Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  On today’s Profit by Design, Dr. Sabrina Starling talks with her good friend, Donna Leyens. Donna is the president and Co-Founder of the Provendus Group. She is on a mission to save small businesses from extinction, by providing business tools, strategy, training and support to business professionals who want to make a big impact by becoming small business growth strategists.  This mighty team of strategists uses The Pumpkin Plan Action Guide, a business growth program Donna developed based on the methods in the book The Pumpkin Plan, written by her Co-founder Mike Michalowicz. Pumpkin Plan Strategists help small businesses to not just stay afloat, but to scale and grow in both profitability and size, while allowing the owner to have time for a life as well.  Today, we will learn how to make your business more sustainable using The Pumpkin Plan. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Donna gives us a brief overview of how The Pumpkin Plan is so helpful to business owners. The 3 crucial elements in your business. How you know if you need to find the Sweet Spot in your business. The Client Assessment for ranking your clients. What questions to ask your best clients to find more clients like them. What The Pumpkin Plan offers for business owners who are overworked and spread too thin. Why Profit First needs The Pumpkin Plan. An example of narrowing what you offer to get better pricing on what you sell, increasing profitability. The Blueprint for Growth   Links and Resources: FREE Download: Dr. Sabrina's 5 Favorite Wishlist Interview Questions +  Mentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  In this episode, you're going to get some great ideas that are really going to get your wheels turning. Dr. Sabrina talks to Tom Antion, an internet multi-millionaire who has never had a job. He has been a professional speaker and entertainer since 1988. Tom has a really outrageous hiring method that takes guts to implement. Dr. Sabrina verifies, however, that it's a good method to use, and that it will work.  Tom is the founder of The Great Internet Marketing Retreat Center, the only licensed, dedicated internet marketing school in the country, with the only facility of its kind in the world. People come from all over the world to study internet marketing there, in the lap of luxury. Tom also has a new podcast, called Screw The Commute, where he teaches people how they could live pretty much two for the price of one, if they didn't have to sit in their car on the way to work, making other people rich.   Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Tom shares the one life lesson that he has carried forward. How Tom got his outrageous idea for an entertainment company, Prank Masters. Tom explains how he got back up, kept humor around him, and started all over again when things fell down for him. Tom talks about how he got into the speaking business. Tom had to learn how to become a great, professional public speaker. Tom realized that if you try to be excellent at something yourself, people will notice and they will often ask you to teach them. Tom used what his Dad had taught him about being excellent when the commercial internet came along, around 1994. For Tom, the overriding principle is to be really excellent at what you do so that other people will ask you to teach them how to do it. This is how he got to be a big internet guru. Although it's good to have long-term dreams, you have to do the step-by-step and your emphasis will change over time. Some tips for keeping up with the constantly changing internet, for the online portions of your business. Tom discusses the ins and outs of his outrageous, street-smart hiring process. Why it's best to pay young people for the job, rather than by the hour. Tom explains how to place a hiring ad his way. Tom's ads are unprofessional, yet they really work. Tom's hiring process will help you to filter the wrong people out and speak to the right people. Dr. Sabrina's book, How To Hire The Best, features interviews with real-life entrepreneurs about their hiring practices. Tom gives his thoughts, as an entrepreneur, about what he has learned about being intentional and he also explains how he designed his business and how he runs it. You can keep your costs low by learning and doing as much as possible yourself. Only delegate once you know what you're doing. How to make your hobby legitimately tax-deductible. Tom discusses what inspired him to start his podcast and he gives some of the topics that he gets into. Tom gives some great tips from the training he does on how to do a $50,000 video production for pennies on the dollar. Tom explains how you can use Shortkeys for a PC and  Keyboard Maestro for a Mac to save yourself millions of keystrokes and to provide lightning-fast customer service.   Links and Resources: Download Your Free Workbook: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership Bootcamp  Mentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  In this episode, Stephen King, president and CEO of GrowthForce, joins Dr. Sabrina and her co-host, Mike Bruno, for an illuminating conversation around pricing. Should you discount during an economic downturn? Listen in to this discussion to hear compelling reasons why you should NOT discount, and what you should be doing, instead. Top executive at a Fortune 500 company. Bootstrapped CEO. Venture-backed tech startup founder. Non-profit fundraiser. It’s safe to say Stephen King is not your traditional CPA. Stephen is president and CEO of GrowthForce, one of the nation’s largest providers of outsourced bookkeeping and controller services. Regarded as an industry thought leader by AICPA and CPA.com, his ability to visualize the future of accounting has lead GrowthForce to become one of the fastest-growing companies in America. His experience at the forefront of technology development and accounting system design spans nearly three decades. In 1995 he founded Virtual Growth, the nation’s first cloud-based accounting service, and quickly grew it into a market leader. After being acquired by Insperity, Stephen was brought on as president of Insperity’s Financial Management Services division, serving two years before leaving to build GrowthForce. He also spent seven years working at Amnesty International USA—first overseeing 300 percent growth as CFO, then raising over $20M a year as Director of Development. Stephen’s time at Amnesty reinforced his life-long commitment to giving back to the community. As a result, non-profits represent 35 percent of GrowthForce clients. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Business owners are feeling a lot of pressure in this new normal. Pricing is harder if you’re not confident of the value that you’re bringing. Stephen addresses the issues around discounting, then provides the math: If you have a 40 percent gross profit and you give a 10 percent discount, you need 33 percent more sales to generate the same bottom line. If you have a 30 percent margin, you need 50% more sales to generate the same bottom line. If you have a 40 percent gross profit and you ADD 10% to your pricing, you can sell 20 percent less and make the same money.  When Stephen let an objective person price his jobs, his fees started going up. Stephen shares some case studies and classic mistakes from clients that allow him to share their data. The accounting industry was designed for compliance. Financial accounting is designed for external users. For example, it is your CPA’s job to help you pay as little in taxes as you’re legally allowed to, to get you through an audit, and to keep the banks happy. Management accounting is about internal users and about understanding your unit economics, the profitability on each job.  Stephen explains the benefits of automated activity-based costing and cautions against time-leakage. Things to consider to gain confidence in pricing appropriately: Stephen offers accounting system suggestions to set up reports to show you your “income minus your cost of goods sold equals your gross profit”. Your gross profit percentage is the most important number of every financial statement. This will tell you if you’re pricing right. Which clients should you fire? Which clients should you re-price? How do you spend money to make money in sales and marketing? Dr. Sabrina explains the 80/20 principle: 20 percent of your clients and customers are responsible for 80 percent of your revenue. If you focus on increasing revenue from the top 20 percent by 25 percent, you’re at choice and you can get rid of 80 percent of your clients and customers. One mistake is to think that your biggest account is your best client. When you have the appropriate margin in your pricing you are able to run a much more simplified, streamlined business. Whatever you do, don’t discount your services during an economic downturn. Don’t make decisions based on fear. You need to have an attitude of gratitude. Surround yourself with people who have a positive mindset and who are looking for growth. Links and Resources: Download Your Free Workbook: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership BootcampMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  Dr. Sabrina invites a valued member of the Tap the Potential team to join her on the podcast. As a Tap the Potential strategist, specializing in Profit First and Pumpkin Planning, Stacey Seguin supports Tap the Potential’s efforts in identifying ways for clients to save money, MAKE more money and free up their time.  Listen in to this thoughtful conversation! It’s a peek inside the internal discussions of the Tap the Potential Strategists team. Tap the Potential clients have more time for what matters to them and more money in their bank account than they’ve ever had. This conversation offers a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into how our strategists accomplish this with our clients.   Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Being a business owner and entrepreneur is a lifestyle that can easily lead to burnout. Stacey relates her own compelling story of entrepreneurial burnout. The Tap the Potential team has compassion for what business owners are going through because they’ve all lived that life. Fortunately, there can be great things waiting on the other side of that burnout. A powerful, simple question: What has to change in order to make this possible? Getting sleep and regular downtime is imperative to reducing stress. A comparative advantage (vs. competitive advantage) creates opportunities for an increase in profit. Discover why your industry standard may be your own self-imposed glass ceiling. Tap the Potential focuses on ways to better their clients’ businesses. Stacey and Dr. Sabrina field a question on a business owner’s desire to open a second location. How to know when you are maximizing the profit potential in your business. When we decide to sell our business, we need to be able to show that the business can support a C-suite executive (or several!) and pay appropriate compensation. If we can’t, it’s not sellable.   Links and Resources: Download Your Free Workbook: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership BootcampMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  Diane Gilson joins Dr. Sabrina and Mike Bruno on today’s episode to discuss the value of using job costing to manage your gross profit margin, which translates into more money that you keep. Although this conversation centers around job costing in the construction industry, there are valuable nuggets of information for those listening who may be in other industries, such as how to be a more effective business owner. Listen in for an inside look at how to design a business that supports the lifestyle you desire.  If you are a regular listener of the Profit By Design podcast, you’ll know that it’s not about how much money you make, it’s about how much money you keep! Diane Gilson created Info Plus(+) Accounting® In 1994 to help business owners establish job-cost accounting systems so they can access critical day-to-day operations data using QuickBooks as their primary management accounting tool.  Diane’s passion is designing, customizing, and upgrading accounting systems and financial controls for small to mid-sized construction and manufacturing companies.  Her online workshops offer job-cost and management accounting training using QuickBooks and Intuit Enterprise Solutions—as well as in-house products—to teach, trouble-shoot, and coach clients and other accounting professionals throughout the United States.  As a published author, speaker, and professional QuickBooks trainer with over 30 years of accounting experience, she is viewed as a leader in her fields of expertise.  Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Diane addresses the impact on business owners who are not aware of their margins. Diane details five ways that job costing dramatically increases your profitability: Locate costs that you haven’t billed out. Spot and eliminate your low-profit and loser jobs. Change your business niche. Review estimate versus actual reports. Use a 3-step combination method to increase your prices: Decrease your costs of goods sold or production costs by 5%. Increase your prices by 5%. This increases your gross profit margin of 10%. Gradually increase volume. Once business owners start seeing numbers that make sense and are set up in a logical format, it can change their lives. Investing 20-40 hours is all it takes to learn the job costing system. This could mean an extra $100,000 a year. If you’re in an industry where job costing is not part of the conversation, Dr. Sabrina encourages you to be curious about what it might look like in your business, how it would empower you to have that information at your fingertips, and what different decisions would you be able to make with that information. Diane covers the hidden costs of hiring people for your team and how that eats away at the gross profit margin. Dr. Sabrina shares the 80/20 principle, which is where 20 percent of clients are responsible for 80 percent of your revenue. Clients with Tap the Potential’s Better Business, Better Life™ programs learn this principle and how to zero in on the best clients to work with. In this way, you do not need as many team members, and those team members you do have tend to be A-players, who are able to focus on how best to serve your clients. Don’t count on somebody else to learn this job costing process for you. The business owner should be responsible for learning the process and then can later decide if this should be assigned to another team member. Links and Resources: Download Your Free Workbook: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership Bootcamp Sign up for the Better Business, Better Life™ Summit!Mentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  Vision, mission, and values. Holding yourself accountable to the same standards of performance as those around us. Differentiating between your normal, and someone else’s. All this, and more, as Wayne Mullins joins Dr. Sabrina and Mike to discuss “Building a High Performance Culture”. As someone who hates structure, Wayne found it liberating and found that it allowed him the head space to not worry so much once he learned to become more rigid and structured in his personal life. There’s a ton of wisdom to be heard in this podcast, you don’t want to miss any of it! You will probably want to listen to it a few times! Wayne Mullins is a passionate entrepreneur committed to creating remarkable experiences, and building a team at Ugly Mug Marketing that produces extraordinary results for their clients. He has been called “the guru’s guru,” as he regularly called upon for advice from Inc. 500 CEO’s, New York Times Best Selling Authors, to Silicon Valley startups.  However, his passion is helping entrepreneurs challenge their assumptions, create value from places they’ve never looked, and having more freedom than they previously believed possible.  He has worked hands-on with clients in over 100 different industries, and from every corner of the globe.   Ugly Mug Marketing, which Wayne founded 10 years ago, has won the praises of some of the leading influencers in the business world, such as, Neil Patel (Founder of QuickSprout & Kissmetrics), Chris Voss (New York Times Best Selling Author of Never Split the Difference), and Ari Weinzweig (Co-Founder of Zingerman’s). Wayne’s work directly influences more than one hundred thousand entrepreneurs annually through his blog, books, and training programs. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Wayne explains the concept of “context switching”, a concept from Todd Herman, who teaches a program called The 90 Day Year. Concept switching is when you’re working on a project to be completed within a specified block of time, but something else comes up that needs to be addressed. So you switch over to that, and when that fire is put out, you jump back over to the project. After a period of time, you realize that you haven’t accomplished anything because you’ve spent so much time jumping back and forth. In the middle of the switch, there’s another concept called “Attention Residue”, as explained by author, Cal Newport in Deep Work. Attention residue is the lag between jumping from working on the first project to jumping into working on the urgent situation. Attention residue takes time, energy, and effort between working on those two contexts, and is detrimental to productivity. Wayne is an avid reader and researcher, and often borrows ideas that he finds particularly compelling, and gives as much credit to the author or originator as possible. Vision, mission, and values: if you don’t prioritize and make time, energy, and effort for these, then it directly impacts and influences the culture that you create. Vision: where you’re going, and where you want to end up at in some point in the future. Looking 3 years into the future helps you set the destination of where you want to get to. Mission: the plan of action. What are we going to do to bring that vision to life? That’s what drives and motivates us. Values: core principles, the things that we believe in and that will stand as guideposts along our path, to ensure that in the pursuit of our vision, we aren’t losing our way. We’re staying true to the course that we have set out. Feeling like you have to go back to the basics, back to square one, is one of the biggest frustrations of the entrepreneur. Very early on, Wayne had the pleasure of coming into contact with Ari Weinzweig, Entrepreneur and Co-founder of Zingerman’s Deli. In a personal conversation, Ari divulged that he considered himself the “CRO” of his company. When asked what that meant, he explained it as “Chief Reminding Officer”, as he considered it his responsibility to constantly remind his leadership and his team about where they were going, why they were going there, and why it was important. Dr. Sabrina explains that not only do they have immutable laws at Tap The Potential, they also have General Operating Principles, as inspired by Josh Fonger, of Work the System. Wayne discusses the Enneagram of Personality profile and the nine different personality traits, as discussed on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. The nine different personality traits are nine NORMALS. Wayne was struck by how what’s normal for him is not necessarily normal for someone else on his team. The difference between intentions and actions, as Wayne heard on another episode of Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast, is that we judge ourselves based on our intentions. We judge others around us based on their actions. Where we might give ourselves a pass because we intended to do something but didn’t, we judge others based on they didn’t get it done today, and why didn’t they get it done today. Wayne shares an unsettling story about Dan Kennedy, and the impact it had on him to do what he says he’s going to do, and when he says he’s going to do it. The actions that we take every day, or the actions we don’t take every day, is what builds our lives, our businesses, and our careers. Wayne explains his takeaway from Marshall Goldsmith’s book, Triggers. Measuring performance and bringing balance to opposing forces. “The Field of Play” concept by Charles Coonradt, in The Game of Work. Terminal out of bounds - stealing, lying, cheating, etc Operational out of bounds - things that are more infractions. You’re out of bounds but you’re going to get a warning, and need to step back into bounds Wayne mentions his own “Ugly Mug Expectation Guide”, that applicants review during the hiring process. End zone - where you want the employees to get to RRR (Results to Resources Ratio) - Goal Setting / Performance Measurement System John Doerr outlines another form of Goal Setting / Performance Measurement System, called OKR (Objectives and Key Results), in Measure What Matters. John happens to be one of the first investors of Google! Profit goal Fulfillment or service goal Future work goal Creates a peer-to-peer accountability Wayne outlines his various meetings structures. When you set goals for a year’s period, it’s so far in the future that we tend to delay and put off until it’s too late to make progress toward those goals to actually reach it by the end of that year. In The Twelve Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months, by Brian P. Moran, Brian says that you should treat every 12-week period as if it were its very own year. Your question then becomes, what can you accomplish within the next 12 weeks? Here’s why you want to encourage healthy conflict! Considering the costs of hiring A-players - it’s not an expense, it’s an investment.  Links and Resources: Download Your Free Workbook: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership BootcampMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  Dr. Sabrina sits down with her guest, Christine Rico, to shed some light on things that we may not be thinking about in our business that have a pretty significant impact on whether or not we’re building a profitable, sustainable business. Christine Rico is a good friend and colleague of Dr. Sabrina. She is the owner of CFO On Speed Dial and a fellow Profit First Professional. Christine is a financial consultant, business growth expert, and social entrepreneur who got her start in financial management while keeping the books for Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx, NY more than 20 years ago. The Cooperative was then a start-up and is now the country’s largest worker-owned business. At CFO On Speed Dial, Christine and her team help business owners set and reach financial goals and build companies that are making healthy, sustainable food products, installing renewable energy systems, and growing high-impact consulting businesses. Christine works with companies to improve profitability, craft expansion plans grounded in the company’s overall goals and vision, and get the cash that businesses need to grow. She is on a mission to close the gender-revenue gap by helping women-owned companies accelerate growth. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: The “Gender Revenue Gap”: While there is growth in the number of companies owned by women, the percentage of revenue that these women-owned companies bring in is appalling. Growing your company in incremental steps for the short term may be reality, but you have to know where you’re going. If you don’t have a big dream that you’re aiming for, it’s really hard to get outside of the day-to-day and what you think you can accomplish next. What is your big dream? What impact would it have if your business is bigger? Christine shares her vision and the impact she hopes for, with CFO on Speed Dial. Christine recommends reading Profit First by Mike Michalowicz for structure in how you think about cash in your business and gives an overview of her five fundamentals needed in order to move to the next level in business. Dr. Sabrina shares her own personal story about her introduction to the Profit First philosophy. The distinction between social impact and charitable giving and some ways we might be thinking about these in our business. Ideas on how to measure impact. Christine describes the role of a CFO. Checklist of infrastructure needed to scale a business. Links and Resources: American Express Annual Report on the State of Women-Owned Business How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership Bootcamp: www.TapThePotential.com/Leadership NEW! Facebook Group: Entrepreneurs Take Your Life Back! Upon joining, you’ll get access to exclusive, free, mini-trainings from Dr. Sabrina, including the Better Business, Better Life™ jumpstart, as well as the “How to Hire the Best” jumpstart! No charge to join! Let’s get to know each other! BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON: How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best Toolkit COURSE: How to Hire the Best Taking care of yourself is important now more than ever. Are you ready to take your life back from your business? The FIRST STEP is taking our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment NEXT, meet with our Success Team Lead to debrief your results. THEN, join our Better Business, Better Life™ program. Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! Profit by Design, a Tap the Potential production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Books Frequently Mentioned: The 4 Week Vacation by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD - COMING OCTOBER 2021! How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best: The Rural Business Owner's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How To Hire The Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change That Will Level Up Your Business by Mike MichalowiczMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  Freedom in your business: is this important to you? It’s so important to David Jenyns that he systemized himself out of his business! Join us as he shares his compelling story of why it’s so important to him, his passion for sharing it with others, and the surprising benefit of systemizing your own business. David’s entrepreneurial journey begins back in his early 20’s when he sold Australia’s most-loved sporting ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Since then, his business experience spans from franchising retail clothing stores to founding one of Australia’s most trusted digital agencies, melbourneSEOservices.com. In 2016, he successfully systemized himself out of the business, hired a CEO, and stepped back from the daily operations. Through this process, he became a systems devotee – founding systemHUB & SYSTEMology. Today, his mission is to free all business owners worldwide from the daily operations of running their business. Recognized as a high-achieving entrepreneur, you will find many of David’s keynote presentations on YouTube including TEDx, WordCamp and Problogger. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: David shares how, when he found out his wife was pregnant, he was working 70 hours a week, which made him consider what kind of dad he wanted to be for his kids. He intuitively knew that systemizing the process was going to be his way out. He had a background in stock market trading and this had initially taught him about systems and plans. Getting stuck because he built the business around himself, locking him deeper and deeper in the business. Dr. Sabrina recognizes a key limiting belief in the story that David is relating: “This business needs me. My business is different. David gives us the worries that he had as he was considering how to systemize his business, and how he finally realized he didn’t have to hold that bag. Dr. Sabrina’s test that she relies on: “It’s just the way it is.” If she starts thinking this, it is her red flag to stop and say, “Oh, no, sister, it doesn’t have to be this. There could be another possibility.” David describes the process of getting his team involved of systemizing, in the midst of their busy-ness. He discovered that it’s easier to have two people working on the systemization: one who has the knowledge, and one who does the documentation. If you can figure out what the problem is, then you can consult an expert who has that part of the process already figured out. Utilize GoPros and video cameras, talk it out, let somebody capture it, then the process can be put into place using these tools. Over-complicating things in small business is the biggest gap that David has recognized. A minimum, viable system is the place to start, and then test it out, and see what needs to be added. Other business opportunities open up for you once you systemize your business. Valuing opportunities for the experience over the money. Freeing people from the operations is David’s dream. The deeper story behind David’s “why”. “The Sheet” - a weekly allowance scorecard from childhood that taught David some important life lessons. Growing as a person, when your business begins to grow. Bad habits that need to be broken. David describes the benefits of systemHUB. Complexity is the enemy of systems and systemizations. Simplify as much as possible. Features actually take away from the outcome. Figure out and use the key systems that need to be in place for your business to function. Nail “simple” first! Want to learn more? Found out How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour!   Links and Resources: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour NEW! Facebook Group: Entrepreneurs Take Your Life Back! Upon joining, you’ll get access to exclusive, free, mini-trainings from Dr. Sabrina, including the Better Business, Better Life™ jumpstart, as well as the “How to Hire the Best” jumpstart! No charge to join! Let’s get to know each other! BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON: How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best Toolkit COURSE: How to Hire the Best Taking care of yourself is important now more than ever. Are you ready to take your life back from your business? The FIRST STEP is taking our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment NEXT, meet with our Success Team Lead to debrief your results. THEN, join our Better Business, Better Life™ program. Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! Profit by Design, a Tap the Potential production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Books Frequently Mentioned: The 4 Week Vacation by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD - COMING OCTOBER 2021! How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best: The Rural Business Owner's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How To Hire The Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change That Will Level Up Your Business by Mike Michalowicz Other Books Mentioned in This Episode: Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t by Verne Harnish Authority Content: The Simple System for Building Your Brand, Sales, and Credibility by David Jenyns Beyond the E-Myth: The Evolution of an Enterprise: From a Company of One to a Company of 1,000! by Michael E. GerberMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we’re taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy, and we’ll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  There’s a secret hiding in plain sight in The Pumpkin Plan and Dr. Sabrina welcomes back popular guest, Donna Leyens, to reveal the impact this secret has on creating explosive, organic growth for those business owners utilizing it. These business owners are head and shoulders above their industry peers as a result of it. Dr. Sabrina shares her own experience implementing this secret. Donna and Dr. Sabrina discuss what they have learned from guiding clients through this process...what works and what doesn’t work, the common pitfalls and missteps … and now you get to benefit from their insights.  Donna Leyens began her career as a Wall Street executive, and earned an MBA in Finance from NYU-Stern School of Business. But her dream was to become a business owner and in 2002 she launched her first successful business with a partner. Seven years later, she became a Certified Professional Coach, and melded her business and coaching skills to follow her true passion - helping entrepreneurs create their dream business and their dream life.  Donna is currently the President and co-founder of Provendus Group. She is on a mission to save small businesses from extinction, by providing business tools, strategy, training and support to business professionals who want to make a big impact by becoming small business growth strategists. This mighty team of strategists uses The Pumpkin Plan Action Guide, a business growth program she developed based on the methods in the book The Pumpkin Plan, written by her Co-founder Mike Michalowicz. Pumpkin Plan Strategists help small businesses to not just stay afloat, but to scale and grow in both profitability and size, while allowing the owner to have time for a life as well. At the end of the day Donna believes entrepreneurs make or break the economy. Her goal is to make sure they grow, thrive, and have the opportunity to create their own destiny. Show Highlights: There’s a secret in The Pumpkin Plan, on Page 136, but so many people miss it! It’s the “gold” of Pumpkin Planning, and it makes such a huge impact. The things a business owner resists the most in The Pumpkin Plan may actually be the most impactful. Having support through this process is important for encouragement and to help interpret the information that you’re getting. The Wishlist interviews is the secret! Interviewing your top clients is the gold! Interacting with your clients on a regular basis is NOT the same. You cannot assume that you know what your clients are thinking. Dr. Sabrina shares how she also put off doing the Wishlist interviews. When she did, one client suggested she start doing the retreats. She discounted the idea at first, then decided to take a closer listen to what her other top clients were saying. She started paying attention to the themes, and that was the inspiration for starting the Breakthroughs on the Bayou Retreat. Dr. Sabrina discloses a scary moment concerning one of the Wishlist questions she asked her clients. They were looking for direction on how to hire great people and other hiring challenges, but she had no solution for them at the time. This was her path to writing How to Hire the Best, and it completely changed the trajectory of her business. Two things that Dr. Sabrina noticed that happened with the Wishlist interviews: 1) “I don’t know how I’ll ever fulfill these dreams, wishes, and needs that the clients have.” 2) “I knew that! I do that all the time, it’s no big deal.” This is actually some of the most powerful content in the Wishlist interviews because what those clients are talking about are your strengths, and your team’s strengths, that you are doing day in and day out. They’re a byproduct of what you do and how you do life, that your top clients are appreciating. Donna lays out the Wishlist interview process: In the Pumpkin Plan process, before doing the Wishlist interviews, we do our Top Client Assessment. List all the clients, and go through a series of questions about those clients, and figure out who the very best 20% are. The top clients are the ones you want to interview because the information you get from your worst clients is not helpful to you. What your clients are telling you is what they notice about you; what is important to them. When you see a pattern, those are the things that are important to your top clients. It’s not what we think, it’s what our top clients think that matters. You can do marketplace analysis, and you can understand what the competition is, but no one is going to have that deep understanding of your business and your unique area of differentiation like you will when you’ve done these Wishlist interviews. Seeing the patterns of what your top clients are saying and connecting the pieces is the “gold”. The Wishlist interview questions are not your typical questions. They are interwoven with psychology that helps us get real answers and not just answers that are socially acceptable, or that they’re saying to be nice to us. Dr. Sabrina tells us her favorite question to ask, and why. Donna provides insight into listening between the lines at client feedback. Like attracts like. If we can take the language of our top clients telling us what they appreciate most about us and we incorporate that into our branding, marketing, messaging, now we are speaking the language of the people we want to attract. Dr. Sabrina gives examples of words and phrases that come out during Wishlist interviews, and that get used over and over on the Profit by Design podcast. Donna shares her favorite question to ask, and why. How the Leadership Bootcamp program evolved. The leader is actually the first follower, who becomes the leader and shows the other team members how to fall in line. The main reason why business owners don’t want to do the Wishlist interviews is because it involves talking to people, and they don’t want it to feel like an imposition. But, it’s all in the phrasing. Donna has tips! There’s another path to business growth besides growing your client base, and that’s serving your best clients better.  The Pumpkin Plan is a FUN book to read. Your clients are the reason you’re in business in the first place! Build your best clients and find out what you can do to make them happy, and the clients who are making your life miserable can be let go. Links and Resources: FREE Download! Dr. Sabrina’s 5 Favorite Wishlist Interview Questions + How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Dr. Sabrina’s Favorite TED Talk on Leadership: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy  Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership Bootcamp: www.TapThePotential.com/Leadership Virtual Partner Advantage Pumpkin Planned their Business and hosted Dr. Sabrina and the Breakthroughs on the Bayou Retreat Participants for a tour of their company. Catch the behind the scenes in this video: https://www.tapthepotential.com/ep-3-of-6-what-really-happened-at-2019-breakthroughs-on-the-bayou-4-week-vacation-retreat/ NEW! Facebook Group: Entrepreneurs Take Your Life Back! Upon joining, you’ll get access to exclusive, free, mini-trainings from Dr. Sabrina, including the Better Business, Better Life™ jumpstart, as well as the “How to Hire the Best” jumpstart! No charge to join! Let’s get to know each other! BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON: How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best Toolkit COURSE: How to Hire the Best Taking care of yourself is important now more than ever. Are you ready to take your life back from your business? The FIRST STEP is taking our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment NEXT, meet with our Success Team Lead to debrief your results. THEN, join our Better Business, Better Life™ program. Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! Profit by Design, a Tap the Potential production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Books Frequently Mentioned: The 4 Week Vacation by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD - COMING OCTOBER 2021! How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best: The Rural Business Owner's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How To Hire The Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change That Will Level Up Your Business by Mike MichalowiczMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.

Andrew Tvardzik is today’s guest, and he and his family have been a part of the Better Business, Better Life™ program for several years now. Upon joining the program, they were committed to not only building a business and making sales but to also creating a great place to work. In Episode 95, Andrew shared with us about the transformation his company was experiencing, as well as the challenges that it was facing head-on. Today, he brings us up-to-date on his powerful entrepreneurial journey that, with the guidance of the Better Business, Better Life™ program, has given him an amazing life and business that he could have never before imagined. Andrew Tvardzik was first introduced to running a business at 10 years of age. He started mowing lawns and built an impressive clientele for a 10-year-old. At 14, he got a job working for a restaurant facilities maintenance company. Andrew worked there for 11 years doing everything from sweeping the warehouse to running crews as a lead man to operations managers. In 2015, he went into business with his father doing remodeling and real estate investing. In 2018, they added Andrew’s brother, Samuel, to the team and started Cedar Ridge Log Homes. Their goal is to become the premier cedar log home builders in Deep Creek, Maryland. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: A great company supports life for everyone in the company. Andrew shares the difference between his life from three years ago, and what it is like today. Following your immutable laws keep you safe, and let you know which opportunities you should pursue. Andrew reflects on how his company differentiates itself on both a local and national level. The value in asking your client what kind of experience they would like to have. Andrew addresses the common feeling that contractors often have that being profitable is unfair to their clients. Our customers need us to be profitable so they can depend on us to be there. Would you like to get in on the Better Business, Better Life™ jumpstart? Make an appointment with Darren, our Success Team Lead. We would love to support more business owners in doing what Andrew is doing!  Connect with Andrew! Andrew’s Instagram Andrew’s Facebook Links and Resources: Survival Trap 95: The Right Clients Bring Peace and Personal Growth with Andrew Tvardzik How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour NEW! Facebook Group: Entrepreneurs Take Your Life Back! Upon joining, you’ll get access to exclusive, free, mini-trainings from Dr. Sabrina, including the Better Business, Better Life™ jumpstart, as well as the “How to Hire the Best” jumpstart! No charge to join! Let’s get to know each other! BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON: How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best Toolkit COURSE: How to Hire the Best Taking care of yourself is important now more than ever. Are you ready to take your life back from your business? The FIRST STEP is taking our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment NEXT, meet with our Success Team Lead to debrief your results. THEN, join our Better Business, Better Life™ program. Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! Profit by Design, a Tap the Potential production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Books Frequently Mentioned: The 4 Week Vacation by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD - COMING OCTOBER 2021! How to Hire the Best: The Entrepreneur's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top-Performing Team Members by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How to Hire the Best: The Rural Business Owner's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD How To Hire The Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees by Dr. Sabrina Starling PhD Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change That Will Level Up Your Business by Mike MichalowiczMentioned in this episode:TapthePotential.com/assessmentWould you like to have your own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities, the things that you know with confidence? If I focus on this area, it's going to improve the ease of doing business and the profitability of our business. Not only that, it will improve your quality of life. You can take our Better Business, Better Life assessment at TapthePotential.com/assessment, and you will have the opportunity to receive your very own personalized list of $ 10,000-an-hour activities. Plus, we will also send you a signed copy of my book The 4 Week Vacation™. Head on over to tapthepotential.com/assessment.