How Josh Axe Created One of the Largest Online Health Brands in Just 4 Years

Transcription

Welcome back to the Healthpreneur Podcast! I’ve got a treat for you today.

Today, we’re finishing off the week on a great note because I’ve got my good friend Dr. Josh Axe on the podcast with us.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Josh Axe has the most popular website on the planet when it comes to health, functional medicine, and all that good stuff. Draxe.com gets 15 million visitors per month. That’s significant.

He is a best-selling author of a book called “Eat Dirt”, he’s a co-author of “Essential Oils: Ancient Medicine”, and is a regular guest expert on the Dr. Oz Show. He’s also the co-founder of the Ancient Nutrition Company providing Bone Broth Protein, which is delicious, and certified organic herbal supplements.

In 2015 and 2016, his company ranked on the Inc. 500 as the third fastest growing company in healthcare and 35 of all businesses. Here’s the cool thing: What you’re about to uncover is that all of this has happened in less than four years. Yes, four years.

He’s going to share the journey. He’s going to share how it all started, some of the pivotal moves that they made to get to where they are today, lessons, mindset shifts, and things that moved the needle for his company. He’ll share one of the most important things that each one of us needs to be doing in our businesses to move the needle forward.

It’s one thing, and if you’re not doing it, it can severely hold you back.

Without any further ado, let’s welcome Josh. Dr. Josh Axe, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast, how is it going, buddy?

Josh:                      Hey, great, thanks for having me, Yuri.

Yuri:                      It’s great to connect. I know it’s been a while since we’ve spoken, so I’m happy to have you on the show. I think everyone in the health space knows who you are. If someone is listening to this, and they’re an aspiring online entrepreneur in the health, fitness, or wellness space, I guarantee that they have seen your website, Draxe.com, at some point through Google searches or YouTube videos.

This will be a real treat for our audience. Talk to us about how this all started, because the growth that you guys experienced in the last few years is astronomical.

 

Josh’s beginnings and the growth of his newsletter, website, and company

Josh:                      Totally. If I dug way back, a big part of why I became a physician in the first place was my mom being diagnosed with cancer. She went through the medical system, got so sick, and eventually was diagnosed again. She took a more natural route, which saved her life. She’s healthier now more than ever, she’s in her 60s and water skiing, which is just great.

Things started with having a real passion for teaching people how to be healthy. When I was in my practice, I knew my favorite part of practice was teaching workshops, like nutrition lectures or that type of thing.

I remember being at John Maxwell’s seminar, and him saying, “You need to spend time trying to get to a point where you’re doing what you can be the greatest in the world at. What’s that one thing?” I remember writing down creating content; writing, creating videos, or teaching a live workshop. Teaching and creating content, that was my favorite part of even being in practice.

I would write a weekly newsletter that I would type out and hand to all my patients. Each week it’d be something like, “The Five Steps to Reverse Heart Diseases with Nutrition,” or something like that. I had a patient come up to me and say, “Hey, I’d really love to send my aunt, have it online, and get it emailed to her.” I thought that was a good idea.

My assistant at the time was married to a web designer, and I asked him to make me a website. I started the website, and posted my weekly newsletter online on my website. That’s a big part of what kicked it off.

I was surprised, over time people said, “Oh, I’ve read your newsletter,” so it continued to grow over time. That’s what started this, I was just doing it as a service to my patients out of my clinic.

Yuri:                      Amazing. I think the first time we connected was through a mutual friend named Isaac a couple of years ago. To see what you’ve done and how you’ve grown since that first interaction is phenomenal.

Walk us through that journey. Was there a moment in time or decision where you said, “You know what? I want to grow this to be a massive business”? What was the point of commitment when you decided to do that?

Was it just organic as it continued to grow?

 

Doing what you’re best at and building a team to do the rest

Josh:                      I would say it’s a combination of both. I was talking with Evan Tardy, my company president, about four years ago. I remember telling Evan, “You know what, Evan? I don’t know that we need to get much bigger.” We had four people; him, me, and two others. I said, “You and I could probably just keep doing this like we’re doing it, do really well, and help a lot of people. We don’t need a big team.”

Then, I remember talking to somebody just a few weeks later. I had the misconception that the bigger your company is, the more stress and the more work you do. That was my perception.

They said, “No, actually, it allows you to get even more in your zone, to where you’re doing only what you or God made you the best in the world at.” I thought, “Okay.”

I’m a big believer in prayer, meditation, and visualization. I spent some time praying and saying, “What’s the impact I want to have in the world? What’s the significance?” I felt myself, in my own mind, and God saying, “You know what? I’ve got big plans for you.” I just thought about how I want to impact the world in a positive way.

That’s also when I started thinking about the number one thing I wanted to teach: How to use food as medicine. I wasn’t going to put a cap on myself and say, “I only want to have five employees maximum,” or, “I don’t want to do this.”

Anyway, I had that misconception. I had a breakthrough and realized that business doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve found over time that the more team members I have, typically, the more I get to do what I can be the best in the world at, which is creating content.

I’ll tell you, Yuri, the growth that my company has had surprises me, too. Three and a half or four years ago, I was writing all my articles, editing, and dealing with the legal stuff. I was creating infographics and memes. I was doing it all.

It was crazy. It wasn’t even that long ago. Then, Evan and I, over time, started to scold each other. We’d say, “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be doing that. You’re not great at that, you’re good, but you’re not great.” We eventually got to the point where we hired the right team members.

I used to feel like other people couldn’t do certain things as well as I could. I realized that if I hired somebody, like a writer for example, that person just needs to do it about 80% as good as me. They don’t have to do it 100%. Over time, if I train them right, they can eventually be even better than me at writing or creating certain types of content.

Now, I work with my writers. We have a very specific template. We created a template so if we’re writing an article on turmeric, black seed, or ashwagandha, for instance, it’s very specific to the questions we answer throughout the whole thing.

I want to work with my writers and editors. It is my voice exactly because I wrote down all the questions they must answer in the piece. I know that’s a little off topic, but that’s the way we did things. We’re big believers in creating playbooks, so we make sure when a job is done, it’s done excellent every time.

Yuri:                      Yeah, that’s huge. I’m a huge believer of that as well. If you do something more than once, it must be documented and put into a playbook. Otherwise, you would probably still be writing out your own articles to this day.

I think a lot of people get into business and end up creating themselves a job. They’re doing everything in their business and they’re not documenting anything so the can get to the point where they can hire people to take on those roles. Doing that would free them up to do what it is they want to do.

If we go back three and a half or four years ago when you determined what you’re doing, the stuff you’re not too crazy about, and the stuff you love doing, how did you guys determine which were the key initial hires? How did you go about getting those people?

Josh:                      We looked for wise counsel. We asked people. That was the start. In fact, I think I asked you at one point, another colleague, and some others. We had Evan and myself. Evan essentially was a Digital Marketer, we had a personal assistant, and that was our team.

Then we said, “Okay, what are some other things we need to do?”

We needed a writer. We decided to hire a writer. We needed somebody who did operations of the business. We looked to wise counsel and other organizations who had something similar going on, or were where we wanting to be.

One, it was modeling. Two, wise counsel. Three, Evan wanted to focus more on the marketing side of digital marketing, and less on the tech side. We hired a tech person to take the stress off Evan. Then, we hired a writer, so I didn’t write as much and started editing more. Then, we hired a graphic designer.

We built the team around Evan and my strengths, so we got to do more of what we were great at.

 

Moving past perfection, using programs for cash flow, and product sales

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. What was one of the biggest challenges that you have faced as you were growing? I know a big one – I don’t know if it’s a mindset shift or just a reality, as people want to grow – is wondering, “Do I want to pay someone X and limit our cash flow?”

Is that something you dealt with? Was there another big challenge that you dealt with as you guys were growing?

Josh:                      No, that wasn’t a challenge for us. If anything, we had a few challenges that I had to break through. One was that I was afraid to sell, or oversell, to people.

Number two is I felt like before I put something out, it had to be perfect. Like everything had to be perfect.

Yuri:                      I don’t think anyone can relate to that.

Josh:                      Yeah, exactly. Now, we’re the opposite. Another thing too, and people don’t realize this, is that three and a half years ago we didn’t have our own product line at all. We launched it exactly three and half years ago.

I had sold my clinic, then my money was tied up in something I’d invested in. Part of it I used it to launch some of the new projects I was trying to launch. We were at a point once three and a half years ago where we had about $10,000 in the bank. I didn’t know if we were going to make it in the next couple months. That was three and a half years ago.

Then, we launched our first program called The Secret Detox Program. That did well. We launched a supplement line, and once I started getting that pressure on, I realized that I was putting out the best content, programs, and products out there, and they were going to save and transform lives.

I needed to get the message out to people.

We started sending more regular sales emails. We started being more strategic in how we sold. We started following the launch formula in terms of how we do our email sequencing. But, the biggest thing was that I realized that my stuff didn’t have to be perfect.

The first time I put out a free eBook, it was called “Superfood Super You”, it took six months to create. I spent hours and hours on it. Here’s the amazing thing now. We put out another freebie, a shopping list that took me about an hour to make, and we got more opt-ins with that than with the book that took me six months to write.

Honestly, if I could go back now, we would’ve just started by throwing things to see what stuck rather than trying to make everything perfect before we launched anything.

Yuri:                      Totally. That’s awesome. Now you guys have a whole suite of products, supplements, and information stuff as well. Do you guys sell information, or is it mostly the supplement stuff now?

Josh:                      Early on, what got us to a certain point were programs. It was all content. We had a Secret Detox Program and an Essential Oil Program. Those were, by far, our largest income maker in terms of profitability. Programs can be really profitable.

We needed to have consumables, so we started doing supplements. Today, it’s probably 80-20. We probably make 80% off our supplements, and 20% off our programs, currently. In the future, it’ll probably be more like 85-15. That’s the current ratio.

We had to do programs because, I’ll tell you, if you’re trying to launch supplements without programs, it can be difficult because of cash flow. Unless you already have a lot of money or investors.

For us, the only thing that’s allowed us to scale the business on the supplement and retail end, is the program side of things. It’s essentially what has created the cash flow for us to do supplements in the first place.

Facebook Ads Pipeline and SEO

Yuri:                      It’s super smart, because then the supplements also act as a nice back end to those courses or programs too, which is a beautiful mixture.

A lot of people who are on Facebook see your ads for webinars. Are webinars the major “selling platform” for a lot of your courses and supplements now?

Josh:                      Yeah, they are. We follow the launch formula. We typically have a few things, but webinars are huge. Webinars are number one. In addition to that, we do training videos. We typically do two to three training videos on a topic; we have a video sales page with a video of me in a sales letter beneath that.

The biggest driver is the combination of the webinar and the launch formula.

 Yuri:                      You also have storefronts on the site. We have recognized with the people that we work with and our own business, that people tend to go back to storefronts if they’re repeat buyers. This is as opposed to cold traffic customers who have no idea who you are.

Is that something you have noticed as well? What’s the whole store strategy as opposed to going direct to an offer that’s more singular?

Josh:                      We found that as our web traffic increases, our store sales go exactly in line with it. We’ve focused a lot in search engine optimization and ranking well for articles, because that’s the gift that keeps on giving.

It’s just one of those things. Once it’s there, you’re not paying month after month for that. Yeah, the SEO engine has been a big part of our business online as well.

We make sure we’re nurturing our audience as well. We’ve got a good ratio of adding a lot of value for people, too.

 

Josh’s Advice on Content Marketing

Yuri:                      That’s great. I believe that if you are not producing content in a great way, your business is going to suffer in the future. Even if you’re buying paid traffic, you’re not adding value to people in the advertising of it, unless it’s going to a webinar for instance.

You have a great foundation of thousands of articles that you can turn to. It’s such a huge asset.

What advice you give to people who are making content marketing part of their big strategy, but they’re not seeing the results they want? Maybe a little bit more the long-term game as opposed to having a profitable funnel you can drive Facebook ads to.

What words of wisdom would you give someone who may be a bit discouraged because they’re putting all this time into their content, but they’re not seeing the ROI from it?

Josh:                      I would keep a few things in mind. One thing I’m going to come back to is “wows and purple cows.” That’s not the first thing, but I think it’s important.

I was in the same boat when I first started putting out content. A lot of people in my clinic read it – like my patients – but that was it. It was nothing.

Keep in mind that it’s a snowball effect. Our content traffic has gone up 25 times in three years, but it was because we built a foundation. Know that you’re building a foundation right now, and take the stress off yourself a little bit.

Maybe you start writing articles, create a template, then have another writer who’s getting it out there. Maybe you’re doing the editing, and creating the outline. That sort of thing.

If you’re passionate about it, then continue to do it. But I think there’s a time and a place to hire a team member to support you in getting this content out there. But, the other big thing is that if you’re on social and you put out a good article, the organic grass-fed cream always rises to the top. So you’ve got to be putting out the best of the best.

I tell my content team that if our article is not the best article out there on turmeris or ashwagandha, we need to take the article down. We need to go back and make it the best, most comprehensive, most engaging, most active article that causes people to make changes or use turmeric in a certain way.

We’re really big into creating a wow experience and creating purple cows: things that really grab people’s attention.

People need to remember that if you’re going to put something out, do your best to make it awesome. It does take time. That’s the thing, especially the first two years. I’m looking to my bookshelf right now, and I’ve got “Crush It!” by Gary Vaynerchuk. A lot of people don’t know this, but when I first started out, I would go to other people’s health sites and answer questions for them, because no one was answering them.

I’m not afraid to say this, but I went on certain sites that would be considered colleagues and friends of mine, but still competitors. They would have a Facebook page and post on chia seeds. People would be asking 50 questions like, “What’s the best chia seed? What about this?”

I would go on there and answer everyone’s questions.

I would do that for about an hour a day. I did that because Gary Vaynerchuk told me to in his book. I started getting follows and likes on my Facebook page, because I was giving good answers to questions.

People started following me.

 

Scaling Up, scorecards, and finding the right team members and process

There was a lot of guerrilla marketing and grinding early on that people have no idea I did. Eventually, once I got to a certain point, I created the template, the playbook, and handed it off. Evan’s father is a multimillionaire, a successful business entrepreneur, and they implemented something called Scaling Up in their business, the Rockefeller Habits.

We’ve done the same thing. We’ve followed the Scaling Up principles of playbooks, scorecards, and scoreboards. In fact, we’ve got big flat screen TVs in our office for our customer service team, there’s a big flat screen TV that has a live, up-to-date scoreboard. It’s the same with our program and product division.

Every time a program is sold, it’s a live update. It creates an awesome culture and environment.

I almost forgot what you asked me. I know I’ve gone off on a tangent here, but there are some thoughts.

Yuri:                      No, it’s great. Speaking of the scorecard stuff, I love the whole idea of having that in an office. It brings up morale, incites friendly competition, and is a lot of fun.

What do you suggest for people or teams who are virtual?

Josh:                      It works just as well. We have scoreboards, and scorecards. The scoreboard I even did in my clinic, my brick-and-mortar practice. On a weekly basis, we would all see the scorecard. We’d see total patient visits, total revenue, new patient appointments, and all those things. We have those in the office, so everybody would get the report that Friday afternoon or Monday morning.

Now my executives go over scorecards either once a week or once a month. There’s a great book by Marcus Buckingham, it’s called “First, Break All the Rules.” He goes through the most important things for winning as a team.

When you ask a team member what’s most important to them, there are two top things. One, they feel like they’re working with some of their closest friends. Two, they want to know if they’re winning or not.

Your team member, especially somebody who’s good, wants to know if they’re winning. So, we’ll sit down, and maybe somebody scored on three different areas.

Let’s say I sat with Evan early on, and he oversaw our program sales.

I’d ask how The Secret Detox program was doing, and when we were finishing the Healing Leaky Gut program. I’d ask about the progress in finishing out the new launch formula on Infusionsoft? Something like that.

I’d say, “Hey, Evan, how would you grade yourselves in these this week?” He’d respond, “Well, the program launch went great, I give myself an A-. This could’ve been a little better, I got a B there, and a B there.” Then I would give him feedback on the grades he gave himself.

I would say, “Evan, you’re totally right, man. A-, we could fix that. You gave yourself a B, I would give you a B+ there, because, hey man, this thing happened that we couldn’t have foreseen. I thought you did a great job.”

This is how we operate as a company. We have scoreboards – even virtually – because we have team members in California, in Austin, Texas, and on the East Coast, Philly, and New York. Our whole content team is virtual. We do a content call once a week, where we go over the scoreboard.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. Are you guys using any technology for that, or is it simply within Google Sheets or a custom platform?

Josh:                      With our content team, he puts it out in an email once a week as a Google doc. That’s what we do with our content team. We do the same thing with our social team.

Now, with our marketing department – we have some real tech savvy people there – my answer is I have no idea what they do. But, I know that they’ve set up a software so things are popping up live on everyone’s computer across the board. I know that they communicate through Slack.

But I’m not tech savvy at all. In terms of what they’re using, I could ask Evan, and we could get you a link.

Yuri:                      That’s fine. It’s great to be at a point in your business, in your journey, where you don’t even know what half the people do. You’re just doing your thing, they’re accountable for specific KPIs and metrics, and everyone is moving on the same wavelength.

What does a day in your life look like now compared to three or four years ago?

 

Daily routines, letting go, and surrounding yourself with the right people

Josh:                      Right now, my morning routine is still the same. I wake up, pray, and get grateful for a little bit. Then, I do a quick workout. Back then, I would’ve called Evan and said, “Hey, what’s going on today?” We would’ve done a quick huddle, and then I would’ve started working on content.

I would’ve worked on articles, interviews, or something like that. I would’ve prepared and worked on that stuff throughout the day and maybe done a few networking calls.

That’s it. I would’ve worked on content, done some networking, and worked with a couple of my core team members. Right now, my schedule is more set in stone. Mondays and Wednesdays, I go in and record Facebook Lives.

I used to create some of the PowerPoints, but now I have a graphic designer who’s creating all the PowerPoint slides for me. I pretty much just show up, our film crew films me, then I leave.

Mondays and Wednesdays, I wake up, record in the morning, do a team meeting with Jordan, Evan, or certain team members, and eat lunch. In the afternoon, I have business calls, that type of thing, and am usually home by 4:00 or so.

It’s different now. I do a lot less of the technical side, like creating a PowerPoint or creating an article. It’s bigger picture stuff.

I’ll call Ethan from our content team and say, “Hey, Ethan, I don’t really like the way that we’re doing this with the recipes. I think we need to add a couple more pictures like this.” When I’m talking to my content team I’ll say, “Hey, what are the numbers this week? Okay. Hey, why do you think those are down a little bit? Okay. Hey, let’s try this.”

I do a lot more connecting with my leaders now. I give them directive on things I think we need to do to improve the company.

Yuri:                      That’s great. If you’re listening to this, this serves as inspiration for what is possible. This is a very similar journey for most successful entrepreneurs, where you get to a point – like you’re talking about, Josh – where you work on the bigger picture stuff and aren’t in the trenches as much anymore.

If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “Oh, man, I don’t know if I could ever get there.” I think it starts with having a vision and surrounding yourself with great people to help you do that.

Was there a mindset shift that you had to go through in terms of limiting beliefs you had to overcome? Was there anything you had to develop personally to grow your business as you’ve grown over the past three and a half years?

Josh:                      Yeah, I think there’s a few things. One of the first things that comes to mind is feeling like I had to be in control of everything. I had to have my hands on everything, doing a lot. This is repetitive, Yuri, but I’m telling you, if people are not doing scorecards and scoreboards, keeping score, and looking at analytics on a regular basis, it hurts the company.

Sometimes you think you’re winning, or things are going well. I’m obsessed with numbers. We look at analytics every single week to see how things are doing. Four or six years ago, when I was on Facebook or did a YouTube video, I would study why certain things did it do so well.

I would break it down, deconstruct it, reconstruct it, and learn why a certain Facebook post did so well or totally flopped. Then, I’d be strategic about creating content in the future. I’d use the winning principles and strategies that I needed to put together to make something great.

If there was a shift, here’s a couple: One, you’ve got to be number one. If you’re going to put something out and you can’t be number one now, work towards putting out the best quality product. The other shift was this: When I was first in my clinic, I just hired people that met the criteria of a good office manager, graphic designer, or writer that met the criteria. They just got the job done.

Today, I want the A+, five-star, team player who takes initiative, works extra hours, is self-motivated, wants to crush it, and is committed to excellence. My biggest life lesson is that you become who you surround yourself with.

If I’m networking, Yuri, I’m talking to guys like you, Isaac Jones, Jordan Rubin, and people who are big movers and shakers. But it’s the same with your team. People ask, “How do you hire?”

I dig. It’s like mining for gold. I’m calling everybody I know, sending emails on LinkedIn, and finding the person.

If somebody’s working for another company and I feel like they’re a fit, we just reach out. We reach out to whoever we feel is the rock star out there. When you’re hiring at first, sometimes you’ll hire somebody that starts getting the job moving and going.

But long term, rather than always be closing, always be hiring and looking for A-team players. That, coupled with our scalable systems, is a big one. It has gotten us to where we are now.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                      Great advice, man. Josh, this has been a tremendous. I’m sure we could talk for hours about this. But, it’s time for the Rapid Five. Are you ready?

Josh:                      All right, let’s do it.

Yuri:                      Five rapid fire questions. Whatever comes top of mind is most likely the right answer.

Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Josh:                      My biggest weakness is probably being too hands-off. I tend to work on one project for a month, then come up for air. I’m the farthest thing from a multitasker anyone’s ever met. Sometimes I think that hurts me a little bit.

I’ll come up for air like a month later and say, “Where are we at with this?” when I should’ve checked in a week later.

Yuri:                      Nice. What’s your biggest strength?

 Josh:                      Being able to see trends. I’ll give you an example of this. I know that Facebook and YouTube are on Netflix, they’re on reality TV, and they want to take over television. Right now, we’re videoing. I have a video crew follow me around on trips, everywhere I go. We’re creating our own reality TV show that’ll be on YouTube Red and Facebook, like more personal content from me.

Seeing trends, big picture things, and developing a strategy around those things are probably my bigger strengths.

 Yuri:                      Super smart. That’s one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s super powers, and it serves him well.

Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Josh:                      Developing leaders. One of the things that we did in my clinic, I still do. We did this with my staff, and we do it once a month now. A few months ago, I taught them all how to make a vision board. I did a whole training on visualization last month, and we did a whole training on goal setting this week.

On a regular basis, we’re developing leaders.

Yuri:                      That’s great. That’s the sign of a good leader. I think a great leader wants to develop more leaders instead of having followers. What do you think is the number one skill or trade entrepreneurs must have for lasting success?

Josh:                      Perseverance.  When I first started doing content, no one was listening. But I kept doing it, because I believed that the world needed the message and I could be the best in the world at it. Not giving up is key.

The second is coachability. A lot of times people try to reinvent the wheel and do it all themselves. There’s a lot of ego there. I believe in wise counsel. I’m not afraid to go and ask somebody who’s great at something how they did it.

I’m not afraid to try and figure out how something is successful. I think that’s another important skill to have, too.

Yuri:                      That’s huge. Finally, complete this sentence, “I know I’m being successful when…”

Josh:                      I know I’m being successful when the people closest to me continue to think that I have a great character.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. Good stuff. Josh Axe, thank you so much for joining us on the Healthpreneur Podcast. Where is the best place for our listeners to follow your work online and stay in touch with you?

Josh:                      Check out my website draxe.com. I do a lot on Instagram and Facebook, my handle on both is DrJoshAxe. My wife Chelsea has an Instagram account, and she’s good at fitness and that type of thing. To see more of my personal life, Instagram is a good spot.

Yuri:                      Yeah, you’ve got some cool stuff on there.

Before we finish, Josh, I wanted to personally acknowledge you for the amazing work that you’ve done in our space to raise the bar. Not just from a business perspective due to the quality of your content, but also for the people and lives you’ve impacted. It truly does make a difference.

That’s what we’re all about here at Healthpreneur; highlighting amazing people like yourself who are making a big difference in the world.

Thank you for all the amazing work you’ve done and the people that you’ve touched and will continue to touch in the future.

Josh:                      Thanks a lot, Yuri, it’s been great catching up.

 

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Yuri’s Take

Wasn’t that an amazing episode? Josh talked about seeking wise counsel.

That’s part of what I do in this podcast. I bring people like Josh and other successful entrepreneurs in our space who have climbed the mountain so they can report back and say, “Hey, here are the things that we’ve learned. Here are some things you should consider.”

Really, you’re getting a crash course in how to build a successful business from some of the most successful people in the entire health industry. I want to leave you with this idea: If you haven’t done this already, create some type of scorecard or scoreboard for your business.

If you’re a solopreneur, that’s totally fine. If you’ve got several people working with you, if you have your own physical establishment, or if you’re online, the same thing applies. Don’t worry about the tech or getting things all crazy. I’m going to give you one technology that is interesting if you want to check it out.

But, before I do that, I’m going to share what I do. Basically, I use a Google Sheet. Our Google sheet will look at a couple key metrics, without overwhelming us with too much data.

Your goal is to figure out the three to five key metrics in your business and look at them every single week. There are two ways to look at metrics. I’ll do a solo episode about this, but I’m a huge believer in looking at proactive, or leading indicators, not just trailing or reactive.

A trailing indicator is like revenue. It’s answering, “Okay, here’s how much money we made.” But, what that doesn’t tell you is how you made that money. A leading indicator is a metric that, if the number goes up or down, it will impact the trailing indicator.

In our Luminaries Mastermind, every single person has one key metric that they’re looking to move the needle on over the course of 90 days. That’s something that is out of your direct control.

Let’s say you want to make $1 million. You can’t control making $1 million. That’s an outcome. That would be the one key outcome that we focus on in terms of what we’re tracking. However, what we do focus on, what we can control, are the things we have 100% control over.

In that case, it might be, “I will shoot and upload three videos to YouTube every single week. I will email my list every single day.” These are the things you control, and if you do them consistently, they should move the needle to the bigger outcome. If they don’t, that’s fine, you can swap those out with something else.

So, identify three to five key things that you want to track. Maybe it’s visitors to your website, maybe it’s revenue, maybe it’s your opt-in conversion rate or number of new clients. Track whatever is most important for you in your business.

Then, identify one or two things you have 100% control over that’ll move the needle for that metric.

If you want new clients or customers, you can’t control that. What you can control is picking up the phone and calling people, or sending emails. That you have control over. Whether they respond or not is out of your control.

That’s my little challenge for you today.

If you want a cool tool – I believe it’s free – it’s called Klipfolio. It allows you to set up an online dashboard. It’ll pull from your different accounts like Facebook and YouTube, with all sorts of different API integrations. It can pull data from whichever system you’re already using and give you a clean dashboard that you can customize however you want in a seamless fashion.

I think they have a free trial, or it’s a couple bucks a month. It’s something that we’ve used and it’s cool. Check it out.

That is all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you have, remember to subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast, because we have lots of amazing episodes coming your way. We’re approaching the 100th episode. Can you imagine? That’s crazy!

We’ll be here for a long, long time. Lots more amazing guests will be on the show.

Until our next episode, which is a solo round airing on Monday, have an amazing weekend. Continue to be great, do great, and I’ll talk to you then.

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Follow Dr. Josh Axe At:

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