How to Build a Business You Can Sell for $15M

If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you how it actually works. We were trained to master algorithms in medicine, but when it comes to revenue teams and growth, we were never taught anything. We weren't even told to figure it out. We just assumed somehow we'd know. Like it would magically make sense. But it doesn't. The era of the seven Figure Physician CEO is here. And it's not about working harder. It's about learning entrepreneurship as a system. The same way you mastered ACLs and pals, you can master the algorithm of building a profitable scalable business. That's why I recorded the Seven Figure Physician CEO audiobook. Whether you're building a medical or non medical business, and whether your goal is your first million, first 2 million, first 5 million, first 10 million, this is where the journey starts. There is no Calvary coming to save us. We are the Calvary. So. So go get your audiobook now. Www.entremd.com sevenfigurebook and let's rewrite the narrative for physicians starting today. Hi, docs. Welcome to the EntreMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you, embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Umn. All right, well, hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Entre MD podcast. I have been looking forward to doing this episode, actually, because I was minding my own business and I saw this ad for a podcast that was going to be sold and the asking price for the podcast was 15.5 million. Now, I don't know if they're going to sell it for that amount or not, but I just want you to think about a podcast. So maybe you're a podcaster or you have a YouTube channel, or you have a blog. I want you to imagine building it up where you can actually ask for 15.5 million for it. And you know, the people who, the brokers who are trying to sell it and all of that, they of course would do a good job projecting, you know, the reason why this is worth that much. Yeah, of course there are the conversations I have to go into it and all of that, but when I read it, I was like, huh, this is why. Right? And so this is really a discussion around or a conversation around how do I build business assets? Okay, so in the entrepreneur business school, I talk about this all the time. Where you want to build an Asset, you want to build something that you, you can sell. Whether you choose to sell or not is a completely different thing. You don't have to sell, but you do want to set it up where you have that option. Right. And within your businesses, you want to see all these things that could be assets. Your podcast is an asset. People sell those. Your app is an asset. People sell those. If you want to look like in the business world, people sell Facebook groups, people sell email, people sell all kinds of things. And the more we can look at them as assets, the more we can grow them where we can sell them if we want to. Right. And you may not. And because of that, some people, what they do is they would have a business, they'll sell a portion of it and keep other portions. Again, because of that mindset around, I am building an asset. Okay, so when I looked at the ad, I noticed seven things that make the podcast worth that much. And I'm just going to read the header here. You know what they said all the way at the top? It said, award winning daily entrepreneurial podcast. 11 years established, 145 million plus listens, 3500 interviews to date, 15% year over year growth, long term contracts. And just from that, I'm not even talking about the seven things yet, but just from that headline, that's the headline for the ad is telling you that one, this is a podcast for entrepreneurs. It's telling you it has longevity. It's been there for 11 years. It's telling you we've had 145 million plus listens which says, okay, we have a really good audience, 3500 interviews till to date, which is, those are assets because you have, you have the interviews and on those interviews you also have all kinds of things, right? You have sponsorship spots, you have ads that have put on there that continue to run and continue to create revenue. If they're like affiliate links and things like that, you have 15% year over year growth. So this means this is not something that is dying and the owner is like, I want to get rid of it. This is something that is actually growing. It says long term contracts, which means the second, the moment you buy it, you can start making revenue because they're these long contracts in place. Now I will say that I don't know, like I don't personally own, know the owner of the podcast. I have never had a conversation with the people who are trying to broker the sale and all of those things. This is just my observation from looking at what they put out there and of course, I mean, there's only one podcast this could possibly be. So of course I know the podcast and I followed it for years. And so. So let's talk about these things. Okay. Now this is a podcast, but I want you to think in terms of your business and it doesn't matter where you are. Like if you are at a point where you're trying to break through to your first hundred thousand, I want you to pay attention to this because that means you can build your business with the right foundation. If you're at a point where your business is already generating multiple seven figures, you're actually on your way to eight figures. I want you to listen to this because you don't want to build an eight figure business. You can't sell. Like, that's not an asset. Okay? So it's really important that we're thinking in terms of building assets. I had a conversation with a lady who really works with people who are ultra high net worth individuals, so. Meaning that they have a net worth of $25 million and above. And one of the things she said is that most of her clients came into their ultra high network through a monetization event. And for most of them it was the sale of a business. Again, you don't have to sell your business, but you don't want to build your business where that is not an option. Okay. Like right now I'm not thinking of selling any of my businesses, but from the beginning, my thing was to build it the right way, if you will. Okay, so let's talk about seven things you can do. Okay? To put yourself in a b. In a position where you're building an asset, building an asset you can sell. You're building an asset that you can sell for an amount that would make you happy. Right? Okay. So number one, number one is you. You want to be clear on what is unique about your business. Okay? So if you remember the header that I read, it says, an award winning daily entrepreneurial podcast. Right? And so the question is, are there many business podcasts? Yes. Are there many business podcasts that have episodes every day? No. Right. Like, no, not at all. So you want to stand for. You want your business to stand for something. You want there to be something unique about your business, something that makes your business stand out. I will also say that it doesn't have to be so unique that it feels like it came from Mars. Right. Because if you think about it, are there many business podcasts? Yes. Are there many award winning business podcasts? Yes. So he took something that is, is not necessarily common, but it's something that is somewhat common and he just put his own twist to it, right? So unique doesn't mean fall out of place and build this thing that nobody has ever seen. It just put means put your own spin on it. And so it's something that is unique on its own, right? So do we have that? That's the first thing. The second thing is longevity, right? So this is a business that has been around for 11 years. And the thing about building a business like that, just saying that the business has been there for 11 years says a few things, right? It says that this is not a flash of the pan thing. This is not something that's going to disappear. This means that there are probably other assets that have been built over time. That means there's the no like and trust factor is an all time high. That means a lot of the kinks have been worked out. It means a lot of things, right? And in your journey as an entrepreneur, you will have so many opportunities to quit. Now there's a time to strategically quit, but there's also the place of frustration, right? The frustration of I love my business. When it was a hundred thousand dollars I was bringing in every year, but now it's complex. I want to quit or I have this team and I'm having challenges with my team. Oh, I want to quit or I've always had a team of producers, a team of people who do tasks, but now I have to bring in a managerial team and I don't even think I can do that. I'm tired. I want to quit. Like I. Every time you think about that, I want you to think about the flip side where you go through the challenge, you go through the pain of it, and you end up with a business that's aged like fine wine, right? Because it puts your business in a much better position, right? And so longevity is there. Okay? So that's the second thing. The third thing is their profits. Okay, Notice I did not say revenue, I said profits. And funny enough, if you look at that, the ad that the company actually pulled up, there is no conversation whatsoever about revenue is about profit, right? And so this really goes back to us paying attention to our numbers, us paying attention to our profit and loss statements, us making sure that our books are in order and we know what is going on, us making sure that we price our things such that we can generate a profit, us making sure that we're not like, oh yeah, I can do all these things for free. I don't really Care. I'm not doing it for the money anyway. Right. You want to put your. Because if you do that, you're not building an asset. Like when you're done, you're just going to have to shut it down and call it a day. But if you want to build an asset that you can sell, or you want to build an asset you can hand off to your family and make it a generational thing like whatever that is, then you want to pay attention to profit, right? Because it matters. Okay, so for these guys, they documented a profit of over 100, over $100,000 per month for the last 115 months. Right? So he's tracked it and if you go to his website, like it's actually on there and stuff like that, and their Profit margin is 80 to 90%. Right. And so if you think about that, like having that there puts them in a position because that's a podcast, really, that's bringing in over $1.2 million every year, right? Every single year. And so with all the other things, they are supporting it. Does it make it worth the 15 million? Well, yeah, like we'll see who buys it and what they do, but it does, right? So that's the third thing. The fourth thing is that they have an audience, right? They have an audience. So in, in that ad, they talked about having subscribers to their main newsletter, 11,000 subscribers to their podcast specific newsletter. And these are. And it's not just 18,000 people, right? We're talking 18,000 entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs are people who are trying to solve problems, people who are trying to create revenue. They tend to invest in stuff, right? Like, so it is a really solid audience, even beyond the audience it talks about. Over 145 million listens in the last 11 years. Right? And so that's a lot of listens. So it all points towards their people who follow this. Right? So, so that's another thing. So again, when you're building your own email list and all of those things, that's something to pay attention to if you're building your own content based platform. So whether that's a YouTube channel or a podcast or a blog, you also want to be directing them to your email. You want to drive consumption, you want to do all this because those numbers matter. Right now, of course, we're not leading with numbers to sell, we're leading with service. Right. It's just that in the process of serving people, you're going to do all these things. You just want to pay attention to the numbers. So that's number Four. Number five. Number five is that he had multiple streams of income built around the podcast. And so in the ad, they talked about two thirds of their revenue coming from sponsorships. They talked about revenue from guest appearances because he would charge to have people on his show as a guest. Talked about courses, talked about affiliates and things like that. And then remember the header, we talked about long term contracts. I'm guessing a number of these are things that have long term contracts. So even when he's not there, if he does decide to go through and sell it, these are things that will continue creating revenue. Right? And so think about in your business, those streams of income that you have. And now I'm not saying. What I'm not saying is you're at a stage where you have other things to focus on and creating multiple streams is not part of the focus right now. I'm not saying go start that right, because remember, he's been doing this for 11 years. But what you do want to do is really pay attention to that. Right. What are the opportunities that I have? So in, in my private practice, what are those opportunities I have for different ways of revenue coming in? Or it could like look like you're an insurance based practice. How do I do it where I don't have one insurance that's like 80% of my practice. Right. Is distributed so that we have these ways plus multiple streams of income. Right. You're a coach. What could those be? And really, we're coming to a time where you're looking at things like I have an app within my business and that is another vertical. I had like things like that have this whole affiliate marketing thing going on and that's another stream. So just pay attention to that. Right? So it's like if one dries up or one is not performing as well because the owner is not there, you have all these other things to fall back on. So multiple streams of income. Okay. Within the business. So that's number five. Number six is that he is like there, there is demonstrated growth year on year. Right. And so you'll see where he said 15% year on year growth. And so for the last 11 years, they've been growing, I'm sure some years a lot more than others, but they have been growing. And not only are they growing, they're growing in an industry that is growing. Right. So as far as podcasting goes, all the projections are around more people getting into podcasting and it's just been exploding over the last few years. Right. He started when it wasn't even really A right, but he's been added and he's. His business is growing in a growing, in a growing industry. Okay, so, so that's that piece. Okay, now think about if somebody was trying to sell a company that did print magazines and things like that, of course they could still sell it, but that's not necessarily a growing industry or newspapers. Like, it's just not a growing, A growing economy. Somebody had a school that was training people who were medical records specialists. Like, that's gone. You see what I'm saying? Like, but there are industries that are growing. Like, think about, AI is just like, okay, number seven is that in the business. For somebody who is an entrepreneur who looks at it, will see that there are multiple opportunities for scale. Like, I can take this. I can take what this person has done, and there's so many opportunities here that I like, I can just, I can make this explode. And so one of them is that most of his growth is organic growth, not really doing any ads or anything like this, which of course I love. Right. When I, When I started building my business, the. One of the things that I decided to do on the, on trendy side of things is until I grew to a million dollars a year, I was not going to, I was not going to really do any ads just because there are a lot of people where the narrative they sell is that the reason why my business is not working is because the Facebook ads change the algorithm. And I'm like, okay, well, you can do it much faster with ads, I presume, but, but yeah, you can do it without ads. Right? So he doesn't, he doesn't necessarily use ads. And so that's something that someone can say, oh, I can take this thing that's already so good and just throw gasoline on the fire, right? And make it grow even bigger. And so that's, that's something to look at also is that I think most of, most of the publicity that they've done is on Facebook and is on Instagram. And so they're not really on YouTube. They're not on. They're not on TikTok, then on LinkedIn. I don't even know if they're Instagram. I think they have Facebook and Twitter. And so there are all these other platforms, I think LinkedIn. They're not on LinkedIn when it's a. Is a podcast for entrepreneurs. So somebody can really leverage that and create a lot of wins. Right? And so, so these are the reasons why they would have the guts to list a podcast for 15 million. Right? 15.5. Like, let's not leave that. That's a whole half a million, 15.5 million. Because there's the uniqueness, there's the longevity. So it has a proven track record. There's a profit that's been demonstrated for years and years. There's a solid audience, there's a multiple streams of income. There's the growing business in a growing industry and a lot of opportunities for scale, right? And so I want you to really, this is one of those episodes you want to go back and you really want to have a come to Jesus meeting with yourself. And again, this is not something to say, oh, my business sucks because I'm not doing this at all. This is something where you go, like, you know what looks like some opportunity here, Let me learn something from this ad I put here, and let me stack this against my business and see where I have opportunities to be even better, to take this great thing and make it even better, right? So where you can say, okay, what is unique about us? What we're doing? Something that everybody does, but how are we doing it in a unique way? How can we position that, right? Like, how long have we been here? How long do we say, was I secretly deciding to quit? Can I say, okay, you know what? I'm going to go through this. I'm going to build a mature business. What are my profits? Do I even know what they are, right? Are they growing? Are they shrinking? Is there something I'm too afraid to do and that's the reason why my profits look the way they look? Like, maybe I'm afraid to raise my price. Maybe I'm afraid to hold my team accountable for productivity, like, whatever that is, right? Am I careless with my audience? Am I growing my email list? Do I have any strategy to grow my email list, like, at all? Do I have them scattered everywhere but they're not gathered? I don't talk to them. It doesn't matter, right? Do I have. What are my opportunities for multiple streams of income in my business? Is this the time? Is this something that I should say, okay, two quarters from now, a year from now, I'm going to build this next vertical? Like, how should I be thinking about that? Can I demonstrate growth in my business? Is there something I can do to trigger growth in my business? Right? And so it's just something to sit with and look at and give your. Like, I want you to imagine this is what I think of, right? I think about us as physicians. Now, remember, there's this whole narrative. We're one trick ponies we don't know how to do this business thing. But I want you to imagine that we are building these business assets and in the process of building them, we're creating unbelievable change, unbelievable change in the lives of people we're serving and we're earning and we're creating financial freedom for ourselves and all of that stuff. But we also have these opportunities to have these monetization events where we're selling our businesses, we're selling part of our businesses, we're selling one vertical in our business and things like that. Like, and you may decide, I want to do that, or just imagine having the option. Like my brother, a few years ago, they tried, someone approached him to buy his company and offered him, I want to say, $1.2 million. And this was a long time, this was a long time ago, maybe five or six years ago. And I remember thinking like, whoa, that's amazing. And my brother, I remember him just looking at the deal and he was like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. You really do have to make me an offer I won't refuse. You know what I mean? And so it doesn't. You sell it, but you have the opportunity, you have the leverage, you have the option. And then it's up to you. You can decide, no, but I want to keep it. It's my legacy play. It's giving me the opportunity to help people. It's giving me the opportunity to create financial and time freedom for my family. Imagine being in that position and not just you imagine as physicians, so many of us being in that position and that's just, it's mind boggling to think about it. So I really want you to take this to heart. I really want you to acknowledge I'm building a business asset. Like, don't build a job, build a business. Business assets that you can use to create, I mean like so many things that you can change the world and change your world with that. Okay? So I want you to commit to building a business asset. I want you to take this episode, I want to share it with the doctors in your life. Because again, this is a movement where we're deciding, oh, no, like I tell the doctors in the business school, right? And I say this on the podcast a lot, that, hey, we are the ones who are building the most innovative, most impactful, most profitable businesses inside and outside of healthcare. And the truth of the matter is, imagine that. Imagine that being our reality. Imagine us being able to compete on any stage. Imagine us having the clinical, like we're clinical geniuses. And business geniuses like, imagine marrying the two. We can be that. We can be that. But it all starts today. It all starts from the decision, like, I'm going to do this. Like, I mean this, and I'm going to build a business asset. Okay? It doesn't matter whether you're just starting. It doesn't matter if you're a multiple. Seven figures. We want to build in such a way say that this is an asset. It can work without us. We can sell it. We can create this great monetization event. And just like anybody else, okay? All right. So go share this with another doctor in your life. Let's make a movement of this thing, and I will see you on the next episode of the EntreMD podcast. Hey, if you love listening to the EntreMD podcast, I want to invite you to join Entre MD on demand. It is my signature substitute subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entrend.com forward/on demand, and I'd love to have you join us. See you on the inside.