Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, What's up, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner. Today's episode is for the business owners who are grinding, working hard, doing everything, but still feel like the business only moves when they move. So here's the truth most people don't want to hear. You don't have a work ethic problem. You don't have a motivation problem. You have a belief system and structure problem. And that's exactly what we're going to get into today. I'm joined by Dr. Greg, some call him Dr. G, personally. He's a business coach and author and CEO of PC Medical Centers and the mind behind Fix Your BS Belief Systems. Dr. G helps owner operators stop being the ceiling on their business and start building sellable, scalable assets. So if you've ever felt like you've been trapped in something you've built, I think this conversation is going to be for you. Welcome to the show, Dr. Thanks, Blake. Thanks for having me, bud. Absolutely. So kind of jumping in before we get into like systems and scaling, I kind of want people to kind of understand you a little bit better. So what kind of pulled you into like this work, into the belief system, the mindset? Was it it was at your previous job? Was your career dive? Jump into that for us. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. At 23, I graduated as a doctor, had a wife and a young daughter. And I, you know, was young and said, you know, the ego of drove driven and was like, Oh, I can do anything I want to do. So I started a practice. Um, after a couple of years of practice, we had our second child and, um, I started to realize that, you know, maybe owning a business and having a job are two different things. Um, for about a decade, I did a lot of the, uh, made a lot of decisions inside the business to try to grow it. But what I found was I was always the cap. It always came down to how much I could actually produce. So at about my mid-30s, I started looking at how can I actually create the life that I want to create and have my business support that life. Instead of what i had at the time which was a job that look like a business i was literally. You know trapped within the business i didn't know how to implement systems i didn't know how to hire people i didn't know how to retain those people i didn't know how to create a mission or vision or value for a company of where it was actually you know what that company was all about who was helping. To me, I was like, I'm just, I'm a chiropractor and I own a business, but I really didn't. I owned a job. So in my mid thirties, I went on this quest to figure out how to actually create a business that runs and operates without me having to be the one that is there moment to moment So, you know, obviously, I hear you say beliefs aren't motivational. They're operational, right? That's kind of a big Yeah. So, I mean, if somebody's belief, like, for instance, in my, like I said, in my first decade or so, almost almost 12 years, just over a decade of me being in a practice by myself. I believed that that was the strategy, that I was the one that had to produce, that the business relied upon me. And that's what my thought process was. So my thoughts turned into beliefs, which turned into actions, which then turned into a result. And the result was, if I took vacation, the business shut down, or it didn't produce. If I was sick, well, I had two options. Don't go in, which meant the business didn't produce, or show up and get it to produce. And so there was a cap to that and what i realized was i was treating the amount of people i want to treat. But when i started learning about actual businesses i realized i didn't have a sellable asset. Nobody was gonna buy it no investor was gonna come in by the business because i was the one that had to produce so instead i started implementing systems. And new strategies because my belief changed and i tell people all the time. The belief is the underlying reason why you aren't implementing the strategies. If you believe something's not going to work, then you aren't going to implement the strategy. If you're just hopeful it might work, but you really underline the underlying thought is it's not going to work. Well, guess what? It's not going to work because you will sabotage yourself. And so in my business, consulting and coaching programs, we talk about both of those things. What are the tactics and strategies that you have to implement in order for your business to grow without you? And what are the beliefs that hold you back from implementing You know, that's a valid point because I talk to a lot of obviously business owners on a daily basis. And I'm sure you do too, that, you know, they're, I don't want to say they're, they're miserable day to day. Right. I mean, that's, that's the unfortunate part to say that, but, you know, from your perspective, from the few things that you just mentioned, are those the, the, you know, meat and potatoes of why so many businesses stall The reason why most businesses stall is because they become key person dependent. And that key person is typically the owner. So here's how most businesses actually start in America. There's a person that knows how to do a thing. A chiropractor, a photographer, a dentist, an HVAC guy, an electrician. What real estate agent you name it it's if it's a service based business it's the same typical process so they know how to do a thing so then they tell people hey i'm a chiropractor i know how to do this thing i can help you with your back. And then people go oh cool i'd like to go try that thing and then they come in and then they um get their treatment in this case in this example and uh eventually the word spreads if you know you're doing what you're doing and you get some people results then the word spreads well then you get overwhelmed because you're like oh man i've got all these people how do i. You know actually sub you do the thing i'm supposed to do for all these people so i need to hire somebody to help me out so then you bring somebody and now do you know how to hire anybody or track them know you just bring somebody and say hey i need somebody to answer my phone calls did you train him how to answer the phone calls now you just assume. they'll be able to do it and the reason i'm kinda joking about that because this is literally the process i went through and i noticed and saw. Hundreds and hundreds of other businesses doing the same thing so eventually what happens is they hire to fill roles and solve problems but they don't really have a blueprint. In which that business stands on an actual you know strategy that holds everything together a system. And so what happens is they add more and more people until they get about to twelve and twelve is the magic number where if your key person dependent you can't really grow past that for the most part statistically that's the number. Because you have too many people that you have to manage now and it all comes back to you and so you stall if you look at thirty thirty five million ish businesses in america only six hundred thousand of them have more than twelve employees almost. We're talking about the rest of those businesses they have one employee up to twelve employees like there's only six hundred thousand out of those that only have more than twelve what is the reason and so. What I did was I took what I had and I kept the mission, the chiropractic mission at the time, which is improve outcomes without using meds, steroids, and surgery, help the patient improve their outcomes without using things that are reliant upon, like I said, meds and steroids and things. And so I kept the mission and we added other products and services and changed it into a regenerative medicine clinic. And in doing that, I actually implemented systems For marketing sales HR operations and finances so that way we can track and measure the growth and improvement and doing that. I can actually pull myself out and do the things that i'm great at which is stuff like this. Promoting educating teaching other people connecting people that's what i'm great that's what i like to do that's why i started the businesses cuz i love helping people. And so as I'm able to do more of that, my life becomes more fulfilling because I love doing those things. So that's what I really help people do, figure out why did you start the business, what are the things that you love to do within that business, and then let's build the business around what you love to do. And that's why You know, it's interesting when you talk about that it's only 660,000 businesses have more than 12. I start to look at some of these like bigger companies, um, that have multiple leaders underneath like a massive leader. Right. And you see some of the stuff that, you know, you got the, the, the top of the umbrella CEO guy, and then you have a bunch of leaders under them. Why does it tend to never trickle down properly from the top to all these leaders, to trickle down to the employees, if you're kind of get what I'm saying? Obviously, the belief system at the top, but then you have all those other leaders. If they're not on the same page, it seems to be like that growth just causes so Yeah, it causes chaos because there's no alignment. So you have to have a process that aligns all the individuals within the company to push towards a common goal. If you don't have alignment, then it's And how do you hire, like how do you sift through all these, if you have 15 district managers and a CEO that runs all the district managers and Yeah, so when you look at personalities, that's the problem that actually most small business, when you're doing, so what I work with mostly is 300,000 to three million per year. Okay, so the people that start those companies, they end up bringing in other personalities, but they don't actually align them with the mission of the company. And if you don't align them with the mission of the company, then what happens is, is that person has their own idea of where the company's headed and what's most important. And they really don't have the systems and the support in order to align with the company vision, which most companies actually don't have a vision. If a company is doing between a few hundred thousand to up to a few million per year, Typically when they get capped it's because they don't have the alignment of where that company is actually headed. And so that was why we took a my chiropractic company doing a few hundred thousand a year. We were able to bring it to multiple six figures per year because we were able to align. Everybody in the company with a common mission and then we took it from just three hundred thousand per year to multiple seven figures per year in doing that and so. When people have well defined roles they know what the outcome of those roles are a kpi key performance indicator. They know what support they have they know what the core values of the company are they know the mission of the company they know the vision of the company. And they have key metrics that they are responsible and have ownership of. When you start putting those things into place, then all of a sudden things move without the owner or the CEO having to be there to get them to move. You know, I put my input into certain things, but for the most part, it's 10, 80, 10. The first 10% is like, here's my thoughts. Here's the vision of how this aligns with this new project. And then the 80% is them doing it. And then the last 10% is like, here's what we did and here's how it's going to work. And here's the results of that. And then voila, I don't have to be in the moment to moment because I have competent people that are aligned with the mission that are really pushing the ball in the direction of where that company is headed. Most people don't take the time to actually implement those things, or they don't know what to implement. And I know this because I literally was one, and I now coach dozens and dozens of other companies who had Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. And I see very successful companies that are like, we just adopted core values, or we just adopted a mission statement. And you're like, wow, that, you know, you went that long without one, I can't imagine what you're gonna, you know, scale into next. And it sounds so simple, but it, you know, it's obviously not. So, you know, and obviously, for somebody listening right now, I would say, what, like, what actually has to change for that business owner? Like, like you say, like, the emotional side, like you can, the intellectual side, but if you don't, you know, deploy Yeah. So what has to change in the business owner is they have to get very clear on the mission and the vision of that company. And then they have to be willing to delegate responsibilities to other individuals and give that trust to those people that they are going to accomplish whatever the goal is for that role. And then you take your system that you've implemented. In our case, we use the EOS system, Entrepreneurial Operating System. We use that because it becomes very, very clear. Are the people that you have in your company aligned with where the company's headed? Do they have the knowledge that they need or the skills that they need in order to do the tasks that are given to them? And will they be able to manage themselves in order to complete those tasks? You see, that goes back to the owner because a business will always emulate the owner or the CEO, the person that's in charge. Whoever that person is, it will trickle down into the company, which is why I combine those things. There's so many coaching and consulting programs out there and business coaches that tell people what to do. Like, hey, do these things. But the problem is, is if the owner is Sabotaging like unconsciously subconsciously sabotaging saying i don't really think this is gonna work or this doesn't really match who we are whatever if they don't correct that side of it. Then the tactics and strategies will not take off on their own. Um, so that's one of the things, like I said, in our groups, that's what we focus on is like how you become better. So the business becomes better. And then eventually having that crystal clear goal of where your company's headed, then we can implement the strategies. If you're willing to delegate and offload the things that are not building you up and building the business and actually improving crazy is crazy thought. I, as a business owner, am not great at every part of a business. Crazy thought. I'm not the best marketer, salesperson, operations person, HR person, or finance person. But I have people that fill those holes, because I learned about me and where my limitations were. And then I said, well, the business needs all of these things. And so if all of these things are going to run properly, then I need to put very competent people in all of these things in order for that business to actually grow. Now, that's a different mindset. belief system, then I'm going to go in and do all this stuff. So you've heard work on the business, not in the business. And that's a fun saying, but if you don't actually live that and put time on working on yourself, which in turn is also on the business, then you won't grow the business. It will cap. There's a limit to how much you can hustle. And there's a reason why the wealthiest people and the best business owners in the country all have a similar MO, which is how can I get everyone to win with me, not how can I Yeah, I've noticed that the most successful people are the ones that either set the person below them up to go farther or they're just shoulder to shoulder. And I couldn't agree more with you on that. And going back to like, you know, would you say a lot of it has to do with like ego? Like some people just can't put their ego aside like in, hey, I've built this business. It's mine. I'm protecting doing everything. Is that part of it? Certain Yeah. Certain people it's just a clarity thing they don't really know like they're scared to give up and delegate responsibility because they're scared that it won't work and if i give someone the delegation and responsibility of. fixing a part of the business or growing a part of the business or solving a problem and it doesn't work, well, ultimately, it does come back to me as the person that said, I'm giving you this responsibility. I believe that you'll be able to do it. And if it doesn't work or the person didn't come through, well, then it comes back on me. Well, I can't have that because if I do that, then I made a wrong decision and boy, that would make me really look bad. And see, that's where that belief side comes into play. I look at it from the opposite perspective. I'm like, the quicker we implement this strategy, the quicker we give you the resources you need to reach this goal, and the quicker we figure out whether you can or cannot do it, then the quicker we can move forward. You either reach the goal, or we figure out you can't do it, or you're not capable, or you don't have the resources, or whatever it is, and we implement a new strategy or system or person into that role to reach that goal. So the longer I hem-haw around or try to take it on myself, The longer the delay is what we're really trying to do is pull time and resources forward as much as possible because if i can figure out a way to double my business in ninety days. As opposed to trying to double it over two years well i saved a year and a half or a year and three quarters does that make sense we only have so much time so. My job ultimately as a CEO now is how can I set the vision for the company, like where are we headed, why we're doing what we're doing, what's the mission, what are we doing here? Why are we coming into work and doing these things? Once I can set that, then I can attract the best people in order to achieve that mission, and then I can give them the resources they need in order to achieve the mission. So if I can do those three things, set the vision, attract the people, and give them the resources they need, and then get out of their way, which is a very big problem for a lot of business owners, getting out of their way allows them to do the thing that they are great at doing. And so in, in our coaching, that's what we talk about. That's what we do, is how do we, every single week, learn something new, grow individually, implement different strategies, tactics, or wherever you're at, what you need to implement, and then monitor the results. monitor the results of the thing that you delegated to someone and make sure that they are following through. And it's not micromanagement if you, you know, delegate it and allow somebody to have the responsibility of doing this thing or whatever, achieving this goal. And so anyway, going back to the belief side, that's why it's so important. That's why most people hire coaches, consultants, and then they never, they say, well, it didn't work. Well, it didn't work because you didn't change you. you just implemented some tactic or strategy. Well, a lot of times the tactic or strategy is valid and sound, but you have to change your beliefs and mindset and thoughts and actions and emotions. And that's the combination. So we teach And by doing all this stuff clearly with you and figuring all this stuff out, you're creating a sellable asset, Yeah. So, think about it. Like most people, the stats are 97% of businesses will never sell. And for multiple reasons. So, the main reason though is that if you look at it from an investor standpoint, like I invest into businesses now, okay? I take money and I invest that money into businesses or into assets. What is my number one goal as an investor if I'm investing into anything? It's to make money off of that money. The quicker I can get my return off of my investment back, my return back of my investment, and the more I can get that investment to produce more money for me, the easier those two things are, the more likely it is or the safer it is for me to invest that money. So the average business owner, especially in this space, the 300,000 to 3 million, they are key person dependent, which means if I, as an investor go to invest in their business, I am at high risk to lose my money because if that key person leaves, dies, has an issue, doesn't want to do the business, whatever. the likelihood of that money being returned without me stepping in is low. So therefore it becomes a non-investable asset or a very low investable asset. I have people come to me all the time with their businesses and say, hi, I would like you to buy my business. And i would say how much is your business worth or what would you want for it and they say i want x a great example a chiropractor came to me and said i would like to sell you my business and i said, what would you like for your business and he said i want three hundred fifty thousand dollars and i said, what is your business actually worth and he said it's worth three hundred fifty thousand so we looked at his numbers the last three years he had done about a hundred and seventy five thousand per year. And I said, now, why is your business worth 350? Well, it's worth double what the revenue is over the last three years. I said, where's your revenue coming from? He said, it's coming from. people that he treats, and it's coming from physicals that he's doing, like Department of Transportation physicals. 60% of the revenue was physicals, 40% was treatment. Who's doing all the treatment? Him. So if I purchase this business and implement someone new, and by the way, the physicals he was doing had zero contracts with the companies, so there's no protection of investing into that company for me as the investor. I had to tell him, unfortunately, your business is worth about $50,000 in the fact that I could buy your book of business and then market to that book of business that we have other products and services that are available and sell them those new product and services. That would be the only value. He said, well, how am I supposed to retire off of that? I said, exactly. This is my point. You're not. Besides that, were you going to retire off of $350,000? No, you weren't. I mean, so that's the idea. Most people try to sell their business when the business gets overwhelming, they're just frustrated with it, or they are at a point where they don't know how to grow it anymore, so they figure, well, I'll just sell it. Or they go to pass it to someone, they go to retire and they pass it to their kids or somebody else and the kids are like, we don't want it. And they're trying to retire. So no, I'm just gonna sell it now. But if they don't prepare properly, then guess what? It's not a sellable asset to any investor. And that's what people don't realize. They say, I own a business, so it must be sellable. Generally, I guess that's right. Sellable asset works without permission Right. I mean, if if I'm an investor and I'm going to invest money into the business, I don't want to go in and work in the business. I want to put the money into the business and the business continues to run and grow without me doing anything. Therefore, I get a return on the investment. And that's what most people don't think about when they start or run their businesses. So it's pretty simple, though. If the individual is willing to work on themselves, put their ego aside figure out where the holes of their business are, where the business is actually headed, what's the impact they're actually making, and then implement the strategies and tactics that are not rocket science, they are tried and proven tactics that I implement right now every single day in any company that I work with or have. And so it's just showing up And committing yourself to doing those things. And that is where people can make massive changes. But if you wanna show up and push back against the system that is working, well, guess what? It's not gonna work. It's like going to the gym and saying, hey, exercise therapist, I'd like to lose a bunch of weight and get really strong. And the exercise therapist says, great, we will see you four days a week and we're going to do these exercises and you need to follow this diet plan. And the person goes, well, I'll show up two days a week and I'll kind of follow the diet plan, but I still want the results that you're promising. No that's not the way it works, that's not life. But literally that's what people do in their businesses. I wanna implement some of the stuff and hopefully in those little magic sprinkles some massive results gonna happen. Nope, it's not the way it works. So the people that we work with, extremely committed and are willing to be humble, to look at themselves and say, what can I do and how can I be better? So that way it spills over into the company And it becomes the strategies and tactics that we implement after that, that actually make One thing popped in my mind that I've seen and talked to people is people are removing their name from businesses. Are you seeing that like their personal name? Because I'm guessing it's Not really. I mean, there's a lot of personal brands that are very sellable. So personal names on businesses. I mean, McDonald's, it's one of the biggest businesses in the world, right? But people are doing that because we live in the information age and you can go on the internet and you can get scared because people say you should never put your name on your LLC because you can get sued and all sorts of nonsense. Look, if you do things legally, ethically, and do them in a way that is the right way, that's not just about making money. If it's, number one, how do I improve the outcomes of the people that I'm working with? How do I make whatever I'm doing for that person, how do I make their life better in doing it? How do I do it legally, ethically and compliant? For the most part, you don't really have any major issues. So I would if people are wondering about that, that's where I'm not going to be the strongest person to ask because I'm not a lawyer and different states have different rules. I would go consult your legal expert. But that's the point. I don't need to know all the answers. I need to have connections to the people that have the answers, right? That's the business owner. That's A person who actually owns a business, they are very resourceful in figuring out where the holes are in the business and then plugging those holes with the right solutions. Okay so if somebody's worried about well should i pull my name from the business because i'm worried about being sued. Well that's a great question write the question down come up with three possible solutions and one of the solutions might be go find a lawyer and then write down the one solution that you believe out of those three that actually will work. and then take action on it, and then monitor. If it worked, great. If it didn't work, well, come up with, go back to your three, or create a new, now that you've learned something, create a new possible solution. But you have to be humble enough to do that. Let the ego go. You don't know everything. I used to think that way. It was like, oh, I can do any of it. Well, yeah, I could probably, but there's a book I read called Ask Who, Not How. Ask who? Who knows how to do that? Who's the expert in that thing? because they're gonna be able to do it a lot quicker. As long as I'm competent enough to know what the problem is, and I can define that problem, then I can go, okay, well, who would be the best person to solve this thing? And come up with a solution for that. That's ultimately how True. And I love that who part because you can use that for pretty much anything. I always joke when I'm out, I'm like, who's the agent you're working with? Not, are you working with an agent? And then, you know, right away, if they give you a name, they're working with someone. So yeah, no, I really appreciate that. So one last question for you before we tell everybody where to find you. Is it, would you say, explain kind of the, I like legacy over money or money over legacy. So a question, so is it legacy over money or money over legacy? I guess define that question. Is it what What would you look at? How would you, you know, put a business that's starting, you know, you're trying to think legacy over money or money over Well, a business doesn't run without cashflow, so you have to have cash. So it really depends on if you're looking at a business, it depends on where they're at in their cycle. Ultimately, it depends on the exit of the business. Like, what are you trying to do? So, if somebody starts a business and says, I want to create this as a legacy for my family, great. You want to do things legally, you want to do them ethically, you want to do them in a way that is the right way, is a way I would explain it. A business doesn't run without cash flow. I'm a chiropractor. I had a chiropractic clinic, turned it into a regenerative medicine clinic. So I always like to kind of compare a business to the actual physical body. And I kind of explain it like this to people, and you'll probably get it. So tell me if you like this when I explain this. But when you create a business, you actually create an entity, right? An LLC, a limited liability corporation is actually an entity, meaning like it's got its own soul. It's got its own, you know, what is this business all about? You know, that that's when you talk about a brand, that's what it's talking about. Like, what is this business about? If I mentioned certain brands, Nike, first form, you know, whatever, TJ Maxx, you have an idea of what that brand is about. That's their entity. That's their soul. That's who that brand is. That's, you know, you wouldn't, if you did something out of character, you'd be like, well, that's weird. That doesn't match who that business really is. Okay. That's the soul part. Why does that business exist? Who it's helping? You know, what are they all about? When you look at the physical body the business is like the people within the business the people that are running the business are like the organs of the physical body they're like you know they have different. Things that they do but they all have to work together if one of the organs fails what really puts attacks or might even kill the rest of the business right. But none of those organs are able to function without blood flow you have to have blood flow well that's cash to a business. You have to have cash flow if you don't have cash flow none of the other stuff works so if somebody says well i'm gonna have this massive legacy cool. But if you don't have cash flow into the business that actually. sustains the business, then you won't create that legacy. So if I Yeah, that's really good. That makes sense. And then all of a sudden the body can walk, Right. You can't, the body can't run if it doesn't have sufficient oxygen and Yeah, that is really good. Well, Dr. G, I really appreciate you coming on here and kind of spilling this knowledge. Where can the people find you? I know you got a book, you got a podcast, you got a website, you're a CEO. Pretty easy to find you. I'm sure just Google your name. But in the meantime, we'll Yeah, go to Instagram. Yeah. And if you're interested in learning more about this, we have a webinar. this Wednesday coming up. So you can just type in either direct message me or go to any of our Instagram posts. So it's at Dr. Greg Pursley. And so you can just type in webinar and you'll get access, free access for this webinar. I teach these principles, these systems. You'll walk away from that webinar having implementable action items that you can put into your business. At the end of that, I do talk about joining the group if you'd like to join the group to have that implementable action items. And there's other benefits to joining the group as well. But that's the easiest way. So Instagram, drgregpursley. And then, you know, type in webinar and either a comment or a Awesome. Well, I appreciate coming on here. Um, and if there's somebody obviously to, to sit in on a webinar and sign up, you'd, you'd be the guy on a, on a business for sure, because clearly you you've niched down, you know what you're talking about and you enjoy it. So, um, I enjoy helping people impact more people. I mean, that's the goal. Ultimately, the reason why I did this is because I reached a limit of how many people I could actually help. personally, one-on-one, I reached a limit. So how can I impact more people's lives? Well, I can create a group in this coaching world, but I can create leverage through delegating tasks to others. And Yeah, that is powerful stuff. And remember, your business should grow because of you, not collapse without you, right? That's exactly right. All right. Till next time. I appreciate it, Doctor. Thanks, Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell your