know you have a background working With Salesforce as well as Accenture.
Like, how is it that you're seeing some of the bigger companies maybe using CRM and maybe taking some lessons learned how we can apply them to smaller companies?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. Actually, very good question, because you're right, a lot of AI is baked into existing technologies and systems already.
So you can leverage that, you know, you can leverage that and do that, you know, instead of trying to, you know, manufacture some AI solution on your own. So, so very good point there.
Bigger companies at this point are using it as a productivity tool. I think there's a concept called cost to serve and that's how much a company spends to service a customer. Right.
So that's going to dramatically reduce it. The technology is strong enough.
It's not perfect, but customers are. Now, you know, you can take feedback from a customer, you can take leads and automate them into qualifications, you can send out automated responses to these customers.
Of course, I speak in terms of a lot of the enterprise customer and that's where a lot of AI is taking place. But there's a great opportunity for small and mid sized business.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: That's good to hear because I think that we know that big tech leads the way. They're always on the cutting edge of creating better solutions.
Oftentimes for the smaller business owners, we find that they may be a little bit hesitant because they don't really understand fully what the AI set of data is, as well as they may not know. They may be concerned about privacy, maybe concerned about cyber security.
There's a lot of other concerns they have that they don't really want to share their customer data and get it exposed.
What are your thoughts about that? I mean, do you think that it's a justified concern that maybe business owners should be concerned about their customer data being shared inadvertently?
[00:14:44] Speaker B: I have a perspective on that and I'd love to hear yours as well.
I think that the biggest maybe deterrent is trust. Right? Like, is your data clean?
Is the AI giving you a solution solution that's validated? Because sometimes, you know, it's not uncommon for AI to give you a solution that's not specifically what you're looking for.
So trust is a factor, but I always say there's always a humanistic element over that. Whatever data you get back, you have to make sure that it's viable for your business and viable for your vision and viable for your roadmap. And that's, that's where I stand. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: Yeah, and I Agree with you, by the way. I think my perspective though is more as a cpa, so I am always concerned about tax data, financial data.
I think that sometimes we may inadvertently expose client data by trying to get a solution. Maybe we're trying to create a spreadsheet, use ChatGPT or perplexity, something like that, to create something, and then we share customer data to create that model.
Now, we don't know completely always where that information is being used.
We rely on companies to provide some level of security, whether ChatGPT, but we don't know for sure how it's being used.
I will always advise my clients to be very, very careful about how they create those models and how much they use AI and actually the process they use AI. You're right. You mentioned earlier about it becoming more agentic, which means that the human in the loop is being taken out. Right. We're actually using the agent to make decisions. And I think that actually exponentially increases the risk.
So we are, you know, we see with our clients, we have many medical professionals that we work with, they have HIPAA issues, they have GLBA issues, lots of personal data and patient data that they're managing. So it becomes a concern, It's a concern for them. And I think that it is something that we would want to have a little bit more closure on in terms of how they actually manage the system, what they do with it.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: I agree. I mean, it's, it's, it's sensitive and they're looking for validation.
And, you know, I think it's. But I do think that, you know, at some point you have to enter this, this technology, right? And you have to start understanding it and using it and seeing how it's going to work.
It's the future.
[00:17:10] Speaker C: And that's a great point. And that's something we see with our clients. Right. We have our own AI readiness assessment that we deploy to our clients.
That assessment actually allows our clients to see if their firm is ready to grow. Do you use AI as an actual solution?
It's a challenge. I mean, if you're a doctor, if you're a dentist, you are spending a lot of time in your practice, you don't have a lot of time that you're investing in actually learning on these solutions. And because you don't have that time. But I think at the end of the day, when you are looking at these type of solutions, we think that the readiness assessment gives you that outlook. It gives you a very good assessment of how ready your practice is to take it on it looks at how your staff views AI. How capable are they of taking on new roles using AI.
Sometimes we hear about it, but maybe the staff is not ready or they're not really accepting of AI as a solution. Maybe they think it's going to take their job away. Right. We don't know. But we do the readiness assessment to actually understand a little bit more about the, you know, how it would be used. We look at the workflows. But I think more importantly than that also is it gives us an idea of all of the different components where AI can actually help the business. Like you said earlier. Right. We don't know until we see, and we do like a diagnosis.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:29] Speaker C: Of the business to understand really where AI can be effective for them.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: At the end of the day, you know, I always look at that AI readiness assessment as like AI therapy. Right. Because there's a lot of questions that they didn't even know existed that they had to look at. Right. There's a lot of things that they need to kind of understand from that. And it kind of gives them a, and it creates a dialogue. Right. Like oftentimes we're like, okay, well, let's talk about your vision, let's talk about your business business. Let's see how this fits into it. Let's talk about your employees and how they would adopt to AI or something.
And let's, let's figure out your roadmap. But there's, it's interesting how those conversations or that readiness brings up this really stimulating conversation and helps them think it through 100%.
[00:19:18] Speaker C: And what, what I like best is once we do the readiness assessment, we automatically are able to figure out which workflows we can actually optimize. Yeah, right. We look at the different workflows, whether they're marketing, whether they're operational, whether they're sales. We're able to actually figure out which AI solutions make sense. And understanding the huge landscape of AI software out there, it makes sense basically for us to be able to narrow those options down to what really is going to be the most effective. Right, right, agreed.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: So what do you think about AI in the tax field? I think that's probably a slower moving entity, but what's your thoughts around that?
[00:19:56] Speaker C: So I think now I'm seeing a lot more research happening and AI being used for research, especially in terms of understanding some of the tool sets, some of the different laws, some of the different regulations. Those things are happening. I'm seeing lots of advancement in that area. I'm also seeing software packages like QuickBooks and Xero starting to implement much more of.
Much more of their AI into their solutions as well. So I think the combination of those, you know, it gives us some guardrails on how we actually can implement AI effectively in those fields. But I still think there's a long ways to go. I think, you know, as we get more agentic, I mean, people keep telling me that tax returns are going to be prepared without CPAs in the near future.
And some parts of it I agree with. You know, I think there are times when AIs are actually a better solution than the CPA. But I think overall, you know, there is that human element that we cannot forget. Right. We have to keep that in mind. There's that sense of safety, there's a sense of, you know, some level of confidence that you have with somebody who's got some practice and experience. And as you mentioned before, AI is not always right. Yeah, not the CPAs are always right, but AI is not always right either. So we have this kind of this nice, you know, combination of the two.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Awesome. So you're saying every CPA that's studying for the exam, future CPAs.
[00:21:12] Speaker C: Keep studying, keep studying, keep learning.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: AI.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Right.
All right, so we will be back in our next segment, talk a little bit more about operations and a little bit more about how companies can grow their business in addition to sales.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more financial insights, strategy and tools to help build a more profitable business. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television. And we're back with more financial insights, strategy and tools to help build a more profitable business. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: Welcome back. We're going to talk a little bit more about operations. We spent the first few segments talking about how marketing and AI can get integrated into your business to really grow it in a profound manner. Now we're going to talk a bit more about operations, right? I mean, how many times have we dealt with some of our clients where they feel that, you know, they are making significant amounts of revenue, but when they go to their bank account, they see none of that revenue there and they're trying to understand what's the disconnect? Why is it different? Why is my income statement showing this large $200,000 figure and my bank account showing me a $10,000 figure? Want to talk a little bit about that? Because I think on a. Think about the paradigm and maybe think about how you might want to think about your business differently and maybe a different metric to look at it. So I'M going to turn over to Matt here a little bit to talk about, you know, the importance of building a recurring revenue stream. Right. We know when it's early on for a business, it takes time, right. To grow your practice, to grow your business. And let's face it, you know, many of us start off where we take any client we could get, right? We just got to get some money through the door.
Now how do you recommend, like, you know, as. As they're growing their business, right. As they're building their operations to support that increasing sales, how do they build it where they can build a more of a recurring revenue source versus a one, one hit wonder there?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
I want to start off this answer with a big obstacle that I've seen.
I think a lot of founders try to do too much in the business, right? They're everywhere. They're burning a lot of calories in different areas and there isn't a clear delegation of responsibilities.
And the founders should really set the vision, set the vision, the mission statement of the company, galvanize the employees to execute on that vision.
[00:23:49] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Operations is always traditionally kind of the bad guy because they're cutting cost and they're making sure that you see that revenue and really reducing the revenue leak.
I think it's important for founders first to delegate that off and trust their employees and focus on what they need to do best in terms of, you know, getting operationally tight.
[00:24:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: There are processes in place for every business. Right. And if you're not paying attention to your processes, you run into this situation where your processes are obsolete. Either you're not leveraging the right amount of technology, either you're not using your people in the right way, or you're just not creating a systematic way to get a customer from start to finish.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Finish.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: So I think it's important and a lot of these discussions are need to happen. And I see a lot of times customers are so deep into a particular issue just trying to solve an issue that they're not looking at their operational plan holistically.
So I've seen successful people in operations meet on a cadence, talk about what they could do better, get feedback from their employees on what the issues are, what the wins are, but really, intimately knowing that knowledge. Right. You have to make a concerted effort to do that.
In terms of revenue leak, you got to make sure that you're understanding how much you're paying per customer, how much are you spending and investing into that customer.
You also have to pay attention on their utilization of your product and service.
Remember these, and I'll just preface this too, is that when you are early in your business cycle or just starting a business, you're always focusing on revenue, customers, customers, customers, sales, sales, sales. But what happens is you start to neglect the customers that you have because you're so focused on the sales.
So these customers are the same customers that give you reference ability. They're the same customers that you can beta test from their loyalty to say, hey, look, we're launching something brand new or, and can you help us participate in this? These are loyal customers. And these are also, remember, in business, one of the biggest selling points is your tenured customers. I've had customers for 10 years, I've been in business for 20. That's a massive selling point. And how do you get there is by taking care of your customers. So I would focus on, you know, like how much you're spending, where do you have to pivot, how customers are doing in the customer journey. And then ultimately you need to know why a customer is renewing or not renewing. And every conversation with that customer or every data point matters because again, it's going to come full circle as you get new customers, you're going to figure out how to treat them differently.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: That's a great point. You raised a great point about loyalty, right? Customer loyalty. And I think, you know, like some of our best business businesses that we work with, especially in the medical field, they have some sort of loyalty program that they build in place, right? Whether they offer, it's not typically a discount program so much, but what they'll do is they'll package several services together and it comes out to a lesser price. Like I know we work with chiropractors, for example, and instead of selling single like hour services, you know, where they do some therapy or some massage of some sort to massage out the joints or the muscle groups. Instead of that, they offer a package, right? So the package sort of forces that customer to come in for many weeks versus a one time type of hit, right? So I think we've seen that being very successful because first of all, what it does, it builds, like you said, a cadence where the customer is coming or the client's coming back, the patient's coming back on a weekly basis or a monthly basis. They're seeing the doctor, they're building that relationship. And in the long run, what actually happens is the patient ends up with a better medical result, right? Because they become a lot more limber, they're healthier, they have more time for care.
The chiropractor has more time to actually work with them to come up with the right solution.
What do you think about that? What do you think about loyalty programs? I mean, they're hard to implement, right? They're hard to implement, they're hard to measure. What are your thoughts about that?
[00:28:22] Speaker B: I think they're imperative. I think they're imperative. I mean, the ultimate goal of having a customer is loyalty. The profitability comes after that, right? So if you focus on the customers, and you know this as well, in the medical industry, the patient is everything, right? They have to be treated with care, they have to be treated with respect, and that builds loyalty.
So I think you should always strive to build some sort of membership, some sort of loyalty program and produce some rewards for that too. It's just not putting your name on a billboard saying you're a loyal customer. What did they get in return?
And it's interesting, and I want to ask you this question too is, you know, there's a psychology element behind this too, right? So you know, founders want to get customers and they know that's going to cost money.
There's always this trepidation about what are the results going to be, right? So like, how do you like coach them, what do you tell them, how do you analyze that scenario? To eat, to help them make decisions?
[00:29:38] Speaker C: That's a great point. And I think, you know, I see it in a, in a different way. So what ends up happening is you have a founder owner who's built a amazing business, right? Big business, amazing business. They have lots of loyalty, but the loyalty is actually to the owner, not so much to the business.
So if the owner left the business, you know, maybe most of those customers won't be customers of the business and the future future. And that actually something that concerns me, right? Because many, many founders, their ultimate strategy is to have some sort of exit plan, right? They grow their business to a certain point and they want to be able to sell it to a potential customer, a potential buyer at some point.
But what is the buyer actually buying? Are they buying the business or are they buying all the loyalty that's been given from all the clients to the doctor or the chiropractor, right?
If it is really owner based, then the buyer is going to be hesitant about making a purchase because they know when they actually acquire the business, many of those patients are going to leave.
So I think that comes into play and I think when we work with founders, right, that is one of the things we always talk about is what is the legacy plan? What do you eventually want to happen with the business. When you grow to a certain point, when you're thinking about exiting, when you think about retiring from the business, what is the ultimate solution? Do you want to create loyalty based on, you know, having your customers and your patients focused on you, or can you build a business that allows your customers to actually be dedicated to the business? It's a very saleable opportunity. Any thoughts on that?
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I like your train of thought.
So I want to pivot a little bit, right, to a company's brand. Like you mentioned, loyalty, like sometimes loyalty is, can be given through a brand, right? We have these major brands that we trust in the industry.
So when you look at founders, like, how do you, you know, I've heard instances where, you know, let's say you're a stylist and that stylist is saying, okay, look, I want you to follow me on Instagram so you get to know the stylist.
How would you position, like, how important is it to create that brand awareness of your company?
[00:32:00] Speaker C: That's a great point because we see it on the other side too, which is like reputational management, right? Sometimes, you know, like when you're working with your brand, your brand takes a hit, whether it's a bad Google review or a bad Yelp review, something like that. And as a medical professional or a business owner, that can become really problematic, right? That becomes problematic because you now have people viewing that and they're viewing your services based on maybe an errored type of opinion of one of your patients, right? Maybe a disgruntled patient. How do you manage that? Because that is definitely taking a toll on your brand long term if you continue to get those type of reviews.
One of the things we do, right, is we have a very strong relationship when it comes to Yelp and Google to help that manage that lead flow and understand how we can get better reviews, right? It's really sort of a system, right? It's kind of a system we put in place that allows reviews to be replicated and, you know, posted in an efficient manner where we can build that reputation over time. So if we have a bad review, we can actually work and see if maybe the service needs to be improved or whether, you know, there's some other issue that's causing it to be more of a long term effect. So I think when it comes to branding, you're 100% right. Whether it's the medical profession or any other business, that's what you leave behind, right? That's what you leave behind at some Point, I think that when it comes to some of the marketing around the brand, too. Right. We are, you know, working with our partners and this is another thing we see too. Right.
You may have a great business, but maybe if you're working with other partners who provide a inferior service, that's a reflection of you at the end of the day. And we know a lot of folks who rely on bad service providers and that ends up affecting their reputation and their brand.
So we're cognizant of those type of things as well. Right. So it's something to. Something to keep in mind.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's very important, especially in this day and age where, you know, you have social media, you have a lot of exposure to your business, you have ratings and reviews.
It's something that sometimes get lost between trying to save money and try to earn money. So. But I think it's probably the correlator between the two.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: Absolutely. Well, we'll be back for the final segment. We'll talk a little bit more and about business and, you know, some of our final thoughts and look forward to seeing you soon.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more financial insights, strategy and tools to help build a more profitable business. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television. And we're back with more financial insights, strategy and tools to help build a more profitable business. This is Money Gurus on NOW Media Television.
[00:34:52] Speaker C: Welcome back to the final segment. We're going to conclude here, we're going to talk a little bit about some of our own personal work with some of our clients to kind of illustrate some of the strategies we talked about earlier.
We want to talk a little bit about the marketing, talk a little bit about the sales, talk about operations.
We'll share with, you know, some of the great work that some of our clients have done and maybe you can take something back to you as well. And Matt, you know, let's talk about the medical professionals that we work with. Right.
So our approach is we are really cognizant about what stage of the business they're in. Right. Whether they're just starting the practice, whether they're trying to scale their practice, or are they actually looking to retire at some point in time. Right. So that really influences how we put a strategy in place because the cash flow is one of the things we look at. We want to make sure the business is cash flow positive, want to make sure revenue is trending upwards.
We want to make sure customer retention is strong, patient retention is strong. At the same time, one of the things we know is that even when business is doing really well, the owner is burnt out. They are absolutely burnt out with the practice. You know, it's almost like it's drudgery to go into work every day because they're just feeling the pain, the pinch of working a business that's taking too much out of them. Tell me a little bit about your experience and, you know, like, how do we deal with that? What would you tell, like, a business owner who is experiencing some level of burnout, you know, how do you get them reintegrated into their practice?
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Yeah, so I have a philosophy around this and just through my experience, right.
Owning a business has always some level of anxiety and the winds are high and the lows are low. Right. So you're almost in this cycle of, you know, just going up and down, but there's always this anxiety. Right.
I think what happens is when you're too focused on the outcomes, outcomes are important. Right.
You tend to predicate that on your entire feeling of success. So my advice is this, is that there's macro outcomes, right? Which is revenue, which is growth, which is bannered accounts, but there are also micro outcomes.
So it's important to stay focused on the micro outcomes because that builds up to the macro outcome. So a lot of times when, you know, you're not maybe seeing the sales that you projected, you need to dig down and focus on what is going to get you there. And in short, that gives you these small wins. That helps you psychologically and helps you get the results you want. Also, it's important to note when an owner is down, the employees feel it too.
[00:37:48] Speaker C: Right? Right.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: So it's important to share the wins with them. And, you know, like, I've seen several instances where, you know, businesses aren't doing so well, but their trajectory towards that as well, and that's enough to motivate and galvanize people to do their job and, you know, keep on tracking.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: So it's a very.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: It's a mindset. Harsh. You're 100% right. Like, a lot of it. Isn't the best operations the best sales team? It's your mindset, because that permeates through the entire organization.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: I like what you said about small wins, right. I mean, small wins builds momentum, and I think over momentum, you start to, like, you know, have a little bit more happiness, if that's the right word to use. You know, as you start to see these small wins, you feel. Feel like your business is actually working towards the right objective. Now, I'll tell you Something that's been detractor for some of our clients, right. They have what we call shiny object syndrome.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:44] Speaker C: They start looking for the next shiny object that they think is going to improve their business, whether it's investing in a different type of platform or whether they want to like invest in a different type of technology, or they're trying to hire like a guru, marketing guru or something like that.
But whatever is the fun thing of the day, right, Is what they want to invest in and it ends up draining them of their energy. Right. They spend an awful lot of time trying to get involved with an opportunity that probably doesn't have a big payoff. At the end of the day, almost better is for them to focus on their core business. Right.
The other thing we see too is maybe their core business is, you know, dentistry, right. For example, but maybe they want to offer, you know, some other side service that isn't really related to dentistry, but they think it might make them a little bit more extra money.
Now, is that a good practice? Is that something that's going to really generate money in the long term? Sometimes I question that, because sometimes it's almost better that you focus on your core business and you get better at it and you do more of it versus trying to bring on several other streams that maybe you're not the expert in anymore. Now you're like swimming in an ocean with a lot more competitors and it's taking away from your core business. I mean, what do you think about that? I mean, are you seeing that with some of our clients?
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I really. I have a very good follow up question for you because. And I'll answer that. I think you're right. Like, business is very dynamic. It's never static. And if you don't prepare to be agile in times of where things go wrong. And I think that lot of it lies in your operational floor plan.
So if you're very stringent on your floor plan and it's very, you know, one step after the other, like, you need to make sure that you can pivot quickly, right? Pivot quickly.
And a lot of that is, you know, make sure the company's aware of that. Like, hey, if this doesn't work out, this is. Or plan B, the minute you start like changing things without people knowing and you don't communicate that properly, people feel fear or they feel confusion, and that's not what you want from your workforce.
But to follow up, a question I had was change management, right?
What would you recommend to businesses that are looking to say Make a medium to high level change.
And you're looking at iteration, you're looking at employees motivation, you're looking at fear.
Some companies are fearful to make certain changes.
What do you look at in terms of data or strategy to help them kind of see change as a positive thing?
[00:41:39] Speaker C: I think, you know, like what we've seen being successful is that sort of that open communication loop, right? So we see founders that are very much, you know, they don't. They keep an open mind and an open dialogue with all their employees to let them know what's going on with the company. Right. Because if your employees don't feel vested in your success, oftentimes, you know, they may do more of a mediocre job. Right, Right. You need them to be operating on full horsepower. Basically.
What I think that works best, what we've seen is that we have this. We have our founders that have a very open dialogue and seek the advice of their employees, especially if they're experts in a certain realm. They don't need to make all the decisions, especially if they're not the expert in the area. But if they have employees who are, they have third parties that work, that they work with, are those are the people to turn to, right. They're the expert in the medicine, the practice of medicine, they need other folks to actually supplement that to help them grow their business. And I know even when we talk about it, right, we have several tax clients, right. And they come through. And not only do we do the tax preparation, but we do a lot of the advanced tax planning for them too. This is typically not something that a fluent doctor would necessarily know about. They may be aware of strategies, but when you talk about very specific strategies that can save significant amounts of income, they will rely on somebody like a CPA or a CPA firm to actually provide that type of guidance. And that's sort of the same thing that we expect when they're working with their employees because they may have a social media guru on the, on the team, you know, they may have somebody that has more information.
I think also it takes a load off the doctor or the business owner in terms of having to know everything, right? Who can know everything? Who's got the time to do that? Right. I mean, one of the big complaints we get right from our clients is that I don't have enough time to spend with my family. All my time is spent on the business.
How do I break this loop, right? How do I get out of this loop where I can actually spend more time with my family?
Do the things I love, I love golf, I love to travel, but, you know, I'm just stuck in the business. Right. I think that delegation works, right. If you get the right people, delegation can work for you. Right. Especially as we talked about earlier, when you're thinking about transitioning off your business, if you have a workflow in place, if you have standard operating procedures in place right now, you can transition. Whether it's you transitioning out of the business or an employee transitioning out of the business, you have a game plan ready for the next person to take their place.
So I like the idea of standard operating procedures and I mean, we do a fair share of that for our clients to help them prepare and we use AI in that sense too.
Are you seeing that to be an effective tool?
[00:44:40] Speaker B: Yeah. First of all, I love getting on the golf course. So that's a completely resonated with me. And you're right about that balance. Right. Because sometimes when you're, when you have time outside of work, you actually become more productive at work. Right. So I love that balance.
In terms of like AI and technology, I think there's, you know, that, that you have to be very delicate with. Right. Because a lot of people, first of all, don't know how to use it, right. And they have to be guided. You have to train them properly.
Secondly, they think it's cannibalizing their role, right. So there's this fear factor involved.
So the way that you have to position technology, workflow, AI, introducing it, the change management behind it, is to really explain the why.
And if your employees aren't certain of why you're moving towards this, I think you've lost a lot of the battle already. What you want to do is you want to show them how it can help them do their job better.
And once they feel confident that, and like you said, maybe that's a reduction in hours too. Maybe that's more time they could spend, you know, with their family or on the golf course.
So I think it's, it's very delicate, I think, at this point, but it's very. You have to be very intentional and clear and, and really have that open communication which you've constantly link. Talked about is with your, with your team and your, and your employees.
[00:46:07] Speaker C: I'm going to throw you a different question here. Yeah.
Do you think AI is actually going to take over people's jobs? Do you see that happening?
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Not in the foreseeable future.
I think, you know, there is this humanistic layer that needs to validate because it's Giving you kind of a solution based on multiple data points and building in logic and telling you like, this is the ideal solution. Sure, it's great, but somebody has to read that and somebody has to say, is this good for my customers?
I think it's great for productivity. It's going to take a lot of the research, a lot of the time trying to find solutions and give you several options that you can choose from.
It will add productivity, but I don't see in the foreseeable future that is going to be highly impacting. Now, you know, there are certain roles, you know, that are very mechanical or tactical, that if AI can do that, the company is willing to make a sacrifice and say, okay, Maybe it's not 100%, but it's cutting X amount of costs. So depending on the cost that you save, it might be a viable solution. But I don't see it as like taking over. I think human, humans still need to play a large role in dealing with customers and business issues that they have.
[00:47:27] Speaker C: And you know, Matt, I agree with you. I think it is a timing issue. But like, in my opinion, over time I do see certain jobs getting eliminated with the use of AI. I do see that happening.
But I see those employees, I don't see them as losing a job. I just see them as potentially upscaling themselves, upscaling their skill set where they can actually use AI in a more effective manner to actually help their business out in the future. Right. So I do see that. That, that, that I think is where I would probably see AI being a benefit. Now. I will tell you, I. We all, for our clients too, we see many of them are using different types of tools. Whether they're using chatbots, they're using, you know, like call systems that have AI.
Lots of new technology is in place at this point to actually help the business owner advance their business. Right.
Let's leave it there as maybe a future discussion topic to think about how business owners can actually use AI more effectively and maybe there is some cost reduction opportunities available.
Thank you very much for joining us today for the Money Gurus Show. I had my business partner and brother Matt with me today and we spoke about everything ranging from marketing to AI to operations.
And we would love to hear if you have comments or you want us to speak about anything more specifically. Reach out to us. Reach out to us. You can reach us on our website, www.myprofitgurus.com or you can reach us both on LinkedIn. Thank you for being here.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: Thanks for watching Money Gurus. And I'm Matt Chodav, host of Money Gurus on NOW Media Television, sa.
