Mastering Money: 7 Lessons from a Self-Made Millionaire's Journey with Dr. Susie Carder

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute to contribute to a greater cause, add value, have an impact in the lives of others. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that is bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily have to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute to it in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish success that contributes to the greater good of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You're often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. And so today I have a great guest for you. Her name is Dr. Susie Carter. She is a self made millionaire, profit coach and fractional COO who has transformed how entrepreneurs perceive organizations. With an impressive track record spanning spanning two decades, Dr. Carter has built up ten multimillion dollar enterprises, establishing herself as a leading authority in the business and finance realms. She is also a best selling author and an international speaker, captivating audiences worldwide with her vibrant presence and profound insights. Dr. Carter's exceptional contributions to the business world have been recognized by prestigious publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and The Huffington Post. Dr. Susie, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you Dr. Gary. I'm so excited to be here and so excited to share and love love love all our conversations we've had.

Me too. And so tell everybody where you are right now because I we can see in the background your you got your shades down but I know you showed me A minute ago.

Oh, do you want to see? I live right on the ramper. Yeah, like, living the dream, man. I got a house in the mountains through the snow, and you can't see the glare, but that is the river.

Oh, wow.

You. We have a dock outside, you know, so we can go have cocktails on the boat and after work and all the fun stuff. What's that?

And that's. That's in Oregon, right?

Yes, I'm in Oregon this week. I'm in Oregon. I just came home from San Diego. I was there for seven months. In the colder winter. In the colder area, I'm in San Diego. In the warmer season, I'm here. And then when I want to be out of the snow, I go into the mountains to our other home. So I definitely am living a lifestyle that I could only imagine and dream of when I was a kid.

Well, let's go there. Where were you born and what were you like growing up?

Well, I am one of nine kids. Bobby, Ronnie, Stevie, Terry, Jody, Shelley, Suzy, Kelly, Debbie.

My dad was in the military, and I am. Well, my. My personal ad. When I met my husband, I said, I need a man with big hands because I am a handful. When I got married to my. My kid's dad, my grandma pulled my. I call him my husband now because he's not my husband anymore. My husband. She pulled my wife aside and said, I don't know why you're marrying her. She don't listen.

So what does that mean?

I'm the push the envelope, ask a lot of questions. I don't take it as a status quo. I'm like, why not? How come that doesn't make sense, right? I'm the inquisitive curiosity. My internal path is curiosity. I have to be learning, have to be growing, have to be contributing, or I'm bored, and you don't want me bored. Boredom can get me in trouble in a lot of different ways.

So that kind of leads us to our next, you know, the next phase of it. Because your why is contribute, but your how. How you do that is by challenging the status quo, thinking differently, pushing outside the box, imagining. Extraordinary.

Imagine.

And then ultimately, what you bring is the right way to get results. And so when you were, what. What if we had met you in high school? What would we have seen?

I was talking to a girlfriend about this. I literally, so funny, had a briefcase. I didn't have a backpack. I had a little briefcase. I wore little suits, right? I wore a little bun on my head. I was a binding woman.

So I was always in charge of something, right? I was in charge of the asb, the student council. I was, you know, a cheerleader. I run, ran for student office. Any way to be involved, to go, how do I make this better, whatever this is, right? And I want to have fun. I had that fun. Fun was good. But as a kid, with that many children, we had to. In order to get out of the house, you had to be involved in something so you couldn't just go. It was like, I have to go to, you know, gymnastics practice, I have to go to dance class, I have to go to my student council meeting. You had to show where you were going and what you're doing. You couldn't just leave. And so even though we were. We were the silent generation of our parents, never knew where we were, right? Just come home before the lights came out. My dad was very specific. You could do anything. I never got questioned if it was school related, you know, curriculum related. It was when I wanted to play outside of that. Then it became this whole thing. So I learned early on, which is figure out a way to get what you want. Learned early on, like, I'll follow the rules, but I want to do what I want to do. And so following the rules was be involved in all these things, which taught me a lot about myself. It taught me a lot about how to navigate, negotiate. I've always been an entrepreneur, you know, with that many kids. You know, my dad said, look, I don't have any money. You want money, go earn it. So as 10, 11, 12 years old, I'm selling cookies, I'm selling, cleaning houses, doing yard work, picking up dog mess, right? Cleaning people's toilets, babysitting, anything that I could do to generate income so I could buy what I wanted to buy. Because. Don't tell me no, I do not like that word. I want to. Don't tell me no, tell me how. And so I just figured out how. How do I have money to go to sports camp? How do I have money to go to cheer camp? How do I have money to buy my own clothes? How do I have money to go to the movies? Because there was no allowance. There was no money. If you didn't earn it, you didn't get it. So early on, all of us, right, had jobs, some kind of community job or some kind of. Once we were able to work at 15, we went and got real jobs where we got real paychecks. But I always had some side hustle going because the real paycheck, you know, back, back in the day, I'm going to age myself, gary. It was $3.80 or something. You know, for a little.

You know, I had to figure out, how do I get the things that I want? I realized that in an early age, I'm like, what is my obsession with underwear? This is a hilarious story, Gary.

But with six girls, right? Six girls, three boys. Everything was a hand me down, and there's two under me. So everything was a hand me down and everything. Your undergarments. And I realized, I don't want somebody else's undergarments. I want my own.

The first little paycheck I had, I went, bought my own underwear and hid them so nobody could take them because everything was fair play, right? What?

Oh, my gosh, these come from. You gotta really look at the root of it to go, oh, I had to share underwear. I don't want to share underwear. Now I realize, I don't know, no one's taking my underwear. I don't need more underwear.

That's funny. Those are things you wouldn't think about unless you had, you know, eight siblings, right?

That you don't realize you gotta share underwear. Like, ew, that's disgusting. But I get it, right? As a parent and trying to leverage, like, imagine feeding them, clothing them. You know, our. Our clothing store was Goodwill. Our clothing store was other people's yard sales, right? You just didn't want, you know, anybody's hand me downs. I did that. And I remember the day I was in seventh grade, like, I will not live this way now. I didn't know how, you know, my dad's, you know, philosophy was, you're 18, get a job, move out, get a husband, go do that. I'm like, I could do that. I.

So I've lived on my own since I was 17. Never looked back, never went back. Never had the opportunity to go back. Because that's the culture that we were raised inside of. Now, my poor choices, right? I got married at 18, right? Had two kids by the time I was 20. I was divorced by the time I was 25, right? Had no child support, no alimony. Had to figure out, how do I support myself? How do I support my children? I didn't know how to pick a husband, right? He was just handsome. He had muscles in a car and a checkbook. I thought that was a good husband.

That. That does not make a good husband.

And so, you know, I've always had this hustle to go out of necessity, right? Of. I gotta provide for my family, I gotta provide for myself. Like, what do I need to do? How do I make it happen? Inside of the. The limitation that I had around my education and my. My education was a lot like this. I like meeting somebody like you. My. Why. Why do I need to know that? Okay, let me figure out. How do I implement that to make my business better. Right. I went to cosmetology school, was really great at it. That's an entrepreneurial business. Right. 15% of anybody's financial success is based on their vocation. The other 85% is what I support people with now. Their sales, their marketing, their operations, and their finance. So looking inside of how do you really determine what are you good at and why are you good at it? The foundation of why I think the power in knowing, understanding it allows you to leverage on what you're really great at and use that skill set to go, how do I springboard to the next level? A lot of that I did intuitively or trial and error. Right. Because I didn't know like you. I think we're all trying to figure out, why am I here? What's the purpose? I'm here. And I think when you were on my podcast, we talked about, my gift from God is my life. My gift back to God is what do I do with my life? How will I make this world a better place? And I've taught my children that our responsibility is make it better for the next generation. Make it better for your community, make it better for your tribe, use your skillset, use that gift that God gave you. And then luckily, I've been paid for it. Right? I don't. Yes, I've worked hard, but I'll never feel like I've worked. Like, where people go to work and they hate work. I've never hated work. I've hated the day. Maybe it was exhausting, but I've never hated what I've done. And that was just choosing why I did what I did. My why was always my children, my contribution. My children, my contribution. And so when you and I first met and I did this whole process with you, I'm like, it just became so crystal clear, like, what would happen if you give this to your employees when they first start? What would happen if you did it with your children? You know, when they're trying to figure out who they are, what would happen if, you know, everyone that you're doing business with does this? So you're speaking their language versus guessing their language. Now, as we get seasoned as entrepreneurs, we innately know, but I don't want to innately know. I want to know. Like I know. Like I know. I think that's power when I see this tool because we all need tools in our toolbox. What's that tool you're using? What's the quickest way to get the result? Whatever result you want, whether it's transformation, whether it's supporting them to build their financial wealth, your financial wealth to go, oh, why do I need that?

You know. So you, okay, you graduated high school and then. Or did you graduate high school?

Yep, graduated high school, worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken and went to school full time.

And then got married right away.

And then you got married right away. So no, didn't go to college. No way.

No, college was not an option. Didn't even know, like, I didn't even know, like, why would I now? I did try to go to community college and it was just boring to me. There was no why. I, I did not want to learn about history. I am the kind of entrepreneur that if I got sued, I went to a business law class. If I needed to understand business finance, I went to a business finance class. And so my education is profound. I have an amazing education. When I look at I wanted to raise money for a company and I didn't know how to do that. I went to a security exchange class and learned how to raise money and how do I talk to investors and what's all the legalities that I need to put in place. So everything I've learned, I've learned from, you know, street smarts. I've learned from taking courses. I've learned from, wow, I don't know how to do this marketing. I don't know how to do this social media. I don't know how to do, you know, online strategy. I don't know how to. I built the largest website and the largest membership site in 1999. Think about 1999 there. Google wasn't even around in 1999 yet. 50% of my audience did not even run their business on computers. But we built the largest education platform in the beauty industry, Microsoft. We won first runner up some. A motorhome company won first prize. We won second prize for the most innovative technology company in 2001. I knew nothing about technology. But what I did know is what my customers needed. What I did know is they needed this technology. And then I had to figure out how do I build this platform. My first website, Dr. Gary, was a half a million dollars because there was no infusionsoft, there was no mailchimp, There was no WordPress. There was there was none of that. I had to build it from the ground up. And you and I talked about you building the Y platform from the ground up because the platform that we wanted, that we could see in our head wasn't available. They go, you know, so that's been my education. And then last year I got an honorary doctorate for my 40 years of business. Now a lot of people think they just give you this, they don't just give it to you. Like, I had to prove my finances, I had to prove my profitability. And to prove I've written 10 books, I've had to submit those. I had to submit letters of recommendations from clients and colleagues and to prove that I was worthy of having this distinction, which is awesome. So I remember graduating, you know, walking and bawling, just bawling like, because in my head I always had that conversation of am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Oh my God. I'm going to have a call with Dr. Gary. Oh my gosh, like he's a doctor. I'm just, you know, whatever. I'm just this, I'm just that, that limiting belief that holds you back to go, oh, well, I have all this experience and expertise and I've leveraged it and I've made millions and I've built 10 multimillion dollar companies and two $10 million companies and raised millions for other clients. It's just what's the path you're going to to get where you need to go? And that's taken me 40 years to just own that to go. I don't have to do it this way because like grandma said, I don't listen, right? I want to go find what I need and go get the education and implement it tomorrow. I don't want to wait four years to implement it. I want it like, okay, I want to implement it tomorrow. And that's a gift that I have is how do I make it efficient? How do I teach you so you can implement it efficiently? How do we cut the corners? And not from service delivery or a shortcut, but to go, how do I get to step A and step B the fastest way we can? Because we're entrepreneurs. I don't have, most of us don't have a long run rate. Only 1%. 1% of all businesses hit the million dollar mark. Well, that's bananas to me. That's just insane. 1%. Now that 1% is a huge percentage. But out of that 1%, only 20% paid themselves a paycheck that is proper to the job. That they're doing okay. That's even more bananas, right? So you like. Okay, out of the 1% less, only 20% of the 1% pay themselves a paycheck. We're all still doing this shell game with money to go. How do I survive? How do I make that happen? So a seven, eight figure business nowadays isn't necessarily as sexy as it sounds if you don't set it up right.

So take us on your journey. Because if I'm listening right now, I. I heard about the high school girl that got married at 17, you know, kids at 18 to 20 and divorced at 25. How the heck did you go from that? Because you're. We're now picturing this young gal by herself, you know, lost in the world. And now we see you. How did you get from there to where you are now?

Yeah, so I was a hairdresser. That was my vocation. And I was the top 1% in the nation, top 10% in the world. And I earned that right by the dollars that I produced. As a young business person, I realized that I had to close women every day. I had to have clients come in every day. And so I was, you know, so broke that I would go to the bookstore and find the book I needed on the topic I needed most, like marketing or promotions. And so I would go read the book, then I would go to the used bookstore down the street and buy that same book for 25 cents. So it was $20 here, but I could get it for 25 cents. So Voracious Learner, right? Always learning and trying to figure out, okay, how do I implement this? So I was doing about a quarter of a million dollars a year, working three and a half days a week. And Paul Mitchell, who's one of the top hair care companies in our country today, the rep saw me and said, what are you doing? You're always busy working, you always have clients. You're an amazing retailer. What are you doing? And I'm like, I have a plan. Here's my strategy. Laid out my plan, showed her my strategy. Here's what my average ticket needs to be. Here's what I have to be. Cause I had to pay rent, I had to pay my mortgage, I had to pay. My kids were in private school, right? I had to pay for my Mercedes because I had to have a pretty car. Cause I'm in the beauty industry, right? And you have to be pretty. And that takes a lot of money. And so, you know, I just figured out this money thing. I wasn't necessarily, I Was good at making it. I wasn't necessarily good at accumulating it at this point. And so Paul Mitchell said, well, will you teach our salons and spas? And I'm like, sure. I didn't know how to do that. No idea. And I'm like, I'm just gonna go share. And so I turned the territory I got was doing $30,000 a month. I turned that to a $200,000 territory in less than a year. And again, my. My manager saying, what did you do? I'm like, I just showed them how to do business, right? And as a hairdresser, I went into corporations because I'm like, I just need 50 business women that I can talk to and get them to come into the salon, because if I get those women quicker, faster, I didn't have time to build one person at a time, and I had no advertising budget. So I would go into these corporations. I talked myself into it. I don't know how, Gary. I don't. There was. It was like a divine God thing. Like, go here. Go talk to the front. I went in, talked to the front desk. They put me in charge of. Into human resources again. Went to the bookstore to figure out how do I write a proposal. I had a client that had secretarial skills, so she would write up my proposals. I would physically go drop it off with, like, a basket of cookies, like, just trying to build relationships. Went and got my first speaking gig at this corporation. I sucked. It was horrible. I'd never taken a public speaking class. I didn't know how to do it. But I know how to make people feel good and make them beautiful. And that's what I focused on, is women and men who take care of themselves professionally earn an average of 20% more than men and women who do not. So if you package yourself, you will make 20% more than if you don't package yourself. That was my spiel, right? Again. I found that stat in the bookstore and then went and bought the book at the used bookstore, right? To go. So there was some natural knowing, Even though I didn't know to go. I've got to create the value for these people to come in and see. And my goal, Dr. Gary, was every woman needed to be chemically dependent on me. If they were chemically dependent on me, they would stay with me eight times longer than someone that only got haircuts. And so I became a color specialist so that those women were in my chair every four to six weeks versus a haircutting client would only come in every eight weeks, eight to 12 weeks. And again, it became this mathematical equation. I was never good at math, but now you put it in money to go, wow, if I can get them coming in every four weeks versus eight or 12 weeks now, I've just doubled my revenue. And so I just started playing games with myself to go, how can I double my day? And not because I wanted to, it's because I had to. If I had $100 on the books, I'm like, I can't feed my children on $100. I need to make at least 200 to 350 in order for me to pay for my lifestyle, meaning my rent and my car, my insurance, you know, all the things I had to do. So I created that into a whole system called the booking game, and then taught people how to play the booking game. Today, that. That bit. I built the largest training and development company in the beauty industry. That business is still a legacy business. I sold it to the largest publisher in our industry. And still legacy business. They're still selling my book, they're still selling my programs. They're still teaching those programs in cosmetology schools today, although I'm not doing it. But the legacy is still there. And I think that's the point of business is build a legacy and give it away. Sell it right? Leverage it so that.

You keep living on the technology, the lessons, keep living on, and you're out of it. I mean, that's true leadership. I have a client that has been in our circle for many, many, many years, and she just, you know, found me, and she goes, well, here's what I do. And I looked, and Dr. Garrett was all my systems that I created, you know, 15 years ago that the company that bought me, you know, sold her to go, oh, my God, Word for word, they didn't change anything. It's like, that is amazing. I just giggle to go, wow. It truly comes full circle to go, here we are. And now I just keep up leveling it. And then in 2020, when I built the technology company, I needed to raise money because I didn't have a half a million dollars laying around to build this website, right? We had a training and development company. We were traveling all over the world teaching salons and spas how to build their business. And I went to this seminar on how to raise money and follow the SEC rules and learn the language and put all the performance together and build the right business plan to raise money. And I went to the founder and I said, listen, we're teaching people how to raise money. But you're not teaching people how to build a business. So they're getting millions and then they're wasting it because they don't know how to put the infrastructure together. I'm like, you need someone here teaching that. He goes, great, you teach it. I'm like, I don't know anything about these people's businesses. No, no, no, no. He goes, susie, you're amazing. You've built several seven figure businesses. I'm like, yeah, but it's in the beauty industry. He goes, it doesn't matter. Use that experience to share your experience and you'll have more credibility because people want to discount your type of industry. And so they, you know, people do. We judge people moment by moment by moment, right? Every seven seconds you're deciding if you want to do business with me or not. And so I learned to play on that is you're judging and evaluating me based on how I look, how I carry myself. You're deciding if I'm smart, you're deciding if I can help you and then give the credibility piece of show you who I am. And so in that environment, I learned business and business is business. Because we were teaching every, every four to eight weeks, we were teaching 800 to 1,000 entrepreneurs. And my piece was all about systems and systems integration and how do you build a sustainable business to sell? Because we had just sold ours for 10 million and we just raised 2 million to build this website. And so I was just sharing from my own experience. And then people like Dr. Gary would come up and go, I want you to be my coach. I'm like, oh, I don't know anything about being a chiropractor. No, no, no, right? And so I just said, I said no probably for two years. And sometimes I'll say, God gives us a whisper, right? And like, you need to be doing this, you need to be doing this. And like, it'll come as a knock, you know.

And you're like, what is that tapping noise, right? And then all of a sudden it just starts to get louder and louder and louder. And I kept saying no and people kept coming up. And so one night I was praying and I'm like, I don't even know what to do because I just feel like an idiot saying no. And so voice said, double your prices. And I thought, I'd double my prices. They're going to say no. Dr. Gary. They did not say no. They said yes and sign on the dotted line. So now I had to figure out, how do I coach Dr. Gary's business. And I had some wild businesses, right, that came through there and that we signed up and doubled our prices and it really allowed me to see businesses, businesses, business, right. And if I'm vulnerable enough to say, you're an expert at being a chiropractor, I'm an expert at running the numbers and marketing and putting a team together. I don't need to know what you know, I need to know what I know. And together we made a beautiful partnership to go. Let me help you. Where you can't see and you can share where I can't see inside your business because you know the ins and outs of what you can do legally and what you can't do legally, you know, and, and that was way before Google, so you couldn't go research it. I would have to again go to the library, right. Go to the bookstore, find a book on chiropractic and look at what are the cost of goods and you know, what's our profitability? How much should you be spending on salaries, how much should you be spending on? And so it's all at our fingertips now. You know, we have something called gts. So if anybody on my team does not know how to do something, they are not allowed to come to me and go, Susie, how do I do that? We say go gts. They're like, gts yeah, go Google that shit and then come back to me.

I love it.

So when did you, you and I. Well, I knew of you more than you knew of me. Way back when you were helping a pretty. A very well known speaker.

Yeah.

Motivational guru. And I was part of his program. And then you came along to actually run it. Yeah, because it was having some issues like many companies do.

Financial issue. I came in as the CEO, which is what I do now. I'm a fractional COO and did a turnaround situation in that organization. Right. So overhead was too high. They were spending money that they didn't have. Right. Again, when you look at business, businesses is very formic, like what's the formula? Right. How much should you be spending? Right. What kind of accountability do you have in place? What's your sales system, marketing operation, finance system? What are all those finance those, those elements of running a successful business. And we had an amazing team. They just needed some leadership and guidance. And no, they needed to say no to the founder. And the founder did not like, no. But I'm like, I don't you want to be profitable? You put me in charge of being profitable. No, we're not Doing that? No, we're not spending that. No, we, we took the office and we downsized, you know, because a lot of times we do stuff for vanity metrics. I have a beautiful office. Yeah, but you can't pay payroll, right. You're. There's no money left over. So vanity. Yes, there is that piece that you have to play the game, but not to the detriment of your financial well being. To go. What's really important to you and what you said was important to me when I interviewed to take this role was turning this company around and being profitable. And so finding somebody, especially when you're looking for someone to work for you with you, coach, you, advise you that has done it and is willing to push back on you. I don't know about you, Dr. Gary, but I don't need another yes person in my life. I need somebody who's willing to question what I'm doing. You don't have to agree with me. And there's some things as a founder, as an owner, you're like, I'm not willing to not do that. Right. Whatever that is. Right. But there's, there's elementally truths in business, which is your plan and your profitability and pricing to go. You can't get around that. And if you're not willing to charge what you're worth, you'll never be profitable. And so having your business set up from the day one to create a profit center. Profit is the value you and I bring to the company. That's what we're truly, we're being paid on profit. If we shift our mindset from that to a profit as your paycheck, it would shift everybody's relationship with profit. Profit's not a bad word. You've put your house on the line, your retirement. Right. You invested so much money in your business. We should be paid. Right. I've invested way more than anybody else on my team. I should be highly compensated for that. So I think it's important that we know from day one what are all those metrics? So you're setting the business up for success, day one. Most small businesses don't want to put a business plan together because they think it's, it's fruitful and it's not. It's the foundation of knowing what you're doing, why you're doing, how you're doing. What should I spend? Should I not spend? So when the sparkle comes along, when the exciting comes along, you can learn to say yes or no. Right. And you should say no more than you Say yes. Is this going to give me the return that I'm looking for? Who cares that I like them? Who cares that that's sexy? Is it a viable product or service?

As we go back through your story, you went through being a hairstylist, learning how to become a hairstylist at a very high level, learning how to help other hairstylists, then learning how to help other businesses, then learning how to turn around other businesses, and now being a fractional coo, is that said pretty much the path?

Yeah. In that path, I've had ten multimillion dollar companies. Right. For myself, I've ran different companies and then had different companies and then raised money for other companies all through this process. And it came from 90% of my business is from referrals, people knowing me and going, oh my gosh, you need Suzy. Oh my gosh, you need this. Oh my gosh, here's the next step. And, and so the path has always been presented to me and then I get to choose, like, do I want to play inside of that. 2008 is when I sold my last company, which was a training development company, to Rickers Publishing. And then since then I've just been doing high level consulting for other clients to go, Let me show you what I did. Let me show you how you put it together. I don't have to work full time. The luxury of selling my business, the luxury of building a sustainable model has allowed me the opportunity to pick and choose the projects I want to work on and pick and choose the clients I want to work with. Right. Not everybody is a good fit for me. I don't want to push people uphill anymore. Right. If you're not willing to do the work, if you're not willing to investigate what is my. Why, why do I want to do what I want to do? What's my purpose here? When it has to be a profitable model, it has to make a difference in the world. Right. You have to be contributing to a bigger cause and you have to be coachable or I don't want to play. I'm too seasoned, Gary.

And as grandma would say, very spicy. But I'm very seasoned, so I don't.

So when you are brought in to work with a company as a fractional coo, take us through. What's that like?

What's your first first typically? What are they bringing you in to do? And then what's it like? Hey, first day. Hey, there's Dr. Susie. What the heck is she doing here?

So the first thing I do is they're we're doing about $2 million, right. When you're, when you come to me, that's, that's the sweet spot. Before that you don't have the infrastructure invest in the things that you need, right. And, and I'm not cheap, right. So that we, we do a retainer plus a percentage of the increase. So I make it cost effective and I want skin in the game because I want to, if I'm going to build it, I want a piece of it. And if I, we don't do the results, I don't want to be paid more than I'm worth. And so we do an assessment. And so first I do a whole analysis, you do a questionnaire. I get all your numbers about very thorough questionnaire from that questionnaire. Then I step back and I take about two weeks and put my roadmap together and I do it from a place Dr. Gary of IF this was mine and I was building this company to sell what needs to occur and what needs to happen. So I'll put a high level business plan together. I'll put the financial projections together. From the financial projections I'll see what people do we need, what team do we need, what operational structure do we need. So before you and I meet day one to launch, I've already have my plan together. Day one, we usually spend about four hours together. After that you're fried. You're like, oh, done Susie, I got nothing left.

And so we go through. Here's my plan based on everything you said. I have your goals in mind, I have your, the reasons why you want to do it in line. But it's all wrapped around the financial viability of the business. Because if you're not making money, you will fire me. I already know that. I've years, right, that was always number one. I realized early on working with clients is if I don't help you make money, I'll be the first to go. And so what's important is to look at the quantification which is your KPIs inside your business. And this is for any leader, not just me, but any leader when you're taking on a growth aspect of a piece of the company. If you're hired as a COO or a manager, if you've got got to quantify. Because you can't deny quantification, you can't deny stats, you can't deny growth. And I don't mean vanity stats. Like when I look at advertisers, it drives me nuts when they're like, well we had 43,000 impressions. I don't care. Did I get any clicks that I get anybody in my email? Right. That's what I'm looking for, not impressions. I don't care about impressions. Right. I'm looking for what's the meat and potato so that I know that this is worth it. So you have to be able to show the value you bring to an organization, whether you are a team member or whether you're a leader in the organization. What am I bringing to the organization so that we can see it? As a small business owner, I want to see that if I want to. If I'm going to pay Gary $10,000 a month, what are we doing? What, what happened? I should be increasing sales. I should be incre or my teens value should be going up. They're increasing sales for somebody. Like what Gary does is getting people really connected to what they're doing, why they're doing it. Right. Really motivating them to produce more of what they're good at. Right. That's that highest income producing activity only they can do. I think that's the genius with how you've designed your program is we're only looking at what's that highest income producing activity. Quit having them do the minutia. That's not their genius, that's not their zone. But it's so hard and takes years to train people and to understand what's their zone. Well, let's find out. Day one. Right. So I do a lot of assessments with my clients to go day one. Here's who you are. I already know the good news and the bad news. I already know where you're going to get stopped. I already know when you're going to want to check out. I already know when I push you this way, what's going to occur. So there's no surprises, right. It might be a little challenging, but there's no surprises from that aspect. And so once we get alignment that this is a plan, then we go to get together working on the plan. What are the first steps which is normally finances and sales. Right. So if I have a goal to double sales or triple sales, well then what's the sales strategy we need to put in place? Now I'm not necessarily doing the sales. We have a team that's doing the sales. If you don't have a sales team, then I'm going to help you find the sales team to bring in so that we can harness that, double that, triple that. Now if you don't have the money to do that then we gotta go find funding. Are we gonna raise money, we gotta borrow money, we gonna leverage money? How are we gonna get the money to do that? And so I find the most successful people are coachable. They're trusting. They're not pushing back a ton. People push back. But I mean, from the standpoint of I don't know how to do that versus I won't do that now. There have been people that I fired. I just fired a client a couple weeks ago because she wasn't willing to do the work she needed to do. So don't waste my time and your money like that makes no sense to me. I don't want to be the problem in a business. I want to be the solution. And when I look at. I'm a profit center to any company, when you bring me in, I'm not an expense. It might look like an expense from the beginning, but I will show you case study after case study after case study that I have increased sales over and over and over and over again, right? In order to. For that client, for me to show. Because again, that's my contribution, right? That's that whole piece of why and how do we make it more efficient so that your business can grow without me? I don't want it to be dependent on me. I want to keep. I have a client that I've been working with for 15 years. And why? Because we keep figuring out more ways to make money, right? We keep leveraging what we're doing and taking it to the next level, Taking to the next level, taking her. She makes more money, I make more money. And it's fun, right? That's a fun client. Do we have challenges sometimes? Sure. Fifteen years, that's a relationship. You know, that you'll have challenges. But we're both committed to the end game, which is serving our clients and figuring out how do we play this a bigger game in the world.

So if somebody's listening to this and they're.

You, they need to have more than 2 million in revenue. If they want to work with you, they need to have more than 2 million in revenue. And they need to be wanting to grow when we wanted to do something, wanting to push things forward, like, let's go, let's move. And they're not sure how to do it, right?

Get out of your comfort zone. Because if you want to stay in your comfort zone, business, you know, this Dr. Gary business is not comfortable. And when you're growing, there'll be more breakdowns in the beginning versus breakthroughs to go the, you know, who is it? Charles Givens wrote a book, Wealth Without Risk, and he said, you have to put 10 units of energy in to get one unit of result. Once we get that momentum going, you put one unit of energy in to get 10 units of result. And a lot of times entrepreneurs can't get through that 10 units of energy. They get frustrated. They can't see the end game because they're not following a plan. They're just pulling in another genius zone, and then they go to the next shiny thing. Oh, okay, Well, I didn't like Susie, so let me go to Dr. Gary. Oh, I didn't like Dr. Gary, so let me go to Phil. I didn't like Phil, so let me go to Bob or whoever. You know, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Commitment, persistence. Plan. A structure. Follow the plan, the plan will work.

What's the best way to develop a business plan? Have you got a formula? Have you read a book? Have you seen something that just like, hey, this is what's. What I've been doing. This is what works the best?

Yes. I use a software called Live Plan. L, I, V, E, P, L, A, N. And so you can use it with Microsoft and you can use it with Apple, either one. The nice thing about lifeplan is it's a template. It asks you questions. You fill out the questions. I wrote a $40 million business plan with that software. And so now I modify the projection sheets, right? Because I have my own formula. I'm not an accountant, a cpa. I am a rogue entrepreneur that speaks entrepreneur language. So my performers that I put together, just from an entrepreneurial standpoint, it speaks more entrepreneurial language versus CPA language. And then I can translate that to investors or bankers, and they like this simplified version of it. Because I'm looking at, how many leads do we need? How many qualified leads do we need? How many units do we need to sell in order to hit the revenue goal? So it's not pie in the sky. Everything is a formula and works back to, here's how we're going to get there. And so I wrote that business plan in a weekend, right? So we have. Most of us have all the data. We just need to compile the data. Then you can see where the holes are. Then I can say, hey, Gary, can you plus this. Can you look at it? Can you see if you were going to invest, and this is how I got a lot of investors. If you were going to invest a minimum of 10 grand in this project, I don't want you to. But if you were going to, can you show me where the holes would be? So I would bring it to my community and then my community would go, well, can I invest in that? My gosh, of course you can. Let's sit down and talk about that, right? Not only did they help me find the holes, but because the way it was written and it was compelling, they wanted to invest in it. So you never know. But your community of experts, right? Not someone that doesn't have any expertise and any kind of business or your product or service. Right? Because there's many different levels that you want people to look at it from. From a standpoint of does this make sense? Right. So you want to build a community of advisors, right. If I look at all my advisors, you know, I've got a health coach, I've got a fitness coach, I have three financial coaches, I have business coaches, right? So I have a personal development coach, AKA therapist, right. So I'm not using them all all the time. But when I'm in those spots to go, who do I need? In this season.

I need someone to help me with this. In this season, I need someone to help me with this, right? When you're clear about who you need, some of them will be mentors, some of them will just be friends. Someone be like, I really respect Gary's take on this. Let me see if he'll look at this for me, right? And then vice versa. You'll go, wow, I really like that, Susie. Maybe she'll look at this, perform for me, right? And. And that starts building the relationships of, you know, colleagues that you can call on. And I'm in several high level networking groups that help me create those relationships. Because you're you always. The great thing about working with me is I'm not the answer for everybody. And here's what I love. If I'm not the answer, I know people who are. And my job is to go if I'm not right. Well, maybe Dr. Gary's right or maybe Lisa's right, or maybe Carrie's right, or maybe, you know, Dr. Saunders, right? You know, to be able to go, I can help you with this. But here's what I see that you need next. Not me, you need this next. Really. I think it's being a value for wherever people are because they eventually come back around, right. This client that I've been working with for 15 years, she was a client way back in the days, you know, and I've always supported her. I was always her biggest cheerleader. And then she came back around again when she wanted to take her business to that next level. So I think that's important, but that's inside of building relationships and, you know, keeping those relationships alive.

So, Dr. Susie, what's the. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

I have a couple. The first one was all, money's not good money. Because when you're young and financially desperate.

We'Ve all taken money we shouldn't have taken. And I remember I was working with this hair restoration company and they hired me, and it was right when I launched my training and development company and they hired me as the expert to come in and do the needs analysis for all their locations. They are nationwide. They gave me $40,000. You might as well set $1 million at the time because I was broke, right? I was just launching this training development company. This was like the pot of gold. And I did my first swipe at the training for them, and then we were going to go around and train all the regions. And what they said is, we want it to be authentic, we want it to be personable, we want it to not seem like salesy. And so I gave them my needs analysis and said, here's what we're going to do, here's how we're going to do it. And they're like, oh, but we kind of do. They didn't call it bait and switch, but it was bait and switch. Like, here's the deal. And then you can only get this deal now. And then if they don't do the deal, then we're going to do this deal. Like, they were bait switching everywhere. And I remember sitting at my kitchen table going, these people have no integrity. Like, I'm going to go teach them this and then they're going to do this bait and switch thing. Like, I. I can't be involved in this. And knowing that I had this credit card debt, I had to pay my house payment. And to give this money back was like, I got to give this money back. I can't do this work. And so, as hard as it was, right, I know that the universe always conspires to support you, but I had to make a decision. Is my integrity worth something to me? And that was the all money is not good money. That was not good money, right? That. That's my reputation. That was kind of the launching pad, if you will. Like, if I would have taken on that client, what would have that done to My reputation. And then that would been the referral from that point on. And then you would be always compromising your values, which I can't compromise my values. I'm very black and white in my values and what's important to me. And so that was the first one. And then the second one is, is your financial plan is the roadmap and the indicator for where you're going. Don't run your business without that plan. And so it took me years. Dude, I was so bad at finances, I would literally have to close one bank account, open a new one, because I couldn't balance the other one. Like, I'm bouncing checks everywhere. My. I don't do this. It was so bad. And I remember going into the bank, closing my account again, and my banker's like, susie, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know. It doesn't work. She's like, honey, let's get you on QuickBooks. Like, let's. Let's help you out, right? And from that day forward to go, I will never feel like an idiot again. I will never not know this. I will never not master this or manage it. It took me years to, like, be so comfortable with it. Right? Because you have those stories growing up that you're not good at this, you're not good at that. You know, you suck at math. You know, you're just pretty. Like, no, I'm not. Like, you know, for years, I. I used to try to dress like a man and wear blue suits and short hair and, like, try to be all perfection. And I am so out there and fun and, like, I love energy and. But it was so wrong in business for so long, right? I had to fit in this mold of be quiet corporate and be structured, and you couldn't be this and you couldn't be that, and I go, what a nightmare. So I know I didn't want to be pigeonholed. And I was a ding dong, right? Because one, I have blonde hair. Two, I have big boobs. So you know that just pigeonholes you right away. So no way I can have blonde hair and big boobs and be smart.

Yeah.

Have it all.

TMI, I'm sure, Dr. Gary. But, hey, you asked for a candid conversation. Here we go.

Okay, so if there's people that are listening right now that want to connect with you, want to follow you, want to hire you, want to work with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Awesome. So first, all my social media is my name, Susie S U S I E Carter. C A R D as in dollar dinero delicious. Er, my website is my name Susie Carter. Right. I've got a business assessment that you can take so you can see am I ready for somebody like Susie and where's the holes in my business? That's free, right. So go to our website, go down to the business assessment, click on that and there's a free training that goes with it. So you can start seeing where are the holes in my business. I love doing assessments because I get to assess me right. So it's not about looking good, it's about being transparent and honest. Right. To say here's what I'm looking for. My newest book called power your profits came out in 2020. Horrible time to launch. A book was published by Simon and Schuster so you can get that on the website. And that's the roadmap of how I built 10 multimillion doll. Right. It's the how to. And if you suck at finances, go straight to chapter eight. Math is money, Money is fun. If you suck at sales, go to chapter six. Right. Selling your product or service. I give you my hundred thousand dollar script in that book. I close half a million dollar contracts with this script. Same script I've been using since the days of being a hairdresser. Same script. Just modify it now for bigger numbers so there's resources out there and do your due diligence. Make sure that I'm the right person, make sure Dr. Gary is the right person. But get some help. You can't grow alone. I couldn't grow alone. It's. If you look behind me of how many people have poured into me and how much education I have from trying to figure out doing it wrong, doing it right, doing it wrong, doing it right. Like find the people that have been there, done that and that can just help you write that roadmap so you can have what you want.

I love it. Dr. Susie, thank you so much for being here today. This was awesome. This was more, even more than I expected. Not that I was not, not that I wasn't expecting a lot, but it was even more.

That's because I'm a handful.

That's. You are, you are a handful and the whole package. So that's awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah. And well, I'm sure we'll stay in touch and, and thanks again for spending the time with us.

Absolutely.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.