The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Escape the Owner Prison with Richard Walsh
Unlock the secrets of entrepreneurial success with Richard Walsh, the inspiring author of "Escape the Owner Prison." Richard shares his compelling journey from the disciplined ranks of the Marine Corps to the rollercoaster world of entrepreneurship. Learn how he navigated the collapse of his landscaping business and discovered new ventures in fitness training and contracting, ultimately mastering the art of managing a business without being shackled to it. With Richard's profound insights, you’ll uncover strategies to transform your business approach, ensuring it thrives without consuming every moment of your life.
Connect with Richard:
https://www.sharpenthespearcoaching.com - Free audio version send an email requesting They heard me on your show and I'll send it.
https://x.com/sharpenthespear
https://www.instagram.com/sharpenthespear/
https://www.facebook.com/richard.walsh.9231
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-walsh-866ab237/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPYARUbAQwhNg4yE8-aN0Zw
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We specialize in helping therapy practices like yours achieve financial clarity, so you can focus on what you do best—helping your clients and managing your team- while we help handle all the businessy stuff they didn’t teach you in grad school.
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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
Being a business owner is pretty challenging. A lot of times we go from our nine to fives, or maybe going straight from grad school, into being a practice owner and all of a sudden we feel stuck, working long hours, not making a lot of money. Well, today, richard Walsh is our guest, who's gonna be talking about how to escape the owner prison. He gives us insights into ways to set up your business and to really create more freedom and more time and more money. My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. All right, we have Richard Walsh here. Richard, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I am awesome, craig, great to be here. I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm super pumped just because I know that your message is going to be really, really valuable. You wrote a book Escape the Owner Prison and I can't wait to hear more about what that involves, because even just the title of that is super intriguing to me Whenever we first connected. I'm going, oh, I'm drawn in already and I want to hear more. So talk to us. Let's just start with you. Tell us a little bit about you, what you do and your background.
Speaker 2:So I've been an entrepreneur for about 35-ish years now, so it's been a while. But yeah, I started way back in the day, just started a landscape business. I came out of the Marine Corps, started working swinging a pickaxe, digging ditches for five bucks an hour. You know quite the future. I had, you know, big step up for the Marine Corps? I think Probably not, but I was doing that. And the whole story is a guy asked me to do a side gig down in Tucson, arizona that's where I was working and he wanted me to move like this giant pile of granite, so like crushed granite, down there, like 35 tons, from the street to the backyard, spread that, and that's what they use for grass, right? So I'm like I can do that. I can swing a pick all day. So I spent my last $85 before payday on a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Showed up on Saturday, 100 degrees out, 10 hours, knocked that out, had it all perfect, cleaned up the street, and he came out, craig, and put $1,000 in my hand.
Speaker 1:Man.
Speaker 2:And I looked at that and went dang, I did this yesterday for $50. You know I'm, I think I know my future. Okay, I am, I am going into business and that was it. The journey began. Okay, so it was. It was bumpy and it was cool. I ended up doing custom water features as my niche and steel sculpture to that. That became nationally recognized and then the steel sculpture came internationally recognized. I became this guy who can do all this cool stuff, built a great business for about 20 years.
Speaker 2:08-09 hit financial collapse. I was out busy being me, being cool, being an artist, building great things and doing the next thing and not really paying attention to the business. So that collapse kind of wiped me out like completely. So a wife and six small children, four years and younger at the time lost my house, lost the and kind of had to start over, relocate, do the whole thing. So I did that. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wasn't going to do what I already did. So time to start another business or whatever I was going to do.
Speaker 2:I started in the fitness training industry because I used to do that. A lot Worked at Anytime Fitness. I needed a trainer and a little program. So I built a program and guess what? Oh, richard becomes trainer of the year a year later. So if you're trainer of the year and you're an entrepreneur, well I guess I got to go open the gym now. So I went and opened a gym, bootcamp style training, created this whole body weight belt system. It was really cool. Did that sold? That started the contracting business, scaled that sold. That started coaching. People wrote Escape the Owner Prison. That became a bestseller on Amazon, like 10 categories. That was awesome. It's a contract that's doing a way to scale, regain control and fast-track growth while loving life.
Speaker 2:Because they started as I recovered from my first business and started a new business that's been doing well. People started to ask me, craig, like well, how'd you do that? How'd you go from all that to nothing, to this now? And then I started working with them. So I did this and this and I started to see the patterns. In most small businesses there's a lot of patterns and I realized they work really hard the first two years because you have to. You wear the nine hats, right, you're doing everything, but then next thing you know, 10 years has gone by and you've repeated the first two five times and you're making some money by and you've repeated the first two five times and you're making some money and you go on vacation but you call in every day and every other day to make sure the place didn't burn down and you're kind of wondering who didn't show up and what clients are getting ticked off right and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:So it becomes this, this management issue, where you're trapped in the owner prison. So the book, real quick. I had like 27 working titles, well, machine and all this kind of I'm like. And then I'm at a track meet one day with a friend who owns a business and his big manufacturing business and we're talking about. I said, listen, I had 27 working titles, okay, I go, I got another one, what do you think about this? I go escape the owner prison. And he looked at me crazy, like that resonates. I'm like John, that was the name of it. Okay, that became the name. That came up with the sub, the subtitle and everything else. So it's all good, but that was.
Speaker 2:It was the pattern of these people working so hard in their business and you hear a lot of the in and not on. You want to work on your business but, like a lot of your, the majority of listeners, listeners, practitioners, right, people who have a therapy business. I work with an audiologist Same thing, multiple offices, right, she's got practitioners, there's all these places. It's hard because a lot of it is based on you, like, or you think it's based on you. Okay, you feel like you're the person, you've got the knowledge, you can lay hands on people the best, you can do all the stuff, and that's the trap. And you can be a carpenter, and it's the same thing. You can be an electrician, and it's the same thing. You can be a general contractor, there's no difference. It doesn't matter what the business is, the patterns are the same. So I wanted to create a system to get them out of that. So that pretty much brings us to speed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's spot on. I think it resonates for me already, and largely not only myself, but what we see. Because we work with people on their finances, we help them learn how to manage cash in their business in a simple way, and a lot of times they're struggling financially and that's so closely tied to how they've gotten locked into this business and they feel this like they've left their nine to five to start this business, for two reasons usually, which is more time and more money. Right, that's our main reason why we go into business for ourselves and they're like well, I'm working more hours than I was ever working before and I'm getting paid less than I was making before. What am I, what am I doing here? Is that kind of the?
Speaker 2:what you're seeing. So yeah, so what I, what I figured out was okay. So I I created the movement. I'm going to help 10,000 business owners create freedom, profit and impact in their business. That's the three things. Freedom, because we're doing it all for our family, we're doing it to get time, we're doing it to make more money and we get none of that Okay, so it's debate and switch. You get in there like you're going to do all this, like I said. Next thing, you know it's 10 years and you're like, wait a minute. So it's freedom, profit, impact.
Speaker 2:So they only work together in the sense of business. You can't make impact without profit. You can't make impact without freedom. You have the time to do it. You can't make profit without freedom Okay, because you have to be able to step away from the. If you're doing it all, you can't leverage yourself, so there's no leverage in that right. So all these three work together and if you can dial it in that way, and that comes through systemization, creating process systemization in your business so it can run itself.
Speaker 2:So my goal is to get the owner working on what we call the 5%. That's the 5% of the business. Only they can do that's vision direction. Right, that's market share, maybe reeling in the big client making the new deals right, that's what they do best, right. Everything else that's all I call it farmed out, right.
Speaker 2:You, you build the lanes, you bring the people in the office. They handle everything like, let's say, I'll just use like my chiropractor. I've been getting chiropractic work for 35 years, right from boxing and everything else I used to do, and you get beat up. So you need a little bit of work, right. But you go in and to me that's one of those examples of this. It's based around that chiro, that guy, okay.
Speaker 2:But if they build and they got the assist and they create the process, the check-in, the appointments, the massage, the, whatever the table is, the traction table, you go on there and then the doc comes in, does this five or ten minutes, right, and you have that. That's a system when the other one they used to do it all right. So they've learned to systemize that a lot and bring on others right and create a business. So I think that's a big thing about the owner. Prison is can you let go? Can you let go of that? I have to control everything. I'm the guy, right, like what I do with contractors. You might be the best and I'm going to make the assumption you're the best at what you do okay. But if you had someone who was like 95% as good as you, I guarantee you your clients don't know the difference Okay, and if you're really concerned, train them up the next 5% to make them as good as you and enjoy the freedom, because that's where the freedom's at Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, that's so true. And you know, I think when it comes to business and we we say this a lot too is no one really teaches therapists specifically. No, it's not like in grad school. They're like here's how you run a therapy practice, and so I would say you could be an amazing baker. Doesn't mean you know how to run a bakery, you can be an amazing therapist. And then you get into this thing and all of a sudden you've really and you, you know, I went through this with my business before I started hiring a team and freeing up my time I was like my main goal was let's fill up a caseload, I need to get clients, fill up my calendar with clients.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden, that was my main focus for so many years and I'm wearing all the hats that it's hard to know how and when to transition and make that pivot. And so for therapists, how do I make that pivot from having a caseload of clients to not having a caseload of clients? I think that's where people get stuck. So how do you help people navigate that movement from, I guess, just being self-employed to business owner or CEO?
Speaker 2:I'm going to give you a really simple two-word answer. All right, it's going to change everyone's lives. It's called exit strategy.
Speaker 1:All right, talk to me about it, okay.
Speaker 2:So there's two times to do an exit strategy. The first time, the best time, is before you launch your practice, okay. The second best time is right now. Okay, exit strategy is this I'm going to keep it really simple and high level, but it's how long, how much? How long you want to do this? How much do you want for the exit? Real simple 10 years, 15 years, 20, 50. I don't care how long it is, that's your choice. Okay, how much do you want for this business? Okay, and some people undervalue, overvalue. They want $20 million. Well, you're worth about $100,000. Okay, you're not getting $20 million? Okay, so, but regardless of that. So we pick those two numbers and then we begin to reverse engineer.
Speaker 2:All right, now, let's say you're killing it. All right, now, let's say you're killing it. You put together the right practice. Let's say you're making a million a year as income OK, you're killing it. Got a few people working, whatever, it is OK. Now you come to an end. You want to sell the business for 10 million. Ok, so you get to the end. You had the great negotiation Maybe you get your 10, maybe get 10, 5.
Speaker 2:But you get that. You get to walk away. But what did you just lose A million a year in income. So wow. So if you just held on to your 10, in 10 years you're broke. Okay, so it's not working right. So how do you keep that million? Well, if, again, the sooner I start, I look at my exit. If it's a 10-year exit, I have to look okay, I need to replace a seven-fig figure income. How do I do that? Well, I start accumulating assets that produce income. Oh, wow. So if I get to eighty, three thousand dollars a month of passive income, I reach my 10 year goal. Wow, I have a million dollars. I replace my salary, my income, and I get my 10 or 10, five and I walk away and I have that million because that's how I built it. And I have this to do the next thing, or invest more and things like that. Now, the next thing it does like that's really cool all by itself.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But what it also does. It becomes this incredible business filter. Okay, so when you're going to get little opportunities and maybe someone hey, I got this new supplement line, you should sell this, you should do all these things that people are going to wave in front of you because you're doing well, well, all you say is okay, that sounds good. Let me run this. Does it get me closer to my exit or does it detract from it? If it detracts from that exit, it's a hard no. If it's going to get me closer, like a supplement line or something, and I can make an extra you know, five grand a month selling supplements or whatever, I'm all in right Because I want to get to that exit. So it helps me make those decisions and keeps me from the distractions. Right, and now I also know when to hire. If I reverse engineer that, well, what is my plan? Because if I started a practice or any business, there's seldom a plan. There's make money, let's sell, let's get clients, let's book my calendar, just like you're saying, craig, let me get all that. Okay, now you can breathe, but you got to keep going and there's only so many hours in a day, right, so now you go, okay. Well, it looks like maybe every 250,000 of income, I can hire a person. Whatever that number might be in your individual circumstance, you can start planning for that Now.
Speaker 2:I'm driving the business, knowing when I can get the first person and who that person should be to start taking the load off, right? Is that a bookkeeper? Is that a front desk person? You know, is that a planner? Is it that assistant? What does that look like, right? Is it more equipment so I can offer more services and then do that? Right?
Speaker 2:So you start to really be able to plan your business. You're planning your escape. That's what you're doing. You're sitting in the cell, right, you're scratching at the brick. You know, taking a little each day, walking out, dropping in the yard, you know, till you get your tunnel, but that's what you're doing.
Speaker 2:You start to see it and here's kind of the final, really cool point when you have a family and you're starting this business or you're running the business, you can share this exit with your family and show them the phases that you're going to go through to get to that point, so they can be your cheerleaders because they're not going to do your business. But if they know what's expected, you don't come home because you're like just beat down, feeling terrible, because that's entrepreneurship sometimes, and you say you wouldn't understand his business, that doesn't go over well with the family, okay, that's total like shut him off. So you come on and say, well, I'm in phase two. So, guys, here's what's coming down the pike. Phase two is this, this and this. So, understand, there's going to be days when I come home and I can be this, but now they can cheer for you, they get the plan instead of just flying by the seat of your pants. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Totally. And even on those phases, you know, I think it lets them know what they're signing up for and you know, if you're coming home and you're like this is going to be just a phase of business where I might be working later or I might have, you know, be doing X, y, I might be working on Saturdays for this season, or however that is. But there's an end in mind. It's not a indefinite, this is just the way it is, which we kind of stumble into it's. You know, this is the phase two or, like you said, phase one, and that's it's going to be a lot more bootstrapping. But, as you know, by phase two, phase three, my time is going to get freed up because we have more of that financial resource to free up my time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. We're always looking for margin, not financially, we're looking for time margin, right? So we put that in. So I'm trying to get margin from my business so I can beat every one of my kids' games, the music recitals, the plays, whatever they're at, have the actual date night every week with my wife, right, or husband, whichever it is. All of that is what it's important to understand that you can build that in your business instead of just running wild. I always use it like this If I'm in my car and I'm in New York and I want to go to California, the only thing I know is to go West Okay.
Speaker 2:So if that's all I know, the good news is I'm going to see the whole United States Okay. The bad news is I'm going to end up in the Gulf of Mexico thinking I'm at the Pacific, okay, because I have no idea where I'm going, right. So you get this plan, you get the exit strategy, you know precisely where you're going and how to make the decisions, where the money's going to go, who's going to come on board, how to choose these people for specific things, and you can see the light get brighter and brighter in that tunnel, and it happens pretty quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think all this is is really eyeopening and just having that end in mind, knowing what you're you're going toward. Uh, you know, I'm thinking of these therapists, and so all the common therapist practice owner journey is either straight out of grad school they go and into private practice, but most of the time they start with another practice because they have to get supervisions and different things, and then at some point they're like Alright, I want to go start on my own. And I feel like and it's probably similar to a lot of people that you just kind of stumble into business ownership. You don't really know what you're getting yourself into.
Speaker 1:And so for those people who are like hearing this and they go, you know, I never even thought about an exit strategy, is it? Can it be as simple as just maybe an action step being? You know, I'm going to write two things down and that's like you said when do I want to to exit and how much money do I want to sell it for? Is that just a good starting point for everyone, myself included, to just sit down and do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's always small steps. I mean, if you have a 10-year plan, you think you're going to write that in one sitting. No, like you're not. You know it's simple things combined to create a complex exit, right, but date and how much, when and how much is the very beginning, because we start at that point and that's the exit. You know so the goal I always tell people. So you do get to exit point, you come in to offer me for my practice. You want my practice. You come in again. We go to the $10 million. I shake your hand, you hand me a check, I'm out the door, you're in, but nobody knows the business sold. That's the goal. It's run so well and by itself they don't know. And you can tweak it and do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:But the beauty that that's the business that I want to buy. I don't want to come in and start from scratch. I'm gaining market share, right, if I take you out, I get what you had. You have 900 clients Great, I now have 900 more in a profitable self-running business. Okay, because I built my business to be in my 5%. Where I'm just out looking, I'm going oh yeah, he's got a pretty good business and he's right at that, he's about 49. Yeah, I think I can go grab that if I think he might be interested, you know, then we talk and you make, you make the deal, you know, whatever that might look like. So you know, that's the beauty of having that 5% that time to work on your vision, because you can see other opportunities and you're poised to make a move on those opportunities, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, man. I think that's so great. And so, as people are trying to grow and scale their business because, again, a lot of us stumble into it, therapists especially just stumble into this thing what do you commonly see? Why do you think people struggle with that whole scaling mentality? And specifically for again, us, it's going from self-employed to business owner. What are the common struggles you see, or why do people struggle?
Speaker 2:So the first thing is they're building a people-based business, okay, and I don't mean your customers, I mean, okay, there's systems, right, and there's people. Well, you don't put systems around people, you put people into systems, okay. Now it sounds simple, but you have to understand. There's a little saying. I tell every businessman it's called, everyone leaves. Okay, nobody's staying forever. It might be five months, five years, 20 years, might be five days, but they're 20 years, might be five days, but they're all going to leave. They're going to get sick, they're going to get pregnant, they're going to leave for whatever reason, right? So all there's a million reasons why they leave. What do you do If you have just a people-based business?
Speaker 2:We have really good people that do their thing that you did not create, right, it's not duplicatable. And they walk out. Your office manager leaves. You now have what's called, or, if they stay, even they threaten to leave. Now you have a hostage situation, right, you are the hostage of these great employees. If that office manager leaves, you're done, okay, everything's up here in her head, right? Or his head, and and, yeah, you have stuff. But you're like what, how do I do this? You're busy doing your thing. That's a problem. So you have to create systems and lanes for each person to drop in and run. They got to be able to get up to speed in five to seven days. So when leaves get to new hire, they're in five to seven days, or 100%. That's the goal. Okay.
Speaker 2:When you build now, because now you want to expand, well that means another location, right. Usually you're not going to just get bigger in one place. Now that's a possibility, but the principle is the same. So now you don't get to take your team with you. So you say you've got five people in the office, you're killing it. You're seeing 900 people a week or whatever. It is right, it's awesome, you're doing really well, everything's humming. Now you want to go open up an hour away. You don't get to take all those people. They stay. It's going to be you or another practitioner opening up. What right you have to duplicate exactly what all those systems have to go with? Now plug new people in. They're the right people and they can run quickly to the goalpost and make it a success. Does that make sense? You don't see how you got your team doesn't travel. You don't have a traveling team.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:OK, you've got a home team, only that's it. They only play at home. Ok, you've got to get another home team in another place. And that's why most of them struggle because getting those qualified people like my audiologist getting another audiologist, they have to relocate. They're not down the street, okay, they're coming from another state. So you got to do that whole process. That is not done in a week or two.
Speaker 2:That is a three to six months if you're lucky right. So if you lose an audiologist or another practitioner, if you don't have systems in place but you still opened another one and now you lose the main draw, you're going to have some windshield time. Yeah, Driving back and forth trying to serve it all.
Speaker 1:Trying to be in both places at once.
Speaker 1:And, man, what you're saying resonates especially in the therapy industry because, especially the mental health world if a therapist leaves which it happens frequently for exactly what we're talking about your therapist might be working for somebody else.
Speaker 1:They're seeing, okay, I'm getting 50 of every client I see and the bells are going off. Well, if I start my own business, I'll get, I'll get to keep a hundred percent. They don't always realize all the work that's behind the scenes and that you don't actually get to keep a hundred percent, but they, they leave, and so typically their clients follow them and because of ethical reasons, the business owner can't require that they can't take their clients with them. It's just, you know they have the right to choose who they want to provide the care. So it can be tricky, and I'm hearing what everything you're talking about and how important that is to have those systems. And I would think the urgency is even higher because they're not only when somebody leaves, they're taking probably some revenue with them, and so having something to plug somebody into so that you can get things going again quickly is even more important, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, craig, another thing that we're, I think we're leaving out here, and he brought it up by saying this person's going to go and take clients okay, super common, I'll give his personal training, therapy, whatever. It is right, it's it's, it's common. But I also know that it's not a unless you're really horrible at you do. You're losing a very small percentage, right, and that person who thinks they're going to go and take all these clients is going to realize they ain't going. Ok, they might like a couple, but he's not going to make a living off those people he takes from you. Ok, but now let's put that aside. The point being on that whole thing is building a business where people want to stay. Let's talk about retention. How do you do that? How do you build a culture in your business where people are working for purpose, recognition and quality pay those three things in that order. Quality pay is third. They want quality pay, but it's not what drives them. They want purpose.
Speaker 2:So we built what's called a vision driven business. We create a strategic vision. So everybody who comes on the team understands exactly where they fit, what their purpose is, how they're. The hero in that journey of a client comes in right, makes that first call, sets the appointment. What does that whole journey look like from the inside? Right, so they understand exactly what they're doing. When you build that culture and I did this with my audiologist, unbelievable, right. So it's like six to ten pages you write it out in story form, your future casting, which means it's not what you're doing now, it's what you want to do. So now everyone's working to fulfill that strategic vision. So they're all on the same page and you come back to this every couple of weeks. This is part of a weekly, biweekly, every month conversation. How we do it in our portion of the vision, right, it's not a mission statement, that's up on the wall because that just feeds the ego, the owner, and that's it, right.
Speaker 2:But once you get that, now you're drawing people and I give that to prospective hires. So that's the first thing they get before even the interview Read this. Then you get a five minute phone call. Okay, you read the strategic vision. Now, I didn't have time to get to it, all, right. Well, you have a great day and you hang up because they can't follow directions. They're off the team. They're not on the team, okay, but someone says they do. You say well, what do you see yourself fitting in? Oh, I'm that front desk person. I love customer service. I love customer service. Okay, cool, next steps, pardon me. So you go next steps. But now they understand the culture they're coming into, because that strategic vision is the culture of business.
Speaker 2:And when you read it to existing team members, I'm telling you they like crying stuff. It's so purposeful. They're like it's weird. I thought there's no way, like we're doing it. I'm seeing it like that.
Speaker 2:It's really emotional, because people want purpose, they want a reason to go to work, they want a reason to stay at work. People will want to work, they want to do great things. It's not a. It's not a, it's not a necessary evil. They're actually made to work and if they can do it well and be recognized right, we got purpose and recognition. Let them know, give them quality feedback hey, you're doing a great job. Hey, we can fix this, we can do that. And then the quality pay. Of course people want to be paid well, but get those first two. The other one's easy right. So that's really key, especially if you want to expand, because if you can build a culture that's written right, you can take that new culture with you literally on paper, and the new people coming on board. Read the vision. They know what it's going to be. You recreate that again in the systems and processes and away you go. Now you have true duplication right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, and I think it's so spot on. And I was working with one of my business coaches and the first exercise was finding that vision and sharing it with the team, which was something I had never considered. And again, that whole navigating the being by myself and having a team of people under me. And my natural personality is I'm a creative, I'm a vision kind of guy as far as creating processes. I love systems and processes, cause I need them. I need them to anchor me, but that's just not where my brain is is how to take it and put it into place.
Speaker 1:And so I'm not I guess I just never even realized like, oh, this is where we're going and this is your role in the piece, in it. And here's, you know your empowerment and and I just think that's so important. And you know, I know my team of coaches are so bought in and they, they see the impact. And so, to your point, therapists a lot of times it's, and when I'm talking to them about retention, they're so afraid that they're not paying them enough that they end up overpaying their people because you you said something really insightful that that's third on the list, that's on the bottom part of those three things. Whereas a lot of people immediately think I got to pay more, oh, I'm not paying them enough, which can put you in a bind, and it can sometimes put you in a direction that maybe you're closed down and they don't have somewhere to come to work on Monday if you're not careful. That's right.
Speaker 2:You got to understand you'll see people. When you do this right, people will and they I've seen it, I can testify, clients can testify take a pay cut to come work for you, because that's the culture they want to be in. You know, they want to do well, they want to be right. You get that right again. That's why that strategic vision, before you even talk to them, is so important, because I really believe that people need to earn the right to be hired. Yeah, they need to go through the hoops. You need to have a process, because if you hire with a process, starting with the strategic vision, then a five minute phone call, then it's one person, not you, not the owner and then it's a two person team. They interview them again. When they meet you, the owner, it's like a meet and greet. They're on the team already and you're like hey, how you doing Good to see you. You'll probably see me around. Man, I love to see you. If you need anything, you know who to talk to. It ain't me. You talk to these people and everything's good. That's the system.
Speaker 2:Now, when they go through all that, what else do they assume about the business? It's a system, run business. These people are squared away. I get to come and do what I do and do it well, I don't have to create it for the owner. I'm not going to. No one's coming to systemize your business Like what you said, greg.
Speaker 2:You know it, you like it, you're not doing it. Yeah, ok, and that's 100 percent across the entrepreneurial board. Every owner, visionary, founder, they all want it, but 100% aren't going to do it. So I had to figure out well, how do I do that as a coach? Oh, I'll work with the team. I'll bring my system and process, put them through it totally, set them up for success, run to, they can build it out for you if you're in this position where you have a team but you're not systemized. But you just have to remember one thing they can't do it, they're not going to build that out, even if you give them the way, the process, everything else for their normal pay. So if they're making $40,000 a year, they're not going to systemize their position office manager, let's say and still just get paid $40,000. You've got to dangle the carrot at the end, because if they systemize that where now you can plug people into it, if they leave, don't you think it's worth a couple grand bonus to them?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:They just they did some amazing things for your business that'll last for a decade plus, right? So you always give them a great incentive at the end and you give them a 30, 60, 90 day goal and watch them get that done, get the everybody's happy, and then they got the buy-in. Hey, I built this, I mean, we gave them direction and everything else, but we had them put it together and, man, you just watch what happens in the office. They come in, they're happy because no one wants a mystery job. They don't know which way they're going to get attacked this way and someone's he's going to be angry because this didn't get done and everything is just, everyone knows their deal. They get in and go, it's. It's awesome when you see it work, man.
Speaker 1:So systems and processes, I think is the theme here of breaking out of that, um, escaping the owner of prison, um, so many great nuggets that I'm pulling away from this. And you know we have a uh, half day team planning day next week and I'm like okay. So these here's already some things mulling in my head of conversations to have and goals to set and incentives to give. Um, so I'm finding huge value just in this conversation. Uh, I know you work with people and so, uh, how can people get in touch with you If they're looking for, if what you're saying is like man, I need this. This is what I've been lacking. I need these systems and processes. How can people get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Just go to sharpen the spirit coachingcom. It's contact page. You can book a call, you can send me an email. Whatever you want to do, you know what. Let's do this because I've had a good time. Let's give your listeners a gift. All right, okay, if you go to sharpen the spirit, coachingcom, go to my contact page. You're going to send me a one-sentence email. You're going to say Richard, I heard you on Craig's show Love, a free copy of the audio version of Escape the Owner Prison.
Speaker 1:And I'll send it to you.
Speaker 2:That's great you can read my book and it's cool.
Speaker 1:It should help. Well, thank you for that. That's a huge value. We will link everything in the show notes um richard this has been so fun.
Speaker 1:I would love to have you back sometime because I just um, anytime I I still have probably a million questions I could ask and just learn from you, so but thank you for your time and thank you for, uh, sharing your knowledge. Thanks for joining us on the therapy business podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
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