EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Coach Kevin Weir
Kevin Weir is a Business Coach with Action Coach Business Coaching with more than 20 years of experience in coaching. His neighbor, Dr. Hines, was a chiropractor and owned a clinic. Kevin started coaching Dr. Hines, who, in turn, offered Kevin Chiropractic care.. He had his first chiropractic adjustment about one year into business coaching. It felt good to get his neck adjusted, but the technique concerned him because of the twisting and popping. Before the adjustment, he had been having aches and pains but thought it was normal. Those went away after the adjustment.
After moving to Spokane, he was introduced to Upper Cervical Chiropractic by a doctor that became a client. After his first adjustment with her, Kevin thought it couldn’t have possibly done anything because it was so light, but the normal pain he had between adjustments went away. There was no popping, twisting or pulling.
As a business coach, Kevin’s job is to take a look at the entirety of the business. There are four areas of mastery in any business.
There's financial mastery. How well do you understand your own finances in your business?
Time mastery. How well do you use time?
Delivery mastery. Are you delivering your services with systematic consistency, or are you brilliant one day and lousy the next?
Then destination mastery. What is your vision, mission, and culture?
The three main challenges that every business owner has is what we call time, team, and money. Typically, a business owner may be working way too many hours a week, could be working 50, 60, 70 hours a week, and so they just don't have a life. The business consumes them. There's a great acronym that he loves to use with his client. It's called DGLPA. D stands for dreams. G stands for goals. L stands for learning. P stands for planning, and A is action.
How Kevin fits into the process: He’s that person who takes a look at the entirety of the business and says, okay, what's going on here? Where are you stuck? Are you stuck because you don't know certain business techniques? Are you stuck because you haven't financially managed the business well? Are you stuck because you have no idea of how to market the business? Are you stuck because you haven't had an overall great strategy? Or are you stuck because you have a mindset issue, you're challenged with your thinking, and you need to figure out how to think better? His job is to make sure that you not only are doing it, but you're doing it correctly, and get you to do it even when it doesn't feel good.
Kevin says, “Imagine a city where people are continuing to get healthier and healthier and healthier. What does that do for the community? It's amazing what that can do. My passion is that when I'm working and coaching a chiropractic business that grows, that community, by nature, gets healthier.”
Kevin has this to say about life, “Here's the thing. Everything in life is an investment. Are you investing in your own health? Are you investing in actually treating your health as one of the most important things ever? Part of me being a chiropractic patient for all these years is all about, I've invested in my health, and the returns on investment are incredible.
To Contact Kevin, Don’t be Shy, Come say Hi:
(509) 309-2922
https://kevinweir.actioncoach.com/
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
Blog Post URL https://www.blairclinic.com/podcast
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck, the podcast. I am so excited about my special guest today, all the way from Washington State, Mr. Kevin Weir.
Thank you, Ruth. I'm excited to be here today.
Why don't you start by just introducing yourself and your business, including how people can find you. I like to get the really important details out first.
My name is Kevin Weir, and I am with Action Coach Business Coaching. I have been coaching for about 20 years now.
Brand new at it.
Yes, brand new at it.
[laughter]
Been coaching chiropractors for 19 of those 20 years.
Not just chiropractors.
Not just chiropractors.
Not exclusively.
Not exclusively, no.
All right.
There's a lot of other businesses I do coach. Best way to get ahold of me, my website is either one, actioncoachbookhand.com or kevinweir.actioncoach.com. My email address is kevinweir@actioncoach.com.
All right. We will put all that in the show notes.
Yes, thank you.
Why don't you tell us a little bit, since this is the What Pain in the Neck podcast, and I run an upper cervical chiropractic clinic. Why don't you tell us what got you into chiropractic?
Very interesting is that I had never had a chiropractic adjustment until about one year into my business coaching. My neighbor two doors down from me was Dr. Mark Hines, who owned a chiropractic clinic. We were having a neighborhood barbecue and he was complaining about his business. I said, "I think you need some business help."
I started coaching him. Well, he said, "You know what Kevin, I think if I'm going to go ahead and coach with you, you should get under treatment with me." I'm like, "Okay." I actually got treatment from him. He was six-foot-four, 320 pounds. A huge guy. I remember the first chiropractor, it really felt good to get adjusted, but what really kind of concerned me was his neck technique. He did that twisty of neck. He almost snapped my neck.
Oh, wow.
It was scar. I was like, well, I guess that's what chiropractic is all about then, I guess. I started--
Okay, can I just ask a little more detail?
Yes, please.
Before that, did you have any aches or pains or health problems, or how did that change after you started?
I had aches and pains, but to me, it was normal stuff. Sore shoulder, sore this, sore that, but it didn't really affect my life. I would just throw some Advil on it and it would be fine. Then when I did start getting adjusting, all those went away. I was like, "Oh, this is interesting."
That's one of my big pet peeves. Pain is actually never normal. It's common, but it's not normal.
Yes-
Right.
I treated it as normal. When I did get adjusted, all that little nagging pains that you just shrug off went away. I was like, "Wow, this is very interesting." I guess the moral of the story is, you think you're okay. Where you're like, "You know what, I'm fine. I'll just take some Advil or any analgesic and it'll cover the pain, not a big deal."
I realized, no, that's not the normal state. You shouldn't be like that. What happened is that Mark treated me for a while, and then I moved from where I was living at the time in Puyallup Washington. I moved to Spokane, which is my hometown, and I got introduced to an upper cervical chiropractor.
Of course, she became my client. I figured, okay. I said, "What makes this special?" I was really complaining about the twisty neck thing. She goes, "Oh, we don't do that." I was like, "Well, how are you effective?" She goes, "We are."
I remember my first adjustment with her, and I was like, "That was it?" She goes, "Yes." I'm like, "That couldn't have done a thing." All of a sudden, all that normal pain that you have between adjustments just disappeared. It was like, "Wow, this is incredible."
I got my wife to start getting it. She was a firm believer is, if you don't feel the big huge adjustments feel, that it's not effective. That took her some convincing, and sure enough, it worked for her. I got my whole family turned onto it, and it's been working ever since.
When you say working, why don't you elaborate a tiny bit on that?
Oh, a good example, I like to ski. There are times when you go skiing, you're going to twist your body, you take a fall and you don't even realize you get out of adjustment. You come down from the slopes, a day or two later you're feeling a little sore and a little twinge in the back. First thought is, "I'll throw some analgesics at it," and then the second thought is, "No, I need to go get adjusted."
You get adjusted, and just boom, it just goes away. That's where I think for somebody who's physically active and you just get used to a little bit of soreness all the time because you're physically active, I think you need to realize that, "Hey, that's not always normal."
You can tell the difference because if you do a workout and you're sore all over, but it's muscular and you know, that's fine. If it's that little short pain that shouldn't be there, you know that's not necessarily a muscular issue and it's probably related to your spine.
I think that's a really important point. As a certified trainer, one of the biggest myths I hack to pieces is no pain, no gain. Actually, the pain is detrimental, which is different than that slight soreness.
Right, and this is one of the things in learning and working with a chiropractor, you learn the difference between the two. You learn how to read your body. I think a lot of people aren't really trained on how to read their body. They assume something and throw some medicines at it or throw some analgesics, whether it be Aleve or any ibuprofen and just like, "Oh, that's normal."
I love the story of you and your family living a really full and active life. Really, that's what it's all about, is pain or problems really can hamper your life. What I would like to do now is actually shift gears and ask you about your expertise.
This is the podcast that's called What Pain in the Neck? What you are dealing with is healthy business practice. If you have a dream such as what I have in helping more people live full, active, complete lives with as little pain and problems as possible, but then there's this thing called business, and really the business can be a real pain in the neck.
Similar to what you described with your own health, sometimes we don't even know is it healthy or isn't it healthy? Why don't you describe to our listeners what you do for businesses?
As a business coach, my job is to take a look at the entirety of the business. There's four areas of mastery in any business. There's financial mastery, how well do you understand your own finances in your business? Time mastery. How well do you use time? Delivery mastery. Are you delivering your services with systematic consistency, or you brilliant one day and lousy in the next? Then destination mastery, what is your vision, mission, and culture?
See, it takes all four of those to create a foundation for the growth of your business. The problem with so many business owners, and I see this in coaching chiropractors, is that most business owners are great technicians. They know how to do their job. They are just brilliant at the medical science, the understanding the body, but nobody's ever shown them how to be a business owner. Think about this Ruth, how many classes in medical school do typical practitioners get on business principles?
I think they had a 45-minute guest lecturer or something in all their years.
That is exactly right. It's not just the medical world. It's just about any industry, electricians, plumbers, roofers, all sorts of-- they get all the technical knowledge in the world, but nobody's ever shown them how to be a business owner.
That's true. When you talk to business owners such as myself, or actually any other business, because it's not just chiropractic businesses, what are some common problems, or challenges, or mistakes that are most frequent?
The three main challenges that every business owner has is what we call time, team, and money. Typically, a business owner may be working way too many hours a week, could be working 50, 60, 70 hours a week, and so they just don't have a life. The business consumes them.
Then you have team. A lot of business owners struggle at getting their team to be effective. They aren't hiring properly, they don't know how to recruit. Then when they do recruit, they don't know how to actually hire. When they do hire, they don't know how to onboard an employee to make them successful.
Then money. So many business owners are making not even minimum wage in their own business. A lot of their employees take home more money than they do. When I'm taking a look at the business, those are typically the three major areas that I see business owners struggle with, time, team, and money.
Are you willing to share some solutions for their listeners?
Of course, I am. Let's go to time. If I take a look at time, what's the biggest take at time? Are you working on the most important things or do you spend all of your time putting out fires? See, Stephen Covey, who authored 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, always focused on work on the not-urgent but important things in your business. Things like planning, things like systems development, training. Those are things that need to be put into your time plan.
The problem is, most business owners come in, they start the day, they react to everything that comes at them. Then by the end of the day, they've done a lot of work but hardly accomplished anything. Why? They were not working on what we call those not urgent, but important things that make a dramatic impact on their business.
Now, we take at look team. What's the biggest solutions that we can do to have a better team in our business? It's does the person fit the job that you're looking for? The number one challenge that I see with business owners is that they do what I call a gut-feel hire. They interview somebody, that person feels good in the interview, and then they hire him. 90 days later, the person has failed. Why? Because they never fit the job. They were-- [crosstalk]
I know I have done that.
Yes. They were desperate for a job, you were desperate for an employee. Desperation plus desperation equals disaster. That's exactly what happens with a lot of business owners. There is a very refined way of how you can see if an employee fits the job that you're looking for.
Then on money, the number one thing that you have to understand as business owners, how does money work in business? Do you understand how to read your own financial? Do you know how to read a profit and loss income statement in a balance sheet?
If you don't understand how to read financials, what will happen is, money will come into your business and money will go out. If there's money in your checking account, you're happy, and if there's no money in your business checking account, you're sad. That doesn't work really well. You need to understand that.
One of the keys to that is, do you have a budget for your business? Do you have a predictable process that you know that you're aiming for, a certain amount of revenue. You know what expenses that you have, and then what is going to be your outcome that you're aiming for as far as profit? I would say about 95% of business owners that I encounter have no understanding of how money works in their business.
I want to grab a hold of a word that you said there that has been key for us and I feel is the key to everything you do. You used the word 'process' or you can say a system. That's where I feel you can really solve people get rid of the pain in the knife. You don't have to reinvent the wheel or figure it out. You know what the process is, and teach it, and then we can just plug in our business to that process.
Think about this, Ruth. If you hire an employee, and you have no systems in place, and it's all what I call the on-the-job training OJT, and imagine that employee goes away and you bring another employee, what happens?
I have to train them all over again.
That's right. You don't have any systems. Now you have to do it all over again. Now, imagine this, imagine that you had a systematic process of how a new employee gets oriented on their job. Let's say you had training videos. Let's say that you have written job descriptions with key performance indicators that show if they're doing their job or not. Written instructions on how to do certain things. How much time would that save on you getting that employee up to speed?
Well, we're not talking hours. We're talking weeks, maybe months.
Months.
Yes.
Imagine how much time you would save by having just that one defined system now expanded to other places into your business. What is your marketing system? What is your recruiting system? What is your patient process system?
I've seen this in so many medical clinics is that there is nothing defined. The patient comes in, they go through your processes, they're out, but they get a different experience every single time because there's no systems processes at all.
Yes, I agree. It's been very helpful for us. Kevin, what would you say to a person who has this huge stream and they have a fire in them, then just know that the product or service that I have is really going to change someone's life? They want to do big things in the world, but then when you get down to real business, you feel stuck.
I'm pretty sure that-- well, that's where we were. Business was a real pain in the neck, and we didn't know what to do. It's almost like we needed a doctor for our business. What would you say to a person who has that business or maybe someone who wants to take their dream and make it into a business, but they don't know what to do?
There's a great acronym that I love to use with client. It's called DGLPA. D stands for dreams. G stands for goals. L stands for learning. P stands for planning, and A is action. Think about this. You always have to start off with a dream. What is that dream?
The problem with so many people is they don't dream. They're just stuck in their own reality. The first thing is, what is that dream? Try to clarify that dream and create it in your own mind. The first thing you have to do is take that dream, get as specific as possible on the dream.
Then the next step is goals. Goals are nothing more than dreams with a deadline. Now, you've got the dream, the goals are going to be, "Okay, I'm going to be very specific on achieving this goal that gets to my dream at a specific time." You have to have those goals.
The third step in that is learning. So many times we can have great dreams and goals, but if you don't know how to do certain things in business, then how are you going to get to where you need to get to? For example, learning could be reading books, watching videos, going to conferences, having a coach help you refine your learning, all of those things.
Once you've started learning, then you go to the P, which stands for planning. What is your game plan? What's your five-year plan? What's your one-year plan? Most importantly, what is your 90-day plan because then you have a 90-day plan that structures your weekly plan and your daily plan.
Then A stands for action. Now, what are all the things that you need to act on? Because you can have a great dream good goals, you've learned a lot of things, you got a plan in place but if you take no action off of that, you have achieved nothing.
If you understand DGLPA, you can apply that to any level of business, whether you haven't started a business yet or thinking about it, or you've been in business for 15, 20 years, and you feel stuck.
That's very good advice. Where do you fit into that process?
Where I fit into that process is I'm that person who takes a look at the entirety of the business and says, okay, what's going on here? Where are you stuck? Are you stuck because you don't know certain business techniques? Are you stuck because you haven't financially managed the business well? Are you stuck because you have no idea of how to market the business? Are you stuck because you haven't had an overall great strategy? Or are you stuck because you're you have a mindset issue, you're challenged with your thinking, and you need to figure out how to think better?
Great.
Then once you get into that, then what a great coach does it says, okay, I'm not going to do it for you. Because think about this, is that if somebody did it for you, would you ever learn how to do this on your own? No. You'd become dependent upon that person.
The whole idea is we figure out what's stopping you and then start putting a game plan together of, okay, now, how are we going to get from step A to step B to step C, but here's the whole thing, who's going to hold you accountable?
My job is to make sure that you not only are doing it, but you're doing it correctly, and get you to do it even when it doesn't feel good. Now, one of the things you always have to understand is you can only do so much. My job is not only to push you, but sometimes it's to reel you back because you might be a kid in a candy store. You want to do 10 different things.
That's what you've done for me, Kevin.
My job is to go, "Wait a minute." There's a great book out there called The ONE Thing by a guy named Gary Keller who started Keller Williams Realty. He has a whole entire book about what's the one thing such that if you did this, it would have a cascade effect on everything else? Because business owners are classic for trying to do multiple things all at once. They do 10% of 10 things, and nothing gets done. What if you did 100% of one thing? That's one of the most important things, when I'm a coach, is zero the person in on the most important thing, and then make sure it gets done to completion.
Incredible. Since we're on the topic of doing one thing, what is one thing that you consistently do in your own business that really helps you? You've clearly had great success in your coaching business, and with your coaching clients all get great results and become healthy businesses. What is one key to your own personal success?
I'll tell you one key to my own personal success is, I learned this number of years ago, is morning rhythm. Too many times people roll out of bed, alarm goes off and then they're like-- they get in the shower, they head out immediately and they never take time to get themselves set up in the morning. For example, my morning routine is, I get up, take the dog out, feed the dog, get into the shower, make my breakfast-- mind you, a healthy breakfast.
That's important.
Then what I do is I spend time in the Bible. I'm a born Christian and I know that my relationship with Jesus Christ is one of the most powerful things that I can do for me. What I do is I actually take about 30 minutes to really get in to some Bible reading.
Once I've done that, that sets me up for the day. I then clean up knowing that, okay, what time do I need to be in the office for my first client, and I'm out the door. Yes, my morning routine is longer than a lot of other people's morning routines. What it does is it sets me up mentally to have a great day.
Now, some people said, "You know what, that's not what works for me. What works for me is I go to the gym in the morning." Great, wonderful. Or somebody might have another morning routine. Here's the thing is, what is it that you are doing to set yourself up every single day for success? There's a lot of people who just hope it actually happens by accident, and it won't.
I think that that's the key to action, coach. You get a coach, and then and then you do it, but you simplify it for people.
Exactly right.
What are some favorite stories that you have seen with people that you have helped through the years?
I guess to me, one of the things is a definition of the business is a commercial profitable enterprise that works without you. I'll give you one story. I had a gal who owned some coffee shops. Her dream, she wanted to take a two-week vacation and not have to ever have the business contact her.
One of the things I coached her on is to grow the business, systematize it, get her a team to work well without her. She did a two-week cruise in Mediterranean, and you know how many calls she got when she was on vacation? Zero. She was so thrilled with that.
Then another one that I'm still currently working with, it's a husband-wife team out of New Hampshire. When I first started working with them, it was two individuals. They were very energetic, but they didn't quite know how to focus it. They had a big huge vision and a dream.
One of the things that I was able to help them with is create that superstructure of systems and processes. They have basically almost quintupled the size of their business since-- I think I started working with them in 2018. It's now been four years.
That's great.
They've really quintupled their size of their business. They've gone from two doctors to five doctors, and now they're able to go ahead and take significant time when they want out of the clinic. They already have other doctors that can keep the revenue going because they used to be the producers. If they left, no money came in. Now, they have a whole team of doctors who can continue the growth while they can do things that they're interested in.
That last story, what I'm taking away from that is you have a healthy business, then you have healthy doctors, but also more doctors. What it really boils down to is more people are getting help with their health.
That's exactly right. The whole idea here is, they've gone from two to five doctors and where they live is not a big city. They're having an absolutely dramatic effect on the health of their community. My passion is that, if we can grow a medical business such as an upper cervical chiropractic business that grows dramatically, what happens to that health of that community? It has a major impact.
Imagine a city where people are continuing to get healthier and healthier and healthier. What does that do for the community? It's amazing what that can do. My passion is that when I'm working and coaching a chiropractic business that grows, that community, by nature, gets healthier.
Everybody wins when the business-
Exactly right.
That's really exciting and beautiful. Kevin, you're mentoring so many people. Who's somebody who's been mentoring you?
Brad Sugars.
Brad Sugars.
Brad Sugars is the CEO of Action Coach. I've been working with Brad now for 20-plus years. There's a couple of things that Brad really emphasizes. He didn't originate this. He got this from Jim Rohn. There's two things that he always says Jim Rohn quotes, but he really emphasizes is that, number one, never wish that life were easier. Wish that you were better. That's classic Jim Rohn. We expand on that mean. That's that developing yourself as a person.
The second thing he really emphasized, and again, this is from Jim Rohn, is that work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
That's profound.
That's exactly right. What are you doing to work on you? Too many people work on their job and they work, work work, but we need to work on ourselves.
That ties back to what you shared about your morning routine.
That's exactly right. That's the whole thing. When you work harder on yourself than you do on your job, you start becoming the person you've always wanted to become. Whether you're a business owner or an employee or even a mom or whatever. You become the better person, and that just cascades down.
Too many people just want to think they have to work harder. If I just work harder, I work 50 hours and 60 hours a week, and I just work even harder-- no, it doesn't work like that. You have to be a better person first.
That other way just leads to burnout, but you see that there are solutions to this.
Oh, absolutely.
Is there anything that you really would like to share that I haven't thought to ask you?
I think the biggest thing I'd like to share is that if you are a business owner and you feel trapped in your own business, there is hope. There's a way out. You don't have to continue to suffer. Too many business owners just feel that there's no hope. They're just like, "I'm stuck here. I don't know what to do. I've got myself in. I just want to shut the lights off and close the business, but I can't really do that." They feel like they don't know what to do. There is hope. You can succeed as a business owner. You just need somebody who's going to help you along the way to get to where you want in your business and in your life.
That is actually beautiful, and that sums up why I invited you.
Thank you.
This is the What Pain in the Neck podcast. If you have a dream but that kind of burden, that is a real pain in the neck, but this podcast is not about the pain in the neck. It's about the fact that there's a solution. The pain in the neck can go away and-
Here's the thing. Everything in life is an investment. Are you investing in your own health? Are you investing in actually treating your health as one of the most important things ever? Part of me being a chiropractic patient for all these years is all about, I've invested in my health, and the returns on investment are incredible.
It's the same way with a business owner. What are you doing to invest in yourself to be a better business owner? I take a look at everything that we do in life is all about an investment to make us better. For the listeners, take a look at your own health. Are you investing in your own health or are you ignoring symptoms that can can be solved? You've lost hope. Guess what? There is a solution. This is the same way with business owners. There is a solution.
Do you have a way that people can just say, where do I turn?
The way it works with me, you can go to my website kevinweir.actioncoach.com, or email me kevinweir.actioncoach.com, or you can call me at 253-686-9125. What I do is I offer what I call a complimentary coaching session.
Which by the way is what I did.
Yes. What I do is I just do about 90 minutes of my own time. I actually do a coaching session with that individual. At the end of the coaching session, if you want ongoing coaching and you feel can help you, great. I always call it the Costco freebie. Take the Costco freebie. If you like it, then it works. If it's not for you, that's fine, but the whole idea is my job is to help you, the business owner, no matter how-- even if it's spending 90 minutes of my time not compensated at all, and if you get great value out of it, that's the most important thing.
That's beautiful. Usually at the end of every episode on the What Pain in the Neck podcast, I ask you one last question, and that is, Kevin, do you have a life verse or a favorite quote or something that you keep coming back to?
I keep coming back to Romans 8:28, "All things work for good to those who are called to Him according to his purpose." What does that mean? You're going to have bumps in life. All things, even the negative things that you think are going to derail you, it's all things work for good to them that are called according to a purpose.
The way I see that is, I know it doesn't really matter if things go off-kilter. I always know that I'm learning in life. I'm becoming a better person in life, no matter what happens.