The $200M Healthcare Blueprint with Todd VanDuzer

0:01Boom!

0:02John Lee Dumas:Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down the 200 million healthcare blueprints. To drop these value bombs, we're brought to Todd VanDuzer and EO Fire Studios. Todd is the owner of 13 vein clinics advising 50 plus nationwide on digital marketing. He runs a functional medicine clinic and is currently assembling a roll-up targeting$120 million to$200 million exits. And we will talk about what the aha moment was, what the light bulb moment was. We'll talk about bringing idea to massive success and how that process goes and oh, so much more.

0:41John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Todd and our sponsors. CAPE is a privacy-first mobile carrier built from the ground up with security as the priority. If you care about protecting your digital life without giving up your smartphone, Cape makes that possible. Visit cape.co forward slash fire and use code fire for 33 % off Cape for six months today. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more.

1:18John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com. highlevelfire.com. Todd, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? So, you know, success often comes up with just showing up every day, not necessarily being inspired. Fire Nation, we're talking about the$200 million healthcare blueprints, and we have a lot to talk about, a lot to talk about. And I want to start with your origin story, Todd, but since we do have a lot to get to today, let's keep it concise, let's keep it tight, but break it down for us. Really this whole like healthcare situation started with me kind of traveling around in a van, living in my van.

2:06I was in Boulder, Colorado, traveling, doing some climbing and stuff, working at a coworking space. At the time I had a tutoring and test prep company I was kind of doing online. I believe that was like the last time I was on this episode or whatever. We were kind of chatting about briefly. And I was kind of in a transition period. I was at the co-working space. I met someone who was doing some marketing for a vein clinic. And he was, I saw what he was doing. I was like, hey, I can get you some results with SEO. And he's like, well, we worked with tons of different SEO agencies, et cetera. They never really worked.

2:42We'll tell you what, I'll only, you only pay me if I get results. And he's like, okay, I'll talk to my boss or whatever the case is, the doctor. And they agreed. So I started working with them, got them results, got them ranking number one for all the different vein related terms.

3:00And yeah, fast forward about a year or so, he was no longer going to be doing marketing for them. And I asked, hey, can I take over this account? um so i built a relationship with uh dr meyer who's a vascular surgeon out in orlando and um you know basically took over everything from google ads to med ads etc just kind of helped grow his clinic significantly grew it he had like eight locations saw how well he was doing and basically convinced him every single time i jump on a call a marketing call once a month say hey like if i found a doctor would you train them so i can open my own clinic and uh he was kind of resistant at first i just continue to bring it up and finally he's like sure don't think he actually thought i was going to do it but i went out found a doctor hey i was like hey i found a doctor like when can i fly out there um he's like oh you can come out in august really don't think he thought i was going to come out and then um come august we're flying out there i was like hey just so you know dr meyer i'm showing up tomorrow he's like oh really so yeah i was like okay so we went out there um dr nema got the training on how to do like these vein procedures and whatnot and um you know i uh learned the entire side of the medical practice from insurance authorization to brief benefits to practice management i honestly had no clue any of this stuff at the time like what heck insurance verification was so it was a big learning curve came back um a week later we opened our clinic we'd already been preparing for it um with our website and ranking and SEO and things that I'd already been doing for other clients.

4:31And I mean, fast forward now, we're probably one of the biggest vein clinics in Phoenix Valley. We have six clinics.

4:38John Lee Dumas:What exactly is a vein clinic? Yeah. So vein clinic is we treat varicose veins specifically. The disease is called venous insufficiency. A lot of people think it's more cosmetic, but it's not. It's more medical. Cosmetic only really counts for about 5 % of our revenue. So, I mean, we take Medicare, medicaid um it's a lot of times it's aching in legs pain in legs swelling restless legs one in five people get vein disease in their life a lot of times it's misdiagnosed and it causes a lot of other problems so it's uh it's it's it's not going away it's actually a benefit to the health care system because by treating it it helps reduce the costs of health care because it helps prevent more serious complications like wound care treatments consistently, more deeper vein issues.

5:22And then it can also just help your legs feel a lot lighter, which causes you to be more active, which can, you know, have a direct correlation with type two diabetes as well as other diseases as well.

5:33John Lee Dumas:So one thing I want to dive into right now is for our listeners, Todd, they're entrepreneurs, they're small business owners, some individuals are listening, they're like, they're waiting for their big break. I mean, you had your big break. Now, a lot of people would call that lucky, but luck is when effort meets opportunity. You were putting in the effort, the opportunity came, and you took advantage of it. And you didn't just take the first kind of lukewarm response that you got as an answer. You kind of kept pushing, and you made it happen. And now, I mean, you're running over 14 vein clinics in Arizona, Texas, Florida.

6:05John Lee Dumas:You advise another 50 nationwide. I mean, you made it happen. So take a step back and give some advice, give some strategy, give some hope to people that are listening right now that are maybe working on something and they want to turn it into something bigger, but they just feel like they might be banging their head against the wall. What would you say to them? I like that first quote I gave is showing up every day. The vein clinic was definitely like an overnight success, but leading up to it wasn't. Um, so, I mean, I've been an entrepreneur since probably day one, but I've been actively actually running a business since 15 or 16.

6:41And so those first 10 years before, you know, I got into this, it was, it was a big struggle, you know, um, trying to get the business to work, trying to have the cashflow, um, you know, it's just, there's a lot of moving pieces in business. And so it's, um, it's showing up every day, just kind of working at it, tweaking different things, um, keeping at it, not being persistent. And then I think the other really important thing that I highly recommend is not trying to focus on something unique. Just too much risk in that. So it's like I think a lot of new entrepreneurs do that. I did it, you know, talking to friends of mine that are entrepreneurs.

7:21They always talk about that. Like, well, everyone's doing that. I was like, yeah, even better reason to do it. so focusing on areas of business that are unique um that you think oh this is unique i'm gonna have a really competitive advantage because no one's doing it there's the exact opposite it's like very risky um i'm a big believer in just and that's why the vein clinic was really cool because it's not as sexy it's um it's it's a problem it exists there's a lot of other vein clinics and so then it's like all right well if it really works and people are doing it, then all you got to do is do it better than all those people, which isn't that hard.

7:56So I think picking a sector that there's already a lot of businesses doing it, I think is really important because then all you got to do is do it better than them, which is easy. You just got to put in more work than them, focus a little bit more, focus on the numbers. And especially if you pick a sector like which I did, which is in health care, where a lot of providers and doctors aren't as tech savvy and, you know, they're doctors. That's what they're good at. They're not necessarily good on the business side. then you can actually really compete. And so I would say I completely lost where the heck I was going with that, but that's kind of my advice there.

8:29John Lee Dumas:Just continue to look at the things that are currently working. That's kind of where you are going with that because a lot of people, you are right. They're saying, well, I need to be completely unique. I need to start something completely new. There's a reason why pioneers have arrows in the back. It's dangerous. And there might be a reason why there's not a market for that because it's just not a great idea. It's If it is a great idea and a great opportunity, there's probably a lot of competition. So you have to take that into account too. So maybe it's that sweet spot. It's like where there's a niche within a big opportunity that's still proven model.

9:05John Lee Dumas:It's not some wacky, off-the-cuff thing that's never been tried before. But it is something that maybe people aren't focusing on or doubling down on yet for some reason within a proven idea, within a proven concept. So there's some really interesting things there. And Fire Nation, we have a lot more to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you're like me, updating your website can feel way more complicated than it should. A simple headline change somehow turns into a whole project and waiting on developers to just hit publish is frustrating. Looking for a better way?

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12:15John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. All right, Todd, we're back. And listen, you gave us a quick rundown about what your light bulb moment was, but there's a lot of value there when that light bulb goes off and people can really understand, oh, that's when Todd actually put two and two together. That's when Todd really identified what the opportunity was and then went for it. So let's do a deep dive there. When you actually had that idea, that aha moment that you now have turned into success, what was that? It didn't happen overnight with that idea.

12:54Understanding that the vein clinic was something I wanted to go after the healthcare sector. It kind of just kind of happened slowly. You know, I was doing marketing for them. I saw it. I saw it as an opportunity. I saw the field that I was in and, you know, and I saw the skills that I had developed by building a tutoring and test prep company being the same skills as a vein doctor, vein clinic. And so service based marketing. And so I saw those skills very transferable into this other sector where I saw that the vein sector was where the tutoring sector was eight years ago, as far as understanding marketing and lead generation and everything like that.

13:32And so I could see the painting on the wall. It looks like identical business, just higher margins, right? Working with surgeons and doctors and providers rather than working with kids for tutoring and test prep, but same type of business model. So going into it, I was really confident from the start that it would work. And we were able to grow the company, you know, fairly quickly, doing well over a million our first year just because I had already had that base experience through the, through the tutoring and task prep company.

14:03John Lee Dumas:You know, I think there's a big lesson here. And that is that lead generation, those people that can market, that can bring the right traffic to the right offer, you're going to win. Now it's a matter of how big are you going to win is how good you are, but you're going to win on some level. Because if you can have the number one solution to a real problem in a growing industry, if you can have that, and then you can drive traffic to that, you're not going to lose. because then it's just a numbers game. It's like, how many eyeballs can you get on this? How many of the right eyeballs can you get on this?

14:36John Lee Dumas:And then you just tweak and you refine, you adjust that offer, you adjust that whole entire funnel and you keep making things happen. So now, I mean, you own over 14 vein clinics across Arizona, Texas, Florida, you advise another 50 on digital marketing growth. I mean, you are just on this path right now. Like, what else do you want to say to Fire Nation? Understanding what stage of business you're at is really important. I think it was like Plate Mask of Keep, formerly Infusionsoft, talked about this. And there's other people that have talked about it, too. And, you know, Ryan Dice and Roland Frazier with they have a book called Scalable.

15:17Really, really good book. It's a similar attraction that they wrote. Anyways, it's like the different stages. So it's like if you're first starting out, the primary thing that you need is time. right? To get to zero to a hundred thousand, it's just really time. If you didn't have a job, you could probably do it, but you usually have a job. So you're limited on time. And so that's your real constraint. And so how do you do that? Well, you work on the weekends, you work on the evenings, you do what you need to do to have the time to get that first, get the business off the ground. After that, then the next stage, you know, the business from like a hundred to 300 ,000, it's really just having a consistent lead channel.

15:50It's like, where are you getting leads? And then you don't need to be getting leads from all these different areas. You don't need a fancy website, you don't need any of those things. Initially, you just literally be calling people, whatever the case is, know your market is calling them cold, calling them. Maybe you're running Facebook ads, maybe running Google ads. Um, and, um, but I used to say like running Google ads and Facebook ads was great at the start, but now it's expensive. So I would just recommend you just call the people, your email them, you do cold outreach and so you can generate, have a consistent flow.

16:16And then the next stage of the business, you know, from$300 ,000 a million is, is really having a couple different lead channels, you know? And so as you have that couple different lead channels or whatever the case is, you can get, you know, get to that next stage. And then a million to 3 million, which I think is the most challenging is having systems. And so I think a lot of people think is the lead generation. It's like, nah, you can get lead generation. They ain't that hard. You just got to stick with it long enough and find a channel that's working. And then once he finds work, you just do more and more and more of it.

16:47The challenging part in business where I think a lot of people get stuck and it was definitely really challenging for us is that million to 3 million mark. And this is just a random, like, you know, it could be a little bit more than that, a little less, but that's systems. And that I think is the area that a lot of people get to. And quite honestly, then they realize they hate business because it's, it's very, very difficult. Um, you will stress out, you'll be exhausted. You'll cry. Like, I mean, it is, it is challenging. and the way to get through it is just developing good systems. And so it's like having really step-by-step systems, breaking it down that a lot of times starts meeting, saying no to other clients and really niching down so you can create really good systems.

17:29So you can hire people and they can follow those systems and you can just not have to work. So one of the things that we did, my wife and I, when we were kind of starting these companies is we were going to get married and we want to go on a trip. And so we wanted to go on a trip and we want to do a three-month honeymoon because she hadn't traveled much, whatever the case is. And our businesses weren't ever close to the point of that. But I was like, screw it. We're going on this trip no matter what. We're going to try to get our businesses there. And it was like two years later. And if they're not, we're just going to fall apart.

17:54We're cool. We were ready to just let them fall apart. Like, we'll start over. We're young. We can only do this trip once. That did, that forced us to train and work differently and create the systems. And I think that's a big part of entrepreneurship. They never get through that because they're never forced to. So I would encourage people if you're at that stage of business is just kind of like set the time where you're going to go on a trip for two months and it's non-negotiable. And if it's non-negotiable, you're not going to let your business fall apart. You're going to act differently. You're going to think differently.

18:20You're going to do things a lot differently. And I promise you'll have your business will be better set off than it was. Like when we are on trip, we had record profit months. We had record and the business continued to thrive. It was wild. And since then, we've done other like extended trips for a couple of months here and there. And we like to, because it ensures the business can continue to survive without you, which is really important. And then finally, at the next stage of business, and you're at from three to$10 million, which was another challenging part, but a lot of people, you know, you may not want to get to that next stage, you may be happy just at that other stage, when the systems are rolling, and you're making pretty good money and everything, you're looking for that next stage is really developing leaders.

18:56And so that's like, you know, having general managers, you know, training people, helping them to learn how to lead others. And it's really about dashboards at that point, you know, so you have KPIs and dashboards before, but now you really have a lot of dashboards and you're training your managers to look at those dashboards. And I love the Alex Hermosi quote that he said that data should only matter if it changes behavior. So each of those dashboards should have different numbers that you're looking at. And if that data changes in a negative direction, it should change the behavior, how that manager acts and reacts to train their team.

19:29And that's really what you want to train them to do is being able to read those dashboards, understand when those numbers change in a negative or positive direction and if they're changing negative direction it changes their behavior to go out and do something to ensure your business continue to thrive and have you know multiple occasions and the stage that we're at now that we're really realizing which is a real struggle which is you know getting from 10 to 30 million is is uh culture so then it just becomes about culture how do you develop a really strong culture how do you really um understand how to like you know get your your employees to thrive and be behind the mission and everything and so it's just i think it's really about understanding the stage you're at, understanding the problem that you're looking to solve, and then focusing on that problem, not getting too, you know, caught up on the next stage or the previous stage or whatever the case is.

20:16John Lee Dumas:Todd, you just gave an absolute masterclass at the end there, Fire Nation. I hope you go back and listen to that because it is so powerful. It's, you know, goes back to just Parkinson's law, like tasks will expand to the time allotted. Just put something out there. You will make it happen. You will get it done. Have that finite solution in process. Now Todd, if Fire Nation is listening to you and they want to connect with you, learn more, follow some of your content, whatever you want, what is the call to action for our listeners today? You can reach out to me via email, I guess, t-o-d-d at dozer, d-u-z-e-r group, g-r-o-u-e.com.

20:52You can find me at dozergroup.com is our agency website.

20:55John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. you've been hanging out with TV and JLD today. So keep up that heat for links to everything we talked about type Todd in the search bar, the show notes page will pop right up. And Todd, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with fire nation today for that. We salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Awesome. Take care, everyone. Hey, fire nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Todd for sponsoring today's episode and fire nation. Are you an entrepreneur on fire? Who's looking to share your amazing message with the world.

21:28John Lee Dumas:If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Cape is a privacy first mobile carrier built from the ground up with security as the priority. If you care about protecting your digital life without giving up your smartphone, Cape makes that possible. Visit cape.co4 slash fire and use code fire for 33 % off Cape for six months today. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place.

22:03John Lee Dumas:And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com.