#144 Proven Ways To Scale Your Business, ft. Stephanie Pearson, MD

Welcome to the Passive Income MD Podcast where we talk about creating your ideal life through multiple streams of income. I'm your host, Peter Kim. If you enjoy hearing about this stuff, make sure to hit subscribe so I can bring it to you every week. Now let's get on with the show. I'm going to be talking to somebody probably pretty well known to most of you. This is Dr. Stephanie Pearson. She is part of the dynamic duo known as Pearson Rabbits. They are a huge healthcare company where they actually healthcare platform, I like to call them actually technology company, where they've helped thousands of doctors and healthcare professionals protect their most valuable asset, their ability to earn income. They do a lot in disability insurance. You've probably known about them, you've heard their story in so many different places. I'm going to let her introduce herself. She is an OB gyn, but she somehow came to grow and build and really lead this amazing business. And we're going to talk a little bit about how she transitioned from a, you know, someone who grinds in her business to someone that actually leads and becomes more of an owner in her business. I know a lot of you are in that point or at that point where you're starting to grow your businesses, but now you're trying to figure out, how do I transition to the next level, how do I scale this? How do I leverage my time better? How do I become more sustainable? How does it become more sustainable as a business? And so we're going to talk about all of those things today. Stephanie, how are you doing?

Hey, Peter, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back. Awesome.

Well, I mean, I love hearing your story. I know it because I've talked to you so much. You're such a great person. You've always been great in terms of sharing it, but do you mind giving people, let's go into it, kind of how you got to be where you're at today in a really kind of a short, abridged version of that. So I'm going to kind of help guide this for you. Tell me in your own words really quickly, what is Pearson Rabbits exactly? I call it health care tech platform, disability. It's a lot because there's so much to it now. But how do you describe it?

Honestly? We are an insurance advisory brokerage firm. We help physicians, other health care providers, really anybody who needs our help. We've figured out, you know, lots of docs are married to non docs. So at the end of the day, we'll take care of anybody but we really educate and empower people to make good decisions for disability and life insurance. We have really built a, in my opinion, a well oiled machine. Have embraced technology to a certain degree. It's not like online dating. There's a lot more that goes into disability underwriting and advocacy. So we're not, you know, we're not a term for life. Right. We really spend a lot of forward time prepping people, educating people, creating realistic expectations. And so we really spend a lot of time up front so that when people get their decisions, there are no to minimal surprises.

Let's talk about a little bit about how this story began. I mean, you are a, you know, you're. People know you as an OB gyn, but you're no longer an obgyn. And then how did all of that happen? And then ultimately how did that lead to you being, you know, helping to really found and really, you know, just really grow this company called Pearson Rabbits.

So I do still first and foremost consider myself a physician. So sorry, it hit a little bit of a cord. I am no longer practicing. Right. I'm no longer a practicing OB gyn. Sorry. So super quickly I was injured during a difficult delivery and my patient ruined my career. I had a shoulder injury that got operated on. My recovery didn't go well and I was never cleared to do OB or operate and was terminated the day that my FMLA was up because my contract said that I needed to be able to do 100% of my job duties and I was not. And so in losing my physician identity and trying to figure out how I was going to reinvent myself, how I was going to be a provider, I was the primary provider in my household and I didn't want to let my family down and, and I tried a few different things and ultimately the insurance really, it just happened. I'm not giving it enough credence to say it just happened, but I found myself getting increasingly passionate about the topic. And I was lecturing to area residency programs, partly altruistically and partly cathartically because every time I told my story it got easier. And I didn't want young physicians to make some of the mistakes that I made. And at some point in my recovery, I want to say it was probably three years after my injury that we decided, huh, maybe this could be something real. And I started really in my kitchen. I mean, we talk around here all the time that everything started at the kitchen table. I did this for about a year by myself. And then Scott and I partnered up and he had been integral in getting me into the business. He had been at a life insurance house and really not huge into the disability space, but really saw what I was doing and cultivating and I really needed him for the life insurance education. And so we decided that we would be better together than a partner.

I mean, did you ever have any sort of business background just for people that you know, to make it clear.

For people from an educational standpoint? No. Never took a business class, economics class, accounting class in my life. However, I did come from a big business family that interestingly was a multimillion dollar company that actually went bankrupt. So I saw both sides and my husband comes from a family business background. So I wouldn't say that we were completely naive, but we had no formal training.

God, it's so funny because I see you today and I've hear this story, many have heard this story, and I see you as this again, a thriving entrepreneur who really has this passion to serve their community. And I've seen it grow and build. And it's so funny to hear about your story coming from, hey, this was like unfortunate accident and turning that into something amazing, what you're doing today. And so I think we want to fast forward a little bit through a lot of this because I think that there are people out there who are starting businesses and a lot of people in our community, they're doing something similar in a way, meaning that they're finding something, they're passionate about something. They're, you know, they're, they're finding something that they find joy in in a lot of ways. And they're taking that and creating businesses out of it. And many of them are in the middle of a grind right now. They're working so hard at it. They're growing their businesses and they're looking and they're wondering whether, hey, is this going to. How am I going to build this into a sustainable, growing, leveraged business? And you've been able to do that. And so today, in today's talk, I want to talk a little bit more on that area because that's something that I think all of us can learn from. So when did you transition from? When did you at least mentally start transitioning from that point where you were just working really hard, growing this business to a place where you're like, you know what, things have to change a little bit in the way we operate things?

So I will say that I worked harder and was probably more accessible when I started doing this. I was literally working 24 7. I was answering emails at 2 in the morning. And I was working seven days a week and was really hustling to make this happen. And I would say it was probably three years in when my husband looked at me and said, so your first job almost killed you. Now you're going to let this kill you? Like something has to give. So admittedly, it was not an internal decision. It really took my husband kind of putting the mirror up and saying, you know, this is not sustainable and this is not good for you or our family. And so we really got our executive team together and really looked at, okay, what was each of us really doing? And I have to admit, looking back, it was probably one of the mistakes that we made. When we started. We didn't have great job descriptions. We kind of were all hands on deck, did whatever needed to be done. We started hiring people as we felt like we needed more ancillary help, but without a really good guidance or roadmap. And at that point, you know, sitting around the table, we were like, okay, it's time. We've been doing this on gut and hustle. We've all been grinding. It's not sustainable. What do we do? And I had gone to a scaling up conference and it's one of the many groups out there that help companies thrive and scale and really felt connected to their methodology. And I have no financial interest in saying this, I actually am paying a scaling up coach, but I had read the book and I had now been to this conference and we interviewed maybe a half a dozen business coaches. And it just so happened that the scaling up coach was the one that we all agreed on as being the most culturally fit. And we felt that he had the most to offer to help us get from A to B. Right. We realized that we were growing pretty quickly and we didn't want to get stuck in the mistake of companies growing so fast that they actually implode. We wanted to be part of that, you know, successful, moving forward, sustainable company.

I mean, do you mind sharing what that system is again? I know that you're not. There's just one system out there, but just curious what that is.

So there are many parts to it, but basically we started with a two day off site with just the executive team really getting in each other's heads, getting in each other's spaces, creating, okay, what are our job duties? Right. What does the CEO do? What does the president do? What does the CFO do? What do we want our producers to do? What do we want our internal people to do? What is our 10 year goal? And let's work backwards. So we set this 10 year, they call it a BHAG. It's big hairy, audacious goal. And we put it on paper and we put it up in the room. Right. And then you work backwards in three year intervals. Okay. So if we want to get to there at 10, what does that mean for us in each three year increment? And let's work backwards. So we were looking at our next three years, which we're in the middle of right now. And. Okay, well what do we need to do in year one? What does that mean for year two? What does that mean for year three? Who do we have to bring to the table? We actually for the first time set true measurable metrics and KPIs. Right. So key performance indicators. And we each had to come up with personal ones, with company ones. We came up with truly a roadmap to get us where we wanted to be. And he has been amazing even in facil, even facilitating interpersonal things. Because when you do have five people on the exec board, we're not always going to agree. And we needed help kind of from a. From an unbiased onlooker who had been successful doing this in the past. Right. So this wasn't. We weren't his first pony show. He has helped other family businesses scale. Non family businesses scale. We knew that we wanted somebody that had some family business background because we're two married couples that are the owners of the company. And so he's been really integral in helping us with both our interpersonal relationships and the business. And really for me personally, helping me delegate and let go of things. And it's been a work in progress.

How did you find somebody like this? Did you just Google? Did you ask for recommendations like what. How do people find resources like this? Because I think that's where people get stuck.

So part of it was word of mouth. Right. So there are five of us on the exec team and we each kind of asked around people that we knew in the business community. As I had mentioned, I had read the Scaling up book and in the book it gives you a website, right? Like how to reach out.

Oh, is that literally the name of the book? Scaling Up Book. What is the Scaling Up? Okay, I thought it was a book about scaling, but it's actually called.

No, it's actually called Scaling Up. Oh, okay.

All right.

The Verne Harnish is one of the creators and taking a little bit of a step back, part of the reason I was drawn to them in the first place is I have always been fascinated with the Ritz Carlton and how their company has grown and how they've built culture. And initially, we started our company with some of those ideas of having daily huddles and having core values that we talk about and having a mission statement and checking in with our employees every day and treating them like ladies and gentlemen and not employees. And part of scaling up is built on the Rockefeller habits and the Ritz Carlton. And so that's what drew me to them in the first place. But literally, I reached out to them. They sent me a questionnaire to fill out. Right. They basically have, like a coach, headhunter, and we got to interview a couple from them, but we also interviewed people from different models to see kind of where we felt the most comfortable.

Now that you've been working on that for a couple years, like, what does it look like today from a business standpoint, from how you operate, run the business? I'm sure there's a. It's a work in progress always. But what does it kind of look like today versus what it looked like when you first started with them?

When we started, we had. I have to do math now. In my head, we had 13 employees. We now have 22. We did not have this roadmap. Now we do. We didn't have true job duties. Now we do. And I think most importantly for me and our listeners is I went from being the CEO, owner, top producer on the phone all the time to more of a traditional CEO, medical director role. And so for me, I am truly out of the office every day by 5. I do admit I still come in on the weekends, in the morning while my kids and husband are asleep, because I just like it. I mean, truthfully, it's not burden on my shoulders. I truly enjoy what I do. And so I'm not actually taking new clients personally unless they come through warm introductions. So if somebody goes to the Pearson Rabbit's website and goes to schedule a call, I'm not there. And part of that is because I'm now working on the business instead of in the business. And that's been a really big transition for me in that now I'm building up other people. I've become more of an internal, I guess, coach or mentor to the producers that we've brought on. I personally train them all. I review all of the intakes that come in, and we ask a lot of information up front because we care so much about this education and creating realistic expectations. And so I can pre screen because I have Medical background. Right. So I can say, okay, these are the questions that, that you need to ask. These are the things that are probably going to happen. And it's allowed me to check in with our employees more. I have meetings all the time, but they're great. Right. It's more of making sure that we sustain our company culture, which everyone probably realizes that Covid shifted everything. We're still a hybrid company. Most of our employees work from home. We make each team come in once a month for FaceTime and team building. But this allows me to have more zoom meetings and work on strategic partnerships and planning and more of the vision work than the day to day grind.

Right. More like a true CEO, like running and growing that business. And it's been great to see you do that. And it's been, I mean, that's why I brought you here, to learn from you. I mean, if, if, if someone were kind of, you know, in that earlier business stage where they, you know, they're starting to feel some of those symptoms of like, hey, I'm running up against the wall. This may not be sustainable, this kind of stuff. And it took someone else external for, for you to kind of make that transition. Like, looking back on that, when do you think is a good time for someone to think about the concept of scaling and to think about those things? Is it ever too early for someone to do that?

No. I kind of wish that we did it in the beginning. I mean, that's one of those things we joke around about that it is kind of amazing what we were able to do on Gut and Hustle. I think had we. And I don't know. Right. Because there's that on the one hand of wouldn't be what we are if we didn't have that. But I think that we may have gotten around some of our headaches and pain points if we had done some of this in the beginning. Having a true goal, Having set right KPIs and quarterly goals and annual goals and good job descriptions and scaling up uses something called scorecards, which is basically a list of what everyone is supposed to be accomplishing at each position. So that truly at the end of a week, at the end of a month, at the end of a quarter, we can say, how do we know we've done a good job? How do we know that we're moving the ball forward? How do we know that were performing at the level we should be performing at? And I think had we had that at the beginning, we may have gotten here faster. Got it.

I mean, I think it's such a great lesson, though. I mean, you're right. You never know. But I mean, it's amazing to see what you built, obviously, with yourself. And, you know, this is my opportunity to say thank you. You know, people in our community, we know you well, been a huge supporter of physician entrepreneurship, especially with our community, with taking part of Leveraging Growth Summit in the past, leveraging the lga, live all of these things. You've been a great example of somebody who's, you know, taken their passion, taken all the skill sets that they've learned within medicine, been able to merge those together and really create something awesome that's created a lot of impact for a lot of people. So I just want to thank you for that. I appreciate your time for coming in and just teaching us about business and entrepreneurship and. And I know there's some amazing things to come, and I look forward to talking again soon.

Thank you, Peter. And thank you for all your support. This has been so fun getting to know you and your community and any help that I can give. I'm open.

Awesome. Well, thanks, Stephanie.

Thanks, Peter.

Bye. Enjoy the show. Let me know by dropping a review in the podcast app you're listening to us in. And if you haven't already, make sure to hit subscribe. Are you a part of our community yet? Join thousands of physicians who are also on this journey to creating their ideal lives through multiple streams of income. You can join us on our Facebook group, Passive Income Docs, and you can always learn more at our website, passiveincomemd.com thanks again for allowing me to be a part of your journey. See you next time.