Episode 410: Mastering the Different Phases & Skills of Building a Business Part 1

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm talking with Gracie Murphy and we're getting ready to get into some real interesting lessons she learned on her way up the ladder. Gracie, thanks for taking the time and sharing with us.

It's my pleasure.

And I know it's got to be a struggle for you this time of the year to find a time this time of the year. But also running a company of 1300 people, there's no end to the surprises that happened as I'm sure things that you got to deal with as you go through the day. So thanks again for being with us. And talk about as you got in, how long were you doing that trading before you got the idea of starting your own business?

So I got here in 2003. I did trading for two years. I transitioned from trading to being a controller for a race car company here in Beaufort and then from that into the finance part to take a company a retail through bankruptcy. And I was one of the last ones to leave with the cfo. And. And when I finished that project, that is when I started Advanced Care Partners.

And so did Global. The trading thing, was that not interesting to you or not? Does that seem to be a dead end type thing?

No, actually it was pretty interesting. The problem that I saw on that is because it was a Brazilian company that was they hired me to come to United States in their headquarters to exchange money with Brazil. Then I was not having a lot of experience in the American corporate world, which is what helped me to learn English as well as the entire way how we do businesses in America. So that is why I wanted to push myself and challenge myself to go to the real world of America and stay there.

Did that what caused you to seek out or to take advantage of that comptrollers role?

Yes, yes. So when I started acp, I actually was pregnant with my first son. I have two sons. One is turning 11 next month. And I started ACP when I was four months pregnant and I saw this opportunity of so ACP is a home health care company in three states. We provide nursing care to medically fragile patients. The majority are pediatric patients, which is a very niche business which a lot of people don't know is if you have A child, if you gave birth or you have a child that meets a certain level of medical needs, the government of each state is required to pay me to provide nursing care to these children in their homes sometimes for a lifetime for free for the parents is a benefit. That's a federal mandate that says if these kids meet this level of medical care we are going to supply the resources for the parents. So it's a really mission driven business. The families that we take care are sometimes we're the only hope in this kids lives because they don't have mom and dad. They have never even met mom and dad or they're very unprivileged. So it's why are they not met?

Why is that? Now you say why is that? You said sometimes they haven't even met mom and dad or what is that?

Because when you have a, when you have a child that I would say 60% of our patients are because mom did not take care of the pregnancy or okay drugs during pregnancy. So the child has a lot of birth defects and requires equipment such as respiratory G tube, cvls to be alive. And if we're not in their homes they're going to go back to the hospital because they need skilled care services. So to me I was amazed when I first heard about the programs that each state funded by Medicaid. So I contract with the state Medicaid to take care of these kids at no cost for the parents. In Brazil I never heard of such a thing. Like if you have a child that's born with a lot of special needs, there is nobody to help here. The government is required to help the parents regardless of the income of the family even though they don't meet income level for Medicaid there are waivers that we help the parents to acquire that will cover our services.

How did you get involved in even find out about this opportunity? Because you're going from a racing company, it seems like a huge shift.

Yeah. So after I finished taking the retail company to bankruptcy after the racing company I went to work on the project. I was pregnant and like I said I was the last one to leave that company. I said well I don't want to go to work for another company because I'm pregnant. I want to have flexibility. And my husband had just done a consultant work for a company just like that in Texas. And he came home and said I think you're going to love this because you're radiologist in Brazil, you have your MBA in finance, you're going to basically marry the numbers with the Care. And it's very mission driven. I absolutely love kids, especially special needs kids. It is one of my call in life is to help them to get better. So I went to Texas. The CEO of the company opened the door for me to take a look on the business model and how it's operating. And I fell in love with the mission and the causes that we serve. So I came here, studied the guidelines for Medicaid of Georgia and hired a consultant to help me to get through licensure and started ACP in 2010, got baptized by fire every day for 11 years. And here we go.

Yeah. Let's talk about this husband. He reels you in the Brazilian beauty. And was a condition of the marriage, the fact that you would get married at the breakers down here in Palm Beach?

No.

Did you even know about the Breakers?

I did. I did. I was fortunate enough to have gone to the breakers before that. Yes.

And so how did that come about?

Well, we actually had two weddings. We had one here and one in my hometown in Brazil. Probably 80% of the population of the town.

Yeah.

Yes. My family is pretty big down there, so. Yeah. So we wanted to do a destination wedding. And Rib breakers was a dream wedding. That was years ago.

Yeah. Unbelievable. And as you started talking today, you talked about something near and dear to your heart also, and that is things you've learned about running a successful business. And just like you've got a passion for helping kids, you got a passion for helping entrepreneurs on the way up to kind of alert them to things they need to know that could allow them to be successful. And I'm sure these things, you know, you talk about skills and phases, you go through the stages. Let's talk about that. Because I'm sure those lessons were not learned very easily. I'm sure there's brutal experiences there in your education and trial and error education on that. And so what do you mean when you talk about the different. You talk to people about different phases businesses go through and the skills you need and things like that. Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion in assets under management, and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellawinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an Incredible advantage. And are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Yeah. So in my company, so you think about from licensure to the first patients to, you know, your first, I would say 5 million, then you go to 10, 15, 20. And I actually sold the majority interest of the company to a private equity firm at the end of 2018. And I led the entire, not just the negotiation piece, but the entire due diligence as well as two and a half years later as a CEO of the company. So it's very different if this is your first business, is very different between starting a company and growing the company. Because not just the leadership team that you have to take with you as you grow, the phase is a complexity that the business becomes as you grow. And it's funny to say that, but when you double revenue, your complexity doesn't double. Your complexity is 10 or 15 times more. It doesn't follow exactly the same math as the revenue. So you have to be prepared and you feel this is the first and the biggest business you ever, you know, grew. You have to stay ahead of the game and continue to improve you as the leader, to be the leader that the company needs. Otherwise the company is going to outgrow you and you're going to become irrelevant. A lot of, you know, leaders continue to grow the business without growing themselves as a leader and they then even the vision doesn't get, you know, reinvented or updated because they get stuck on that mentality that they have been using for 10 years and they cannot stay ahead of the game.

And how did you, how did you wind up learning those lessons? Do you start observing that when you were even trading or when did you start, did that get your attention?

I would say that a year and a half after I started ACP is when I really thought, oh my goodness, number one, leading is a privilege. I will never take it for granted. I think as a leader you have to take full responsibility and accountability for whatever happens in organization. And that's when I looked back, I said, wow, I have 10 employees at that point, corporate employees, because we had many more nurses. But you don't see your nurses every day because they are in patients homes. But I start thinking, how can I now develop them to grow with the company otherwise they are going to become irrelevant. Because as you grow, the people that used to be your hero, they are no longer the heroes because you need bigger heroes because there's bigger and more complex issues to trade. And the worst thing is to have to hire more experienced people above the people that have been with you for sometimes five, 10 years because you were not able to scale with them. And as a company, you have to be able to provide the resources for them to grow. And they also wanted to. They have to be willing to learn and grow as well. So it takes you to tango.

So did you get into any awkward or disturbing situations that caused you to realize what you're just telling me?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you have to let it go, someone or with someone that has been with you for. For a long time resigns because they no longer feel valued because, you know, the job is not the same anymore. You know, you're. You're a bigger company, so there's different positions that you have to invent even to, to create, even to continue the growth. So a lot of awkwardness is, is when you realize that you failed as a leader to train and develop them to go to the next level, and you ended up, you know, losing a, you know, a family member. Because to me, my employees are family. To me, I, And I say that because culture is such important piece as you grow an enterprise that, you know, have to be people centric and have to be people first. And when everybody, if someone leaves is almost like a family member is leaving. And it's never a happy moment.

Yeah, but don't you find maybe you're taking too much responsibility there? I mean, you know, if I had done a better job of training and developing and this, that, and the other, you know, because not everybody is hungry to continue to improve and grow, and it's natural to, you know, people. Not everybody's capable of continuing to grow and improve and. Or they don't. They're not capable on the motivation side.

Right. But I think the question is, did you give them the opportunity to. Did you give them the resources? If.

How could you. How could you have given them better opportunity to do that?

I think when you're growing a company, you. Back then, you know, this being like 11 or 12 years, I did not focus on training in the beginning because, you know, what kind of training, what.

Kind of training would you have focused on?

I would have them even how to lead people or how to hold people accountable or how to be a better teammate or how to create culture together. How. Let's debrief, let's. There's so many even soft skills that you can empower them to use more that can reflect in a different outcome. But I totally see what you're coming from because sometimes you invest all the resources and they don't want to do it they don't want to grow. They're just happy where they are. But that was not the case to me, because we're first phase of any entrepreneurial company is hustle. You hustle, hustle. You are tactical company. You're not your outcome focus company.

Yeah.

So you have to pivot from being not task oriented, but outcome oriented. How can you change a mindset from being a tactical to a strategic leader? And it's a big shift, as you know, even to train our employees to think differently. It's very different. And you have to be on it and you have to create a culture of people development.

Well, after you do that training, let's just say you've done the training and you did the training and this and the other. And really, that's not good enough. Tell you the truth, Gracie, I love you, but it's not good enough. You've got to follow up the training with a program. Think where they're measured. You could see if they take it serious and the numbers start to improve. And what I always did was, it was like, you know, I just looked at people. Their job was my job grow. You know, the number one job, number one job of a leader is to win for your, you know, your team in your people and went in the right way. And it's results, and it's just results. And so I put people in the same thing with me, like, if you can't grow your results, bye, bye. I got to find somebody who will. And I don't care what system you use. I don't care if you go to Himalayas and you meditate up there in the mountains and the clouds to get yourself through a transition, go down to Cancun, play golf all day long, you know, and come in and you give it 15 good minutes a day. And that's all it takes for you to grow your great. However you can figure it out. But at some point, you got to hold people accountable. And Gracie, between me and you, some people just. The company will outgrow them. And actually, like you say, you need bigger and bigger heroes. And the charge for a leader is to make sure the company doesn't outgrow you. And that's really what happens with founders. The reason the founders get thrown out. Probably the best thing for Steve Jobs early on was they threw him out of Apple, you know, because he was controlling and he was dictatorial and he was, you know, he always had those tendencies, even when he came back. But he had a lot of the rough edges knocked off. You know, he's a lot more collaborative, you know, when he went over there and created the. The cartoon factory over there, you know, the animation thing, a lot more collaborative and I think he even realized how much more you could do. So he still had that incredible insight and sharpness and everything. But, you know, I think he needed a timeout, you know, so sometimes people just get outgrown, you know, and then you. What happens is I've seen our company had incredible momentum for years and years and then we started, you know, the leader started worrying about the people who weren't keeping pace and that just drug everybody else down, you know, it's like decisions are being made to keep the old guys happy, you know, and come on guys, you know, and yeah, we love you, you know, we give you a plaque. But at some point you got to get better, you know, and some. I think it's one of the things you learn about being a leader is you got to develop the long term perspective that some people are just not going to keep up for the whole ride. If you do your job to continue to grow, at some point they got to do their job of continuing to grow themselves. And they're not all going to be willing to do that, are motivated because when they came in, it was a certain size company with a certain size mission. Now that it's this big behemoth, you've been successful and all kind of like the complexities, they might be able to handle a little bit of complexity, but when you double production and like you said, 10 to 15 times more complexity, that could be just too confusing, you know, too much, too much monkey business for them to hang around with, you know, type thing. So how did you figure out the complexity aspect of it?

I think it comes down to processes. You have these standards in place that people know what they're doing.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.