Glenn Harper: Welcome to another edition, The Empowering Entrepreneurs,
The Harper and Company Way. I'm Glenn Harper
Julie Smith: I'm Julie Smith.
Glenn Harper: Good to see you, Julie. What's up today?
Julie Smith: You're a little red. What happened this week in college
graduation?
Glenn Harper: And I was under the welder at the stadium, watched my
daughter graduate. And apparently you're supposed to wear
sunscreen for that when you're there for 4 hours and got
you.
Julie Smith: You missed that memo.
Glenn Harper: But yeah, but we'll get it next time.
Daughter Number three It will be in a couple of years and
I'll wear the big hat so I can be a safari guy.
Well, I just wanted to start today.
We've got a guest today named Jon Appino, and he's a fellow
entrepreneur. He's the brains behind Contract Diagnostics,
a physician contract review.
It's a company that provides industry specific data.
John will review the physician's specific, specific
contract and then partner with them to negotiate the more
favorable contracts, which sounds kind of intriguing.
And, John, it looks like you're welcome and it looks like
you're from Brookings, South Dakota.
Is that true?
Jon Appino: Big city of dreams.
I'm absolutely.
Glenn Harper: It's the craziest thing.
You're the second guest in our and our like window here.
That is from Brookings, South Dakota, which is in the
fourth largest city in South Dakota, which is really cool.
Is that how you decide to go to South Dakota State there?
Jon Appino: Unfortunately, I took the easy path and I did jump out of
South Dakota for my undergrad.
I stayed right there in my hometown and it was nice.
My mom was close. I had tons of friends, but it was the
easy thing to do. I wish I would have done it differently,
but looking back. But.
But, yeah, that's why I became a jackrabbit.
And I'm not.
I'm curious on who your other guest was.
Well.
Glenn Harper: I heard I heard that you took the bookmobile for a joyride.
Is that true?
Jon Appino: Well, I'm.
Glenn Harper: Sorry. The bookmobile.
Apparently, south coast states got this one weird
automobile thing that they do, and it's like a whole
traditional thing for, like, the last 60 years or
something. I didn't know if you were that.
I just heard a rumor. I was just checking.
Jon Appino: Oh, I have not stolen any bookmobile, but hobo days is our
big like our big our day and homecoming or whatever.
And it's a big, giant party, and it's a ton of fun for
sure.
Glenn Harper: Well, did you grow up on the agricultural side of it or are
you a city kid?
Jon Appino: No, a city kid from South Dakota, the fourth largest, which
is 25,000 people, maybe now, you know, so a city for South
Dakota. And then I moved to Rapid City, which is a bigger
city, you know, about 100,000.
And then I moved to Kansas City, a bigger city, two and one
half million. But all my friends from New York and from San
Francisco still called Kansas City a little tiny cow town.
Is that funny, I guess, based on your perspective?
Glenn Harper: Well, they just fly over it so they don't really know.
Right. Did you end up in Kansas City for the ribs, the
royals or the chiefs or just did happen to go there?
Jon Appino: No, I went down there for work, actually, and I had some
family there. And it was an easy transition from where I
was working in Rapid City after my undergrad.
And then there was a bigger job, same company with a
promotion and more money in Kansas City.
And it was the path that I was in at that time in
corporate, and that was like a great next step.
It was a bigger city, more opportunity.
Family there, still the Midwest.
And it was still a big move for for us.
But at the same time, it was an easy move with the company.
Glenn Harper: Well, you wanted to you wanted to be have a real job and be
in the corporate America. Is that what your goal was at the
time?
Jon Appino: It was. I worked in pharmaceuticals and in biotech and a
couple of different companies and many different roles.
I had lots of different roles in the organization, in the
sales and the marketing and contracting and everything
else. And it was a it was an interesting I learned a ton
and it's what ended up leading me to find a niche, which is
what drives me today and kind of crave the passion behind
contract diagnostics.
Glenn Harper: Had you been a entrepreneur before?
Growing up as a kid, your hustling, you know, yards and
stuff like that, or was it not so much?
Jon Appino: Oh, funny enough.
So I started a stereo company Car Stereos when I was 17,
not because I wanted to have a big company and make a lot
of money. There were certain brands of stereo equipment
that we wanted in Brookings, and there was one, one small
stereo company, and they didn't have the good brands and we
didn't feel like they gave the customer a good deal.
They didn't have the right brands, they didn't have good
service. They were more like We wanted to sell and push
stuff on you than provide value and service.
And so my friend and I started a company at 17 just so we
could get our brands, and it did well.
It's still going successfully.
I don't have a participation in it now.
And then I started in what was it in 1999 in South Dakota.
Maybe, I don't know, maybe the Internet was slower to catch
on, but you could buy stuff online in the late nineties,
and I was one of the few people who would go on and
actually trust this computer with my credit card.
And I set up a like a supplement distribution out of my
dorm where I would get protein powders and create teens and
vitamins in and sell them to the football players and the
volleyball players and everything else.
Again, not to make any money, not because I wanted to have
a big company. I just wanted my protein powder for free.
And so I got to meet a lot of good people.
And I went and met with the football players and the coaches
and we put packages together for the basketball players for
four for summer training.
I think the nearest GNC was one overpriced and it was in
Sioux Falls, which was a 45 minute drive, so you could buy
protein powder in Brookings.
So I set up a minimum order with a company called DPS
Nutrition. I think they're still around today.
And I used to get boxes and boxes of boxes delivered to my
dorm room and I would sell it out of my dorm.
So and that's it.
Maybe it's been kind of built in.
And then I went into corporate and I was in corporate for
quite some time. And you know, at first, at first it worked
really well. And then I think I just I got sick of some of
the. Some of the the box, if you will, that corporate puts
you in. And when you want it, when you're creative and you
think out of the box like an entrepreneur does, and you try
to apply some of those in the corporate space, sometimes
they say, well, that's not how we do it here.
That's against policy.
Or You can't do that.
Or, you know, that's not your job at somebody else's.
And sometimes you, you, you stick out and sometimes you
decide to go your own way, which I ultimately did.
Julie Smith: So how many times did you get told you can't do something
before you thought, all right, I got to do something
different?
Jon Appino: Oh, I don't know.
I don't know.
But it was one of those, like, you know, whether I was I
wanted to I wanted to work my way through the organization,
and I wanted to live in New York in a big, high rise.
And I wanted to work 80 hour weeks and wear a $2,000 suit
every day. And that's what I wanted.
And I wanted to have the big job with the big money.
And and and I thought I wanted and then once I tried to
kind of create my path and that's not how it was done, I
just kind of got sour on it.
And there was a promotion that thank goodness it didn't
happen going to Denver.
And that kind of soured me even more.
And then I just I started looking at other options and I
started contract diagnostics, which started out at a
separate company, and then just kind of morphed into what
it is today.
And I just kind of started it on the side, you know, and I
work nights and weekends and it took some time and it
provided some financial stability for my family as it as it
started to be profitable.
But I didn't need the money so I could put it back in.
So yeah, I don't regret my time in corporate at all.
I mean, I learned a ton.
I met some great lifelong friends.
They paid well so I could live off of that, so I could
invest in the company at an early age.
I didn't have to worry about making a profit.
I could worry about the customers and making a good
product. And so so yeah it's been an interesting and
industry. Well, for sure.
Glenn Harper: Well, it's kind of funny. It's from selling stereos and the
protein powder. And then now this contract services you're
selling what people didn't even know they needed.
And you're like, they don't even know they have a better
stereo, but I'm going to go sell them.
They don't even know the protein powder because they all
eat meat. But I'm going to give them protein powder and
they don't even know that they'll need a whole big law firm
to do a contract.
They can use me to do this.
So how about that?
That's. That's definitely the trail of an entrepreneur, for
sure.
Jon Appino: Yeah, well, we kind of you know, when I was looking at this
market, you know, 12 years ago or so, there really wasn't
like there wasn't like a national brand.
And I had lots of friends who were physicians who who could
who could kind of give me guidance.
I said, Well, who'd you use for this service?
And, you know, they didn't know they should, or they called
some local attorney who didn't understand physicians and
physician contracts. And, you know, they if they were
living in Kansas City, but they were starting a job in
Texas, do I get a lawyer in Kansas City?
Do I call somewhere in Texas?
How do I find someone in Texas?
Do I meet with them? Do I have a phone call?
Do we email what's best?
There was no real guidance and there's no real national
company that could just do everything in all 50 states.
So we found a nation and yeah, and now we have a new
product that I feel hundreds of thousands of physicians
need. And now we're back in the process of telling them,
you know, teaching them that they do absolutely need this
product. And I mentioned to my my team all the time that I
feel like we're trying to sell an iPhone in 1984, you know,
and you should try it. You need this in your pocket.
It's going to revolutionize the way you live.
And people would say, What are you talking about?
There's no way I need this thing, you know?
So it's it's it's fun and challenging at the same time.
Glenn Harper: We thought this would be a great time.
Segue into tell us, what is it that your company does?
It sounds like you're kind of practicing law, but not
really. But you're in all the states.
But how does that how does that work when you're giving
this kind of advice for clients?
Tell us what you kind of do.
I'm a physician and I have to, you know, get hired in.
I got to sign a contract.
Do I call you first?
How does that work?
Jon Appino: Yeah. So we've got great attorneys that work here, but we
don't operate like a law firm, so we don't give legal
advice. We're consultants, if you will.
So we understand the way that a physician should understand
risk in a contract so we can go through it with him or her
and really kind of explain it in plain English.
As far as what's clear in the document, if something's not
clear, we don't interpret it.
We tell the physician that they need to go better
understand it or have it be more clear in the agreement.
But we spend a lot of time focusing on compensation.
So physician compensation has changed dramatically over the
years and some of them are paid on productivity and some of
them have very dynamic productivity structures.
I mean, some compensation plans will be six or seven total
pages long in themselves and they have no idea what our
views are or what collection ratios are fair or, you know,
how to analyze a report as far as their profitability or
not. So we spend a lot of time just discussing and
explaining what their particular situation is, comparing
what they have to the market value.
So if you're a cardiologist in Chicago, it's much different
than a cardiologist in Texas or a cardiologist in
California. But a cardiologist in you know, in in San Jose
is much different than one in Sacramento and much different
than one in San Diego.
And if you're at a hospital or a small practice, they're
also dramatically different.
So since this is all we do, we can focus and talk to the
physician in a way that a physician needs to be talked
with, because, of course, a cardiologist has a different
personality typically than a pediatrician, different than a
surgeon. So we're able to kind of talk to each individual
physician in their language and kind of coach them on.
We might have to we might have to really motivate a
pediatrician to ask for more money because they're so
sweet. They're so kind.
They would they how do I how do I ask for $5,000?
And we sometimes have to tame the surgeon because they want
to go in and say, I'm going to ask for 50,000.
And, you know, well, maybe that's not market norm.
So we basically just get to discuss with them and we give
them guidance on where the risk is and what how they could
better discuss it, how they can understand it and how they
can have a good discussion with the employer both now while
they have the contract and then moving forward throughout
their career. So I hate to say, like, I, it's, it's, it's
simple. It's not easy.
We just look at contract and we just talk to doctors and
there's there's a lot of stuff that goes on in the
background with compensation data, understanding market
trends, understanding how different markets might move from
one to the next and and everything else.
So simple, not easy, I guess is an easy way to say it.
Julie Smith: So, John, I'm curious, you were in your corporate job doing
what you do.
Where was the aha moment to create this to see this need to
fulfill it? Obviously you did both for a little bit of
time, but did someone come to you and ask for advice or
what kind of made you have that idea or that moment?
Jon Appino: So in my and in some of my roles, I interacted with
physicians on a very routine basis.
And I would just always I was always questioning, you know,
what's the worst part of your day?
What's what's a hassle when you're going through this one?
I was just trying to become get to know them and be more be
friends with them. But two, I was just curious and one of
the things that a lot of physicians kept saying was when
they finished their training, the process from I finished
my medical training to I'm going to go get a job.
It's very, very challenging.
I mean, physicians all get jobs.
We hear about the physician shortage.
It's unlike a college grad who tries to get a job in
accounting and they can't find anything in accounting.
But physicians always find jobs that might not be the ideal
location or the ideal place, but they always get jobs.
And then with most opportunities, a contract comes with it.
But we didn't want to work on the contract at first because
all the physicians said the process of finding a job is
difficult. The process of relocating all of our stuff is
challenging. They typically finish their training in June,
but they don't start jobs until August or even September
once they're board certified and they've got credentials at
the hospital and everything else.
So there's that lag in there where they don't have
financial means. Sometimes they don't have a job.
So they're kind of waiting and doing paperwork and moving
and everything else. But they said their recruiters, all my
friends said the recruiters were a pain in the side.
They said this contract thing is a pain in the side.
They said Just transitioning, just understanding what comes
next is just a hassle.
So I was going to create a company called New Cloud
Medical, which is actually the parent company of contract
diagnostics at DBA and knew Cloud was going to do
everything. We going to reinvent the entire thing.
We were going to reinvent recruiting.
We're going to reinvent contract reviews.
We're going to reinvent I mean, I was going to have a card
that they can go down to their local BMW dealership and get
a discount on a BMW if they wanted to or a moving company,
they could get a discount.
We're going to have a real estate division and a banking
division and an investment division and sell them life
insurance and disability insurance.
And we were going to do everything and reinvent it all.
And and so that's the way the company started.
And of course, I realize you can't do everything great.
And one of the things I didn't like around the recruiting
thing was all the phone calls and all the back and forth
emails and, you know, at the at the stereo company, people
would come in, you'd help them, you'd sell them a stereo,
and it was transactional.
You buy something from me for $200 and I make $35 or
whatever. There's a transaction.
I like that I could go home at the end of the day saying I
worked for 8 hours. I got to help five people and four
people bought something from me and I made $100 or so.
But with recruiting, much like with real estate, you might
show a ton of houses or you might make a ton of phone calls
and then nobody signs and nobody calls you back.
It's hard to decide if my day was well spent or not, and
you might make $20,000 on some random day or 30,000 on some
random day with one phone call.
But you might go a month before you do that.
And I didn't like that.
And so we did some contract reviews and I like that
transactional nature.
We provide you a service and knowledge and you give us
money and and that we can do it again and again and again.
And then I start looking at the market and talking to other
friends and I realized that there was no company that was
really looking at this thing on a national basis that was
just a national brand that anybody can call in any state
and get good advice from people who knew what they were
doing. So that's where we kind of started contract or I
started contract diagnostics and we kind of dropped
everything else because I said I'd rather be world class at
one thing then sort of kind of good at a whole bunch of
things. And so then we started contract or I started
contract diagnostics.
I think 12 years ago, maybe it was we've had some copycats,
which is really kind of cool, I think, as far as other
companies now, which is fun.
But, but it started with something else and it ended up
being totally different than what I had initially had the
vision for.
Julie Smith: So in the beginning, and as you went through that process of
starting it, did you have a mentor or someone that was
really by your side that you could ask that advice and get
the solid truth instead of maybe what you wanted to hear?
Jon Appino: You know, nobody like nobody that I would say I met with
like every single week, you know, and they sat down and
they grilled me.
You know, my dad worked for a guy that in Brookings, Larson
Storm doors and Dale Larson is a fantastic person and a
wonderful entrepreneur and now a brilliant philanthropist.
But I mean, I guess his whole life has been and I would
talk to Dale from time to time, and he would you know, he
would kind of just give me global advice.
You know, here's how to think of this.
Here's how to give back, you know, here's how to treat
people if you ever hire anybody.
But it wasn't necessarily like I was bringing my business
problems to him. It was more kind of just global advice.
And I had a handful of relationships like that that I could
get kind of global advice on or coaches, if you will.
But nobody that I could really sit down and say, this is my
problem with this company or this website or this
competitor or this pricing for packaging.
It was just all kind of I just it was just kind of me in my
basement, sleepless nights and a lot of weekends and and
everything else.
Glenn Harper: You know, it's it's a funny thing listening to you, because
I think one of the cool parts about this is that you had
already been indoctrinated talking to surgeons and doctors
and and all these folks, and they just think about things
in a little different way.
And you just got to learn how to communicate with them and
listen to what they're really saying, because really they
just want to go do doctoring stuff.
They don't really want to do anything else, but they just
probably didn't feel like anybody ever listened or nor that
they even know the question to ask about the other stuff.
And we see that doctors, they just don't know the financial
part of things and what it means for taxes and retirement
and all those protections like you were mentioning, those
other services that you were going to provide.
You know, there's a great opportunity for that because, you
know, people really want someone they can trust to do all
those things. And so I think it's interesting that you
really didn't need to know what to sell.
You just knew how to talk to people and you just listen to
them. And all of a sudden, there you are.
Now you've had to figure out how to package it.
How did you come up with your packaging process and
knowing, Hey, I got to be able to scale this thing.
I don't want to just deal with ten clients.
I want to deal with thousands and not only going to be
thousands of clients, but they're going to start in these
three states. And then in five years, doctors always move.
I'm going to have to be in these 12 states and then three
more years I got to be in 50 states.
How did you figure that part out?
Jon Appino: I did a lot of the work on my own at first.
And, you know, I had some contractors that I would have,
you know, help out with various things.
But I think the company just kind of organically grew.
And I put more time in and less time in corporate and more
time in the company and less time in corporate.
And then when we got to the right, when I was at my
capacity where we just couldn't help any more people, I
thought we could raise prices and maybe we'll get less
business and we'll still make the same amount of money.
Or I could bring somebody else on, you know.
And so I brought someone to help a little bit, you know,
and we're still a small company.
We just got a handful of associates here that work with us.
But, you know, over the years, I've always, you know, I've
appropriately scaled and maybe that's, you know, maybe my
risk tolerance for a typical entrepreneur is much less
because I haven't cashed out the 401.
K and hired, you know, five people at once and then worried
about it later. I've just kind of very slowly scaled over
the last 12 years, and it was probably just me for the
first five years where I did everything from billing to,
you know, to accounting to all the emails, to paperwork.
And I had like some contractors that I would have help with
some attorneys in that thing.
But, but then I brought somebody on to help with the books
and then I brought somebody on to help with contracts.
And then I brought and then my, my at the time, the gal who
was helping me with billing, she took on more tasks and
more roles and she went from 7 hours a week to now.
I mean, she's probably seven or 9 hours a day, you know, so
so we just kind of appropriately and slowly kind of gone
from there. But I did a lot of the work at first.
And, you know, it's those late nights and those those
weekends that you give up that I think build.
And you have that grit that builds a lot of character when
you're starting a company and then you look back and you
appreciate it much more when your schedule's a little more
open.
Glenn Harper: This seems really weird that like it just didn't magically
happen overnight. You're a multi gazillionaire with 1000
employees. You mean it takes time and effort and sacrifice?
Is that you telling us something different that other
people tell us is so weird?
Jon Appino: I don't know if that's a pass now with, you know, bitcoin
and all that stuff or if it's if it's still one of those
things that, you know, you find something that you really
enjoy. You put your heart soul into it and and you work it
till you're blue in the face.
And you don't give up and you provide good products and
then and things happen.
Glenn Harper: I think that's, you know, this, this, this podcast is all
about the journey and how to get from A to B, from, you
know, real job to an entrepreneur.
And so when you had real job and decided to do this thing
on the side, how long did it take for you to be double
dipping before you said, you know, that's it, it's time I'm
going full on in?
How long a time was that, you think?
Jon Appino: Again from my my individual risk tolerance is probably much
different than a lot of typical brewers.
I would say maybe it was seven years.
Glenn Harper: Oh, wow.
Jon Appino: Well, maybe eight years.
And it just kind of again, it just kind of slowly kind of
came on and I will schedule at my in my in corporate.
So it wasn't an 8 to 5 Monday through Friday type of job.
Some days were longer, some days were shorter.
You know, some nights I worked and then I took the other
the next day off. And so the job was was very flexible and
more results based than time based.
And I had great results.
And so my time wasn't questioned.
But, but yeah, it probably took that long, which again, it
allowed me to not only bring the company up, but as I was
working, you know, I could invest a little in the company.
But it also because the company ended up making two or
three times what my, my, my salary in corporate was.
And so it wasn't a thing about I should leave because I can
afford to leave. But then it became, How do we feel again?
My risk tolerance might be less than some entrepreneurs.
So we spent time paying off debt.
We spent time saving money for the kids.
My wife was working a lot at the time as well, and we spent
time paying off the house and, you know, and really kind of
getting in a solid financial position, both with contract
diagnostics and us individually.
And and then we made a decision to leave corporate together.
And it actually took it was actually we made a decision to
leave on a particular day.
And it was actually the plan was kind of blown up because
the company it was a fantastic company.
But they actually came to us.
They were they were going to fold the division that I was
working in because it was a product that was running off of
a patent and pharmaceuticals and biotech.
And so as that product was coming off of the patent, they
didn't have any where to assign the division.
So they announced a year, a year in advance, I think a year
and a couple of months in advance that they're going to
dissolve the division and give everybody a severance
package. So it's a little ironic that they actually paid me
to leave. So it was kind of everything worked out great.
But again, we had made a decision that we're going to leave
on this particular day, on this particular month and the
month before, we are going to throw the towel in, if you
will, and give all the stock back and say, keep the job and
the salary and everything.
They announce that if I would wanted to stick around for a
year, they were going to pay me to leave.
And again, I didn't hate the job and the flexible schedule
was was great and I had friends that I worked with.
So it wasn't like maybe some or they hate their job and are
grinding 8 to 5 Monday through Friday.
I was able to spend a lot of time on contract diagnostics
while still meeting expectations at corporate.
And then we kind of made a decision with my wife to stick
around for another year just from a financial decision.
It was a good one to make, and I didn't think that leaving
that job to focus on contract diagnostics at the time was,
was something that that that was urgent.
Urgent. But then we did book a trip to take our kids to
Italy the entire summer of 2019, which is when we, when we
ended up leaving corporate.
And, and then we kind of celebrated by spending the entire
summer of 2019 with the kids in Italy.
So it worked out well.
Glenn Harper: Is there a way I can get the number of that cushy corporate
job so I can apply for that?
That sounds awesome.
Jon Appino: Well, it was it. I mean, I hate to say it wasn't cushy.
It was a ton of work. And you had to be very good and very
talented at the position.
But but yeah, it worked out well.
And I still I still talk with my friends at the company
and, you know, and I still miss everybody.
I miss the camaraderie that we used to have, you know,
because when you're in a small company, you know, it's just
different than when you're with a big company and you've
got lots and lots of colleagues and associates.
Julie Smith: So I was doing the math, John, and I'm not really good at
math, so no, she's not.
If I did it incorrectly, please correct me.
But did you hire your first employee to be a part of your
team before you left corporate America?
Jon Appino: Yes.
Julie Smith: That's awesome. And so what ultimately led you to make that
decision that you decided you needed to delegate and get
that off of your plate in order to continue to juggle both
those roles?
Speaker3: The business was strong and my time was was kind of capped.
And I realized that it has to get bigger than just me
because I didn't even if I if I left corporate, I wanted
more of a flexible schedule.
I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to go from getting up
at three in the morning to get to the gym, to get both jobs
done all day long, and then working three nights, four
nights a week sometimes.
I worked every Sunday night for eight or nine years.
I worked from, I think 4:00 till 10:00 every single Sunday
night for four, seven, eight years maybe.
And I didn't want to do that.
I wanted to be able to go to Italy with my kids.
That was one of the dreams my wife and I had.
We wanted to spend a whole summer in Italy and I knew that
I could do that if I was also doing 100% of the production.
And I knew that there was also a lot more people out there
that we needed to help. Because if you looked at the
available market for our products and you look at how many
we were serving, we were super busy, but but still not
being able to serve everybody that needs it.
And so I kind of felt an obligation to bring people on and
do a little bit of scaling, if you will.
And I felt that that was the best time was then when I had
more of a financial backing with corporate, and I could
kind of take the money and invest because I didn't need it
to pay bills. And so I felt like that was the right time
versus when I might feel like my future self would tell me.
I'm a little more tight with finances because I don't have
the corporate money coming in every single month.
Glenn Harper: Did you have a at this point again, even though you've been
doing this for seven years, how long has this been going on
now? Since 12.
Jon Appino: Contract. Yeah, 12.
Glenn Harper: Years. Okay. So.
But it's only in the last.
You've been on your own with no corporate job for like the
last four then.
Jon Appino: Yes.
Glenn Harper: Okay. So do you have any regrets or son of a moments that
you wish you could do it over again, that you would have
changed to get you where you are quicker?
Or are you perfectly content with how the pace that you
have developed your company and your career path and your
entrepreneurial journey? Are you are you good with that?
Or you're like, Oh man, if I'd just known this person or
that process or engage this person particular advisor, I
could have got there quicker.
Is there any advice for people listening that, you know,
listen, if you could just see that one thing like, oh, pay
attention to that blinking light.
Jon Appino: Yeah. I think, you know, maybe the one thing that I would
change was, is the the way that you that you prioritize
initiatives. So I think like a lot of entrepreneurs, you
have a laundry list of ideas for the company.
You know, I've got I want to get this done and this done
and add this and, you know, and do this to the website or
this to the blog or this to the YouTube.
I mean, there's there's I mean, I have a list of, I think
still 32 ideas on ways that we can make the company better
or new products or help more people or, you know, add
something on or fill in the blank.
And, you know, as and I've slowly kind of ticked things off
that list, again, knowing that I'm not the type of person
to just jump in and hire a chief operating officer to start
knocking stuff off that list.
But I think I would have maybe started prioritizing that
list maybe a little bit different years ago.
But I don't know that I regret anything as far as timelines
go, you know, the way that the corporate job worked out and
when I hired my first person and how the company started
and how things kind of fell in place, I think that's that
as as as as purposeful, I think as it was when my wife and
I made those decisions, I think they were all the right
ones, you know, because now at 43 with with a nine year old
and a six, seven year old child, we feel like we're in very
good financial footing.
And I think because we we took our time and did it slow
again for me, I know I've got friends who quit a store
director job at at Target.
You know, we thought our friend was going to be the next
CEO of Target Corporation 15 years ago.
And he was running a store by himself with a $300 budget
and 400 employees at the age of 26.
And he quit that job, cashes out his 401.
K and starts a company, you know.
And so it's those things that you you I envy people who
think like that. Unfortunately, it's just not me.
So I think the pace that I did it was appropriate for my
particular risk tolerance and thresholds.
Glenn Harper: Yeah, I think your, your, your perseverance, your you didn't
want to rush into it.
You had very much purpose doing what you needed to do.
I like that again.
A lot of entrepreneurs wanted all you know, yesterday.
It's hard to have somebody that, you know is like, you
know, I'm not in any hurry. I want to do it right and do
it. Do it all I can.
Jon Appino: Yeah. And again, I've, I've said many times you, I think my,
the, the, the tolerance that I have for risk has, has
impeded me in many ways from my investing strategy with
excess funds to the way that I've run the company.
You know, and I see what some of my friends have done and,
and I'm like, if I had their risk tolerance, my company
might be three times as big or four times as big.
I may have I may have three times or four times a
portfolio. I don't know.
Or maybe I would have crashed and burned.
But again, I, I can't force that.
I mean, I can't force that on, on, on, on myself.
And I don't want to try.
I wouldn't sleep at night.
And so for my individual risk tolerance, I think the pace
that I took was very was very reasonable, knowing that my
mother still thought I was crazy when she said, you're
going to quit your job, your job, you have insurance and
they give you all these wonderful things.
How would you ever quit a job?
You know, how are your kids going to have health insurance?
You know, so, you know, so for me in my family tree, if you
will, jumping out of the corporate plane, if you will, and
and starting something on your own is even though it was
well established, is not the typical in my gene pool.
Glenn Harper: You know, that's a good note on that is that, you know,
entrepreneurs, it's, you know, bigger isn't better, better
is better. And you don't have to be big to be great.
You don't have to be big to achieve whatever.
It's your own individual thing that you really, really want
to do. And if you had the right pace to do that, that
that's it's that's admirable to do it.
Do it that way.
Did you have any you don't have a desire to you know, when
you're an entrepreneur, you have this everybody has this
special thing that their good their superpower that just
makes them set aside in their industry or who they are,
just their shtick that they have.
You know, do you have you really evaluated what your
superpower is?
Jon Appino: I have. No know.
I mean, I'm I'm a natural salesman, you know?
And so I don't know if that's a superpower or if I'm just a
salesman. I love talking with people and I'm a nice guy,
you know? So I've never I've never tried to take advantage
of somebody or try to sell somebody something that they
don't need for for for a profit.
Know, we've always focused on we're we're a service
company, so we want to serve you.
And if there's I mean, I said from the beginning, I started
the company not to make money, but to help people.
And I figured if we helped enough people, we'd have plenty
of money. And so I think I don't know that I'm a
superpower, but I think I'm a natural sales person.
And at the same time, I'm not selling something for money.
I'm just selling information and advice.
And and so I don't know if you want to call that a sales or
a superpower, but I think just being a nice guy sometimes
is is a wonderful thing.
And maybe it's the Brooking, South Dakota roots that stick
out. And I think it comes through and I think I think
people appreciate and notice that and and they like working
with you as a as a result.
Glenn Harper: How long ago did you get rid of all your flashy sales coats
and sport jackets?
I mean, you got to break all these stereotypes.
Jon Appino: Yeah, it was nice.
I had really, really nice, you know, business suits and I
kept warm in case I need to go to a wedding ever.
And I want to wear a suit.
Right. And, and that's it.
So it was.
Yeah, it was. I got I got rid of them before I even left
corporate because the dress code has changed from business
every day to wear some slacks and a collared shirt if you
want to.
Glenn Harper: Do you have did you have like when you're doing this,
entrepreneurs usually have this this wall that they hit or
this insurmountable climbing, you know, steep ascent that
they just can't get over. There's this this fear that they
have, like, oh, my God.
I just I just can't break through that.
Did you have any of that fear for you that prevented you
from doing what you wanted to do?
Or were you very it sounds like you were very methodical
and just whittling that down so it wasn't a big deal.
But was there this big thing that like, my God, everybody's
against me, how do I succeed?
Nobody's going to respect me.
I mean, what was that your biggest fear that you had to
overcome?
Jon Appino: And this is going to sound silly, but it's a totally honest
answer. It was health care.
You know, I've got two young kids and we've got friends who
have gotten gotten cancer and gotten sick.
I've got a dad that has coronary disease.
I've seen people break bones.
I know how much health care costs in America.
And so one of it was one of the things was, what are we
going to do for insurance?
And do you just pay, you know, 30,000 or 35,000 a year for
a private plan?
You know, do you jump into a health scare?
Do you you know, do you jump into the to the Affordable
Care Act and the marketplace?
Do you I mean, and it was it sounds so silly, you know, and
and I had a lot of my friends who were even entrepreneurs
are like like, please tell me you're not keeping your
corporate job because of health insurance.
You know, and it was a hang up for both my wife and I.
And and so so that was it, you know, and we kind of worked
through it. You know, we we did have both both children
while we were in corporate.
So, you know, $100 for the birth of a child when my sister
was paying 3500, I think, for hers with her insurance.
And she works at a hospital, you know, so know.
But that was a big hang up for us and it was a lot of work
to kind of navigate that process to make both my wife and
me feel comfortable in the path that we were choosing for
our family. As far as making sure that that health care
didn't bankrupt, bankrupt us in the future.
Glenn Harper: That managing risk gets the hardest part of an entrepreneur,
because sometimes you have to go all in and risk it all,
and sometimes you don't have to.
You just got to be very purposeful with the way you do it.
You know, a lot of entrepreneurs like to we and we like to
call it you're either doing business is when you're doing
your doing your task your thing that you do and and you do
that very well and you have a small team around you, but
you're basically doing all the things that are kind of
relevant. And then at some point an entrepreneur likes
doing that and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's a great business model and sometimes I like to flip
the switch where they actually building a business where
they're going to bring in and just methodically hire people
and all those categories to kind of just run it.
And you, the entrepreneur, just kind of like being the
business person where you're really not day to day
operations. You want the big picture.
Do you have an affinity to which side of that aisle you
want to be at? Are you in the middle of there right now
transitioning or where you at in that or do you even care?
Jon Appino: You know. No, I think about all the time.
I've always said, you know, if you're working if you're
working in the business, you can't work on the business.
You know? And so I spent a lot of time working in the
business, and I couldn't focus on working on it because I
was so busy just producing, write just daily operational
things that somebody that the company does.
And so, yeah, as I've hired people, I've slowly kind of
shifted away from having other people do that.
I do love talking with physicians.
You know, I love having those kind of calls.
I love I love when you when you interact with somebody and
and a lot of physicians, they can be arrogant.
So the fact that they're reaching out to us to ask for help
because they're used to everyone goes to them.
Right. You have all the information.
I'm coming to you to pay you to give me information.
And so to have that role reversed when they're looking at
you and they're so appreciative.
Thank you so much for this.
You've helped my family.
You know, we'll get an email.
You know, I got a we have a we helped the physician that
haven't had a raise in four years get a $70,000 a year
raise and an extra week of vacation every year.
So over the next three years, $210,000 worth of extra
income for his family and three extra weeks of vacation
over those three years to enjoy time with his kids with no
extra production that he had to do, no extra hours he had
to put in because of the way that we rolled it out to his
employer. And so you get those messages from people and it
brings you joy, number one.
But you see how it impacts their family, number two.
And that's one of those things where I never want to get
away from that, even though I've got great people that can
do that now. I really enjoy those emails.
I really enjoy that feedback from the clients, and so I
don't want to get away from that.
But yeah, we've got lots of really important things that
we're trying to do to the business, which is why I'm
spending a lot of time now with, with, with, with people
that are helping build email funnels and build a YouTube
channel and, you know, and set up podcast interviews with,
with physicians that have their own podcasts and, you know,
and add additional products and make our system more
streamlined and reach more people through social media.
I do want to spend a lot of time doing that in the future
because I know that the company just has so much more that
it can do, not from a moneymaking perspective, even though
I know that will come. But there's just so many more people
that we can help that I feel almost an obligation to the
physicians that we don't get to talk to every year that to
to to show them that we're here so they can find us and we
can provide some advice to them.
Julie Smith: So a theme I've kind of heard throughout, but you haven't
really solidified it is.
I think relationships have been the key to where you are
today. No matter if it's been in your business and
corporate, in and around that area, it seems like you've
really been able to solidify, grow all the relationships
that you've had to in order to get to where you are.
Jon Appino: Mm hmm. Yeah, I would agree.
Glenn Harper: It's a there's a trick question that we did about 10 minutes
ago that you said you only had a list with 32 things on it.
And that is a blatant lie.
You know it and I know it.
That list, if I'm not mistaken, is infinity.
And the hard part as an entrepreneur is staying on point
and methodically like you have done very successfully.
And I suspect you're going to continue to do that is to
your your head's got all this stuff in it because it is
really you see the market, you just know there's unbridled
optimism and opportunity everywhere and trying to just do
one thing at a time and work on it.
And I guess that dovetails back to the other question I had
earlier is now that you kind of done a process to do this,
one thing that you're doing on the next, things that are
like the big picture items is that's something that you're
going to delegate, empower others to do that, to help get
those up to speed quicker, or are you going to still stay
on the same methodical step?
Have you figured that part out yet?
Jon Appino: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So I work with a like a small business.
I want to have big enough to have like a like a a chief
operating officer, if you will, that has everybody below
them and a marketing division and a and a tech team and
everything else. So there's a small team that I work with
that kind of has all those to work part time here and there
on projects. And as we bring them more projects that we
delegate more things to them, that's becoming a very
valuable relationship.
But at the same time, you know, I do I enjoy working on
these things. And so now the the challenge comes to how do
I trade my time, you know?
So there are so many things I want to do.
I've got young kids and I refuse to be one of those parents
who say, Oh, they grew up too fast.
And now all of a sudden, I mean, my kids are nine and
seven. And I'd like to I'd like to think that I've got nine
more years with my son before he takes off and goes to get
a job or goes to university or or starts a business.
But I realize that that 17 year old.
Sons are not going to want to hang out with me all summer
long. They're going to want to go hang out with their
friends. And so I maybe have a solid few years that, you
know, that he wants to hang out with me and he wants to go
on trips with me and and I get to see him quite a bit
before he's out running around with his friends, driving
cars or walking around or whatever.
So, so I'm trying to kind of balance now my, the, the level
of work that I want to do.
At the same time, the obligation that I feel to the company
and the people who I get to work with to grow it and add
products and that revenue and everything else.
So it's it's that internal conflict.
You know, I wish that I had 40 hour days.
Unfortunately, I don't.
And so so I'll kind of have to make do with balancing
everything out in the interim.
Glenn Harper: I feel like if you went back to about ten years ago when you
were working the 12000 hours a week at three in the
morning, that's when it's going to get done.
But no, you've got a little soft and that's okay, but
you're figuring it out as you go.
But no.
Jon Appino: I don't know that that's that may be an accurate statement.
As far as as far as a little bit soft.
I wouldn't disagree with that.
Glenn Harper: I'm kidding, of course.
Well, is there a would you like to give a little plug for
your company so we can put this on the podcast so people
can find you if they need to?
Jon Appino: Yeah. I mean, contract diagnostics, you know, you type it
into the Google machine and it pops up.
So it's contract diagnostics dot com.
And again, it's so easy what we do, we help physicians
understand their contracts and their compensation
structures. So if any physicians listen, you know, they can
call us. We have a free 15 minute consult.
They can call us up and or they can book a consult and we
can just talk with them for 15 minutes.
No charge. We have a couple of products from a compensation
analysis to a contract review on our website.
And if somebody knows a physician, they can send them over
to the site. We have free webinars and all kinds of free
stuff, free resources all over the site.
So it's one of those things that if they want to find us,
they can within a pretty good job of of putting ourselves
out there on the line.
Glenn Harper: Is it fair to say that you've got to kick butt stereo system
in your car because you're, you know, a guy?
Jon Appino: I don't I have a I love I have a I've kind of over that now,
but I still am into customizing vehicles.
I have a Toyota forerunner that is an overland vehicle.
So it's got a tent and it's got all custom wheels and lift
kits and kitchens in the back and all that kind of stuff.
And I love getting up into the mountains and relaxing and
and kind of getting away from things from time to time.
But it definitely has a factory stereo, which for me is
just.
Glenn Harper: Fine, more than adequate.
But boy, back in the day you had to get the cool stuff.
Jon Appino: Back in the day. Absolutely.
Glenn Harper: What was the brand back in the day?
That was the one that they couldn't get just out of
curiosity. Kicker.
Kicker, huh?
Jon Appino: Yeah. There were subwoofers and we wanted kicker.
And I think Rockford Fosgate was another one.
And we want to Kenwood as far as like Dacs everything, the
whole market has changed so much because with with with new
cars and touch screens and apple CarPlay, I mean,
everything is different. Oh, different now as far as adding
secondary systems and everything else, I, I know the
market's changed quite a bit, but, but the stereo company
is still very successful.
They put stuff in boats and campers, they still do cars,
they do old retro cars, they do remote starts and older
vehicles. And it's a it's a pretty cool it's a pretty cool
company back and bringing still.
Glenn Harper: That's fantastic. Well, John, I really appreciate you taking
the time today to come on and hopefully this will help some
entrepreneurs out there realize that there's more than one
way to get to through your journey to get your
entrepreneurial success.
This is Glen Harper, Julie Smith.
Thanks for joining us, everybody.