Leverage Technology To Grow Your Business (2023)

Welcome back to episode 28 of Baktari MD! In this episode, we talk about technology and how to leverage it in order to make a profit! Technology changes everyday, and it keeps getting better. As CEO you must keep up with the trends, look at your industry, and see where you can make an impact. All of the tips and trick you need are right here! Find out all of this and more in the full episode! 

This content was produced in association with our affiliated partners: 
eNational Testing: https://www.enationaltesting.com/ 
USDTC : https://www.usdrugtestcenters.com/ 
e7 Health: https://www.e7health.com/ 
SEMRush: https://semrush.sjv.io/oqz2ag 

Do you have further questions about the content? Please leave your question in the comments below so I can make an episode about it. Also, I’d love to hear any suggestions you may have for future content. 

SUBMIT YOUR BUSINESS STORY HERE: https://jonathanbaktarimd.com/contact/ 
For more information, please visit: https://jonathanbaktarimd.com/ 

Sign up for my NEWSLETTER here: https://ns.jonathanbaktarimd.com/ 

#BAKTARIMD #BUSINESS #PODCAST #CEO #MENTORSHIP

SOCIAL:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/baktarimd 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baktarimd/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BaktariMD 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/baktarimd/

Video Podcast: https://youtu.be/_lSUqgIYb78

    Jonathan Baktari MD is the CEO of eNational Testing, e7 Health, & US Drug Test Centers. Jonathan Baktari MD brings over 20 years of clinical, administrative, and entrepreneurial experience. He has been a triple board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, pulmonary, and critical care medicine.
    Jonathan Baktari MD is a preeminent, national business thought leader interviewed in The Washington Post, USA Today, Forbes, Barron’s, and many other national publications. He is also an opinion writer for The Hill and the Toronto Star.
    He is the host of a highly-rated podcast Baktari MD as well as a guest on over 50 podcasts. Jonathan Baktari MD was formerly the Medical Director of The Valley Health Systems, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Culinary Health Fund. He also served as clinical faculty for several medical schools, including the University of Nevada and Touro University.
   Jonathan Baktari MD is also the author of the highly-rated course High Converting Call Class where he shares his secrets of increasing revenue through incoming phone calls.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;07;02
Unknown
The goal is not to match what they're doing. The goal is how can I get a leg up on them? Right?

00;00;25;21 - 00;00;39;03
Unknown
Hi. Welcome to another episode of Baktari MD. This year, we're going to be talking about Crash CEO School, where we give you all the skillsets you need to take your organization, your company, to the next level.

00;00;39;03 - 00;00;48;16
Unknown
Today, I want to talk about something that every company has to have a handle on, which is leveraging technology to grow your business.

00;00;48;16 - 00;01;10;15
Unknown
Now, what's interesting about technology is at the end of the day, the CEO is really the chief technology officer because technology can't be built in a vacuum. It has to be built to accomplish a broader satellite view vision.

00;01;10;15 - 00;01;20;17
Unknown
And if the CEO is not at the forefront of pushing technology in the direction that it should go, nobody else can.

00;01;20;20 - 00;01;37;27
Unknown
Now, especially for medium, small to medium sized businesses, in many ways, the CEO has to be the chief technology officer. Meaning not necessarily directly, but certainly managing the team that does that because

00;01;37;27 - 00;01;45;10
Unknown
if you just tell the technology team just to move ahead with technology, they're going to need input and direction.

00;01;45;12 - 00;02;03;04
Unknown
For example, what's the priority? What do we do first? What are we trying to accomplish? What- are we doing this to reduce work, to improve client experience, to get a leg up on the competition? What is the ultimate goal of moving ahead with any technology, project or endeavor

00;02;03;04 - 00;02;19;26
Unknown
that has to be decided on a high management level and not something that is decided more locally because while the answers may be obvious at a lower level,

00;02;19;26 - 00;02;22;18
Unknown
they’re often not the big picture.

00;02;22;21 - 00;02;24;26
Unknown
So what may make sense

00;02;24;26 - 00;02;44;20
Unknown
sort of on a lower level often doesn't make sense on a higher level if you are trying to move the company in a certain direction, you're trying to, you know, push for more business in a certain aspect of your company, more more services or what what the goal of the technology is. And we're going to talk about what we use technology for.

00;02;44;20 - 00;03;09;20
Unknown
But it's really important to understand that you have to be the biggest driver as the CEO or leadership in which way technology goes, when to invest, how much to invest, what percent of your revenue or your budget to invest. When is the good time and what is the right technology? Who Who is the wrong technology? When do we cut our losses and try something else?

00;03;09;21 - 00;03;15;06
Unknown
So these all have to be C-suite or high management decision.

00;03;15;06 - 00;03;23;10
Unknown
Now, the goal of technology is manyfold, but I, on the most basic level,

00;03;23;10 - 00;03;37;03
Unknown
what I would propose to anyone who's starting a company or has has a moderate size company is you have to ask yourself, if my business doubled tomorrow or if my business tripled tomorrow

00;03;37;03 - 00;03;40;15
Unknown
with my current staff, would I be able to handle it?

00;03;40;20 - 00;03;42;16
Unknown
Now, certain businesses, you know, where

00;03;42;16 - 00;03;59;23
Unknown
if you're running a restaurant, obviously the capacity is going to be we're going to need more space, more chefs, more whatever. But for most companies who there isn't that direct correlation, it is possible often to double, triple, quadruple your business

00;03;59;23 - 00;04;04;26
Unknown
with the bandwidth you currently have if you've leveraged technology.

00;04;04;28 - 00;04;28;11
Unknown
And I think that's really one high level way of viewing technology for a lot of businesses. This doesn't apply to all businesses, but for a lot of businesses, you have to ask yourself, you know, if our business quadrupled, let's say by some miracle, whatever one of our competitors goes out of business, we land on TV and all of a sudden our phones are ringing off the hook.

00;04;28;13 - 00;04;33;27
Unknown
What would happen? So really, what often happens when people's business grows

00;04;33;27 - 00;05;01;24
Unknown
they have two choices they can hire more staff, more people, or they would have already invested in technology sometimes, which then can handle the extra work. Right. It's not always that clear, but that often is is the choices. Right. So if you want to grow your business and if you think in 2024, you're going to double or quadruple your business and hopefully you do, how are you going to handle that?

00;05;01;25 - 00;05;22;08
Unknown
So one way is to just keep hiring more and more people. And some businesses, you do have to do that. So let's put that aside. But for other businesses, if you're teed up technology wise, Right. If your clients don't have to call you, if they can access their own account on their own, I'm just making things up and they can handle their own thing,

00;05;22;09 - 00;05;45;26
Unknown
order, you check the status of things on their own versus calling and talking to someone, which is better for you. And then you're going to be able to quadruple your business with, I’m not saying without adding any more staff. But often it's a significantly lower than the proportion of your business that's growing.

00;05;45;26 - 00;06;14;27
Unknown
So basically, when you start a business, you expect your company to grow. So the question is, as your business grows, is your plan to just simply add more staff or can you leverage technology in anticipation of that growth? So part of it, of course, becomes you can't go out and get the technology and the processes and the systems and the integrations the day or the week or month or even year that your your business grows.

00;06;14;27 - 00;06;44;29
Unknown
again, this is where the CEO comes into play. He or she is the best predictor probably of which way the market's going. What's happening with the competition? What's happening to that space, though? You know, has has there been some new government regulation or program that's going to make their business grow? Whatever it is they are in the best position to say O-M-G, we better invest on a lot of technology, because if these two things happen or if that competitor goes out of business, we're going to be swamped.

00;06;45;01 - 00;06;51;21
Unknown
And how do we handle that? What I often have seen is the people who are prepared for their growth

00;06;51;21 - 00;07;10;10
Unknown
often benefit the most and the ones that aren't prepared for their growth, they suffer because you know what happens when you're not prepared for growth, right? Let's take it as a logical conclusion. You're not prepared for growth. Your customers are going to know, they're going to complain, they're going to complain on social media.

00;07;10;10 - 00;07;31;03
Unknown
You're going to get bad reviews, You're going to lose potentially big clients that you may have had, because now all of a sudden, I mean, how many times have we all said, they used to be really good, but now you can't get ahold of anyone. Nobody calls you back. They don't remember what you said last time. Those are all often signs and symptoms of a company growing faster than they can handle it.

00;07;31;03 - 00;07;31;17
Unknown
Right?

00;07;31;17 - 00;07;50;07
Unknown
So let's talk about technology. You know, ten, 15 years ago when people said, you know, invest in technology, small, medium sized businesses would say, you know what, I don't think we're big enough to invest in technology. You know, we're we're not Apple, we're not IBM. We can't hire our own software developers and whatever. But, you know, that world has changed.

00;07;50;09 - 00;08;13;17
Unknown
And I'm going to explain to you how it's changed. First of all, there's tons, tons and tons of. Now, third party technology software that are out there. They're popping up every day and they've gotten better and better. So they're more customizable to businesses. In the old days, you know, they were third party software, but, you know, it didn't really fit what you were doing.

00;08;13;19 - 00;08;49;25
Unknown
But I think technology has gotten better and better at even though you're buying a suit off, off the rack is still can potentially have a custom fit. Again, not everything, but I think people don't even look right. So you have this technology problem that technology could solve and you think, well, we you know, where do we look? But if you look and look and look and call and go see enough software and technology, you'll be shocked that someone may have already thought of a technology solution for the problems you have.

00;08;49;27 - 00;09;18;25
Unknown
And I think it's one of those things where if you don't look, if you don't investigate, you're going to assume wrong. Often there are third party software is that will address that and even if not one, but integrating multiple third party software together, in other words, piece mealing them together often is is an option. Next things, of course, is a customized solution, which means, yes, writing software, writing technology, potentially hiring a team.

00;09;18;28 - 00;09;40;02
Unknown
Now I can give you a whole talk on that, but that problem is fraught with finding the right people because it's not so simple just to find the right technology team. Are they going to be the right people? They're going to have the right talent, the right skill sets. Are they going to be there for you? Can you grow with them after they write the technology and you need more work?

00;09;40;02 - 00;09;56;21
Unknown
Are they still going to be around? Is it just some guy in his basement or is it a real company? Then the expense of it? Some companies, you know, are only used to dealing with Fortune 500 companies. So you're going to pay a lot of money versus other companies that are used to working with small to medium sized company.

00;09;56;23 - 00;10;25;22
Unknown
So it's is finding that- finding that fit and that's going to take a lot of homework. But if you do the homework, if you keep looking and searching and trying out different people with maybe smaller projects and seeing how it works, you will be surprised how affordable theoretically a customized solution is. So as you're thinking of coming up with processes to streamline your business, I don't completely rule out a customized solution.

00;10;25;22 - 00;10;49;18
Unknown
Last thing, of course, is a hybrid, right? A customized solution in addition to third party software is that you can patchwork together, often using your technology team that is doing the customized portion, but to add modules and stuff to go ahead and do a kind of an integrated solution between third party solutions and customized solution.

00;10;49;18 - 00;11;12;28
Unknown
Today we have a bullet proof system that helps us close up to 80% of those inbound calls. Our High Converting Call Class will teach you how to demonstrate your authority quickly without being pushy. We believe that many businesses out there can benefit from this, and we promise to help you achieve your revenue goals by converting more of your incoming calls into actual sales.

00;11;13;01 - 00;11;23;05
Unknown
For more information, please visit our website at HighConvertingCallClass.com. Stop waiting for the sales to come to you. Put your revenue into your hands.

00;11;23;05 - 00;11;49;13
Unknown
Next thing I want to talk about before we go into how technology can help your company, is just to kind of reiterate, it's that when people think of investing in software development or technology, initially, it could appear like, you know, it's not it's not feasible because you're spending a certain percentage of your revenue that you probably would either go

00;11;49;13 - 00;12;22;05
Unknown
to, you know, your your bottom line or to hiring more people or to do more marketing. So to carve out a technology budget can sometimes go against the grain. It may not seem natural, but just like we have a marketing budget and we have other budgets, I think if you want to grow your business, I think it's probably prudent to come up with a budget, you know, a certain percentage of revenue, however you want to do it that you are going to spend on technology, if that makes sense.

00;12;22;07 - 00;12;45;21
Unknown
And once you have that, of course, then you can't squander it. You have to find the right solutions. But the beauty of investing in technology, if done correctly, if done correctly, is the dividends is going to pay, you will be year over year over year. So what you spend in technology in 23 potentially will pay you in 24, 25, 26, 27.

00;12;45;23 - 00;12;55;01
Unknown
So the the rate of return, if done correctly, goes four years into the future. So in many ways,

00;12;55;01 - 00;13;03;08
Unknown
if it makes sense, you almost can't afford not to have a certain percentage of your budget invested in improving your your technology. Okay.

00;13;03;08 - 00;13;13;03
Unknown
So let's talk about the different ways technology can impact your your business on the most global level.

00;13;13;03 - 00;13;34;01
Unknown
Of course, the impact is you can grow your business double or triple your volume and not have to double or triple your staff, your space, your the number of, you know, phones you need to buy or get or the number of people answering the phones if you do it correctly. Right.

00;13;34;01 - 00;13;37;03
Unknown
Okay. So let's talk about I'm going to break this up into five things.

00;13;37;03 - 00;13;38;11
Unknown
Number one,

00;13;38;11 - 00;13;47;20
Unknown
if done properly, technology will allow you to reduce your full time employees, meaning FTE is

00;13;47;20 - 00;14;03;22
Unknown
what I say. Reduce. I don't mean necessarily letting go, but you you may not have to hire more even if your business doubles or triples. Right. So there is a saving of revenue because you are not going to need the same number of staff.

00;14;03;22 - 00;14;18;25
Unknown
So if you're if you have 20 people in your company and your business doubles, if done correctly, you won't need 40 people or 30 people if done correctly. Again, assuming your business is one that kind of feeds into this model.

00;14;18;25 - 00;14;24;12
Unknown
Number two, if you leverage technology, you're going to increase the productivity of your staff.

00;14;24;12 - 00;14;40;03
Unknown
And that productivity means not necessarily that they're going to produce more, but it will mean that they can work on things that actually translate into either revenue or the quality of the products or more customer service.

00;14;40;06 - 00;14;41;02
Unknown
So

00;14;41;02 - 00;14;56;11
Unknown
leveraging technology in that sense makes your staff more productive and the things that matter more as opposed to busy work or filling out stuff or things that can be automated, right? So anything that can be automated

00;14;56;11 - 00;15;05;06
Unknown
means your staff will have less work, but it will also free them up to work on stuff that more impacts the business, if that makes sense.

00;15;05;09 - 00;15;25;06
Unknown
The old adage of, you know, working, you know, working smarter, not necessarily just harder. So understanding how it will increase productivity so your staff can work on things that either increase revenue, improve quality, improve client satisfaction, all of which impacts your bottom line.

00;15;25;06 - 00;15;33;05
Unknown
The third thing is reducing friction for your clients and customers, right? So most people like, don't actually think about it like this.

00;15;33;08 - 00;15;56;01
Unknown
If if it takes, let's say, a typical new customer, 20, 30, 40 minutes to interact and set up an account with you or get what they want or find what they want, if you can cut that in half, meaning you're reducing their work right, you're using technology to reduce the work of your clients, which is an amazing concept, right?

00;15;56;04 - 00;16;03;11
Unknown
Because I think a lot of people like, well, if we get this technology. We still have to do the same amount of work, but our clients will have to do less work.

00;16;03;11 - 00;16;15;09
Unknown
what you realize when clients have to do less work, they're more likely to come to you, right? I mean, let's look at Amazon. How did Amazon get from selling books, right, to selling everything, right?

00;16;15;16 - 00;16;36;25
Unknown
I mean, why, why, why Amazon? Why not anyone else? I can tell you why, because Amazon started off with selling books and and people realize, my gosh, I want to buy any book in the world. For the most part, I'm literally three clicks away from having that book show up in my house in two days, right? Or three days.

00;16;36;25 - 00;16;44;02
Unknown
They stored my credit card. They know who I am. I'm already logged in, you know, just leave it logged in on my computer three clicks and I get what I want.

00;16;44;02 - 00;17;00;20
Unknown
That concept that, oh, if three clicks will get me any book I want, can you could take it to the next level. How about three clicks and I get the hammer that I want, I get the tool kit that I want, I get the cereal that I want

00;17;00;20 - 00;17;18;15
Unknown
They already have everything. They're only three clicks away. So what does that tell you? Human nature being what it is, gravitates right to an area with the least resistance. Right? You're going to go to where is the least resistance? You're sitting at home, sitting in your home office.

00;17;18;15 - 00;17;23;28
Unknown
You realize, you know, I need more Post-its, I need more pens. Right.

00;17;23;28 - 00;17;54;22
Unknown
Your brain immediately says, Where can I go? That will have the least amount of brain damage for me to get this thing in my house. And if you are the easy solution, people will think of you first over anyone else. So I don't want to belabor that point, but I'm going to make the argument that saving your clients time and brain damage actually impacts your bottom line in ways that I don't think people fully comprehend.

00;17;55;00 - 00;18;16;26
Unknown
Every time you take one little thing away from your clients, one less thing they have to do that I have to put the credit card in. They don't have to, you know, remember the password. They know their fingerprints will open up your your website or your app, whatever. Whatever you do is going to make it more likely that they're going to think of you next time they have that issue problem or whatever they want to solve.

00;18;16;26 - 00;18;45;25
Unknown
Number four, a leg up on the competition similar to what I just said above. But really, if the industry standard is not to have an app, if the industry standard is that your account is not accessible, you can't just go and see what you ordered the past year or where your order is or what have you. If all the competitors have the same structure, then if you are the one that breaks out and offers that, it will give you a leg up on the competition similar to what I said above.

00;18;45;25 - 00;18;50;17
Unknown
But look at your state. Look at your competitors, look at your industry and you.

00;18;50;17 - 00;18;57;19
Unknown
The goal is not to match what they're doing. The goal is how can I get a leg up on them? Right?

00;18;57;19 - 00;19;12;10
Unknown
Because even if they're selling the same product or service, you are at the same price as you are. But it takes 10 minutes to get what you what they need from you and an hour to get it from somewhere else.

00;19;12;12 - 00;19;14;05
Unknown
Where do you think people are going to go to

00;19;14;05 - 00;19;29;25
Unknown
The last one is is kind of an interesting one is often when you develop technology, it's like you're going down a rabbit hole, right? We just need a technology to address the small little problem. But when you build that, you're like, wow, now that we have this feature, we can add this feature and we could.

00;19;29;28 - 00;19;43;27
Unknown
And often, you know, I'm surprised when I talk to people, they keep going down the technology road until they get to a point where they can actually monetize the technology. But often in businesses, the technology itself becomes a service or a product,

00;19;43;27 - 00;20;04;28
Unknown
if that makes sense. Of course, this varies from types of companies and industries, but often I have seen that once you go down the technology rabbit hole, you can get to the point where the technology itself becomes a platform or something that you can monetize to customers, even your competitors.

00;20;05;00 - 00;20;15;16
Unknown
It becomes a service that you can then actually provide and get paid for. Now that's not always the case and depends on the industry and

00;20;15;16 - 00;20;28;08
Unknown
you know what you're trying to do with your technology, but really it's something that everybody should think of. For example, I just want to end up with this. Like everybody uses QuickBooks, right?

00;20;28;11 - 00;20;50;26
Unknown
For the most part, most businesses, QuickBooks, you know, you can integrate with QuickBooks. You don't have to put everything into QuickBooks if you have a POS system and you have QuickBooks, they can talk together. So there are the simplest thing is something that can be integrated and technology can be leveraged to improve your business so you don't have to spend a crazy amount of time on it.

00;20;50;26 - 00;21;11;12
Unknown
And you can focus on what makes money. Now, if you have some ideas or things that I've left out, please add in the comments section below. Love to hear from you. I hope this helps you. There's obviously it's a very broad topic. We could talk about this forever, but I just wanted to kind of crystallize the main aspects of leveraging technology to grow your business.

00;21;11;12 - 00;21;19;22
Unknown
Okay, Thank you so much. If you like this kind of content, please comment like and subscribe and we will see you on the next video. Thank you so much.