Join us for this special preview of Dr. Sabrina's new book, How to Hire the Best: The Contractor's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees Preorder the book at www.TapThePotential.com/book Join the Ambassador's Facebook Group at www.TapThePotential.com/Ambassador  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.

Join us for this special preview of Dr. Sabrina's new book, How to Hire the Best: The Contractor's Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees Preorder the book at www.TapThePotential.com/book Join the Ambassador's Facebook Group at www.TapThePotential.com/Ambassador  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.

The Contractor’s Edition of How To Hire The Best is just a week away from launch and is now available for pre-sale on Amazon! Dr. Sabrina and Mike sit down with Chad and Diane Hatfield, owners of Hatfield Builders and Remodelers in Plano, TX to discuss insights they’ve had as they implemented the How To Hire The Best System™, things that they’ve learned, and things they do differently now to create a great place to work.  Chad, Diane, and Mike are featured prominently in Dr. Sabrina’s new book, so join in as they share their stories, and don’t miss the discussion on The Choice Map™, a powerful mindset tool that Dr. Sabrina shares with clients at Tap the Potential.   Show Highlights: Control is just fear. We can only control ourselves, we can’t control how other people receive things. Diane observed that over the last 15 years of business, Chad has filled every role possible. As other people stepped into those positions, he found it very stressful that they weren’t doing as good a job as he was, and he felt as if he had to do it all by himself. Mike recalls how, before he started working with Dr. Sabrina, he was very frustrated and angry because he felt he always had to fix things. His employees felt this, and it drifted over into his family life, as well. Once he was able to work on changing his mindset, he was able to rebuild himself foundationally. It was at this point that he observed that the way he was acting was directly impacting everything around him. When we find ourselves constantly blaming our employees, we have to look at ourselves first and look at how we can become the leader we need to be to have this team that we want to have. Chad shares the encouraging and painful words that a peer from shared with him: “Build others up while learning humility and reach your true potential.” These words have a profound impact on his life. If you’re blaming others, then you’re a victim, and you’re not responsible for it. It’s not your fault, other people are doing it. Building others up and learning humility is the antithesis of that. It’s accepting responsibility for everything that occurs around you, and everything you control yourself. It takes a lot of courage to face your inner demons. When something goes wrong, ask yourself what was your responsibility? What was your role in it? Think about it from the other side. Determine how to communicate better and how best to solve the problem. Chad notes how similar he and Mike were, and witnessing the profound shift that Mike made. This inspired him to make his own changes.  The Choice Map™ is a tool that has immediate impact. Dr. Sabrina explains how to avoid The Judger Pit.  The questions we ask determine the solutions we find. If you focus on blame, everyone is going to go down that path and nobody wins. Dr. Sabrina explains that respect is often cited by A-players as an attribute that makes a company a great place to work. Nobody wants to be yelled at or belittled on job sites or in front of team members, as this is very humiliating. If you have a bad reputation as a bad boss on the street, you’re not going to be able to attract A-players. Mindset is at the heart of a respectful culture. Surround yourself with people who remind you of your better self.   Links and Resources:   Get Your Pre-Sale Copy Of How to Hire the Best Here!! https://www.tapthepotential.com/book   SPECIAL INVITATION FROM DR. SABRINA - JOIN THE AMBASSADOR GROUP! If you would like to help entrepreneurs and contractors with their ability to hire the best, Dr. Sabrina invites you to consider being an ambassador for the book launch. She has created a Facebook group, “How to Hire the Best Book Launch Ambassador”. She will equip you with tools to get out and spread the word about the book being available, and give you tools to share with your network around hiring to help entrepreneurs that you know, and also do some fun stuff within the group for the ambassadors.  CHECK IT OUT! https://www.tapthepotential.com/ambassadors   Is your business on its way to being a great place to work? How close Are YOU to taking your own 4 Week Vacation™? Take our Assessment and find out!   https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment   Join us at the Breakthroughs on the Bayou 4 Week Vacation™ Legacy Retreat https://www.tapthepotential.com/retreat   https://www.tapthepotential.com   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com   Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Apply for our Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program: https://www.profitgift.com   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Books Mentioned: How To Hire The Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees, by Sabrina Starling, PhD   Authors Mentioned: Larry Janesky Gay HendricksMentioned 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.

Dr. Sabrina is in the hot seat in today’s episode! Her co-host, Mike Bruno, interviews her about her BIG NEWS, and that’s the upcoming release of her new book, How to Hire the Best Contractors, which will be published October 24, 2019. As you will hear Dr. Sabrina explain, she had written the first edition of How to Hire the Best for rural business owners, but as soon as that was published, she started getting calls from entrepreneurs not in rural areas, but from large metropolitan areas all around the country. The more she talked with these entrepreneurs, who were asking for her help, the more she began to see that hiring and attracting top-performing employees in small business wasn’t just a problem for her and her clients, who were mostly rural. It was a problem for small business owners all over the country. Dr. Sabrina began to see a pattern among the callers who were seeking her help and discovered that most of them belonged in the same industry: construction. Once she started researching more about this, she found that out of all industries out there, construction has the greatest labor shortage.   Stay tuned to find out more about her personal “why” for writing this book, and what it has to offer you! Show Highlights: Mike shares his own personal story about the struggle to find the right people. Dr. Sabrina shares the impact on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial spirit when you don’t have a good system in place for recruiting and hiring. Working 80-90 hours a week with no time off is not sustainable. You might be able to do it for a few years, but that’s taking a huge toll on your health. As a psychologist, Dr. Sabrina wants to help business owners have a better quality of life and work-life balance. It’s not that we don’t WANT a better work-life balance, we just don’t often have the SKILLS and the SYSTEMS for attracting A-player team members to our businesses. When she started writing her first book, she knew she wanted to address these issues. Dr. Sabrina is passionate about getting this book into the hands of the construction industry’s business owners. When we have the team members and systems in place, it opens up more freedom in our lives to do what we want to do, and pursue the opportunities we want to pursue. The price of life when you don’t have the appropriate systems and people in place. How the book is structured: Dr. Sabrina took what she learned from the first edition of How to Hire the Best, and as she began to teach the material, she observed what worked all of the time and what worked some of the time. In this new edition, she focused on the things that worked 90% of the time, and that were the most doable, and that get the best results. She “Pumpkin Planned” the content of the book, and took out the 20% of the first edition that got the greatest impact and put that into this current edition. Then she made it even more specific by focusing on contractors. Early feedback on her book was that despite it having “Contractors” in the title, it was actually a valuable book for any small business owner or entrepreneur. Dr. Sabrina thinks this is because she has front-loaded the book with her “Tap the Potential Solution™ for creating highly profitable, great places to work”.  If you’re struggling with hiring right now, something to consider: everything you think you should be doing is most likely setting you up to mis-hire. Using traditional hiring practices, you will mis-hire 75% of the time.  The hiring process is very frustrating for entrepreneurs who think they’re doing the right things to hire people, only to see failure over and over, because they tend to internalize that and think there’s something wrong with themselves.  Forgive yourself for all your mis-hires, and recognize it’s not your fault. In the next podcast episodes, Dr. Sabrina is going to pull portions of the book and do some teaching around the Tap the Potential method for Creating a Highly Profitable Great Place to Work, which will help you position your business, in a very tight labor market, no matter the industry, to be an employer of choice, and to operate in a lean way that allows you to have that high profit built in to your business. She will also be teaching skills around hiring. After the book launch, Dr. Sabrina will be doing a completely updated LIVE on-line course on How to Hire the Best.    SPECIAL INVITATION FROM DR. SABRINA If you would like to help entrepreneurs and contractors with their ability to hire the best, Dr. Sabrina invites you to be an ambassador for the book launch. She has created a Facebook group, How to Hire the Best Book Launch Ambassadors. Dr. Sabrina and the Tap the Potential team will equip you with tools to get out and spread the word about the book being available and give you tools to share with your network around hiring to help entrepreneurs that you know.  Ambassadors will have access to special training from Dr. Sabrina and get to participate in some fun contests the team is cooking up.  All ambassadors will receive a signed copy of How to Hire the Best from Dr. Sabrina. CHECK IT OUT! https://www.tapthepotential.com/ambassador   Links and Resources: https://www.tapthepotential.com For Resources & Tools from Us - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Are you building a sustainable highly profitable, great place to work? How Close Are YOU to Taking Your 4 Week Vacation? Find out HERE! https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessmentMentioned 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.

Entrepreneurship is the most rigorous personal development program we can undertake and today’s guest, Jake Lipman is embracing this. Jake shares how he is up-leveling his life and business through his coaching with Dr. Sabrina and the Tap the Potential team. Jake takes part in Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program. He has attended the Breakthroughs on the Bayou Retreat for two years in a row and is coming back in 2020. Jake shares what his business and life were like prior to working with us, and how he has grown and evolved. Jake is not done. He realizes there is more and he is ready! What I really appreciate about Jake is his ability to ask powerful questions, listen, and connect. He is very people-oriented, and he has built a tremendous culture in his business using his People strength, and that really shines through! Tune in and get ready for some powerful takeaways. Jakob Lipman has practiced immigration law for over twenty years. His practice focuses on employment-based immigration, counseling employers in complex immigration practice and policy concerns. Jake has lectured on immigration-related subjects in a variety of settings and has authored articles on corporate immigration compliance. Jake is recognized by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization as a Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law. Jake has been married for 26 years and has 7 children and 2 granddaughters. He enjoys hiking, golfing, preparing and eating amazing food and generally goofing around. He is fluent in Spanish.       Show Highlights:   Jake describes being in growth mode at his business, but being stuck there without knowing how to move to the next level. Dr. Sabrina recalls a time when she struggled to wrap her head around the concept of setting up a business so that it wasn’t her doing all the work. Jake shares how it initially felt hard to break out of the mold when clients expect him to be the one delivering. With Dr. Sabrina’s coaching, through small, incremental steps, the groundwork was laid, so that he was able to see the path looks like to get there. Learning to accept challenges and accountability, and managing the blind spots. Jake relates the connection and support in the group and how enlightening it is to see how their challenges are similar to his, even though they come from different backgrounds and industries. Being allowed vulnerability in the midst of the Tap the Potential’s coaching program has been a new experience for Jake. Taking on personal development work to become a better, more effective leader. Learning how to ask better questions, rather than going down the dark path of fear and worry, was a turning point for Jake. How the communication tools and leadership tools at Tap the Potential can help you have better relationships, spilling over in a positive way from your business life into your personal life with your spouse and children. Asking a thoughtful question and listening to the answer is one of the best gifts you can give a person. Jake shares how he is creating the culture within his business, not just among his team but among his clients, as well. (Hint: trust goes a long way!) What to look for in an A-player. The Peoplemap Assessment™ is part of Tap the Potentia’s offerings. Jake is using Peoplemap to find areas of strength, and recognize that everyone has challenges. Questions to consider when people leave: what’s going on that makes someone want to leave? What can we do to change the culture to where they don’t want to leave?  Breakthroughs on the Bayou Retreat - Jake shares his two retreat experiences and what it means for him to be a gift from his gifts.   Purposefully “un-plugging”. What the vision board can represent, and how powerful it can be. If you’re the type to ask, “What’s next?”, you might be a good fit for the retreat!   Links and Resources: Would you be a good fit to join Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program to transform your business into a highly profitable, great place to work and create more space in your life for what is meaningful? Take our Assessment at www.TapThePotential.com/Assessment Apply for Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program: https://www.profitgift.com There are just 5 spots remaining for the 2020 Breakthroughs on the Bayou 4 Week Vacation™ Legacy Retreat. Apply here: www.TapThePotential.com/Retreat www.TapThePotential.com 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/ Connect with Jake! www.visawolf.com Books Mentioned: Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 12 Powerful Tools for Leadership, Coaching, and Life, by Marilee Adams, Ph.D.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.

Thinking BIG! That’s what my guest, Geraldine Carter, and I will be talking about on today’s show. We’re having a conversation about where we play small, how to think bigger, and the importance of mindset. Geraldine shares with us her favorite tips for having a more positive growth-oriented mindset, and I share some of mine, as well. Come join us!   Geraldine Carter specializes in coaching CPAs to help them grow their accounting practice. Her podcast, She Thinks Big, supports business owners to think bigger about what is possible while creating new thought patterns that lead to higher levels of profit. Geraldine co-founded a company in 2008 that has gone on to generate millions for sustainability, completed an Ironman in 12 hours, and is an ICF Certified Coach with more than 800 hours of mindfulness training. In her spare time, she rides her mountain bike in her hometown of Missoula, Montana, or runs after her 2 tiny kiddos.   Show Highlights:   Geraldine’s favorite tool to share with clients that really helps them grasp the ideas of mindset being at choice is borrowed from Mel Robbins: the “54321” with breath behind it. When you’re feeling annoyed, agitated, upset, stuck, you take 5 breaths, and you count back from 5. Dr. Sabrina’s favorite tool is The Choice Map™ by Dr. Marilee Adams. It’s a visual, and we get to choose whether we want to go down the Learner Path or the Judger Path. If at any time we find ourselves going to the Judger Pit, which is where the Judger Path takes us, we can change our questions to get ourselves on the Learner Path. How mindset plays in to designing your business so that you can reclaim your life. Geraldine explains how to move past an identity crisis in order to fulfill the role that we would like to be creating. Dr. Sabrina discusses where fear comes from, and how the mindsets that are grounded in fear no longer serve us. Same thinking = same results. Where money leaks out of our business because of our mindset: Accounts receivable over 90 days & various examples How to have the awkward conversations Tips for course-correcting boundary issues: self awareness observing the thoughts that go through your head being curious with kindness mindfulness that it’s happening  asking yourself what can you do differently the next time it happens Observing the impact (to yourself and others) of not keeping boundaries can often be a motivator to do things differently next time. How to meld bookkeeping, which, by nature, is historical, and coaching, which is looking forward. Focusing on wins and successes: do more of what works! Learning to systemize what works is where we really start to grow.     Links and Resources:   Apply for Tap the Potential’s Exclusive Small Group Coaching Program: https://www.profitgift.com   https://www.tapthepotential.com   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/     The Choice Map™: https://inquiryinstitute.com/CM.pdf Connect with Geraldine!   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shethinksbig/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geraldine-carter/ Instagram: 12geraldine406   Opt-in Gift from Geraldine!  FREE eBook “Where to Find $50K Hiding in Plain Sight in Your Business” https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/profitbydesign/   Books Mentioned:   The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage, by Mel Robbins   Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 12 Powerful Tools for Leadership, Coaching, and Life, by Marilee Adams, Ph.D.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.

Freedom in your business: is this important to you? It’s so important to today’s guest, David Jenyns, that he systemized himself out of his business and will be hosting the upcoming Business Systems Summit! Join us as David shares his compelling story of why it’s so important to him to use systems to create freedom in business, his passion for sharing it with others, and a surprising benefit of systemizing your own business. The opportunity that popped up in David’s life would never have happened if he’d been hunkered down working IN his business. The 4 Week Vacation™ isn’t just about sitting on a beach and David’s experience speaks to the 4 Week Vacation being “just the beginning” of the next chapter in life.  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, David 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. FREE pass to attend the Business Systems Summit" at www.TapThePotential.com/Systems Show Highlights:   David shares how, when he found out his wife was pregnant, he was working 70 hours 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 of many entrepreneurs 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. Serendipity can happen when we free ourselves from our businesses. 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 score card 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 systemization. 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! Dr. Sabrina and David talk about the upcoming Business Systems Summit!   Links and Resources: https://www.tapthepotential.com For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Ready to put the systems in place for your business to be a highly profitable, Great Place to Work that can run without you? Apply for Tap the Potential’s Small Group Coaching Program: https://www.profitgift.com   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Business Systems Summit September 24th - 26th, 2019 FREE to attend!  Listen Live & Take Notes! Quality, Up-to-Date Content! Premium Pass Option: Lifetime Recordings & Documentation! For More Information: https://www.TapThePotential.com/Systems   Books Mentioned:  How to Hire the Best by Sabrina Starling, PhD, PCC, BCC The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber 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. Gerber Profit First by Mike Michalowicz The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz  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.

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.    PROFIT DESIGNERS: When the podcast ends, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ and COMMENT on this episode! Give a shout out to Donna, and let her know something you learned from this episode. This will get you entered into the contest, and if Donna’s episode gets more downloads than Mike’s (Episode 50), then Dr. Sabrina will do a drawing from these comments and 10 people will win either a Profit by Design T-Shirt or a Pumpkin Plan notebook.    There’s also been word that Dr. Sabrina has a bigger prize in store for the contest. She will reveal that within the Profit by Design Podcast Facebook group so be sure you are entered in the contest. Share the episode with all your friends so they can listen, too! The more downloads this episode gets, the more prizes Dr. Sabrina is giving away.    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 your top clients think. 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’s tell 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 gets 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:   https://www.tapthepotential.com   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com   Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Want our help Pumpkin Planning your business?  Apply for our Tap the Potential’s Coaching Program: https://www.profitgift.com   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Special Course: Starts September 5, 2019 - Only 15 Spots Left!! Sir Steven Wilkinson - Entrepreneur to Investor: How to Calculate Your Stock Price 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT 50% Savings - Use Code: TAP2019 https://www.tapthepotential.com/investor     CONTEST INFO! When this podcast ends (Episode 53), go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ and COMMENT on this episode! Give a shout out to Donna, and let her know something you learned from this episode. This will get you entered into the comments, and if Donna’s episode gets more downloads than Mike’s (Episode 50),  then we will do a drawing from these comments and 10 people will win!!! We have 5 Pumpkin Plan Notebooks, and 5 Profit by Design Podcast T-shirts to give away! Share the episode with all your friends so they can listen, too!      Did You Miss Episode 6 with Donna Leyens, “3 Things You Must Know to Grow Profitably”? Listen to it here! https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcast/06-3-things-you-must-know-to-grow-profitably-with-donna-leyens/     Dr. Sabrina’s Favorite TED Talk on Leadership: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy  https://youtu.be/V74AxCqOTvg     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/   GIVEAWAY!! Download Dr. Sabrina’s 5 Favorite Wish List Interview Questions www.TapThePotential.com/Wish   Register you’re A-Player team members for Tap the Potential’s Leadership Bootcamp: www.TapThePotential.com/Leadership   Join Dr. Sabrina, Donna Leyens, Mike Michalowicz and more at the Breakthroughs on the Bayou 4 Week Vacation™ Legacy Retreat: www.4WeekVacation.com   Would YOU Like to Become a Pumpkin Plan Strategist, Yourself? https://provendusgroup.com/apply-to-become-a-pumpkin-plan-strategist  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.

What’s it like to leave your business in the capable hands of others while you take a 24-hour break? What about a week’s vacation? Can you imagine being gone for 4 whole weeks?  We’re going to talk to a fellow entrepreneur who shares interesting insights and surprising discoveries that evolved from simply deciding to take a 4 Week Vacation and her coaching with Tap the Potential. Our guest today, Dr. Jennie Byrne, will be discussing going on that vacation and actually having that experience, The Pumpkin Plan process, and how it has impacted her strategic decision-making. Dr. Jennie Byrne, MD, Ph.D. is a board-certified adult psychiatrist who focuses on high-quality, convenient, and innovative care for patients in the 21st century. She is the Founder and Owner of an Outpatient Psychiatry Group - Cognitive Psychiatry of Chapel Hill, PLLC. Her business focuses on seamless delivery of high-quality, convenient mental health and substance use care with outstanding customer service. Show Highlights: While working toward the 4 Week Vacation, the biggest issue Dr. Jennie encountered in the planning stage was deciding on, arranging, and documenting the procedure for the person who would be monitoring the monthly billing cycle and paying the bills.  While away, Dr. Jennie planned to take this work back upon her return to work. On further consideration, she had an “A-ha!” moment and realized that accounting was a psychologically burdensome task and that leaving it in the hands of someone else took a load of mental energy off of her, that she wasn’t even aware had been there in the first place. Another obstacle that Dr. Jennie encountered in preparation for her vacation, was with her patients. She needed to know if they would be okay without her for four weeks. Overall, she found that her patients were concerned for her and supportive.  Dr. Sabrina shares some preparation tips: Set the expectation that you will be gone and when. Have multiple team members involved in service delivery. Team members stepped into different roles during the time that Dr. Jennie was away from work, and this allowed for more definition of roles when she returned. “Clarity” is the word Dr. Jennie chooses to describe another epiphany. This was the first opportunity in a long time for her to examine such issues as what it was she wanted, re-defining goals, where was the business going, where was she in her personal life, what does she really want and what are the distractions that are pulling her away from that. This new-found clarity made her feel uncomfortable! Dr. Sabrina strongly encourages listeners who are doing the 4 Week Vacation or who are in that situation where you have the opportunity, to step back, persist and be in that discomfort. Don’t distract yourself and pull away from it; there is good on the other side! Dr. Sabrina divulges her personal experience with her 6-week vacation. Dr. Jennie shares other takeaways from her vacation, including her discoveries about her way of “being” in the world and understanding her value. What Dr. Jennie is now working toward is the day to day operations running without her, and the monthly operations, as well. She discovered that her being in the business so much was paradoxically hindering it. Dr. Sabrina discusses Mike Michalowicz’s next book, Fix This Next, “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, and how she sees it applying to Dr. Jennie’s experience. Predictive Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) versus historical KPIs and the importance of having action steps. The importance of understanding how your top patients (or clients) view your business. Identifying core values and how they apply to your clientele. The snow-ball effect of attracting the patients or clientele that share the same core values: stacking the deck for their success by clarifying who is most likely to be successful with you in the way that you run your practice, being more intent on attracting those folks to the business, and once they’re in, they have a better chance of succeeding with you, and getting better results. They tend to get better faster because they are effectively utilizing your service. When you get good results with your clients, word gets out and feeds that word of mouth. Dr. Sabrina recalls the recent interview with Wayne Mullins (Episode 51), concerning “Building a High-Performance Culture”, on how he finds that A-players who do well on his team have a characteristic in common. That characteristic is having leadership experience, whether it’s in a school activity or a leadership role out in the community. Dr. Sabrina illustrates how this discernment aligns with identifying your ideal clients and The Pumpkin Plan process.  Don’t discount the importance of environment and space with respect to how your clients experience your business. Don’t discount the importance of the way that your administrative staff cares for your clients. Dr. Jennie endorses the Tap the Potential Program and prepares prospective clients that there are challenges, but you come out stronger on the other side, and there is ongoing support so that you never feel alone. Links and Resources: https://www.tapthepotential.com For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Apply for the Tap the Potential Coaching program: https://www.profitgift.com Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Books:   The Pumpkin Plan, by Mike Michalowicz How to Hire the Best, by Sabrina Starling Fix This Next, by Mike Michalowicz If you missed Episode 50 with Mike Michalowicz (or want to catch it again!),  you can listen to it here:  https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcast/50-the-surprising-secrets-of-successful-entrepreneurs-with-mike-michalowicz/ Don’t miss last week’ss podcast with Wayne Mullins from Ugly Mug Marketing, on “Building a High Performance Culture”!  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.

What are the ingredients for a high performance culture? 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...We cover all this, and more, as Wayne Mullins joins Dr. Sabrina and Mike to discuss “Building a High Performance Culture”.   As someone who tends to dislike structure, Wayne now finds it liberating as it allows him the headspace to be more creative and effective. 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 is 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.   Show Highlights:   Wayne explains the concept of “context switching”, a concept from Todd Herman, who teaches a program called The 90 Day Year. Context 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. 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 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? The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni, and why conflict matters. This is one of Wayne’s Top 10 books! 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:   https://www.tapthepotential.com   For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com   Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/   Apply for Tap the Potential’s Small Group Coaching Program: https://www.profitgift.com   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/   Special Course: Starts September 5, 2019 - Only 15 Spots Left!! Sir Steven Wilkinson - Entrepreneur to Investor: How to Calculate Your Stock Price 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT 50% Savings - Use Code: TAP2019 https://www.tapthepotential.com/investor   Wayne’s Website: www.UglyMugMarketing.com     Programs Mentioned:    Todd Herman - The 90 Day Year   Josh Fonger - Work the System     Podcast Mentioned:   Andy Stanley - Leadership Podcast     Miscellaneous Entrepreneurs Mentioned by Wayne:   Ari Weinzweig - Entrepreneur and Co-founder of Zingerman’s Deli   Dan Kennedy - Direct Response Marketer   Books Mentioned: Deep Work, by Cal Newport   The Road Back to You, by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile   Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be, by Marshall Goldsmith The Game of Work, by Charles Coonradt   Measure What Matters, by John Doerr   The Twelve Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months, by Brian P. Moran   The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni   How to Hire the Best, by Sabrina Starling  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.