The Wealthy Momentum Podcast with Jimmy Nicholas and Dr. Dustin Burleson

Most business owners plan next year with their gut. This episode shows you a better way.Jimmy Nicholas and Dr. Dustin Burleson walk through the year-end audit: celebrate your wins, compare what you planned to spend against what you actually spent, and decide what to stop before you decide what to start.In this episode:Why we overestimate what we can do in 30 days and underestimate what we can do in a yearHow to decide where your time and dollars go when every new tool promises resultsWhy the most expensive AI model is not always the right one for the taskThe difference between using AI as a tool and becoming the toolRight place, right path, right plan: why offering one option leaves yeses on the tableWhy books, referrals, and relationships still beat colder adsA family audit for 2027, and why purpose matters more than balanceNext episode: what changes in 2027 and where AI fits.Your next step: Schedule your free Clarity Call (20 minutes, no risk, no pressure) at WealthyEntrepreneur.com/clarity-call Get additional resources, scorecards, and working frameworks at WealthyMomentumPodcast.comSubscribe on YouTube: YouTube.com/@WealthyEntrepreneurHQLearn more: WealthyEntrepreneur.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why do patients and clients really buy? In this episode, Jimmy Nicholas and Dustin Burleson walk through the psychology behind buying decisions and what it means for your business or practice.**In this episode:*** Gary Halbert's hamburger stand question, and why a starving crowd beats a better product* Why trust and risk removal outweigh price* Why good, better, best offers should start high, not low* Access as a reason to buy: memberships, priority service, and VIP plans* Place and price: golf tournaments, Yankee Stadium hot dogs, and showing up where no one else is* Lifetime customer value, and why the Ritz-Carlton lets front line staff fix problems on the spot* Why one person should be able to say yes, and two should be needed to say no* Why too many options can hurt, and why focus wins**Resource mentioned:** Why We Buy by Paco Underhill**Free resource:** Get the Buying Decision Audit at momentuminsiders.comNext month: the year-end audit and what to look for in your business as the new year approaches. Get additional resources, scorecards, and working frameworks at WealthyMomentumPodcast.comSubscribe on YouTube: YouTube.com/@WealthyEntrepreneurHQLearn more: WealthyEntrepreneur.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Most business owners are spending a fortune renting media and systems they will never own. In this episode, Jimmy Nicholas and Dustin Burleson dig into the difference between owned and rented assets in your business, and why getting this wrong costs you far more than money. It costs you the value of the business itself.In this episode:Why your patient or client list is the actual business, not the equipment or the real estateList segmentation and how AI finds the patterns you will never see manuallyThe smart way to use books as owned media in 2026 (and why just writing one is no longer enough)Podcasts, directories, and websites: what you own and what you are renting without knowing itAgentic AI, phone systems, and how sophistication determines whether your AI sounds like everyone else in your marketThe Four Seasons model vs. the Walmart model and why congruence matters more than the technologyWhy automating everything is the wrong goal, and where automation actually belongsDan Kennedy's principle: the worst number in business is oneResources mentioned:MomentumInsiders.comWealthyEntrepreneur.com Get additional resources, scorecards, and working frameworks at WealthyMomentumPodcast.comSubscribe on YouTube: YouTube.com/@WealthyEntrepreneurHQLearn more: WealthyEntrepreneur.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Most owners have never put a number on the business they have spent their life building. This episode puts one there.Jimmy Nicholas and Dustin Burleson take apart what a business is actually worth, what changes that figure, and what an owner can do about it long before a sale is on the table. Jimmy sold his agency to private equity in 2019, and he walks through the parts nobody warned him about. Dustin has bought, sold, and advised on the other side of the table, and he brings the buyer's view of what makes a business worth paying up for.**In this episode:**- Why the consultants Jimmy paid tens of thousands of dollars were wrong about a personality-based business being unsellable- The question that tells you whether you own a business or a high-paying job: if you were gone tomorrow, does it tank in 90 days- **Recastable expenses** and the owner salary add-back, and why the math changes once EBITDA crosses one million dollars- Why recurring revenue commands a different class of multiple, and how consumer brands get valued on revenue rather than earnings- The **Rule of 40**, and the third, third, third formula Jimmy ran as guardrails without knowing it had a name- Dustin's three rules of negotiation: who you are dealing with, never negotiating under duress, and going one year further back in due diligence than you think you need to- Why the best negotiating position is not needing the deal**Timestamps**- 00:00 Intro- 00:18 Why this topic, and the four kinds of owner listening- 02:18 Small business as a wealth generation vehicle- 03:18 Addressing the skeptic: what the consultants got wrong- 08:18 What building it to sell actually changes about running it- 10:18 Exit strategy: why are you getting off the highway- 13:18 The 90 day test- 16:18 Jimmy's 2019 sale, and what the buyer could give his team that he could not- 20:18 EBITDA, recastable expenses, and the owner salary line- 23:18 Multiples by industry, and revenue multiples versus earnings multiples- 26:18 The Powerball whiteboard exercise- 30:18 Creating your own luck, and the room where Jimmy raised his hand- 32:18 Due diligence, and why it is worth going through- 35:18 What a bad negotiation looks like- 40:18 The liability line, and the question Jimmy asked his attorney- 44:18 What each of them wishes they had known- 48:18 The Rule of 40- 54:18 What is coming next month**A note on the numbers.** The multiples in this episode are not one range. Jimmy speaks generally about businesses under one million dollars in EBITDA. Dustin's four, seven, and ten times figures are scoped to orthodontics specifically, and his Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash figures are multiples of revenue rather than earnings. Know which one applies to you before you anchor on it.**Get the resources.** The valuation worksheet for this episode, along with the full transcript and everything referenced, is at [MomentumInsiders.com](https://momentuminsiders.com). Free to join.**Next month:** owning your assets versus renting them, and the things in your business you may think you own but do not. Get additional resources, scorecards, and working frameworks at WealthyMomentumPodcast.comSubscribe on YouTube: YouTube.com/@WealthyEntrepreneurHQLearn more: WealthyEntrepreneur.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is the finale of a three-part trilogy on finding and freeing the growth already sitting inside a business you own. EP 65 covered what to keep and what to kill. EP 66 covered the hidden money in your market. EP 67 answers the next question: who actually captures it, and what happens when your team, or you, becomes the thing slowing everything down. Dustin and Jimmy soften a hard title into a useful one. As the founder, you are part of the team too, so this is not about blame. It is about a simple truth: most problems in a business are system performance problems, and the fastest way to fix them is to remove the bottleneck. Money loves speed. The four levers covered in this episode: Revenue per employee (RPE). The one diagnostic most owners have never calculated. Take total revenue, divide by total headcount, and you have a proxy for how efficiently your business turns people into profit. Jimmy shares how his team went from about $37,000 per team member to roughly $125,000, a 3x jump in 18 months, by getting the right people in the right seats. Time allocation and task audit. Where your hours actually go, and what to stop doing. The highest performers are almost all signal and no noise. Growth usually comes from subtraction, not addition. The founder as the bottleneck. The hardest one to look at. If someone else can do your job, you may be in the wrong chair. Ask your team one question tomorrow: what are you not doing that you would love to do if I got out of your way? Systems and AI integration. How to move fast without breaking what matters. Aggressive and secure are not mutually exclusive. If you are going to use AI in a business that handles sensitive data, do it the right way. Get the resources for this episode at MomentumInsiders.com. Become an insider and get the revenue per employee calculator (Google Sheets and Excel), the benchmarks, and the time and task audit that walk you through all four levers. Next month: what is your business actually worth? Everything in this trilogy feeds into that one calculation. Hosted by Dustin Burleson and Jimmy Nicholas. Get additional resources, scorecards, and working frameworks at WealthyMomentumPodcast.comSubscribe on YouTube: YouTube.com/@WealthyEntrepreneurHQLearn more: WealthyEntrepreneur.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.