Latest / The Heart-Led Business Show / Heartful Pivot with Dr. Tracy Gapin

Transcript

Heartful Pivot with Dr. Tracy Gapin · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom Jackobs: Today we're diving into the dynamic world of Dr.
• 0:39
  Tom Jackobs: Tracy Gapin, a true maestro in the realm of men's health and wellness.
• 0:44
  Tom Jackobs: With a heart that beats for compassionate care and a business that thrives on nurturing Doc Tracy is here to share insights on running a heart-led enterprise.
• 0:53
  Tom Jackobs: So join us as we explore the joy and journey of bringing passion to profession.
• 0:59
  Tom Jackobs: So let's get started.
• 1:00
  Tom Jackobs: Doc Tracy, welcome to the show.
• 1:02
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Thanks Tom.
• 1:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm really excited to be with you today.
• 1:04
  Tom Jackobs: We've been working together for, maybe six months or so and I've been wanting to get you on the show, tell your story of the transition and all that.
• 1:12
  Tom Jackobs: Of course the first thing I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:17
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah, so I believe that a heart-led business is one that's based on your overarching why.
• 1:23
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What is your real purpose, what's your real mission in life?
• 1:26
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I like to look at it really from both a business perspective and a personal perspective.
• 1:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And my mission for the business actually very closely aligns with my personal mission as well.
• 1:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I think that's really the key to having a sustainable business, one that really has a massive impact and one that's going to really have a higher purpose, is focusing on that big why.
• 1:45
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's awesome.
• 1:47
  Tom Jackobs: And I always ask also kinda like, how long did it take you to come up with that the personal passion needs to be connected to the business passion.
• 1:57
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Long time.
• 1:58
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 1:58
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I went through so much work on.
• 2:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And we'll go through the journey of building the business.
• 2:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it, it didn't really click until I finally had to step back and recognize what was the underlying personal dynamics that were really driving it all.
• 2:13
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What's my big why, what's my big mission?
• 2:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And how that suddenly was what really propelled me forward.
• 2:19
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it changed everything in the business and in my personal life as well.
• 2:22
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And and that moving forward, it's, I'm taking that to the next level as well.
• 2:27
  Tom Jackobs: That's awesome.
• 2:28
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 2:28
  Tom Jackobs: It feels so good when your own personal beliefs are aligned with what you do, eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, 15 hours a day sometimes.
• 2:37
  Tom Jackobs: You see these people that just go to work and they're just like, Ugh.
• 2:40
  Tom Jackobs: It just, it's, it makes sad.
• 2:41
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah! So tell us about your backstory.
• 2:43
  Tom Jackobs: You started as a urologist, but you tell us.
• 2:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So I was a board certified urologist for about 25 years.
• 2:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I ran a very busy practice.
• 2:52
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was a partner in a five man group, high volume grinding.
• 2:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I would see as many as 50 patients a day.
• 2:58
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And then I go to the hospital and do a couple cases in the operating room on call nights and weekend.
• 3:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it was a grind.
• 3:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: For the first few years.
• 3:06
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I loved it.
• 3:06
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was very passionate about it.
• 3:07
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I had spent decades just getting to that point as well, going through all of the education from college and medical school and residency training.
• 3:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And in the beginning I loved it.
• 3:16
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was very passionate about it.
• 3:18
  Tracy Gapin, MD: About halfway through, so this was about maybe now about 14 years ago or so, I hit a wall.
• 3:24
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I hit a wall of my own health where I was stressed out, not sleeping well.
• 3:29
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was fat.
• 3:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was about 30 pounds overweight.
• 3:32
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I, yeah.
• 3:33
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I didn't like who I was.
• 3:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was this angry.
• 3:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was becoming this angry old man already.
• 3:38
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I, I noticed that when I would walk into the hospital, I was a different person.
• 3:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Like I was a true, excuse my language, a true asshole.
• 3:44
  Tracy Gapin, MD: People talk about how surgeons are assholes.
• 3:45
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I see why now?
• 3:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Because we're just beaten down day after day, and you sacrifice everything to be able to take care of your patients.
• 3:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it finally hit me where I couldn't do it anymore.
• 3:55
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And my wife convinced me to finally go see a doctor.
• 3:57
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I had never been to a doctor.
• 3:58
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm 40 years old at this point, and I go to this primary care doctor Lo, what's that?
• 4:05
  Tom Jackobs: It's funny that a doctor wouldn't see.
• 4:06
  Tom Jackobs: A doc.
• 4:06
  Tom Jackobs: Hasn't seen a doctor.
• 4:07
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Oh no, we never see it.
• 4:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: No.
• 4:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We'll take care of ourself.
• 4:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm fine.
• 4:10
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm fine.
• 4:11
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Leave me alone.
• 4:11
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 4:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I don't have any stress doesn't bother me.
• 4:13
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Stress doesn't affect me.
• 4:14
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm fine.
• 4:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So I go see this doctor and my lipids were terrible.
• 4:18
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And he basically told me, just lose weight and we're probably gonna put you on a statin.
• 4:23
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That was it.
• 4:24
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That was the answer.
• 4:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm like I'm this men's health expert in air quote, for those of you listening and I'm supposed to have all the answers and I don't have the answers either, but I knew there was more to it than that.
• 4:33
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Like I knew it wasn't just, I need a statin, like statin deficiency.
• 4:36
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so for my own selfish reasons, I started getting into epigenetics, which is really the science of lifestyle medicine and how your environment, lifestyle, can affect your genes.
• 4:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I went through the certification program.
• 4:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Holy cow.
• 4:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: There's this whole other world of medicine that I didn't even know about that I'm really actually excited about.
• 4:54
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That got me into functional medicine, which is really learning about root cause, underlying cause of your problems.
• 5:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Then it got me to regenerative medicine, learning about stem cells and peptides.
• 5:05
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That got me to hormone optimization, learning how to treat hormones the right way, which I had never learned before, that got me into wearable technology and longevity medicine.
• 5:13
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Next thing I know, Tom, I found this entire world of, I call it precision medicine, the best way to describe it, of all these different modalities that when I put'em all together, it was nothing like what I had been trained in.
• 5:26
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Nothing like what this doctor had recommended for me.
• 5:28
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I realized that I was onto something here and I finally found.
• 5:32
  Tracy Gapin, MD: My passion and purpose also, which is really the whole point of the show.
• 5:36
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I was able to turn my own health around and I started offering some of this stuff to my patients in my urology practice on the side.
• 5:43
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I started building this little cash-based program.
• 5:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I tell you, Tom, I was ready to quit medicine before that.
• 5:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was ready to give up, move on, do something else.
• 5:52
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I couldn't keep doing what I was doing.
• 5:55
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I didn't love it.
• 5:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I lost the passion for it, but suddenly I found my purpose.
• 6:00
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I loved it, and I enjoyed it again.
• 6:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So I started building this cash-based business on the side that grew and grew for a couple of years, and men were seeing great results like I did myself.
• 6:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I got to the point where I'm like, I love this, and I can't imagine doing urology another day when I'd rather just spend all my time doing this.
• 6:20
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I did what any wise person does, and I just jump off a cliff.
• 6:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I figuratively, yeah.
• 6:28
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I jumped off a cliff.
• 6:28
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I left my urology practice.
• 6:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I gave, I had to give my partners one year notice.
• 6:31
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I gave them the notice I'm leaving, and they all thought I was crazy, complete crazy.
• 6:36
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Now they're wishing they were doing what I was doing, of course, but by the time they thought I was crazy and I started a business.
• 6:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm a doctor, but I'm honestly, I've always felt like an entrepreneur stuck in a doctor's body.
• 6:48
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Like I was selling candy out of a locker when I was in middle school.
• 6:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That's I just love the concept of building a business.
• 6:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And now I realize I could take this amazing cutting edge medicine, combine it with my entrepreneurial desires and my passion, and actually transformed lives and help men with men's health in a very different way.
• 7:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I built Gapin Institute.
• 7:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I opened my brick and mortar Gapin Institute in 2020 and and we haven't looked back and we've grown.
• 7:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's been an amazing journey as we've built the business and our team.
• 7:19
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And something that I can say now, truly I could never say before, and that is I absolutely love what I'm doing.
• 7:25
  Tom Jackobs: That's music to my ears and i'm sure it's music to yours.
• 7:28
  Tom Jackobs: As well.
• 7:29
  Tom Jackobs: Yes.
• 7:29
  Tom Jackobs: You wake up and you're just energized for the day.
• 7:32
  Tom Jackobs: I have a friend here that obviously, oh, it's gonna be Monday soon.
• 7:35
  Tom Jackobs: I'm like, no, it's gonna be Monday soon.
• 7:38
  Tom Jackobs: I'm like, wow.
• 7:38
  Tom Jackobs: I get to talk to people.
• 7:40
  Tom Jackobs: Have fun.
• 7:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I think that really lines up with the whole concept of a heart center business, where when it's a heart center business, you just freaking love doing it.
• 7:48
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Like it, it comes from your heart.
• 7:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's real, it's authentic.
• 7:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You wanna do more and more.
• 7:52
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it's not work.
• 7:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's a joy.
• 7:54
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So I think that's really, that goes along with everything you're doing here with heart center business.
• 7:59
  Tom Jackobs: You know the old saying, you'll never if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.
• 8:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That's right.
• 8:05
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Tom Jackobs: Now there is a caveat to that.
• 8:06
  Tom Jackobs: I'm sure in your business there are certain things that you don't enjoy doing.
• 8:11
  Tom Jackobs: That's just part of being an entrepreneur.
• 8:13
  Tom Jackobs: For me it's books like, I don't like the accounting piece.
• 8:18
  Tom Jackobs: I enjoy that piece.
• 8:20
  Tom Jackobs: What areas of the business did you struggle with in terms of getting your head around doctor to entrepreneur?
• 8:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 8:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I've gone through a lot of business mentoring and mastermind and coaching and, I'm a strategic coach and and I've learned a lot about, about, identifying the visionary, the integrator, and staying in your lane and finding your unique ability and not straying.
• 8:39
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And what I did for many years there, Tom, was I wasted my time effort.
• 8:44
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Energy and money on the things that I should not be doing.
• 8:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I learned the hard way that I don't need to be doing spreadsheets.
• 8:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I don't need to be doing a lot of the CRM automation nonsense that I was doing and tagging and all this other stuff that I was doing that I thought I was being so productive.
• 8:59
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And yes I'm doing a great job and the team loves it because I'm helping them.
• 9:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: But in reality, I was really holding the business back because I was not really focused on.
• 9:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: My unique ability is to help drive the business forward.
• 9:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so that's been a big transformation for us as I've been able to stay in my visionary lane, so to speak.
• 9:19
  Tom Jackobs: That's you're, you must have been just watching what I was just doing prior to us getting on the call, working on a spreadsheet.
• 9:28
  Tracy Gapin, MD: There you.
• 9:29
  Tom Jackobs: That's funny.
• 9:31
  Tom Jackobs: So let's go back to the transition from the practice into the Gapin institute.
• 9:37
  Tom Jackobs: You said you had to give a year's notice What type of, other than having the private cash pay practice on the side, what other preparation did you have to do either mentally or educationally?
• 9:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So I, first, I had to save money, so I had been, I knew for, eight, 10 years I was going to make this move eventually.
• 9:57
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I, I was, putting money aside knowing that I would need that.
• 10:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I secured some capital.
• 10:02
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We did a build out for the brick and mortar office and I did secure some capital at low interest rates at that time.
• 10:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So that was very important as well.
• 10:11
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I put together a team.
• 10:14
  Tracy Gapin, MD: The great book Who, not How it, it's Find Your who's, and so I had a great consultant who knew how to, in my situation, started medical practice where there's a lot of other legalities and and issues that had to be, licenses and OSHA requirements and sharps containers and training for the medical team and different types of liability insurance and all kinds of different things beyond just the standard business set up administrative things that you think of.
• 10:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I hired a consultant for that.
• 10:44
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I hired VAs Virtual assistants to help me with some administrative tasks at the time.
• 10:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I.
• 10:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: But it was really the biggest thing for me was what's the offer?
• 10:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What am I gonna sell and how do I position it?
• 10:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so marketing was a really big focus for us in the very beginning, and there was a lot of iteration around product market fit and what do people, what do men want?
• 11:06
  Tracy Gapin, MD: For me, men's health was my focus.
• 11:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so what do men want?
• 11:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What do they need?
• 11:10
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What would they pay for?
• 11:11
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And what's my, my, zone of genius that I can serve them.
• 11:14
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so there was a lot of iteration around that offer as well before I ever left my practice and started the business.
• 11:21
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 11:22
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Can you
• 11:22
  Tom Jackobs: remember what your first offer was
• 11:24
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It was called the Precision Performance Medicine Program.
• 11:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Sounds sexy, doesn't it?
• 11:28
  Tom Jackobs: Wow!
• 11:29
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it was 15 k.
• 11:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It was a 15 k year long program at the time.
• 11:33
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And and I got, I remember the first guy who signed up.
• 11:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was like, oh my God, someone just gave me cash.
• 11:37
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Someone just, actually I before then, I was like, I don't know if people are gonna pay cash for this.
• 11:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And all the masterminds I was in, they were telling me, you gotta put high ticket and people will pay.
• 11:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm like, I don't think this is gonna work.
• 11:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was doubting it and then that first guy made the payment.
• 11:52
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm like, holy cow, someone, I, it was like all the limiting beliefs were just shedding away.
• 11:57
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And and that was the beginning of a long journey was that first guy who, who bought in.
• 12:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And, I think I.
• 12:05
  Tracy Gapin, MD: He bought into me as a human being, as a person, as a doctor, with my credibility, with my au authenticity.
• 12:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was who I am.
• 12:13
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I didn't try to be someone else.
• 12:14
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it came from a place of, look, this is what I, you know me as a urologist.
• 12:18
  Tracy Gapin, MD: This was a guy, a patient in my practice.
• 12:20
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You know me as a urologist, but you also know now all the stuff that I've learned and you see me personally, how I've changed.
• 12:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And he's I want that.
• 12:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And that was, again, heart-centered business.
• 12:29
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It came from me as a person, and that's what I think really propelled us.
• 12:33
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's that.
• 12:34
  Tom Jackobs: That what a great story too.
• 12:35
  Tom Jackobs: And having that big first sale.
• 12:39
  Tom Jackobs: Just like you said, melts away all of those limiting beliefs.
• 12:44
  Tom Jackobs: And definitely I had the same experience where in my fitness business, I was selling like 10 sessions at a time.
• 12:49
  Tom Jackobs: Finally hired a consultant after the six months of failing and sold a hundred session package for the first time, a$5,000 package.
• 12:58
  Tom Jackobs: And I was like, oh my gosh, this somebody can what for personal training?
• 13:02
  Tom Jackobs: Are you crazy?
• 13:02
  Tom Jackobs: What other iterations have you had to go through then in terms of that offer and making sure that it's repeatable, it is expandable and scalable ultimately.
• 13:14
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah, so in the beginning it was all me, and so that was a real problem.
• 13:17
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I identified that as a problem, but I didn't know how to initially address that.
• 13:21
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So it was all me, every program was through me.
• 13:22
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was the doctor, I was the bottle washer, I was the, the dishwasher.
• 13:26
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They say I was everything.
• 13:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I had my nurse as my administrator.
• 13:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Helping me as well.
• 13:32
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I hired a marketing assistant who is still with me to this day.
• 13:36
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Those two first employees are still with me as my main leaders.
• 13:39
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You know them personally on the side.
• 13:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 13:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And in the beginning it was just me learning how to serve the client first.
• 13:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Just create outcomes first.
• 13:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Because before I can start to hand this off to other people, I had to prove that it worked.
• 13:51
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I had to know that it worked, and I had to really iterate until I found what is the perfect combination.
• 13:55
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So we tried different durations of the program different bundles of what's included, what's not.
• 14:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it was a constant iteration of looking at the, the cost of goods.
• 14:06
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Looking at the transformation, people say, people are buying the transformation, not buying how you get there necessarily.
• 14:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so a lot of it was overcoming my limiting beliefs of what people will pay.
• 14:17
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And and every time I would lower the price, which was the wrong move, the mistakes that I made along the way, I realized I got the wrong clients.
• 14:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I got the people I didn't want, I got the people who, the discount shoppers.
• 14:28
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And they, those were not the clients who were really, truly bought in and I went through this one coaching program and one of the quotes that I learned from that is the transformation happens when someone enrolls in your program.
• 14:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Everything from there on is technically gravy.
• 14:43
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Once they commit and make that transformation, that's the big shift.
• 14:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's the mindset around they're committing to doing what you're offering.
• 14:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so for me that was a really big part as well.
• 14:52
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah, getting clear on, on the deliverables was not so much important as that actual transformation that we provide.
• 14:58
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 14:58
  Tom Jackobs: And how quickly did you grow?
• 15:00
  Tom Jackobs: So it's, you're basically five years in, right?
• 15:03
  Tom Jackobs: Right now.
• 15:04
  Tom Jackobs: So that first year, second year, what was the trajectory of the business at that point?
• 15:10
  Tracy Gapin, MD: The first year was, was great actually because I had a book of business already.
• 15:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I brought in some business from my practice.
• 15:18
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'd already built that business.
• 15:19
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And then I had, I brought in a nurse practitioner who had her own book of business as well.
• 15:23
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So the first year was great, and then we hit a plateau.
• 15:26
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Year two was actually tougher because we hit a plateau where suddenly I'm like.
• 15:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: The patients I brought with me are not the ones that are gonna stay.
• 15:33
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It was the wrong avatar, the wrong kind of client.
• 15:36
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And and we had to start to pivot and refine our offer and refine the messaging.
• 15:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I also had a partnership going that I terminated at the beginning of year three or so that was really holding us back as well, holding us back from our mission that we want to focus on.
• 15:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it was year three that, that we really started to turn the corner.
• 15:58
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And we did financially we did over 3 million in year three.
• 16:02
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We did over 4 million year four.
• 16:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And on this year five here, we're on pace to get right around 5 million.
• 16:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So we've definitely turned the corner in growth over the last couple years.
• 16:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 16:13
  Tom Jackobs: That's amazing growth.
• 16:14
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 16:14
  Tom Jackobs: That's five X from when you first started, so
• 16:17
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Tom Jackobs: yeah, just adding a million a year, so that's great.
• 16:21
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Not bad.
• 16:21
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Not bad.
• 16:22
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We've also had a lot of staff, but we've also invested so much in infrastructure, invested in systems, processes, teams, so that we can now really scale.
• 16:31
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 16:32
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Tom Jackobs: And so what does that scaling look like then from a functional standpoint?
• 16:37
  Tom Jackobs: From like the entrepreneur standpoint.
• 16:40
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah, great question.
• 16:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I remember year one I was like, I wanna scale.
• 16:44
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I wanna scale.
• 16:44
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I thought I was ready to scale.
• 16:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was not freaking ready to scale.
• 16:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I wasn't even close.
• 16:48
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 16:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It wasn't until year three or so that I started putting the systems in place, started hiring other key staff members.
• 16:55
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I hired two amazing PAs.
• 16:58
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I hired one who's no longer with us, bad hire, but the two I have now are absolutely incredible.
• 17:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And they allowed me to train them on the medical side and then step, step on to bigger issues.
• 17:10
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I hired functional medicine trained coaches who provide the lifestyle coaching, functional medicine part of things so that I can really step away from that as well.
• 17:17
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so those key hires were, really critical for me to be able to scale and more importantly, building the playbook, the manuals, the SOPs for them to do their part of the program so that I knew it was now a replicatable process, a system, every client coming in had the same experience.
• 17:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And and that was really the key before I could ever think of scaling.
• 17:38
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:39
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It was like, okay, now we wanna build a bunch of Gapin Institutes.
• 17:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We've figured out how to do this.
• 17:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We've hired the right team.
• 17:43
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We have our accountability chart, we have all of our SOPs, we have the staffing.
• 17:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We're ready to go.
• 17:47
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Let's scale, let's go big.
• 17:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Then I realized that it was still dependent on me.
• 17:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm still doing the sales.
• 17:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm still bringing every client in, and without me, there'd be no sales without me speaking.
• 18:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: There'd be no growth.
• 18:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And as much as I would.
• 18:06
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Tell myself as much as I lie to myself that the business was working, functioning without me completely.
• 18:12
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That wasn't true.
• 18:13
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I was still intrinsically required for the sales and the growth.
• 18:17
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so the next phase was I had to hire a sales team.
• 18:20
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And this is where you and your team have been amazing in helping me really refine this, of building, bringing in a sales team that have a system, a script, a process of how do we deal with incoming leads and how do we convert them along this journey and get them to actually buy and that sounds so simple, but that's so freaking hard to get them through this journey and get them to commit and buy the program, and so that's been a journey for us as well.
• 18:46
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That's taken a while that we've gotten to the point now where it's really starting to get dialed in.
• 18:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's never, we always the running joke in our business is we're getting there.
• 18:54
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We're getting, because we'll never get there.
• 18:55
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We're always getting there.
• 18:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's the joke that you can always be better, right?
• 18:59
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You can always improve upon your process.
• 19:02
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And training the sales team has been huge for us to allow me to completely step outta the sales process.
• 19:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So now I'm no longer providing the medical care.
• 19:10
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm no longer training my team.
• 19:11
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I'm no longer doing the sales, but I was still involved in some day-to-day administrative kind of building spreadsheets and doing this and that kind of stuff.
• 19:19
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And it was only really in the last 6, 9, 12 months, going through Strategic Coach and doing, going some through some mentoring to realize that I had to completely step away from any of that stuff and focus on the 20%, which is the visionary work, and double down on that to help the business grow.
• 19:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so that has what's helped us to get to the point to answer, finally answer your question of how are we gonna grow and scale?
• 19:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And that is not through building multiple brick and mortars.
• 19:45
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Because that's very capital intensive, very labor intensive, staff intensive.
• 19:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: When in reality what I'm really selling is a different way of approaching men's health.
• 19:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: A different way of approaching healthcare in general.
• 19:59
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And that's really through my peak launch program.
• 20:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so at Gapin Institute our main offer is a six month peak launch program.
• 20:05
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And what what the big scale opportunity for us is to scale that brand.
• 20:10
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And now the next step is peak Launch md, where I'm now creating a license, a training, a coaching, a licensing model to get other doctors to go through the same journey that I've gone through.
• 20:21
  Tracy Gapin, MD: 'cause I'll tell you, Tom, there are thousands of doctors who are in the same miserable spot that I was in 12, 15 years ago.
• 20:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They're stuck, they're trapped.
• 20:29
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They hate their life, they hate their job.
• 20:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They want to get out.
• 20:32
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They hear about this whole field of longevity and precision medicine.
• 20:35
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They have no idea how to get there.
• 20:37
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And in reality, for me to have that impact that I want to have, it's not gonna be through me building Gapin Institute.
• 20:43
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's gonna be through training other doctors how to.
• 20:45
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Provide the same service that I've been providing.
• 20:48
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And peak Launch MD is our next big step of training other doctors to build the same business that we have.
• 20:53
  Tom Jackobs: That's so great.
• 20:54
  Tom Jackobs: And then what a great way to multiply your knowledge and your expertise as well as through, through others.
• 20:59
  Tom Jackobs: I'd like to go back to can the people in the business.
• 21:03
  Tom Jackobs: The hiring process, because I, I talked to a lot of heart blood business owners that are at your level where they have staff and they're starting, or there's wanting to hire staff.
• 21:11
  Tom Jackobs: How do you interviewed to make sure that they are aligned in the purpose, the heart-led alignment that you have in that interview process that lasts 30 minutes to an hour.
• 21:24
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 21:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 21:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So great question.
• 21:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So the hiring process is something that we've refined along the way as well.
• 21:30
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So part of it is the questions you ask in the on the application to have them really give answers of why are you applying to Gapin Institute?
• 21:38
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What is it that Gapin Institute that, that interests you?
• 21:41
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Then I really try to look at are their core values aligned with ours?
• 21:45
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I don't tell them our core values, but we ask them questions to really find out if they're aligned with our core values before we ever go beyond that.
• 21:54
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And we want to make sure that they're gonna fit our culture, they're gonna fit into our core values and that they really belong as part of our team of as a good fit.
• 22:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I'll tell you.
• 22:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We've made a lot of mistakes along the way.
• 22:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We've made a lot of bad hires where they sounded good on paper.
• 22:07
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They're like yeah.
• 22:07
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We can train and we can, they can fit.
• 22:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And they were horrible.
• 22:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so I've learned the hard way how the, the heart center business, the core values and culture has to come first before anything else.
• 22:17
  Tom Jackobs: Like the philosophy of hire slow fire fast.
• 22:20
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Hundred percent.
• 22:21
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I just said that an hour ago before our, before the, this podcast interview.
• 22:24
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Absolutely.
• 22:26
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I can't agree with that enough that, that the hiring decision is so critical, but we've been through, just yesterday, we were with one of our employees who was the wrong fit.
• 22:36
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I knew for a long time, but this is me being the visionary, staying away from the hiring, firing role that my team has, that when you know they're a bad fit, get rid of them as fast as you can because they're just holding you back.
• 22:49
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And a lot of it comes from fear.
• 22:50
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Oh my God what are we gonna do without that employee?
• 22:51
  Tracy Gapin, MD: What are we gonna do?
• 22:52
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You'll be so much better.
• 22:53
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It's like addition through subtraction when you get rid of that the bad apple.
• 22:57
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so a hundred percent agree with that statement.
• 22:59
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 23:00
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, just my own journey as well as same type of thing like you especially that, that mindset, and I really want the listeners to hear that again too.
• 23:09
  Tom Jackobs: The mindset that the person isn't the isn't.
• 23:16
  Tom Jackobs: The one that's driving the business, they aren't necessary ne necessarily, if you get rid of a bad apple, it's gonna improve, the rest of the bunch.
• 23:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That's right.
• 23:25
  Tom Jackobs: That's why it's I ran into that.
• 23:28
  Tom Jackobs: I had a trainer that, that worked for me that was.
• 23:32
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 23:34
  Tom Jackobs: It wasn't to a point where it was just like really kinda bad, but then it was like, why are we putting up with this?
• 23:40
  Tom Jackobs: And some, they coming in late and not doing everything that he's supposed to doing.
• 23:44
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Tom Jackobs: No, because, oh, I, if I get rid of him now I'm gonna have to get back onto the floor and start the training.
• 23:52
  Tom Jackobs: You get rid of somebody like that, the universe hears it, opens up a space and the next new hire comes in, who's much better anyway, so
• 24:00
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 24:00
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And I've had the philosophy that you can train content.
• 24:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You can't train character that someone can be trained for and that doesn't hold true for everybody.
• 24:09
  Tracy Gapin, MD: I've failed there as well, or one one of my coaches, amazing human being.
• 24:13
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Amazing man.
• 24:14
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Amazing person.
• 24:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: It the training part of it failed, and so that doesn't hold true for everybody, but in general character first, and you can train'em how to do whatever position for the most part that you're trying to get'em to do.
• 24:26
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Tom Jackobs: That's why I told my staff when I put all the hiring on onto my staff and I told them you can train somebody how to make a phone call.
• 24:35
  Tom Jackobs: How to do all this.
• 24:36
  Tom Jackobs: You can't train personality.
• 24:38
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah, that's right.
• 24:39
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Absolutely.
• 24:40
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 24:42
  Tracy Gapin, MD: The other part of that I think is really important is, and we've learned this the hard way as well, is that every position in the company it don't matter who it is, what they're doing.
• 24:51
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You need to have metrics to have actually, how do you measure their productivity, their performance or efficiency?
• 24:56
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And are they actually a achieving a job the right way?
• 25:00
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so we've worked, working with you, we've learned a lot on how do we refine that?
• 25:04
  Tracy Gapin, MD: We're continuing to improve that as we go of measuring performance of every employee to be sure that they're really providing the outcome that you want.
• 25:12
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Tom Jackobs: That's great.
• 25:13
  Tom Jackobs: And that, that keeps them aligned as well in feeling good about performing when they have those key performance indicators.
• 25:19
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Yeah.
• 25:20
  Tom Jackobs: Cool.
• 25:21
  Tom Jackobs: Tracy was such, I can't believe that the time has flown by it's been such a great conversation and hearing your advice as well, and you kinda, your rise out of traditional medicine and into your precision medicine that you're doing now is just, it's been great to, to listen to and to witness as well.
• 25:39
  Tom Jackobs: So thank you so much for being on the show, but also how can people learn more about the Gapin Institute and all the great stuff that you're doing.
• 25:48
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Thanks so much, and first of all, I just want to comment, you've been amazing with my team on the sales side, the sales training and everything that you do behind the scenes as well.
• 25:55
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So kudos to you and all the amazing work that you're doing as well, Tom.
• 25:57
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So just wanna honor you before I, I answer that.
• 26:00
  Tracy Gapin, MD: So yeah you can check out our website is gapininstitute.com.
• 26:03
  Tracy Gapin, MD: That's G-A-P-I-N institute.com, and I have a number of gifts for the listeners.
• 26:08
  Tracy Gapin, MD: If you go to Gapin institute.com/launch, you're gonna get a free copy a digital copy of my bestselling book, Male 2.0.
• 26:15
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You'll get a copy of our Ultimate Peptide Guide and a bunch of other great gifts there.
• 26:18
  Tracy Gapin, MD: More importantly, what you can see is when you're running a business, how do you attract leads from whenever you, you talk.
• 26:25
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And so we have this from the business side.
• 26:27
  Tracy Gapin, MD: You guys will see that not only are these great valuable pieces of content, but they now attract my audience.
• 26:33
  Tracy Gapin, MD: They opt in, and now I can continue to nurture those leads and hopefully get them, down the sales process.
• 26:37
  Tracy Gapin, MD: And use this opportunity for anyone out there running a business to see how we use this at in our sales funnel.
• 26:44
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that, that's great.
• 26:45
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 26:46
  Tom Jackobs: And I definitely need to read your book.
• 26:48
  Tom Jackobs: So grab, grab a copy of that.
• 26:51
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 26:52
  Tom Jackobs: And so thank you again for being on the show, taking your time outta your busy schedule.
• 26:55
  Tom Jackobs: I really appreciate it and I know our listeners probably got a lot of value out of today.
• 27:00
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Appreciate you, Tom.
• 27:01
  Tracy Gapin, MD: Thank you.
• 27:03
  Tom Jackobs: And thank you listeners for tuning in and watching the show today.
• 27:06
  Tom Jackobs: I really appreciate it, and I know Doc Tracy appreciates it as well.
• 27:10
  Tom Jackobs: So make sure you're checking out everything that Dr.
• 27:12
  Tom Jackobs: Gapin is doing, and we're gonna provide all of that down into the show notes.
• 27:16
  Tom Jackobs: So just go down there, click away on the links, and they'll just make it super easy for you as well.
• 27:22
  Tom Jackobs: And then if you could do me just one simple favor, and that is to give the show a rating and review.
• 27:27
  Tom Jackobs: So just click on that rating review, give it five stars.
• 27:30
  Tom Jackobs: Of course if we earn that and share the show with somebody that you know could use the advice shared on today's show.
• 27:36
  Tom Jackobs: And until next time, lead with your heart.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.