Jason and Shania Clemons started in business in 2015 and jumped in Paul’s World in 2016. In 2019, they dove into 4% Club and are now CEO Mastermind members.
They are some of the most successful business owners in this community and were invited onstage at our Summer Mastermind Event to take you through the “The 10 Crucial Decisions You Must Make to Reach a Million Dollar Business“.
1: Decision to Commit to Personal Growth
Business growth and personal growth go hand-in-hand. It’s not about reading a book or taking a course, it’s about how to implement it and do everything possible to become better. Since joining CEO, we have spoken about our business and how we can fix it, and then we realize what needs to be done.
If you don’t have a mentor, then you really should have one who you can call when you need it.
And don’t be afraid to challenge your thinking day by day – what can I change? What can I make better? Reflect on everything you have done.
2: Decision to Make Sh*t Happen
Execute: no excuses. Go tomorrow and start with it.
Being at an event, surrounded by business owners – like you – that want to push themselves changes your mindset. It’s about having people in your life and business who understand it.
Paul put a quote on Facebook about the discipline to make the time to do something or it would never get done. You have to make it happen and carve it out of your time.
Owning a business is hard and people who don’t own a business – don’t get it.
3: Decision to improve Cash Flow
People may not understand how important it is – it helps you make the best decisions.
Look at the future and see where we need to be. It helps us to make decisions and make mistakes. If you are in a position when you are capitalized, you can make those mistakes.
You need to be mindful how you grow and how your mindset and cash flow needs to change. C0vid hit and the importance of growing your cash reserves is key.
As you grow, expenses are relatively small. As you grow, keep an eye on your cash as you can go from $10k a month expenses to $50k a month expense. Keeping an eye on cash helps you grow your business.
Living several years behind your means and reinvesting your cash. Keep it, reinvest in your life, but if you are a couple of years behind you can still have that positive cashflow.
4: Decision to Hire an Ops Manager
A couple of years ago, Paul walked in and stressed the importance of how we needed to hire an ops manager, so we did just that. Bringing that person on has been incredible.
Once you get to that $300k club you need someone to manage people and do the recruiting and not a glorified front desk person, you need someone dedicated to it. Yes, they aren’t generating money, but the better you can keep on your cashflow the better decisions you can make.
We are here because we want to grow the business.
You do not realise how much you do that does not grow your business and you will amaze yourself how far you have come when you offload it.
5. Keep Your Bench Warm / Expect to Fire People
A harsh reality is that people are always coming and going – on your terms or their terms and you need to be able to fire people. For some it is not an issue, for others, it is. One of the big things to remember is that you are not just taking care of yourself in the business – but everyone IN the business.
It’s a harsh reality, but people are always coming and going, and you need to hire AND fire people. A lot of people have a lot of empathy for staff, but I’ve learned that you are not just taking care of yourself in a business, but everyone. One bad apple can destroy a lot of relationships.
Challenge yourself to bring someone on before you really need them rather than being left in a hole.
It’s challenging to hire, so don’t always necessarily wait for the BEST fit, they may be coachable and get them in right away.
Keep the idea in mind that we have a great staff but they are going to leave at some point – accept it then you can react and respond. Paul always said, “Hire fast, fire faster”.
6. Make Decisions Quickly and Confidently.
Make them as you go and you will never have all the information, just enough to make a call. You will grow from the decisions you make. Something said on the last meeting was go to bed telling yourself you have made that decision, then when you wake up see how you feel.
Making no decision is more harmful than the wrong decision.
Understand to have the humility to admit a bad decision. What can you learn from it? We are coming out of a situation stronger and learn from it. Don’t shy away, learn from it.
7. Communicate with Other Businesses.
Learn from those that are where you want to be. It’s not about those the same size, it’s smaller ones just starting out and those that are bigger too.
Joining CEO is life hanging and too often we try and go through it alone, but in reality, there’s people going through the exact same thing as you. Keep those friendships real and talk to them about it, talk to your peers.
You forget so much more information than you realize. Surround yourself with those people and hang out with those who have a great view of business. We want a vacation so we can go to Europe for a month, it’s a choice we want to make.
Strive to be a business owner and hang out with business owners. Make time to come here to events and our personal and business life has been pretty insane. Being here with everyone it makes you realize why you are here. It’s worth it every single time.
8 Decision to Harness Your Fear
We all have something we need to overcome raising rates, hiring, firing, coming to events… make a decision to own it and accept it. As you make money, people are scared to lose it. If you are scared to lose what you gained, then you probably will.
It’s a lot harder to keep what you have than it is to make it.
In the pand3mic, we moved to a space twice as big as what we had, but it worked out. We had the chance to pull out and stay, but we had to do it and it was the best decision. We were able to grow as soon as we as things opened up.
Take a calculated risk, don’t do it willy nilly.
Hire sooner! Don’t wait until you have a 2-month waitlist.
Ramp it up and fill those schedules rather than waiting. We are out of the mindset of waiting to fill up before we can hire, now we hire, ramp up marketing and fill the schedule.
They won’t start day 1 with a full schedule, but they will get there with a marketing program.
Growth comes in different forms, embrace it, don’t shy away. Profit, people, systems, facilities: embrace it, don’t be scared.
9: Surround Yourself with The Best People You Can Afford.
Those people will make a difference. People in alignment with your values are important. They could be a great person, but not in alignment with your values. A salesman could be sympathetic, but not be able to close the deal then they aren’t right for you.
You need someone to manage systems, you need people to do it. I challenge you to move up the pay bracket.
You get significantly better people in a higher pay bracket. An extra $10k can turn into $30 or $40k. Challenge yourself to look at the person filling the role. If I offer more than what I was looking at then where does it get me?
10: Have the Mindset of Intellectual Rigor
How do we charge higher prices AND get more clients? You can do both! Push yourself to achieve 2 conflicting goals. Shifting into this growth mindset will catapulte you further than you can imagine.
The amount of time you spend thinking … how do we get BOTH of these things. We HAVE to make it work so HOW do we make it work.
It all comes down to how we look at things, change industry standards and what we do. Have that thinking time. What do you want your business to be in 5 or 10 years?
How do I charge higher prices and increase my number of patients? How do I make more money without adding costs? Look at it a different way, think hard.
There’s no magic solution and as a CEO you get paid to think and make those decisions. Paul spoke about firing people up and it’s important to make decisions for the company and think about those decisions.
Last Takeaways
Clemons said, “Best thing from this community: The community itself, sitting down with like-minded people after we went alone. Being part of this group means we can talk to other people and not just us.
“One thing I took from an early CEO meeting is that a lot of people are successful and lead a good life and it made me think about what I wanted my life to look like rather than people making tons of money, but no lifestyle with it. Make the choices you want as opposed to others.
“We would not have been in a position to make choices in our lives if we weren’t in CEO Mastermind.“
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