The Entrepreneurs Radio Show 099 Dr Sabrina Schleicher

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Episode 99 - Dr. Sabrina Schleicher In this episode, Travis speaks with brilliant psychologist and successful entrepreneur Dr. Sabrina Schleicher. Dr. Schleicher’s company Tap the Potential has been helping rural entrepreneurs reach their true potential through strategies and guidelines, and achieve growth in today’s competitive business environment.

Travis and Dr. Sabrina give their take on strategies that business owners today could certainly benefit from when applied to their business. They share tips on how to hire people that would fit the position. Also, they teach the value of allowing your employees to do their work while giving them responsibility and freedom to make decisions along with your guidance and rules that you’ve established. Dr. Sabrina also advocates the 80/20 rule that would allow you to focus on the things that would enable your business to grow and progress quickly and efficiently. These and so much more are what you can expect to learn in this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show.

Growing Your Biz Through Great Employees TRAVIS: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode number 99 of the Entrepreneur's Radio Show, a production of rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. Today, I'm going to introduce you to rock star entrepreneur Dr. Sabrina Schleicher. Now Dr. Sabrina is the founder of Tap the Potential, America's leading rural business growers. Dr. Schleicher and her team specialize in helping rural business owners overcome their greatest challenges to growing a profitable and scalable business in their hometown while enjoying the benefits of small town life. In our interview today Sabrina's going to share her top 5 elements for building and scaling a business which are very clever and have kind of a slight different twist on them which as you know I love anything that's a deviation from the norm, right? Several 20 plus years ago I was taught the meaning of average by someone. And once I was taught the meaning of it, I had such a strong dislike for it ever since then. And the meaning that I was taught is average is you're either the best of the worst, or the worst of the best. And of course, I don't like either one of those, and I'm guessing that you don't like it either.

So, today again I want to pick back up where we left off and thank a couple more people on iTunes for taking the time to rate and review the show. And so, by and the dollar sign, $5 refund, that's an interesting name-- gave us a 5 star review that says, "Ready to rock!" thank for that, thanks for taking the time to do that. Big Magic Al gave us a 5 star review. Great return on time invested, thank you Big Magic Al. Also by my shape, a 5 star rating and impressive is the title.

Again, there's several longer reviews and I won't go into reading those because they're too long.

But I want to personally say thank you for taking the time. It means a lot to me. If you find value

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in the show, I would really love it if you take the time to rate and review the show. I read everything. And also, this helps us get found on iTunes. iTunes uses this in their algorithm to determine whether to show us to other people out there. So, thanks again for that. As always, I like to ask you to try to stay with us until the very end if you can because I want to share some inspiration with you. Plus, before we get started, I have a question for you that is a little different from the last question that I asked you. And the question is this. Would you like for me to look at your business and help you overcome whatever your biggest problem in business is right now?

If the answer is yes then I want to remind you that I have a section on the website if you go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com to where on the right hand side there's a microphone button.

You can click on it. It's just like leaving a voicemail on a telephone, where you can ask me anything about your business, marketing, management, pricing, building teams, pricing models, your overall strategy, it doesn't matter what it is. Whatever you feel like is holding you back from the next level of success, all you have to do is click that button and just give me your details.

Give me the back-story of your business so that I can so that I can understand the context of your question. And then I will keep your last name private. And what I'm going to do is I'm saving these up and I'm going to create short, little 5-8 minute episodes and release them on a daily basis where I answer your questions. Also, I'm always looking for ways to improve your experience in the shows. So if you'd like to just go there and leave your feedback without any advice on your business that's fine too. I'll personally listen to that. One last thing before we get started, I want to remind you that there's 2 ways you can take these interviews with you on the go. Of course, the first is iTunes and the other is Stitcher. I've places both of those in the menu bar of rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com so that you can click on them and it will take you directly to the shows. That way you don't have to go to either one of them, type it in and hassle with trying to find it. Now that we've got all that stuff out of the way let's go ahead and get down to business, what do you say? Without further ado, welcome to the show Sabrina.

DR. SABRINA: Well, thank you Travis I'm excited to be here.

TRAVIS: Oh, I am too. We've got a lot of things to talk about. And so, early on I told everybody that you're a doctor and so I'm interested in you telling the story of how you've transitioned from the doctor to what you're doing now. So do you mind giving that back-story?

DR. SABRINA: No problem. So I have a doctorate in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. And I was drawn to psychology because people fascinate me. And another kind of the back-story behind that is when I was taking my career. I knew I wanted a career that would give me the freedom to work for myself eventually just because I had different jobs. Some of them were great; some of them were not great. And I had seen my friends, my father in particular, and just people struggling in jobs they didn't like. Or dealing with co-worker problems or problems with supervisors and bosses. And I just thought, well I want the freedom to be able to

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work for myself at some point if that's what I choose. And so, got my doctor in psychology and then I was in Austin Texas. All my friends were leaving after graduate school and moving out of Austin. Austin's a fun place but when all your friends leave it's not so fun anymore.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: And I had a job lined up in a private practice and I just had this inkling that I wanted to have one more life adventure before I settled down. And I had heard about the National Health Service Corps where they send practitioners like psychologist, nurses, physicians into rural, underserved areas where they don't have enough of those kinds of practitioners. And I thought, wouldn't that be fun to go and do something like that for a couple of years and in exchange get my student loans paid off because they were huge. And so my husband who was my boyfriend at the time, I went to him and I said, "There's a job opening in Riverton, Wyoming and it qualifies for the National Health Service Corps. And I'm thinking about this, and I'm thinking it might be a fun adventure. It's in the mountain area and it might be kind of nice." So, long story short we moved up here, I took the job, I really enjoyed the work that I got to do. This is a very underserved area, they definitely need mental health practitioners up here.

But I had a bully boss, and he's not just a bad boss, he was one of those real bullies. And I was in a bad position because we had moved up here. It was not like I could just quit my job, go down the street, and find another job in my profession. It would mean moving again.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: And so, around that same time I had heard about coaching and I thought coaching is a great way for me to use my skills as a psychologist but in a different way. So I was working on the transition towards becoming a life coach. And eventually I did quit my job and I was very relieved to be out of that environment. It was a very difficult environment if anybody's ever worked with a bully boss.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: It's just hard.

TRAVIS: I have.

DR. SABRINA: Yeah. I think a lot of us have had that experience. And so when I went into life coaching and opened a practice here I found a lot of business owners seeking me out. And they were coming to me for work life balance issues, just being very-- as entrepreneurs and as small business owners we work our tails of.

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TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: And that worked life balance piece is very hard. But what I was starting to notice is that there was more to the story than just work life balance. What was really underneath it was that in a rural area it's very hard to find and keep good employees. And a lot of these business owners were dealing with what I call the warm body syndrome where you keep warm bodies around because you feel like if I fire them, or if I let them go, or even discourage them from working here I'm going to have to fill that position and I don't know who I'm going to fill it with. And then it's going to be me back there doing that work again. And along the same lines what I was also hearing from them was that they're working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, they're in the business all the time, and they're doing those $10 an hour tasks. And it was very hard for them to do the work they needed to do on the business. So I decided, you know what I need to buckle down and I want to learn business coaching, and I want use my skills as a psychologist to help these business owners not only grow their business and attract their ideal clients or customers. But also, how the great employees that they need to be able to fill the opportunity that's right in front of them. Because in a rural area like ours, there's a lot of opportunity that business owners have right in front of them that they don't go after because they feel like "I don't want to be any busier than I am now." And they feel like it's going to be on their shoulders. So that's what I do, I help business owners with not only growing their business but also all the employee, and people problems, and customer service problems that come along with owning a thriving business that continues to grow.

TRAVIS: I like that, and this is a very unique little niche in the market also.

DR. SABRINA: It is. And it took me awhile to recognize that, that was my niche. It took me 8 years as a matter of fact.

TRAVIS: It's funny, you think you'd be able to figure that out sooner, and I say that because I've been through some of the same things myself to where it's taken me years to figure, "Oh, this is really my gift." It's not as obvious as it seems. So in this bad boss transition to being a life coach and business coach, how long was that transition before you found success?

DR. SABRINA: I would say 8 years.

TRAVIS: Okay.

DR. SABRINA: I've had a successful business all along. I was very fortunate, I've never had to struggle to pay the bills even after I quit my job and jumped feet first into the fire. And by the

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way, my daughter was born right at that same time that I quit my job and started my business.

And I don't recommend that kind of life transition for anybody, it was finally stressful.

TRAVIS: At least at the same time, right?

DR. SABRINA: Yeah. The reason I say it's taken me 8 years is that I was doing all kinds of coaching. I was doing life coaching, I was doing career transition coaching, and it was just a few years ago that I thought I want to look at who are my longest clients that keep hiring over and over. What did I have in common, and I want to look at the clients who had paid me the most over time. And when I did that it was a no brainer, it was small business owners. That stood out to me but it still took me several years to figure out, the commonality is that they have employees, number 1, and we were spending a lot of our time talking about employee issues.

And then it was just in the last year that I've decided you know what it's going to be not just small business owners with employees but it's going to be established businesses that have been around for several years. They're in the 500,000 to $5 million range, and they're growing.

And they're in a rural area where it's a low population and it's hard to find and keep great quality employees. Now that being said, I will say that not all my clients are rural business owners because employee issues affect every small business. And we do have a labor shortage throughout or country.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: But the majority of my clients are rural. And since I have taken on that focus I've gotten a lot of feedback from people who've been on my newsletter list for years that-- well, it's about time you claimed this. And it's really cool that you're talking about rural business because whenever we go to conferences in our industries, people at those conferences talk about best business practices and marketing practices. But they don't want to work in a rural area. And so that's one of the things that I do, kind of like you Travis. I really try to interview successful rural business owners and find out, what are you doing that's working, what's your story, what can we learn from you? And I bring that to my readers and my clients.

TRAVIS: To add to this point, through my first business I learned break a market into 3, which is really kind of a unique way. And so, I find that there's lower level, mid level, and high level. And so lower level are people that are shopping for whatever it is they're shopping for. They're shopping for based on price, right?

DR. SABRINA: Right.

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TRAVIS: And then there's mid, well, I'll explain the top. Top is people that are shopping for quality, right? And then the mid is a combination of both. Some price shoppers and some-- but they're on the fence and if there's a compelling argument they can be swayed to pay more and they could be swayed to go up or to go down, one way of the other.

DR. SABRINA: Right.

TRAVIS: And so, now Gary Halbert, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, he's a brilliant copywriter. And he calls these people PWM's, Players with Money, and players not in a negative way but business owners, business with money. And one of the reasons why they're always in the top of that tier 3 because they typically provide some level of service themselves. They own a business; they understand what it's like to deal with the public, right?

DR. SABRINA: Uhuh.

TRAVIS: They spend a lot of time on self-improvement to manage the growth of their business and some way, shape, or form, right? And it's all of these things that make them an ideal client.

And that holds true. I own a construction business; my best clients are those people.

DR. SABRINA: Yeah, because they get it.

TRAVIS: Yeah, they're the best chiropractic patients because you give them instruction and they'll follow it, right? And so it's really interesting that it transitions across virtually all industries is it's those group of people that our sweet spots. So yeah, I think it's great that you've tapped into that. And it took you 8 years before you finally just reverse-engineered all the people that you had been spending time with and come to realize that they're your most ideal avatar.

DR. SABRINA: Absolutely. And you know what's interesting to me is as a psychologist I'm fascinated with personality, and I like to help my clients use that in their marketing to really understand their heads and hearts of their ideal clients or customers. And also, when it comes to finding their ideal employees. I think there's that right kind of profile, that personality profile and set of values. And it's different for every business. But in my own business one of the things that I came to realize, probably somewhere around year 4 or 5 is that one of the commonalities is that drive to learn. And that goes across the board for all of my clients who do one-on-one work with me. They want to improve, they want to learn. And they don't just do it in their business; they're doing it in all areas of their life.

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TRAVIS: Right. I completely agree with you. Now, one of the things that I noticed that's a common problem with business owners is they make the mistake of hiring people they like rather than hiring the person that needs to fill the position.

DR. SABRINA: Yes, we all do that.

TRAVIS: Right. You're not hiring somebody to barbecue with, right? You're hiring someone to run different aspects of your business and quite often we need left brainers to do certain parts of the projects or the business, right?

DR. SABRINA: Yes. TRAVIS: Now, knowing that you come out of Austin. So as a doctor my presumption would be left-brain but there's a lot of right brainers that come out of Austin, right? I'm in Texas and I know Austin quite well, I love Austin by the way. And so I had a strong suspicion that you're probably a right brainer, which are you?

DR. SABRINA: Oh, I'm a left brained woman. I stood out like a sore thumb in my graduate program.

TRAVIS: Oh, okay.

DR. SABRINA: And thing is that I fully believe that for us to really function at our best we have to learn how to acquire the strengths of the people who are at least like us.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: And so, I have very much learned how to be more right brained and to use that part of my brain. And I operate my business in a lot ways from my right brain. It doesn't come naturally to me, it's something I've had to just kind of like grit my teeth and go, okay, I don't know where this idea's going lead. And I don't know necessarily what I'm doing but I'm going to jump in there and I'm going to try it. But that's not easy for me.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: One of the things that I do myself when I'm hiring but I also talk to my business owners about this is that when you think in terms of the ideal customer or the ideal client that we're serving and what it is that we're delivering to them. And then think about the role that we want that employee to fill for us. And then think about what personality is going to be best suited

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to excel in that role. And in credence you don't want to put somebody into a role where they're constantly drawing on their weaknesses, or they're constantly having to draw what I call their Achilles' Heel.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: Because that's stressful over time, and there's no amount of improvement that's going to be significant enough for you to be happy with their performance if they're operating primarily from their weaknesses.

TRAVIS: Right. I had a left brainer that was answering the phone and doing customer service for a long time, and that was an unwise move for me.

DR. SABRINA: No, that's not the right person for that position.

TRAVIS: Right. And for the longest I couldn't understand. This is simple, what are you not getting? Well, she's wired differently. This is before I come to realize how differently people are wired. So what I was going to tell you is I could get a 15-minute notice that I'm going to be dropped in a country that I don't speak a language to pack a bag. And I could be fine with that.

Actually I'll be excited about it. Where left brainers wouldn't want to hear that, right?

DR. SABRINA: I know. My anxiety immediately goes up. No, I would need 2 months to plan for that Travis.

TRAVIS: Yeah. And so, we've got to understand. Now, people are obviously much more complex than right brain, left brain, and everyone says well, I'm a little of both. Well, everybody's a little of both. You start out dominantly as one, and I found that typically the more you develop the other, the more balanced of a leader you become. But you can spend too much time trying to overcome your weaknesses that you're not accomplishing the things quickly enough in your business, right?

DR. SABRINA: Right. And one of the things that I'm notorious for among my clients is starting off our coaching conversations by asking them about their wins and successes. And that's not just a feel good thing that I do with them. It's because underneath our wins and successes are our natural strengths, the things that we do that just come easy for us. And so when we look at what's going well in our business and where things are working, and become more intentional and deliberate about doing more of what works. We have a lot better success that if we spend an entire coaching session focusing on-- this is a significant area where I'm weak, and what do I do about it. That's why we need to hire people to compensate for our weaknesses.

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TRAVIS: Right, great point. So going back to one of the problems that you talked about in these small towns where there's not a lot of people to choose from. I have a suspicion that you've come up with a way to convert mediocre employees into great employees because there's not many other ways in those small towns, right? Am I right?

DR. SABRINA: No. TRAVIS: No? Okay.

DR. SABRINA: But that's what I try to do for a long time with the help of my business owners by teaching them coaching skills so they could be better coaches to convert or improve these warm body type employees and it just doesn't work. If someone is not wanting to learn and improve, or their values are not aligned with your values and the businesses' values they're just not a good fit. And so you need to let them go. And so I've gotten much more forthright in just saying, "This person is not working for you. Let's shift our focus and let's figure out how you can start to recruit in that work with what I call A Players." And what I do teach my business owners now is this concept of if you have one really good employee, that A player has a network, and you got to tap in to their network. Because they know more A players. And A players are the type of employee that's resourceful, that's motivated, that wants to learn, that wants to grow and improve and move up in a business. And they tend to hang together. You know good quality people and other good quality people know other good quality people, and they tend to be in the same networks.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: The thing that's challenging for most business owners is that those A players are not unemployed. They're not actively looking for work necessarily. They are in other jobs, and they're appreciated, and they're performing well in those other jobs. So, it's not always that you can just go tell somebody, "Hey, I've got an opening, come work for me." And in a small town you definitely have to be very careful in doing that because you're going to tick off a fellow business owner if you're taking one of their employees. But it's this idea that you get to know your best employees better and understand why they like working for you, what makes them tick, how they see their job. What are some of the intangible benefits that they perceive in working for you? And you use that information as you get out there and you start networking.

But the other thing that works really well is to let your best employees know the kind of person that you're looking for to fill the position, and just let them know, if they know of anybody like that, that they should send them your way. And even going above and beyond that is to provide some sort of incentives, to have an employee referral incentive program, not just among your

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current employees but you can do that with anybody. They don't have to be a part of their business. If they send you a referral and that turns out to be an employee that you hire, you can send a little gift or something as a thank you. That goes a long way to start building up that pipeline of potential employees for you.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I like that. One thing that I've noticed is A players don't like B players, and B players don't like A players.

DR. SABRINA: Oh Travis, you cut out here, I don't hear you.

TRAVIS: Can you hear me now? Hello. Are you there?

DR. SABRINA: I can hear you. You said that one of the things you've noticed is that A players don't like B players, and B players don't like A players?

TRAVIS: Yeah, exactly.

DR. SABRINA: Travis, can you hear me?

TRAVIS: Yeah, I can-- hold on, let me dial you back real quick, okay?

DR. SABRINA: Okay.

DR. SABRINA: Hi Travis.

TRAVIS: Hi, sometimes that happens with Skype.

DR. SABRINA: Yeah, I know.

TRAVIS: So exactly, I've found that A players don't like B players, and B players don't like A players. Do you agree with that?

DR. SABRINA: I wouldn't say that it's A players and B players so much as it is A players don't like C players or D players. And C or D players don't like A players. And the reason I don't think it's A and B is that B players are usually pretty good employees also, it's the A players who are just like the superstars. So one A player can do the work of 9-12 C or D players.

TRAVIS: Right.

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DR. SABRINA: They're highly productive folks, they become quickly annoyed and frustrated with people who underperform and who do just enough to get by, and rightfully so, they should.

And those C and D players, they see those A players as a threat to the status quo. So if you have a business full of C and D players, and you bring in an A player you can bet your bottom dollar those C and D players are going to complain about that because that A player is rocking the boat. But that's a good thing.

TRAVIS: Right. I completely agree with you, and I've been involved in that to where as a young man I didn't understand the politics of an organization. And I was raised working at a very early age. 11 years old I started working with my father, we just didn't mess around. It was hard work, aggressive. You don't take a coffee break unless you drink coffee type of guy. He's just very aggressive.

DR. SABRINA: Was that in the construction industry?

TRAVIS: Yeah, that was in the construction industry.

DR. SABRINA: Okay, yeah. That makes complete sense.

TRAVIS: Yeah, and so by the time I was 16 years old I was competent as a grown man. And so me and my father were a team, and we could outperform any other two-man full-grown team, right?

DR. SABRINA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: And so as I spread my wings as a young man and went and tried different industries I had that work ethic, and I thought everybody worked like that. And so I went into a shop environment and everybody was goofing off. And I just wanted to make a good impression and do my thing. And the guys pulled me aside and threaten me and said, "Listen, dial it down." And that was my first taste of the politics of what you're talking about.

DR. SABRINA: Isn't that interesting though how quickly that happens. They try to get you to come down to their level.

TRAVIS: Right. And ultimately ran me off. And I haven't been around that stuff for 20+ years, but it brings back those memories of exactly what you're talking about. And I think a lot of business owners aren't thinking of that. And the distinction between the A, B, and C really does make sense. There are good employees and then there's great employees. So I've never really thought about it in breaking it up at that level. But it completely makes sense. So, do you just

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completely clean house? What do you do in that situation where you're trying to make the transition-DR. SABRINA: I don't recommend that you just completely clean house. But start making a concerted effort to get out there and network, and recruit. And everytime you have an open position, do the work on the business and really understand why you're hiring and what kind of person you need for that position before you go out and hire. And then that you've done the networking that you need to do so you have a better pipeline of people to choose from. And so the idea is to hire up with every open position. But that being said, I will say that I've had some clients who have had really good performers, people who produce, who are critical to the bottom-line but their core values, their immutable laws were not a good match, they didn't reflect well on the integrity of the business. And those clients let those people go, and they have been better off for it. And it was very scary to clean house like that but within like 4 month's time recovered from it and replaced them with people who were a better fit, and better performers overall.

TRAVIS: So when you're rebuilding a team like that, how do you prevent the old team from tainting the new people?

DR. SABRINA: So, you do need to clean house at the bottom. So the folks who are the naysayers, the whiners, the complainers, they do need to go because they are very damaging to the morale of a company. But in terms of wiping out B or C players, not necessarily, you don't want to do that right away.

TRAVIS: Right. And so, do you ever recommend that they set-up compensation programs that align everybody's efforts and energies?

DR. SABRINA: It really depends. As a psychologist I can say that we know that money and other kinds of perks that go along with money, those motivate only to a certain extent. And it's really more about creating a culture where you're consciously hiring people who have very similar values to the values that you have in your business and your own values. Not necessarily same personality, values need to be a fit. And when you get that going that the team effort comes together a lot more quickly. And the reason I hesitate to say about compensation programs where you want everyone to work together as a team is I think there is value in playing favorites with your employees. And I think there's value in when you have a rock star employee that, that employee gets more attention and more intangible perks than other employees, because it encourages those other employees to step up.

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TRAVIS: Yeah, I agree with you. So not everybody gets a trophy. I completely agree with you on that. So how do you make sure that their values are aligning?

DR. SABRINA: Well, first off, we have to articulate for ourselves and our businesses what are our core values, or our immutable laws. And the easiest way to do that is to look at what are the things that your employees have done lately that have ticked you off. And underneath that is there's a core value that they violated. And so let's try to figure out what that core value is and let's put it in everyday language so that you can tell your employees, "This is how we do things around here."

TRAVIS: So give me some examples of that.

DR. SABRINA: Okay, so the most basic is dishonesty. That comes up all the time, is when an employee is dishonest. And the business owner is trying to build a business where they have integrity and the customers or clients know that they can rely on that business owner to do what they're promising to do. If you have an employee who's dishonest in covering up mistakes, and hiding things, and you suspect it as a business owner but you just can't put your finger on it, that's a core value that's being violated. In my business, my number 1 core value is I don't chase business. I try to attract the right clients who need what I have to offer. And then once they're here I serve the heck out of them. And my current clients are way more valuable to me than anybody who might be a client down the road because who knows? And so that's a core value and when I'm hiring people in my business I let them know right up front this is number one. We serve the heck out of our clients that we have rather than putting our energy towards chasing more business.

TRAVIS: Right. Yeah, so in my business, and my father explained this to me whenever I started mine. Because early on I expected perfection out of everybody. And so I remember him kind of laughing and he set me down and he said "Son, nobody's going to work as hard as you, it's your business it's not their business." So, number 1 quit getting upset because everybody's not doing everything perfect. Decide what is a deal breaker for you. And for me theft and dishonesty were deal-breakers for me. There's no way you could explain your way out of either one of those, right?

DR. SABRINA: Right.

TRAVIS: And so, very early on, when I brought people on I explained to them. I say, "Two things will get you out of this organization faster than anything is stealing or lying. We won't

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have a discussion, you'll be gone. Everything else is up for debate to a certain point. Here are the guidelines." And so, that sounds like exactly what you're talking about, right?

DR. SABRINA: Yeah. And I'll comment on the perfectionism thing because I'm a perfectionist myself and it's driven me crazy. I have a much better life now that I'm letting go of it slowly. I used to have an immutable law or a core value around-- the details matter. And I quickly let go of that because I realized that if I hire someone and I tell them the details matter, the details that matter to them are going to be different than the details that matter to me. So I really wanted them to focus on the right details. And in my business it's about taking care of our clients and their major challenges and their needs. And so the details matter when it comes to that. But there's other things where the details aren't as important.

TRAVIS: Right. And so there's this common belief with small business owners that nobody can do it as good as I can. Well, that's not true.

DR. SABRINA: And that's probably true. Well, in some ways, nobody's going to do it the way you do it.

TRAVIS: Right.

DR. SABRINA: But sometimes when you let go, they do it better.

TRAVIS: Right. That's my point. So you never know. Early on, I'd went on to open other different types of businesses. But early on I had to learn, if I was ever going to grow the business I had to put the tools down, let the guys pick up, and let them make some mistakes and give them some guidance. And most people never get to the scaling-growing phase because they're so busy trying to do their special sauce that they can't let other people get in there and repeat the process for them, right?

DR. SABRINA: Absolutely. And a lot of my clients are in the construction industry, or they are businesses where it's very much hands on type of work. And so, it's this process of recognizing that you got to be so good at that type of work because you made mistakes and you learn from your mistakes. So if you don't ever let go of the reigns and let them get in there and make the mistakes, and then coach them as they're learning from their mistakes, it's always going to be you doing it and you're always going to be working 80 hours a week. And you're going to be unhappy because you've got that perfectionism gremlin eating at you in the back of your head.

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TRAVIS: Right. There's a fine balance with the perfectionism. Things do need to meet your quality level because it's your reputation. But it's things beyond that, worrying about details that are just insignificant in the big picture of things.

DR. SABRINA: Yeah. One of the things that I've started paying attention to is the question of what really matters to my best clients and that's where I and anybody who works for me, I want them to show and do their absolute best. But there's so much that doesn't matter and we've got to be able to let that stuff go.

TRAVIS: Right. So what else do you focus on with your clients that help them improve their business?

DR. SABRINA: I really like the 80-20 principle.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I do too.

DR. SABRINA: I love the 80-20 principle.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I do too.

DR. SABRINA: And so, for those who might be listening who haven't heard this before, you can count on that in most businesses across the board, 20% of your customers are going to responsible for 80% of your revenue. And so for my business that was revolutionary in terms of getting me to quit trying to serve everybody who approached me and coming up with an offering that was going to fit their need. And really zero in on my best clients and what their needs are.

So when I go into a business and start working with business owners a lot of times they resist the 80-20 idea, even though it's pretty common knowledge out there in the business world, we always think our business is somehow different. But it's not, it's not. And so I like to get them looking at their numbers, and looking at revenue from the last 24 months and what percentage of clients have been responsible for about 80% of that revenue over the last 24 months, and then interviewing those clients, and not formal interviews. But just asking some key questions so they can better understand the needs of their best clients or customers. And what I like about this so much is it takes the guesswork out for us entrepreneurs. We don't have to guess what our next innovation is going to be in our business. We just listen to our best customers and they'll tell us. And we go out and do it, and then they eat it up, and they're so happy. And it's so easy.

TRAVIS: Right. So do you ever drill deeper into the 80-20 of the 80-20?

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DR. SABRINA: Yes, absolutely. And I think that's the most fun is when you get that small handful of your best customers that are responsible for a huge portion of the revenue in the business. And you really take the time to get to know them and their needs. And what's beautiful about it is as you're creating products or offerings, or services that are meeting the needs of your best customers; you are attracting more people like them. So, business gets to be a lot more fun because you can start spending more time with your better customers in your business, which is naturally more enjoyable for us as business owners. And then letting go of trying to meet the needs of people who can be at the bottom percentage, the 5 or 10% who can actually be profit suckers in our businesses.

TRAVIS: Right, definitely a time suck and profit-- I love the example of the Starbucks uses a slack adjuster espresso. Have you ever heard that example?

DR. SABRINA: I have not, tell me about that.

TRAVIS: Yeah, so they have a $10,000, and some of the numbers may be a little off here but this is just a story. So they have a $10,000 and some of the numbers may be a little off here but this is the gist of the story. So they have a $10,000 espresso machine inside their store on the wall. And so they know 80% of the people that come in are there to buy coffee or tea. And then 20% will buy one of the widgets off of the wall. You know, the 15, 20, 30, $50 items, right?

DR. SABRINA: Right.

TRAVIS: Well, that's the 80-20 of the 80-20 that come in. And then the third 80-20 that the small 20%, which I think is-- let's see, that would be 20%, then that would be 2%, and then I guess it'd be down to 1%. 1% buy the $10,000 espresso the machine. And that's how they drive the overall ticket value up per customer, right?

DR. SABRINA: Yes. TRAVIS: How many cups of coffee do you need to sell to equal 1 espresso machine for $10,000, right?

DR. SABRINA: Exactly. And it's much easier to sell that one espresso machine than it is all those individual cups of coffee.

TRAVIS: Right. And so that's the 3rd iteration of the 80-20 rule as it keeps drilling down. I know Perry Marshall and several other people are focusing on that right now. But it's really brilliant and I'm trying to do the head math right now. But actually if you just scale it out on paper it's

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really not that complicated and it's a great way to grow the revenue of your business very quickly.

DR. SABRINA: Absolutely. And I think Perry Marshall-- as you started talking about that I do remember that example. I've heard it somewhere. And Perry Marshall calls that racking the shotgun and seeing who turns their head. And I've started doing that more in my own business.

And an example is I send out a newsletter bi-weekly and in the last edition of my newsletter I had an article in there called The Secret, not just the but The Secret to time management for small business owners. And I based it off of a chapter in Perry Marshall's book on the 80-20 principle and when it comes to time management. And in there I put a little incentive at the bottom of the article. A drawing that I was going to do a give-away for Perry Marshall's 80-20 book. And so when my assistant read that and she said, "This is really great, but I think you're asking people to read this and then they have to email you, and then you're entering in a drawing. And then they have to even be entered in the drawing, they have to follow-up with you the following week to tell you they did what they said they were going to do." And I said, "Absolutely. I only want people following through and entering this drawing who are absolutely committed. And she said, "Oh, I get it." And it's that concept of racking the shotgun.

TRAVIS: Right. I do that-- when we place an ad for employees we get 200 applications and a lot of them are not relevant to the position.

DR. SABRINA: Wow, that's a lot to sort through.

TRAVIS: Yeah, right. And so, we're always looking to who we can put this on, assign it to.

Because nobody wants to do it, right?

DR. SABRINA: Yeah, no kidding. No one to delegate you.

TRAVIS: Yeah, exactly. And so finally what we did is we put that hurdle in there. So we had them read it in the ad. It says, "Call this number, leave a detailed message of why you're a good fit for this position. Along with an email that we can contact you." And that weeds 95-98% of the people out because most of them are unwilling to follow directions.

DR. SABRINA: Isn't that amazing? I love that. I think it was a client of mine had people respond to a job at and I needed to sign their letter in purple ink. And if they didn't sign it in purple ink she said I'm not even bothering to look at the rest of the resume or the application.

TRAVIS: Right. And you can say on the ad if you don't follow these directions then don't waste your time applying. And people still don't follow the directions.

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DR. SABRINA: Right.

TRAVIS: And so, if you're hiring somebody for a detailed position then you need to be careful about hiring that person because obviously detail is not something that comes naturally to them.

DR. SABRINA: Yeah, and I'll tell you along those same lines another trick that I share with my business owners when it comes to hiring is while they're talking to their best employees and asking them what they like about the job. They also need to be asking their best employees about what they find hardest about the job or what's most challenging. And then when you're writing a position description or an ad, include what's the hardest part of that job in that position description. So that people reading that will say, "You know what, I can't see myself doing that. I can't see myself installing doors in -11 degree weather. I'm not going to apply."

TRAVIS: Right. Yeah, I completely agree with you. Place it in the worst light possible, and then everything from there is a positive.

DR. SABRINA: Yeah, and that's the exact reverse of what we tend to do. We tend to feel like we need to market working for us and sell people on the positions especially when there's not a lot of applicants coming through the door. And actually when you do that you set-up a dynamic that is not good going forward with that employee.

TRAVIS: Yeah, completely agree. Hey, we're running a little long on time, what do you say we transition to the lightning round for the 3 questions that I sent you. You got those around?

DR. SABRINA: I am ready.

TRAVIS: Alright. So let me throw them at you. So the first one is what book or program made an impact on you related to business that you'd recommend and why?

DR. SABRINA: The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz, that book was a total game changer.

And the idea behind The Pumpkin Plan, it's totally 80-20, is that if you want to grow a giant pumpkin, if you want to grow a really thriving business, you've got to trim the vine. You've got to let go of the diseased little pumpkins and you got to weed your garden. I'm a gardener so I love that metaphor to begin with. But it was just a total game changer for myself and it's been a game changer in my client's businesses, the ones that are using it. So, that's the book.

TRAVIS: Yeah, great book. I interviewed him, he's a brilliant guy, I don't know if you've heard the interview.

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DR. SABRINA: I have listened to the interview, yes.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

DR. SABRINA: He is brilliant.

TRAVIS: And he's hilarious also, he's got the best videos.

DR. SABRINA: He is and I'll tell you that his audible version of The Pumpkin Plan is probably one of the best business books on audio I think out there.

TRAVIS: Oh, I'm going to have to-DR. SABRINA: Just because he leaves his personality in as he's reading the book.

TRAVIS: Right, okay, cool. I'm going to get that. What's one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered, if any, that you'd recommend to other business owners and why?

DR. SABRINA: Okay. This is not a recent discovery, I've been using this for a couple of years, but it's OmniFocus. It's an app that goes on your phone, your iPad, your computer. But it's based on the getting things done system and the reason I'm such an advocate of the getting things done system is because we entrepreneurs have so much running through our heads and that's a big part of our stress level. So we can keep our heads empty. We have room for big ideas. And so I used to do OmniFocus, or I used to do the getting things down system in a paper and pencil version of just tracking my projects and my tasks. And when I found OmniFocus I shift it over and do it like that. And it's on my phone, it's with me all the time so I don't have to remember those little things anymore. I have something that ticks all that and does it for me.

TRAVIS: I haven't heard of that, I'm going to have to check that out. Okay, what famous quote would best summarize your belief or your attitude in business?

DR. SABRINA: There's a quote by Zig Ziglar that my mother sent me, it's a little cartoon many years ago. And I think it's travelled from apartment to apartment, to several homes with me. And so it's been on my refrigerator, my file cabinet. But it's this quote that says "A lot of people have gone farther that I thought they could because someone else thought they could." And that is who I want to be in my client's lives. I want to be that someone who sees their potential, that's

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the name of my business, Tap the Potential-- who sees their potential and nurtures that potential in them and in their business.

TRAVIS: I like that, I love that quote too. We need as many entrepreneurs as possible. There's so many things that an entrepreneur does, inspiring future generations being able to sponsor others, charities, create jobs, motivate, teach. There's just so many dimensions to what an entrepreneur brings to their local community that we just need as many people like you doing what it is you're doing.

DR. SABRINA: Thank you.

TRAVIS: Wonderful interview, lots of great information. How does everybody connect with you?

DR. SABRINA: The best way to reach me is to go to my website, which is tapthepotential.com, and there's multiple ways to get in contact with me there. And by the way, there's also a free gift available on the website. 5 Secrets to Getting Exceptional Performance from your Employees. So it's a little video training. And I highly recommend it because payroll is our biggest expense typically in a business. And if you're not getting the best out of your employees you're losing money. So feel free to check out that video, and I love to have conversations with business owners who really are serious about having higher performing employees and want to know how to accomplish that and I'm always open. So go to tapthepotential.com and there's a contact form, reach out to me and let's chat.

End of Interview TRAVIS: Excellent. Thank you for that. Listen; remember guys that you can find all of the links to the books and the resources mentioned in the show in the show notes. Just go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com. Before I close the show today I want to remind you that building a profitable business is a series of formulas. As you apply those formulas your business and your profits becomes very predictable and starts building long-term wealth. This is what moves you into a position to help others, which I believe is part of our responsibility as entrepreneurs. If you haven't reached that level of consistency yet with your business and you'd like to learn how it's done, we've put together a free program called The Business Breakthrough Sweepstakes where we focus on teaching you some of those pieces of the formula in a simple step-by-step format so that you can customize it to your own business. This is what I've used to build several, tiny, little local companies to multi-million dollar businesses. Also, to add a little fun and excitement to the program, if you join the sweepstakes and stay engaged you'll have a chance to win $73,000 in cash and prizes, where I will personally mentor you and your

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

business. Plus, you'll have a chance to win my personal Lamborghini. For more information go to rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com and click on the sweepstakes promotion. Now my quote for the day comes from Og Mandino, and quote reads, "Always do your best. What you plant now you will harvest later." This is Travis Lane Jenkins signing off for now. To your incredible success my friend, take care.

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How We Can Help You We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That’s exactly why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at a fraction of its normal cost.

Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!

We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats within your business.

This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons are.

As the 'Business Owner' it’s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you’re in the middle of a daily management.

And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.

This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-man army, or an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show “Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

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