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In this episode, Barbara and Micah discuss:
-What are the signs that indicate inefficiencies in business operations?
-The Blueprint, Optimized, And Position method to solve business issues
-Benefits of implementing effective systems to the company’s culture, employee satisfaction, and long-term vision

Key Takeaways:
“A good system and process helps to keep employees happy and less frustrated. It helps to chart the course of the business and errors. And It also helps to promote a consistent response to issues when they come up.” – Micah Logan

Connect with Micah Logan:
Website: https://www.meldfitness.com/
https://www.hushframe.com/
https://www.micah-logan.com/common-cents-university
LinkedIn: https://www.link edin.com/in/micahlogan/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micahlogan1
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecommoncentsshow/featured
Twitter: https://twitter.com/realmicahlogan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/micahloganboston

Connect with Barbara Hales:

Twitter:   https://twitter.com/DrBarbaraHales
Facebook:   https/www.facebook.com/theMedicalStrategist
Business Website: https://www.TheMedicalStrategist.com
Email:   halesgangb@aol.com

YouTube: https://www.Youtube.com/TheMedicalStrategist
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarahales

Books:
Content Copy Made Easy
14 Tactics to Triple Sales
Power to the Patient: The Medical Strategist

TRANSCRIPTION (151)

Dr. Barbara Hales: Welcome to another episode of marketing tips for doctors.

I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Today we have with us Micah Logan. Blending the dynamics of an entrepreneur with the strategic acumen of an executive. Mica stands as a beacon in the world of business, boasting over 16 years of Transformative Leadership and Innovation. His journey is marked by awards and notable achievements, patterns of a vivid picture of a trailblazer dedicated to pushing boundaries.

Micah has demonstrated mastery of the multifaceted realms of market dynamics, strategic negotiations, and organizational leadership. As the driving entrepreneurial force behind MELD fitness and wellness, Mike’s vision took root. Under his guidance, what began as a single retail outlet burgeoned into a network of four thriving locations, strategic initiatives for fruit in the form of a remarkable result of 5% over 1212 years, and an on-wavering customer retention rate between 94 and 96.5%, which is quite remarkable. I don’t know that I’ve heard of a retention rate like that, with anybody in any field. As a strategic advisor and executive for Hush Frame, Micah showed a different side of his expertise.

Helping launch a go-to-market product his strategic interventions catalyzed a staggering 812% revenue spike over just 36 months. His strategic prowess did not stop there, securing pivotal national and international distribution deals. Micah has formed impactful partnerships, including collaboration with a Fortune 50 big box retailer yet Mike has influenced permeates beyond his ventures. His role is to converge to form a leader deeply embedded in growth, change, and relentless innovation. Micah Logan’s B O P method standing for a blueprint, optimize, and position is a revolutionary business coaching framework that distills the essence of large firms’ success into actionable steps for small businesses. Welcome to the show, Micah.

Micah Logan: Glad to be here. Thank you so much, Barbara, for having me.

Dr. Barbara Hales: How did you get involved in this, to begin with, Micah?

Micah Logan: The coaching? Specifically?

Dr. Barbara Hales: Yes.

Business Coaching Career

Micah Logan: Yeah. So, over the years, while running my companies, I’ve had people come, and reach out to me from around the country and ask for advice. You know, I used to travel to conferences, speak at conferences, business conferences, and in my industry and, and others. People would always ask me about certain business topics and action items strategic operations, questions, and just things generally, to help their small business. And so one of the things that I did was, I decided to, you know, start maybe kind of like helping when I could, at the time, a few businesses, and I started seeing that with the businesses would implement some of the advice that we give them, they will see success, and they will come back, and then I would give them some more advice, and then they will see success again. And it was kind of like one of those was like a tennis match, right, it would kind of go back and forth. And so ultimately, I decided that I wanted to create a framework. I identified that small businesses in general needed a specific framework to operate in.

So based on all of my previous experience, both in business and of course, traveling the country, learning from experts and going to conferences, and just developing and listening to frameworks that have worked and that have made millions of dollars and firms that these small businesses needed to think about problems in a specific way. create solutions, learn how to understand how to create solutions for those problems, and then how to implement those problems readily, either that same day or the next day.

Business Operations Inefficiencies

Dr. Barbara Hales: When a business owner first approaches you with concerns about their operations, what are some immediate signs you look for that indicate inefficiencies?

Micah Logan: That’s a great question. So one of the first signs that indicate efficiencies is, how their website looks, and how it’s presented to the public. And believe it or not, I’ll ask a business what they do. And then I’ll look at their website to see if the brand promise matches what they say they do. And if it’s disjointed, then I tell them Well, we have a messaging, we have a messaging problem here. You know, you say that you deliver this, but your website communicates completely differently. That’s, that’s broken. So typically, believe it or not, as simple as that is, it typically signals an issue, for me that there are bigger problems in the business.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Can you give us an example of a company you’ve worked with where identifying and addressing inefficiencies led to significant growth or transformation?

Micah Logan: I can. So one example that comes to mind, you know, very quickly is the company that I worked with Hush Frame before I was brought in, one of the things was that they had no process for financial reporting, everything was scattered at random. There was no process for bringing online district distribution, there was no going to market, and the product existed in the marketplace, but there was no real specific direction on how to market the product and who to go to that made sense to market it. There were there was no structure with how the company operated by fulfilling orders, no inventory, there was no there was no, there was no fully intact supply chain, and there were a lot of issues that were kind of scattered.

So the first thing that we did was we created an outline of what the company said that they were going to do in the marketplace what they wanted it to be, why they thought that people hired their product, and what they what their product was hired for in the marketplace. And then we started working backward. So how do we deliver what the product hires your company to do? So your company is hired to provide this product to builders so that they can build businesses that are built quiet buildings? Okay, so how do we make sure that we deliver on this every single time? And how do we get it into their hands? So we reverse engineer that. And then one of the things I did was I started putting together the framework using DLP on every single issue in the business, and then that kind of led to some of that substantial 812% growth or going from about $30,000 to almost $400,000 in 36 months.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Can you refresh your memory on what B.O.P. stands for and what that method is all about? And also how businesses can benefit from it?

Blueprint, Optimized, And Position

Micah Logan: Yeah, so BOP stands for blueprint, optimized, and position. The BOP method is a framework that small businesses use or can use to help solve issues from ideation to actual implementation. One of the things that my coaching is all about is actual implementation and not kind of implementing, and not sort of implementing, and not the theories of implementation and how they should work with the business. So blueprint optimized position. So it starts with the blueprint, which lays the foundation of whatever the problem set is. Whatever the challenge is the business needs to understand and understand what the problem is, and then optimize that problem.

Once you understand and brainstorm the ideas of what the problems are, then you don’t have to optimize solutions for those problems, you have to identify gaps that your firm has in between what it could be and how it’s supposed to deliver from where it currently is right now. And then you optimize solutions within that framework. And, of course, depending on the problem set, there are my courses that have guidance on how to do that, whether it’s goal setting, whether it’s sales or marketing. And then the position is the last part of the BOP, which is when you take those optimized solutions and start building them into the business. And you help to train people who will implement the solutions for the problem. So that could be employees. That could be the customers. It could be logistics, it could be operations, it could be sales, it could be training, whatever your staff is deficient in position helps to put it into force in the business kind of.

Dr. Barbara Hales: What are the most common pitfalls small businesses fall into that hinder their ability to grow? And how can these be preemptively addressed?

Preemptive Measures To Avoid Business Failures

Micah Logan: So that’s a good question. So one of the most common things that are common reasons why businesses don’t grow in my opinion, is because they don’t know why people hire them. They don’t know what job people hire them to do. And they don’t have systems of backup But they promised the public that they will do. So let me just give you an example. There was a professor at Harvard Business School who’s now passed named Clayton Christensen, Clayton Christensen came up with the essential marketing topic, the job that needs to be done in a white paper that was entitled marketing malpractice. And in that paper, what he mentioned was that businesses need to understand why people hire them, and what job they hire them for. Now, whether you’re a product or a service, your company can be hired to do a specific job.

Let me give you an example. One example is that if you are an ice cream shop, you may say, Well, why did people come and buy ice cream? Is it just because they like ice cream? Well, maybe some people just like ice cream. But if you’re an ice cream shop and a community, you’re providing ice cream to kids and their families, you are providing ice cream for first dates, you’re providing ice cream for schools and their ballgames and supporting the PTO. So really, what you’re doing is your ice cream is a way to connect the community to life events, or memories. And so why do people get ice cream, because they never forget what was like to get ice cream. They remember getting the ice cream floats with their fathers or their mothers, they remember what it’s like when they had ice cream on a hot summer day. And it’s nothing like it, it sticks in their memory. So one of the issues that small businesses have is they don’t understand the job that people hire them to do, they believe sometimes it’s just them providing the service, or the product is enough. But that’s not near enough for them to move the needle. Not in my opinion.

Dr. Barbara Hales: I never really thought of a delicious commodity like ice cream and why we all love to get it has a deep philosophical meaning behind it. That’s a new way of looking at it. I don’t think I’ll ever take a look at my mint chocolate chip the same way again.

Micah Logan: Well, you know, it’s funny because if I say to you, Barbara, maybe a time when you got mad at someone when you were young at school, you may not remember it. But if I said Barbara Namie a time when you had ice cream, and what the ice cream was centered around, you’ll probably be able to do it, you probably be able to say mica, I remember I was eating ice cream. But here are the events surrounding this moment of eating ice cream. That is the job that the ice cream shop essentially people are hiring them for. And that’s what businesses need to focus on. And so because they don’t understand what job they need to be done, they don’t communicate their branding message to say the correct way. And then they don’t implement systems to support that brand message.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Well beyond just financial success, how can implementing effective systems impact the culture, employee satisfaction, and long-term vision of a company?

Benefits of Effective Systems To Company’s Culture, Employee Satisfaction, And Long-Term Vision

Micah Logan: So in my opinion, one of the main reasons why employees leave a company is because they don’t see a path for growth. And they’re not being rewarded for what they do. Or they’re frustrated with how the company is being run. So systems help an employee to mitigate frustration because they always know what to do for the most part and a good company has a good small business can balance two things, ownership of an issue that employees can manage with the guidelines for how they manage this issue, and letting them use their discernment with how to handle this issue. And couple that with giving them the ownership of doing it.

A good system and process allow for guidelines but also allow the flexibility for employees to be able to kind of deal with those issues. However, having systems and processes in the business helps to promote good training among the employees and also to help the managers to help chart the course for the employees in the future. How can I get okay, you make $50,000 Right now, you want to get the 75? How do I get the 75? Well, let me show you.
So this system or process helps to outline how a person can go from 50 to 75. Let me show you what you have to do to get there. There are two ways you either get another certification, you get more education so that you can bring your period up. And these are the jobs that you can get once you have those things. These are the things that you need to do in your job to become more efficient so that you earn more money, increasing your bonuses so that you also can earn more money to get to that, but a good system and process helps to keep employees happy and less frustrated. It also helps to chart the course of the business and errors.

It helps to promote a consistent response to issues when they come up. Things like the Public are unhappy with the choice that was made. Because there’s a shift in the marketplace. There’s a shift in marketing taste in messaging. How do you deal with those shifts in the business landscape? Well, systems and processes help guide that ship to success, and they help you to implement tested ideas, and to make them scalable, across the board.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, I help professional listeners out there who have seen drastically reduced reimbursement rates, while escalating expenses have well thought about what else they could sell in terms of products or services beyond their, like medical help that they’re providing for their patients. And what is the single most important piece of advice you’d give them regarding setting up the business side of their medical practice for success?

Tips For Successful Medical Business

Micah Logan: Yeah, so that’s an excellent question. And this one is closer to me because I was in the health and wellness industry for a couple of decades before I sold my firm last month. One of the things in the medical industry that we don’t see enough of is we see discussions around the margins about preventative medicine, preventative health, and how you can kind of mitigate some issues. But we know statistically that something like 80% of diseases out there a lifestyle diseases, and then 80% of those are preventable.

So there is a big market for medical professionals to be involved. And taking the lead and or working with health and wellness professionals to get this done. I think that the future of integrative medicine, will you bring someone in the wellness space to the medical space, and delivering a higher level patient experience is going to be a game changer for the future. So medical professionals who have, for instance, the stomach work with wellness professionals and package it together to form a service that speaks to preventative medicine and maintenance medicine.

Then, of course, some things come up, that have to be addressed by the medical professional. But having the foresight to be able to future-proof your business by offering services, Recovery Services, people like hydration, they like drip therapy, franchises are being made. But these are easy things that independent medical businesses could implement in their businesses to make more money in the membership base. For instance, membership-based IV drip therapy with nutrients is something that is a fairly easy way for them to kind of supply stock, and provide services as a preventative service for their patients. And they can build membership packages around that to keep their customers coming back. Yeah, so that’s, that’s an idea, I believe, for the medical professionals.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Yeah, that’s a very good idea. There are several plastic surgeons, or dermatologists that are doing it now setting up packages where people can choose within a package, how many times they’re going to come in for a Botox, how many times they’re going to come in for lip fillers, and other anti-aging processes or within the same packages. So you know, there’s a lot, a lot of options to choose from, and you’re giving the patient you know, the decision as to which ones they’re going to take so that they can feel that they’re in control. And it’s, you know, it’s a lot more alluring.

Micah Logan: Yeah, for sure. And I think that this is kind of out of the box. But like think about this, you know, medical professionals often say to their patients, with whom they have issues with with nutrition compliance, things like, hey, well, I think that you should see a dietitian and you should, you know, try to change your diet so that you could bring your, you know, a one C. And like, you know, they try to try to get the patient to come into physical compliance. But if they, for instance, were to have readily available smoothies if they were to partner with meal planning companies that have these, these meal plans, and they can sell them to their patients if they had a smoothie station at their office, and then they can package these things into product or service based offerings.

Again, bring in maybe personal trainers, who have another suite with their trainer who can operate and work with these individuals, the more you can get away from relying on insurance companies and you can create a boutique experience that that people will pay cash for. I think that you can drive you know millions more dollars into your practice. Absolutely.

Dr. Barbara Hales: And I love the idea of having shakes in the office, which is something that I probably would want to taste.

Micah Logan: Yeah, no. I mean, look, there are firms out there who will build these, they’ll build these smoothies offerings for these medical facilities, you know, you get your health license from the local municipality, which doesn’t take that long. And then once you do, this, firms that will come out, show you how to operate it, they’ll, they’ll get it set up for you, they’ll ensure that your staff and everyone that you hire gets ServSafe certified so that they know how to deliver it in a way that’s effective for the patients, but then, again, regular recurring memberships that they can sell, if they can, if they can kind of start thinking about recurring revenue and cash getting deposit regularly, they’re gonna be on the right track. Of course, implementing that is you have to think outside the box to implement it, but you can do it.

Common Cents University

Dr. Barbara Hales: I understand that you have something called Common Cents University. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Micah Logan: Yeah, sure. So Common Cents University is my flagship small business education platform. And what I do there is I teach courses like the Bob implementer course and the Bob Linde would implement a course, say that 10 times fast is what I was just talking about earlier, with a blueprint optimized position. But I teach broadly, that’s one course and a competent university. But I teach broadly, different aspects of small business, and how small business owners whether they’re medical professionals, whether they are service providers, or in-home services, how run their businesses, effectively, by implementing systems processes, how to create a brand promise, how to create a mission and value, how to create systems behind those to deliver it. And so one of the courses, for instance, in Common Sense University is the Bob implementer as we talked about.

The other course that I’m building right now is called Pitch Perfect. So that a business owner can learn how to create an elevator pitch for their business, they can speak about it, it’s almost like public speaking. So they can learn how to present it publicly to investors, and to people who want to hear more about their business, I’m going to be building a course on cash flow management. And every course that I put in there is vetted by an industry professional, who has an experience in this particular realm. So I had a global risk expert, for instance, and the Bob implemented course, approve the risk management strategies that we have in that course. And the cash flow management course, I’ll be working with cash flow management experts to put that in there.

And so there’ll be different kinds of courses that business owners can get for a lower cost and hiring someone who is, you know, 3040 50 $60,000 a month, some kind of consultant to implement in their business. The big gap between large businesses and small businesses or their large businesses tend to hire people like me to come in and do this stuff for about $100,000 a month, I wanted to say 99.9% of small businesses in the US are small businesses,

I wanted to provide a solution for small businesses to be able to grow and build and scale, but based on having rock-solid fundamentals, so that they can turn their businesses into income-producing assets. A business should be an asset, it shouldn’t be a job. And I teach small and commonsense University, small businesses how to turn their businesses into income-producing assets.

Dr. Barbara Hales: So on the pitch-perfect course, you don’t have anybody who needs to sing.

Micah Logan: You don’t have to. So you don’t have to be Pitch Perfect, but your pitch has to hit just right for people who are listening to it. That’s all. That’s right.

Dr. Barbara Hales: That’s great. Well, I’ve enjoyed our session today. This has been another episode of marketing tips for doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Until next time.