Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Dr. Lance Knaub, Founder of Denali Consulting and Breakthru Physical Therapy + Fitness

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Lance is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, author, and healthcare professional who specializes in helping fellow entrepreneurs scale their businesses and avoid burnout and overwhelm, and instead create the life they love by developing a self-managing business that is a sought-after and valuable asset.As the founder of Breakthru Physical Therapy + Fitness, a growing multi-million dollar company with over 100 employees and 14 locations, Lance has built a business with a mission to be the community’s choice in physical therapy and fitness offerings. His success has been recognized by renowned podcast host John Lee Dumas, who has lauded Lance for creating a business with robust processes that can run without his daily involvement.More recently, Lance founded Denali Consulting to reverse the 96% failure rate for small business owners with a 96% success rate. His expertise in business strategy and management has been distilled into his bestselling book, The 4% Break-Thru. The fearless leadership team from Breakthru Physical Therapy + Fitness has been successfully operating Lance’s first company since 2018.Lance lives in Medford, NJ with his wife and three children and enjoys sharing his expertise and insights through his television show Moving Mountains, social media channels, and private Facebook group, The 4% Break-Thru.If you’re an entrepreneur feeling overwhelmed or seeking guidance on how to take your business to the next level, Lance invites you to connect with him for a complimentary consultation at DenaliConsultingTeam.com or via email at [e-mail] a free copy of the JOLT Business Planner to create a fast yet functional one-year Strategic Vision and Business Plan, you can access it here: https://www.denaliconsultingteam.com/strategyInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-dr-lance-knaub-founder-of-denali-consulting-and-breakthru-physical-therapy-fitness

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Dr. Lance Knob, who's the founder of Denali Consulting and Breakthrough Physical Therapy and Fitness. Lance, welcome to the program. Thank you so much, Mike.

I am so fired up and happy to be here. Awesome. I'm excited to learn from me because it sounds like you've got a couple irons in the fire and it's almost like, oh, when do you sleep? And we'll get into all of that because, you know, the more busy we get, the more excited we get. And then, you know, it's just so much more contribution we're giving back to the world. So get us started with your story.

What is your entrepreneurial journey up to this point in your career? Yeah, thank you, Mike. You know, I'm going to jump right into the heart of my story and the heart of my message in 2011. My wife and I are both doctors of physical therapy and we had started a physical therapy practice uniquely combined with fitness. And we had three offices, 30 employees, and we just had our third child. So we had three children under the age of four. And I was absolutely abusing my body, working 80 plus hours a week, not sleeping enough, not exercising enough, you know, and trained as a doctor of physical therapy and with this type of business,

you know, I know better than that. I knew better than that. And my body finally had enough and revolted. And my digestive system, my GI system, stopped working and stopped me in my tracks. And I couldn't eat. And, you know, I had to run to the bathroom at a moment's notice or was already in the bathroom, had no nutrition, little energy. And it was pretty awful, right? Everyone knows when they've had their worst, you know, GI, you know, digestive system scenario problem. And it rendered me helpless. And it really forced me to slow down and take notice and take a little better care of myself personally and professionally. And to kind of put our business fundamentals in place and get them established better.

And also to weave all the lifestyle things that I know into. the business and to my mental and physical health. So mental health, nutrition, sleep, exercise, posture. And this is exactly what I did. And this is exactly what I ultimately did when I put my book together, the 4% breakthrough in 2018, when I humbly created a freestanding business, what Ben Hardy would call it self-managing company. And one of our partners and the rest of our leaders took over running our five location, multi-million dollar physical therapy company in 2018. And that's when I, you know, wrote the book and started figuring out what the hell I was going to do, how it was going to spread my rings, talked to a franchise broker, realized that was too entrepreneurial

to be a franchisee. And I decided that I wanted to spend most of my time paying it all forward and helping other entrepreneurs. So I started doing some coaching and consulting. And I've really been spending the focus of my time and efforts on that the last five years already. So we're five years in doing more speaking to get the word out and really having an awesome time. That's so amazing. And I think that it's interesting that probably if you were to sit down and go in the years before that kind of breakdown moment that your body should. shut down. You probably had the fall across your mind. I probably should slow down, do this different, but then you ignored it, right? But it's funny how our body tends to go,

okay, enough is enough. We need to do this. Stop. And now you sit up and take notice. So it's so neat to see that now this has moved past that. And then you, you kind of put a bow on that part of your business and then said, let me just show other people what I learned in that process. And that is where that 4% breakthrough came in. So I think that is just so spectacular. Thank you. And you're absolutely right. There are warning signs and I ignored them, right?

I was trying to probably be a little David Gaghanesh and just be maybe too tough, but there are limits to the body and the mind. And yeah, definitely take heed to some of these warning signs for all the leaders and entrepreneurs listening. So now when you are working with entrepreneurs and business owners talking about the 4% breakthrough. First of all, let's define what is the 4% breakthrough, but how is it that you're serving them? Well, in what capacity are you helping them? Because I think you've moved away from the physical therapy side of things. So now it's more of the coaching side. But what specifically is that

deliverable that you're bringing to your client? Yeah. Great question. And even though in 2018, I handed off the leadership hats, I was continuing to do some of the quote technician work for several years and treat patients. And I love that. And I've actually, actually, as I've continued to grow the coaching and do more of that and speaking, I've been blessed enough to take the physical therapy treatment down. And this year, 2023 marks the first time that I'm actually not treating at all. So definitely a big milestone and exciting and scary all at the same time. And to answer your question, I love to help entrepreneurs who are feeling like they might have some of these warning signs and maybe feeling like they might be on a track

towards burning out and feeling overwhelmed and overstressed and who really want to scale their businesses and they've already grown it to a six figure size right only four percent of businesses again that four percent number actually reach the seven figure mark by revenue so i love to help these six figure entrepreneurs you know hit the seven figure mark and create a healthy stay healthy, get healthier, but at the same time, create a healthy business. That's a valuable asset that they can either be in a position to keep their profit generating machine, earning double digit plus profitability after paying themselves, or they can sell it for a premium and exit that way, which is an option. But the more exciting part is actually

creating an independent company and having that profit generating machine live and maybe handing off that CEO hat, which is very, very hard to do. And just to kind of put it into perspective, right? Ray Dalio, one of the brightest, you know, financial minds of all time and business minds. I think it took in 35 years and he had to hand it off to two CEOs. And he had to jump back in and take it back over for a period of time. It is not easy to do. You know that you said a mouthful there. And I want to kind of go back into the 96%, the 4%, and kind of paint the picture of something that if an entrepreneur or business owner is considering this statement. Well, you know, I'm not going to fail and I'm doing okay.

Well, what are some of those trigger warning signs that before their business like your body shut down, but before their business shuts down and we make those mistakes? I'll never get there. But what are some of the things that will pop up to make someone go, this one came up, maybe that's a warning sign. I need to do something. So before total failure, what are some of the things that they should be noticing to say, we need to address this before I get there?

Great, great question. I think personally, it's what I would call no life syndrome. It's when you are not taking care of yourself at all. You're not getting enough sleep. It's when you're sending your family away on vacation. It's when you're not getting time with your children for birthday parties and special events. It's when you haven't had a date night with your wife or your partner. in months or years, it's when you feel like you're in a haze or a fog.

I just got off the phone with a, you know, with a client that is not getting enough sleep. And they describe it that way. And I can remember that fog and haze. You just can't think through it. And then business-wise, you might be struggling with cash flow. You might be gone payroll to payroll. You might go days, weeks, months, or years of not paying yourself. you may be plugging the dam and filling the holes of all the open positions in your company

and either because you don't have retention because you're not organized enough and you don't have your processes and systems in place and the culture isn't good enough and the vision's not there or you can't actually hire the best and brightest for a combination of those same reasons. So those would be some immediate examples to give you an idea. You know, I think those are spectacular and it makes me think of kind of going back to your failure or breakdown. It wasn't a conscious thing that you were going, I know I'm going to fail, but I'm going to keep going anyway. You ignore some warning signs, but you were, you know, keeping, well, I want to be successful.

I want to serve my family. You want to keep that in mind. So talk a little bit more about when during that time, when your kind of body shut down, you had two things to handle. I need to get my physical side back in order. but then also put some of these processes in place for the business side so that I don't feel like I need to be pushing pedal to the metal. So talk a little bit about that mindset shift that had to have happened then to move forward past that time. Okay. Yeah, I really align with Jim Rome's statement that people rarely succeed beyond the level of their personal development.

And as I mentioned earlier, that personal and professional development and then, business fundamentals and lifestyle, those are the sections in order of my book. And really, I designed it to be a process. So every chapter is a step. So that is my, those are all the lessons learned. And, you know, that is the process that I put forward to help other entrepreneurs stay healthy while they're scaling. So that being said, I think that some of, remind me my.

Mike, our question. Some of those mindset shifts that helped you address both the personal and the professional side of things as you're moving through that. Totally. So I think then that the beginning, the first step is really, you know, developing yourself both personally and professionally. And what I recommend with this specifically is to take some time to do some introspective work, have some more white space in your calendar, right?

it's very common for leaders and entrepreneurs to be over-scheduled and not have enough time to think and do some strategy, do some strategic thinking and, you know, some visionary work. You and I were just talking in our pre-interview about, you know, the word visionary. So that's important. And I think it's important to slice it a few different ways. So decide what your purpose is, what your priorities are. And, you know, there's Stephen Covey's funeral exercise, which I tweaked a little. little bit, rather than just thinking about what other people, what you want other people to say about you at the end of your life, I think it's much better to actually think about what you, you know, what you want to be able to describe yourself as other people. It's through their lens, through their perspective. So decide what you want to be able to say about yourself at the end of your life. And a few other thought exercises, really, which again is that first section of the book. And then freaking live these, make, you know, create that life.

So that's kind of the personal part of it. And then business-wise, it's important to, you know, the order that I use, the process, really know your chessboard, right? So have your framework, know all the hats in your company because if you don't realize, you may not realize it, but if you're a solopreneur, you're wearing all of those hats. So decide that first and then have your responsibilities, your position descriptions aligned with that, that org chart, that org board, and then start to build out your systems one by one. and it's going to take a little bit of time.

And in today's world, you can use video and you can have AI dictate that for you. There's a lot of ways to make it small, palatable, you know, bite-sized actions. And then the next step is an important one. It's a business plan, having a strategic marketing business plan, which I've realized over 90% of entrepreneurs do not have a plan in place. And probably 90% of that 10% don't, execute on it, even if they have a plan, they're not really making it come to life and using it. So, yeah, so those are some of the personal professional development and even the business

fundamentals and development. And again, that's kind of the actual stepping stone order that I would recommend for people. Yeah. You know, when you were going through that time and, you know, kind of one step forward, two steps back, four steps forward, you know, those kind of things, because it's never the hockey stick rise to the top. Describe a little bit. Describe a little bit about how faith played a role in that, whether it's from a spiritual sense or just faith in yourself that you know you can do it. You had to have that inner drive and something that would keep you motivated. Yeah, great question. And the word faith, it's interesting. I'm rereading thinking, Go Rich by Napoleon Hill. And, you know, faith in yourself is absolutely necessary.

Jim Collins talks about leaders have to absolutely humbly believe they can weather any storm and get the team to the finish line. So that is an extreme dichotomy, extreme, extremely difficult balance to maintain. So I do think it's absolutely necessary to have both sides of it because if you, your ego is too big, you will have a humbling moment. And, you know, like younger leaders, you see this when they, you know, they make a mistake or they do something where they haven't been humble. They've had too much confidence and been overconfident. And, you know, once you've had a few of these knockdown setbacks, as I did, right? And I had to get tested and rule out cancer. Celia Crohn's, it was a big knockdown. But I did have to have the grit to, you know, to persevere and to

believe that I could take our team to the finish line. And we had a very clear vision. We wanted to do, originally our vision was to have 10 offices doing a million dollars in revenue apiece and 20 to 30 percent pre-tax profitability and having that strong vision helped me attract some of the best and brightest and they did not look anywhere like the best and brightest interns came straight to us from doctor of physical therapy programs and then they stayed with us and then we continued to grow faster at a steeper slope right you mentioned like hockey step slope and growth right I do believe that a little secret sauce and pearl is to have a big vision and because it becomes more exciting right no one wants to come to a company that is that is flat or not growing and you know a single

location or you know the same team of three people or five people people want to be on the the most innovative the most pioneering the fastest growing most exciting company so um yeah i think that's a big part of success as well i agree 100 percent um so I think a lot of times when you hear people talk about those failures and breakthroughs, the common question is, how did that lead you to even more success? Because you could have said, I was at this level of success and I had that breakdown physically and I had to rebuild, you know, my self physically mentally and then move, move into that physical or the professional regain that.

But a lot of times people would be like breathing a side of relief to go, I got back where I was, hallelujah. but you had that bigger vision. So what do you think it was about going from that that made you think, I'm not even stopping it where I was, I'm going to achieving that bigger vision. How did that lead you to even more success? Yeah, you know, it's all about failing forward. And, you know, it's not post-traumatic stress.

You know, I just heard this phrase recently. It's about post-traumatic growth. And, you know, we continue to be presented, the same lessons until we actually learn them and get better. So we, you know, it's all about perspective. So realistically, in reality, this was an opportunity. And, you know, in preparing for today's talk, I knew that, you know, I know that failure is, you know, an important thing for all of us. And I was just kind of listing all of the failures and that I can remember. And I'm sure there's more. We pretty much lived them all. And that's the only reason that I continued to get better.

and be a better leader to support more people. And I can remember a time when we had hired our first executive and we had a location manager that came to us from a company, you know, a very large company. And they'd managed, you know, eight physical therapists. They, they had a really big team and a lot of management experience. And we had, you know, a really seasoned HR person. And we had our first, you know, professional marketing person, a six figure, you know, person. and unfortunately within six months, I lost most of these people because I didn't understand

workflow, I didn't understand process. I was still doing too much technician work and not supporting them. So again, I was only developed to that point at that time. And then I, you know, through failing, I tried to learn all the lessons. And then going forward, I was able to continue attract the best and the brightest. And this time I was able to keep them and build that better, bigger team. So I think that a lot of times people go, wow, if I look back, I know I did these things, I wish I'd done things a little bit differently. Did you learn any specific lessons that you would now look back and go, if I could do it

differently, I would have been doing this and this and this to get to the same level, if not more, quicker, better, faster, stronger. Yeah. So good. I think laying out the entire structure of your organization initially and more getting to profit as fast as you can will allow you to rapidly replace your hats. And I think it's ideal. There's a tendency, of course, to replace hats that you just don't like, but you have to really make sure that you've got enough profit so you can support these roles financially. And I'm a big fan of Michael McCallowicz and the profit first approach.

and so I would have really focused on more profits so we could be healthier, faster, and then I would have rapidly replaced hats a little bit faster. And it's not easy to do because, you know, of course, you feel most leaders and entrepreneurs tend to feel like they can do it the best way. And, you know, other people can't. It's not true. If you put those processes in place, it can be replicated. And I guess I was kind of lulled to sleep early on because at the very beginning,

I was, you know, I had read Michael Gerber's, the entrepreneurial myth. However, we had such a talented team. I got a little bit lax on putting our processes into place and then managing them. So it was only when I got slapped in the face and had some of these, you know, failures again, that I realized that, you know, you don't want to be people dependent, right? You do want to be process dependent and have the most talented, capable people as well. So, yeah, I would have focused on a financials and Michael McAllepitt's profit first, faster, replace those roles and really been more system driven sooner. Love it.

So now let's think about some of the, if we can extract all of those lessons. What are some of those key attributes that entrepreneurs need to really keep in mind so that they can move through their times of struggle personally and professionally? What are some of the things that you have learned that you would pass on to them that you do in your consulting? Yeah, so the first thing I think of with this question is being strategic. And you know, you often hear the phrase of taking action is important, right? And that's the difference maker.

I would argue that it's taking strategic action, right? Most entrepreneurs are still really wearing a lot of technician hats. And they're in the day-to-day, you know, they're grinding. So I recommend a step one, taking a step back and working on some of this fun stuff that we talked about some of the strategies, some of this vision stuff, really knowing your purpose, your mission, your why, some of those existential questions, you know, why am I here? What's my purpose? And a common mistake with that is for entrepreneurs to jump ahead to their company mission, right?

But really think about yourself. And if you have a hard time with that, what I've learned is that if you just think about your priorities, just list your priorities in order that will kind of help you answer that question. And then your company's purpose, right, is the next. thing to really to spell out in some of the strategic work. And then your vision, both for you as the entrepreneur and for your company and or companies, really think with the end in mind, know what a finished product would look like.

Dream, dream big, have fun. And be careful not to get caught up in the temptation of having to figure out how you're going to get there. This is time to dream. We can reverse engineer it later, okay? It can all be, you know, back engineered. But right now, just dream about what things look like at the end. So, you know, really what I'm saying is breaking away from the chaos, the noise, doing some of this high level thinking and, you know, really gone introspective, deciding what's most important to you and then committing to it, really.

And part of what I just laid out is part of what I boil down to a fast and functional life and business plan. I call it a jolt because I realize that 90 plus percent of entrepreneurs do not have a plan in place. And it's hard to believe, right? So I really boiled it down to two-hour process where people can do all that and, you know, on their Sherpa. So I help these things rise up. And then we take it down into a one-year plan where they're doing their strategies, their objectives, their critical success factors.

And then and only then do they really decide their actions? because that's another common mistake where entrepreneurs want to go straight to their actions. So, yeah, this would be the biggest thing. Have your plan for, you know, overall your vision, your North Star, and then your year, and then back into it every month, every week, every day. And it doesn't have to be a massive amount of time. Once you've actually done this work, it can probably be less than 10% of your time. But it can't be zero.

You cannot just run straight down in the trenches. start fighting the battles, you know, you might run straight into the heart of the enemy's troops, right? And you will fail quickly. You need to spend a little bit of the time at the top of the mountain being strategic and coming up with your game plan. You know, you've said a couple times throughout our conversation here words like your why and your purpose. And I feel like there's a difference between your purpose and your why. So can you elaborate on now that you've come through these struggles and you've learned these lessons and you've solidified your purpose. What's the why behind your purpose?

Yeah, what's the why behind my purpose? Wow, that's a deep question. That's good. I mean, for me personally, I want to spread the message of health. And now that I'm treating less, I am fortunate to be able to help entrepreneurs either get healthy or stay healthy while they're scaling and most want to create a self-managing team. And I've seen so many entrepreneurs fail and have to close their business down or sell it for, you know, way below market or, or,

you know, give it away practically and give their equipment away. So I want them to build legacy and a lifelong assets or to sell it for a premium if they don't want to have this kind of recurring thing. So that's my, that's my why. I really love health, right, with my original, I'm fortunate enough that my original career as a physical therapist was all about getting people healthy. And especially with the fitness end, we didn't just get people rehab from their injury.

We were able to take them down the continuum a little bit further to optimize their health and fitness. So I'm still doing that in a different way with entrepreneurs. So that's my reason. That's my why, my purpose, myself and Donali. you know, supporting my family, my friends, and of course, you know, clients and people that I serve through through my organization as well. I love it, Lance. It's been so encouraging to hear your struggles, your triumphs, and the lessons learned. And then now how you're distilling that down to serve the business owners and entrepreneurs you work with. So if someone is interested in learning

more about what you do and how you do it, what's the best way that they can reach out and connect with you. Yeah. Thank you. It's been an honor to be here. You and I are interactions. I can tell, you know, the passion you have for the work that you do and the quality, right? I'm, you know, having so much fun, you know, in our exchanges. So thank you for the opportunity to be on your show. And, you know, for the work we're doing together, it's an honor. And for people, anyone who wants to reach out to me, you can email me directly, Dr. Lambs. Lance Knob at Denali Consulting Team.com. Our website, Denali Consultingteam.com.

My social handles are largely Dr. Lance Knob. And for anyone who wants to roll up their sleeves and do some of this, break away from the noise, do some strategic thinking. If you take a first cut on some of this strategy work that I laid out and you send that to me, I will absolutely spend some quality time with you and help fill in the gaps and be your Sherpa and help you finish it. So if you go to Denali Consulting Team.com forward slash strategy, you can get the framework for the Joel Business and Life Plan.

Send it to me and we will do 20 minutes together. Excellent. Well, Lance, thanks a million for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. And I love the way that you're serving your clients. And I really appreciate you coming on. Okay. Thanks, Mike.

Talk soon. You've been listening to influential entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. www. Influential EntrepreneursRadio.com