**Transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence.**

Carter Schelling
Good afternoon. I'm Carter Schelling, director of business development at Martin Health Care Advisors. For the past several years, my studio production company has helped Paul create his terrific series of video interviews and presentations. Many of which have been shot right here. In addition to that, I'm chairman of a consulting group called 3655, Inc. We help business owners create extraordinary companies in ordinary industries.

Carter Schelling
And for the last 42 years, I've been helping business owners reach their goals. So I've asked Paul to do a series on business planning because now's the time of year that you should be creating the most valuable business plan you'll ever create. The plan that will prepare your company for the best possible deal when you sell it. And today, we're going to talk about your two greatest strengths.

Carter Schelling
In our first episode, we talked about how important it was for you to focus on. You've got to get the best money, the best structure and the best acquirer. And to do that, you need to focus on more than just what your company has on the day it sells. You also need a plan for what it can do for the acquirer after you sell.

Carter Schelling
Last week we talked about the importance of when you create your SWOT analysis as part of your business plan, that you make sure that you get the best available information on the real opportunities in the marketplace and the real threats. And we heard Paul tell us about how what he offers gives you bar none the best possible intel on those important elements of your plan available anywhere.

Carter Schelling
Your strengths and weaknesses are particularly important because your strategy comes from finding ways to connect your strengths to relevant opportunities in the marketplace and protect your weaknesses from relevant threats. Now, this week we're to start talking about strengths and weaknesses as the basis for your value. Next week we'll be interviewing Dave Pierce from our preparatory consulting group, who tell you how we can help you increase your strengths and decrease your weaknesses.

Carter Schelling
But before that, I want to share with you my thoughts about your two most powerful, greatest strengths. You know, whenever we do strategic or business planning, I'll ask an owner, What are your greatest strengths? They always say our people. And these days they almost always say our culture. Great, wonderful. The problem is you can't measure them. But let's just go with that for a minute there, Right?

Carter Schelling
When a acquirer buys you, they're very concerned about the quality of your people and they're very concerned about your culture and they're very concerned about them on the day you sell. But if you want the best possible deal, you have to reckon with the fact that the acquirer is expecting you to grow after the sale, which means you need great opportunities.

Carter Schelling
Right? Good. Fine. Great opportunities are available in the marketplace. The limiting factor is this growth is going to require more great people like the ones you have now, more facilities at which you need to have more of that terrific culture of yours. How long is it taking you to build the team you have today? How long is it taking you to build the great culture you have today?

Carter Schelling
You know, there are famous stories about recording artists who work for ten or 12 years to develop their best songs, and they put them all on their first album. And the album goes platinum and the record company is thrilled and says, You are famous today. Let's have a second album. And the artist says, But that one took me 12 years.

Carter Schelling
You need to take what you have and scale it.

Carter Schelling
That's probably something you haven't had a lot of experience with. Let me tell you what that requires. When it comes to people, it requires getting increased qualified candidates. You need to get more flow and you need to change your perspective. The perspective that most employers have about getting employees is from basically a specifications approach. I mean, look at most of the ads that appear on indeed or wherever for people they're not like advertisements for the company to convince a candidate to join us their specifications.

Carter Schelling
You better have this. You better have that. You better have this. Oh, by the way, we're a good company. We offer good benefits. In today's labor market, you are competing for candidates attention. You need to have real promote social advertisements, but not just for employees. You need more employees like your best employees. So what you need to do is what very few employers do you gather up when you're hiring for a particular position.

Carter Schelling
The best people you currently have in that position put them in a room and do a brainstorming session where you ask them Why did they first come to your company? Why do they stay? How would they explain to someone in their job elsewhere why that person should come here? What language would they use if they were help and if they help you promote your company?

Carter Schelling
Where would they do that? Where should you advertise for people like them? Where should you go to meet people like them? Where do they hang out? And what can you say in their mind that will have the greatest impact on a candidate like them? Because I have to tell you, there is more than one person out there. And if you hire people who aren't like your best people, they will actually slow you down.

Carter Schelling
You want to put your best people in the driver's seat for this effort. And of course, when they're helpful to this process, when they refer someone in who's hired and is successful, you have to be willing to pay them. The second thing is, is after you get a stream of qualified candidates, you need to be able to make sure that you decrease unsuccessful hires because there's only so much you can learn in the interview process and you want to learn as much as possible.

Carter Schelling
Now, what we do and what we offer our clients is what we call something in addition to a job description. Job descriptions are pretty classic normal, ordinary, and very boring. We create something called a person description. The person description is the place where you list all the criteria by which you will evaluate candidates, especially when more than one person is doing the interviewing.

Carter Schelling
And that person description will include what technical skills are required. Only three fundamental skills, by the way, not 50 what people skills are required. And by that I mean when you study once again, the best people we have in that job, what technical skills do they have? What people skills do they have? And when they came to you, what job experience did they have?

Carter Schelling
Some of the been developed from down below. Some came with a lot of job experience. You need to have a list that everyone interviews from to compare candidates to your template for what a very successful person in that job. Here is like employing that will help you reduce unsuccessful hires. You want to know more about that, Put your name and email in down below and we can talk about how we help our clients develop a person.

Carter Schelling
Description. So culture, How do we put structure in the culture? The reason I say structure is because scalability requires replicability and replicability means structure. Unfortunately, in most companies, even companies who have great cultures, when you ask them what are the components of your culture, what are what are the what's the rebar that holds your culture together? If we have to set up your culture in a brand new facility with mostly new employees, how do we start it?

Carter Schelling
What's the starter like? You know, sour dough starter? How do we start that culture quickly in a foreign land? Most owners don't have great questions, sorry answers to those questions because culture is kind of in the atmosphere, you know, or they may say, well, we have values, but if you study most companies with great cultures, the values aren't what makes the culture.

Carter Schelling
What makes the culture is behaviors. The way people act is what makes the culture, not the values written on the wall. For that reason, many culture creation programs that are based on values are not that great at getting a new facility off the ground with the appropriate culture quickly. David Friedman, good friend of mine, a former client, decided to get out ahead of that and to solve that problem.

Carter Schelling
And he created a program for culture by design that allows a business owner to stimulate and build the culture in his or her company consciously based on a behavior based approach. They don't teach values. They teach behaviors. And how those behaviors, the behaviors we ask of people can quickly and powerfully create and sustain what he calls a championship culture, what I call a competitive advantage, and what you will call.

Carter Schelling
When we opened up the new place, it was quickly just like home. Now, if you'd like to be able to on the day of the sale, have the best possible strengths, the least possible weaknesses, and have strengths that can be scaled so that you can tell an acquirer we can grow fearlessly without losing the quality of our people, without losing the special quality of our culture.

Carter Schelling
Then put your name and email in down below. Let's start a conversation about what we can do for you, and thank you for your time today, and I'll see you next week.