The EntreMD Podcast

Struggling with Your Business? These 5 Powerful Moves Will Turn It Around

• Dr. Una • Episode 455

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Feel like your business is struggling?

You’re not alone. No matter how great an entrepreneur you are, there will be seasons when it feels like you’re failing. It’s inevitable. But your ability to continue in the face of these challenges is what will set you apart and make you succeed as an entrepreneur!

That’s why today, I’m sharing 5 powerful moves to make when your business feels like it’s falling apart. These moves will help you navigate challenges and transform struggle into strength, so don’t miss out!

Let’s jump right in. 

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Key Takeaways: 

  • 00:00 Intro 
  • 00:47 Understanding the entrepreneurial journey 
  • 03:16 Lean into your why 
  • 08:36 Galvanize your team 
  • 11:47 Identify what needs to happen and do it 
  • 14:01 Build accountability
  • 15:26 Active patience 
  • 16:11 The importance of struggle 
  • 17:33 Outro 

Additional Resources:


When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways:

  • EntreMD Business School Accelerator - If you are looking to make a 180 turnaround in your business in 90 days, this is the program for you.
  • EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
  • EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

To get on a call with my team to determine your next best step, go here ...

Speaker 1:

Your ability to continue in the face of challenges is what will make you win as an entrepreneur. Businesses go out of business like hotcakes all the time, but your ability to navigate challenges is what will ensure that you continue to stay. You continue to thrive, you continue to grow. You may have a time where it looks like you're struggling and it looks like there's a dip, but when you look over the course of your journey as an entrepreneur, you'll see that you can trace your trajectory and it was just better and better and better. Hi docs, welcome to the EntreMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, dr Imna. People who are new in business think that you know business is from one mountain peak to another mountain peak to another mountain peak, but the people who have been entrepreneurs for any amount of time understand that it's more like mountain valley, mountain valley, mountain valley. So, no matter how great of an entrepreneur you are, there are going to be seasons where it seems like you're struggling and that is not abnormal, like when you come to terms with it. You actually enjoy your journey as an entrepreneur, even better. So the question becomes what do I do when it seems like my business is struggling and that could be, you know, like you're a startup and you're trying to get it off the ground. It could be like you're trying to scale. And when you try to scale, a lot of times your businesses, your business systems fall apart and your team is not quite the team you need. And all these changes need to happen. What do you do in those seasons? So one you can take care of yourself and still enjoy the journey of being an entrepreneur, but at the same time, your business remains profitable. Your business continues to move forward. You're continuing to hit your goals. What do you do? That's what we're going to talk about on this episode of the Untrammed Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Now, the reason why you know I love talking about these things is, especially in our times, there is this conception that if I have a business and I'm doing it right, it will always work, and so people are thrown off when it seems like a month is not going according to plan. People are thrown off when they're like oh you know, this is the goal I set for the year and I'm not quite hitting it. People are thrown off where, when maybe things that used to work in their business didn't work before. People are thrown off when maybe they hire a new physician and they're not able to fill the schedule Completely thrown off and they think something is wrong. Sometimes, you know, one of the most pathetic things is you know like people then just quit and throw it away and assume it's not working right. But it's like a human. You get to the age of two and then there's temper tantrums that some kids will have and you get to teenage years and there's other challenges there and you get to like there's so many seasons and so many challenges with them. If you can just understand this is part of the journey, nothing is wrong. And lean into what do I need to do here to still win? You need to do here to still win. You can win.

Speaker 1:

At this point in my career I've been an entrepreneur at the time of this recording for almost 15 years. That's almost a decade and a half and we have had challenge after challenge after challenge. Because I understand this concept, I don't get as thrown off by it and sometimes in the middle of the challenge, like early in the challenge, I'm like huh, I wonder what lesson I'm going to learn from this challenge. I wonder how it's going to be a gift for my community, because I can come share it with them and teach it. You know the strategies I use to thrive to them, and all of that because I understand it's part of the journey, like I'd rather not have it, like anybody else, but I realized that you can't escape it, right? Okay, so let's talk about you know, like what? What are the things we're going to do? And we're going to do this from, like, a broad view. Okay, now, the very first thing, the very first thing and you don't have to wait to have a challenge or a problem or struggle in business to get here the very first thing is leaning all the way back into your why and I talk about this a lot. I'm going to continue to talk about this because more entrepreneurs have quit because of things that have to do with this. I have to do it. Mindset that I quit because they didn't have the right strategy. Okay, all right. So lean into your why. No problem is worth it just for you to continue to do the thing of running the business, but if you can tap into why the business exists in the first place, it's easier to navigate the challenges, okay.

Speaker 1:

So think about when we were in medical school, right, I mean, like, medical school was tough, medical school was challenging, our residency was challenging. But you know, if you look into why you didn't quit, why you still went through with it, is because of a certain why that you had a certain kind of you know patient population you wanted to take care of. You knew it was a means to an end. Right, it's the end that kept you in, not just the thing we didn't go through all of that just to pass the test. Like, just passing a test is not enough to keep you in medical school. Right, there's a kind of doctor you wanted to be. There's a kind of patient you wanted to take care of. For some people it was research. That is not me. It was not me. Research was not me. Okay, there's certain research that they wanted to be able to do. There's some certain communities they wanted to be a part of. Secondary could even be a certain lifestyle I wanted to be able to live and all of that stuff.

Speaker 1:

There is a why that drove you. In the same way, in your business, what is the driver? What is the why? Why did you start that in the first place? Why did you take the risk of becoming an entrepreneur? Why did you do that? If you can lean into that and remind yourself of that, it will make every challenge worth it. Okay, I have faced challenges along the way in, you know, in in running EntreeMD and all of those things but what is the reason why I haven't quit? What is the reason why I keep going? What is the reason why I continue to innovate and I continue to write the books and I continue to look for ways to serve my people physicians, like you know faster and better. Why do I continue to think about how can I help them get results that are bigger and how can I help them to get those results better? Why Is because I'm so in tune with my why, and my why is not just to own a business, my why and the business is not just right. I'm not despising what I own, but it's not just to own a business. It's not just to make the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing companies. It's not just for the revenue 5,000 lists of fastest growing companies, not just for the revenue and all of these things are great and I'm not saying they're not great at all. I'm just saying they're not strong enough to let help you go through the challenges. My why is that?

Speaker 1:

I know, like I know my name, that, as physicians, the experience we're having now, we do not need to have it like it's completely optional, right, we can have lives where we have autonomy. We can have lives where we have autonomy. We can have lives where we have our dream life and our dream business, so we don't have to sacrifice our lives in order to have a career or to have a business. I know that we can understand money. We can understand how to create revenue. I know that we can create financial freedom. We can create time freedom.

Speaker 1:

Most doctors I talk to they are mission-minded, right. Like you don't go in like there's so many easier ways of making money. Like you know, like people don't go into medicine primarily to make money. They're just easier ways. But there's a mission, there's a kind of person we want to help, there's a gift we want to give to the world and stuff like that. And being in a position where doctors are unleashed to live that out, I mean that is just crazy, right.

Speaker 1:

And so I know that my job is to help doctors step into that. My job is to help doctors take back control, to have private practices that thrive, that solve problems. That the vehicle may be, it may be as a physician, you know. Clinically it may be, you know, as a coach, a consultant, a speaker, as you know. Like whatever that is like, our options are unlimited, unlimited. And so I lean into that. And because I lean into that, I may have challenges, but I can't quit, because the opportunity cost is what's happening now continues and we have private practices shutting down every single day. We have doctors not having financial freedom after investing multiple, six figures in a medical education. We have doctors who do not have any time freedom even though they gave up over a decade of their lives for the privilege to be able to take care of people. We have all of these things going on and it's too expensive, and so for them, I can't quit, I just can't Right.

Speaker 1:

And so now I've been you know, I've been an entree MD for six years the company is six years old at the time of this recording, and so you're not going to start off with maybe being able to articulate your why if this is your first time of doing it as well, but this is where you start right. You're going to. You're going to start like why am I doing this? That's what gets you through the tough times, okay, okay. So now that you're kind of like from a, from a mindset perspective, you kind of can have it together.

Speaker 1:

Let's look at the second thing that you do. The second thing you do when you are navigating challenging times is that you galvanize your team. A lot of times, as entrepreneurs, we try to bear the weight and the risk and the responsibility and everything by ourselves, but this is a deal. As an entrepreneur, you want to serve and earn, and when you bring on a team, the team helps you to serve and earn. And if you have to troubleshoot stuff so you can serve and earn better, you want to do that with your team as well.

Speaker 1:

And so when the pandemic hit in 2020, you know, if you remember the time, it was all scary, practices were shutting down and all kinds of things were happening and people weren't coming out and it was just insane. And I remember having a meeting with my team and you know this is what I said. To get their attention, I said okay, as of right now, I do not need any position in this company, like every position here, I do not need any of the positions anymore, and I kept quiet. And I kept quiet because I wanted it to sink. My people started wondering, like, what does that mean? We don't have jobs anymore, and stuff like that. Now, the ones who really know me no, not, because I always tell them, like, one of my greatest responsibilities is to keep this private practice profitable, because I never want to come back to you and tell you we couldn't make payroll. I have to let you go. So of course, I was not going to let them go. We were going to figure out a way to, you know, keep everybody on board. And so I let it sink.

Speaker 1:

And then, when I knew that I had their attention, I was like but I am looking for a team of people, and I'm looking for a team of people who are not going to say, well, this is my role and this is my job description, and I don't do that. I'm looking for people whose job description is whatever it takes, because that's where we are now. We are in. Whatever it takes. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I don't even know what this coronavirus thing is Right Like, and so we are going to have to do what we need to do to thrive, you know. So I don't want anybody telling me I'm an MA. I don't do that, that's for the front desk, but front desk, I don't do that, that's for the billet. Like I don't. I don't want to hear any of that. So, if you are game and you want us to go on this ride and survive and thrive in the midst of this pandemic, then let's do it.

Speaker 1:

But the problem as big as that I galvanized the team, so I got them. I got their innovation, I got their expertise, I got their experience, I got all of them. And then we went and we attacked the challenge and in 2020, as a practice we did better than in 2019 in the middle of a pandemic year. Right, and it's the same thing in EntreeMD. Like you know, we have certain things that we want to accomplish. Right, we want to pull off and we're like man, we've tried and we haven't been able to pull this off. I galvanize the team and I'm like let's go. This is the mission, this is what we're trying to accomplish. We've never been able to do this before. We've tried it so many times. We didn't hit it right and we just go on and hit it and win.

Speaker 1:

So galvanize your team. Don't try to do it alone. They have experience, they have expertise, they have such innovative ideas that will bring total transformation, that will help you navigate that season. It could be as simple. As you know we have a new doc. You haven't been able to fill up the schedule.

Speaker 1:

Meet with the team. What can we do? This is the deal, this is the challenge we're facing. This is what is at stake. How can we fix this? How can we make this happen? And you'll be surprised, because once you can enroll them, once you can get their buy-in, like it's almost magical what happens? Okay. So that's the second thing galvanize the team. Okay, the third thing is identify what needs to happen and do it. What is the thing that will solve this problem? So you know, I've used this example of you know someone hired a doctor and they haven't been able to fill up their schedule. Okay, so what fixes that problem?

Speaker 1:

And your team may come up. You and your team may come up with five core things that you can do. You can say, okay, the patients we have, we're going to ask them for referrals, the referral sources, we're going to tell them there's a new doctor, they should send us more patients. We are going to have the doctor newsletter and we're going to do that every week to let them know his schedule is open, you know, for appointments, and we're going to run ads. Let's say that's what it is and you're like, based on the history of this practice, based on what has worked, this is really going to work.

Speaker 1:

So what do you do? You decide on it and then you do it. You decide on it and then you do it. You may be a coach and you're like, you know, man, we've been trying to crack this. You know $500,000 mark and we haven't been able to do it. And you're like, okay, what needs to happen? And then you look and realize that I am doing some you know, consult calls and things like that.

Speaker 1:

But the truth of the matter is the people who know about me they're not growing and so I'm not getting people to come on these masterclasses that I'm doing. I'm not getting people to book calls and all those things because of the level of obscurity I have. Okay, so what am I going to do about that? Well, I'm going to go be a guest on a podcast four times a month. So technically, every week I'm somewhere on somebody else's podcast showing up in front of new people. I'm going to speak at events. I'm going to do that every month, either offline or online. I'm going to speak at an event, not my event, but somebody else's event, so that new people can find me. So that's something else that I'm going to do.

Speaker 1:

Number three I've had people like I have all these people who would invite me to guest coach in their programs, and I've been saying no because I felt they were not paying me what I was worth. But the thing is is those groups are full of my ideal people, and if they see me in my elements, maybe they'll come want to work with me. So I'm going to do that too. These are the three things I'm going to do Boom, boom, boom, okay, great. So now I've decided what needs to happen and what's. You know what I need to do and I'm going to do it Right. So that's the third thing. So the first is lean into your why. The second is galvanize your team, and the third is identify what needs to be done and do it. The fourth thing is, you know, build accountability. Okay, because when we first make the plan, we're like, yes, we're going to do it. When we start doing it, we're like this is amazing, we're going to keep doing it. But the but. This is the deal. Like nobody does what you expect, they do what you inspect, right. And so again for the private practice, they have the new doc coming on and they said these are the things they need to do. Well, that might be a good time to introduce a daily huddle where at the end of every day, there's a huddle Okay, did we talk to the?

Speaker 1:

How many patients did you talk to to tell them you know that this doctor is accepting new patients? Did the email go out? Did the social media posts go out? Did we talk to the referral sources? How many did we talk today? Did we hit the recall? These five things did they get done? Or our ads, how are they performing? Did they get done? You have a system in place to monitor. Did they get done? What was the effectiveness? Can we do more of what works? Can we optimize what didn't right? Okay, so that would be for the doc. For the coach, it's like Okay, so that would be for the doc. For the coach, it's like, okay, how many podcasts you know like guests. How many podcasts hosts did I pitch? So I make sure that I get on for a month, right? How many events did I pitch? How many get like? I had these three people who had already reached out to me. Did I respond to them Right? Am I making offers? Am I asking people to work with me every day?

Speaker 1:

You have to build accountability around what needs to be done, and so, for the person who is the coach maybe you again you have a team huddle it could be you and your VA or whatever and every day, you're looking at the metrics Is this getting done? Is this getting done? Because if you do it, it will create transformation that will blow your mind. And then the fifth thing. The fifth thing is active patience. Okay, and I'll explain what I mean by that. Patience is oh, you know, one day, in the sweet by and by, this will work out. Active patience means you're doing everything within your power to create the results and you're patiently waiting for the results. So you're quote unquote impatient with the actions that need to happen. So you're making sure those are getting done. Then make sure they're getting done in the right volume, with the right cadence. So you're doing that, but then, as long as you're doing that and you're checking it, you're optimizing, you're looking at what worked, you're looking at what didn't work, you're looking at what you can tweak and make better, You're doing that and you can be patient with the results right, and so if you do that, you will be able to go through a time where it seems like your business is struggling and you'll come out on the other side stronger than when the struggle started.

Speaker 1:

The struggle is not designed to take you down. The struggle is designed if it's gone through properly, the struggle is designed to make you stronger on the other side. So what do I do when I feel like my business is struggling? I lean into my why. I galvanize my team, identify what needs to be done, and I do it. I build an accountability system. So I'm constantly looking at the numbers to make sure that we're doing what we need to do, and then I practice active patience.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I want you to lean into this, right? I think this is a good episode. To grab a friend who's also an entrepreneur, tell him you know, let's listen to this and let's kind of troubleshoot. Like, let me workshop this for my business, you workshop this for your business and then we'll come and discuss it, because your ability to continue in the face of challenges is what will make you win as an entrepreneur Entrepreneurs I mean businesses go out of business like hotcakes all the time, right. But your ability to navigate challenges they're inevitable, but your ability to navigate them is what will ensure that you continue to stay, you continue to thrive, you continue to grow. You may have a time where it looks like you're struggling and it looks like there's a dip, but when you look over the course of your journey as an entrepreneur, you'll see that you can trace your trajectory and it was just better and better and better.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I want to challenge you not to quit. I want to challenge you to give your business's best shot. I want to challenge you to lean into your why, and the people on the other side of your why deserve, deserve a leader, deserve an entrepreneur that won't quit, because they need what you have. I am so clear on this. That is why I've not quit. That's why, even when it seems like things are challenging, I keep going, and I want you to do the same. Okay, so I'm rooting for you. I really look forward to celebrating you, and you know the big strides you make in your business, because you got better in the midst of a challenge. You didn't let it. You didn't let it stop you Rooting for you always, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Entree MD Podcast.