David VS Goliath Podcast – S1 – Episode 18 – Dr Stanley Okoro

Adam DeGraide:
Coming up today on David vs Goliath.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
There’s no success without discipline.

Adam DeGraide:
Clearly, you’ll be the only patient. We’re not in it for the money, but without the money, we’re not in it.

Speaker 3:
Welcome to today’s episode of David vs Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software, a three time Inc. 500 recipient, and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam Degrade.

Adam DeGraide:
Hey, everyone. It’s Adam Degrade with David vs Goliath Podcast. Welcome to episode 18 with Dr. Stanley Okoro, a double certified board surgeon from Georgia Plastic Surgery and the metro area of Atlanta. He’s an awesome guy. He’s known as The Bow Tie Doctor. You’ll see that in a second when he comes on the show. It’s going to be very exciting. A few housekeeping items. Today’s episode is brought to you by Anthem Software. It’s built specifically for small businesses to help you find, serve, and keep more customers profitably with their all-in-one solution of software, marketing and consulting. Take the 120 second tour today at anthemssoftware.com.

Adam DeGraide:
By the way, we’re a visual podcast, YouTube, Spotify and Rumble. Our Rumble channel’s blowing up. We’re so grateful, Rumble’s been featuring it. Thank you, Rumble, so much. We really appreciate it. And all of our subscribers everywhere else, and if you’re a listener, you can find us in any podcast listening app you can imagine from iHeartRadio, to Pandora, to Apple, to Google. You name it, we’re on it, Spotify. It’s fantastic to be a part of it. Well, last year was amazing. 2022 is going to be even better. This is my first interview of the new year with Dr. Stanley Okoro.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s going to be great. If you want to visit us at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com, there you can subscribe and also apply to be on the podcast in a brand new feature, Ask DVG. That’s right, look for the little thing on the top. It says, Ask DVG. There, if you are a business owner, if you’re a listener and you don’t necessarily want to be on the podcast, but you’d love to have a question answered that I can help you with in regards to your business, that’s exactly where you do that. Well, with no further ado, let’s get right into it with Stanley Okoro, The Bow Tie Doctor, welcome to David vs Goliath Podcast.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Thank you, Adam. Long time no see. It’s a pleasure to speak to you again. Happy New Year.

Adam DeGraide:
Happy New Year to you as well. For my listeners and watchers, Dr. Okoro was one of my favorite. I have tons of great clients as you know, in my last business at Crystal Clear, but Dr. Okoro was one of my favorite. He would tell you he probably was my favorite, but I’ve loved him from the first day I met you, Dr. Okoro.

Adam DeGraide:
What I’ve loved about you was your energy, your passion for what you do, your panache or your flair for life. And I think we should start with you have the name, The Bow Tie Doctor. I love the story. I typically start with what do you do and all these things. I want to start with how did you get the nickname, The Bow Tie Doctor?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Well, as you probably know, I’m a plastic surgeon, so I like to look good and I wear bow ties. I think about five years ago or so I said, “I’m just going to look good while I’m doing surgery. Why not?” So I started wearing bow ties in surgery, and a lot of people didn’t like that. But after a while, they got used to it so they called me The Bow Tie Doctor. That’s how it started.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s funny, when you and I were talking, I think a few years back, we were actually in Vegas at a conference together. You told me stories now that it’s become so popular in your area, that you actually have a tray of bow ties that you’ll bring into the patient. You’ll say, “Which tie would you like me to wear?” And then every once in a while, they actually get you the one that they would like you to wear. Tell people a little bit about that. I think that’s fantastic.

Adam DeGraide:
When you realize that customers want to have something that makes you unique, and they want to be a part of something that has life and are having surgery, so in a lot of ways, they might be a little nervous. Just that one little gesture makes it let them know that you’re human, and that we can have fun, and that this is going to be okay. So tell the listeners a little bit about that. Is that something you still do?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yes, I still do. Not as often as I used to because some people… If you’re having surgery, you’re nervous, all kinds of thoughts are going through your mind. I always try to change their other negative thoughts about things. And I ask people, “What’s your favorite color?” Of course, I have over 100 bow ties on a conservative number, and I have all the colors. I have a cloth bow tie, which I’m wearing right now. I have a wood bow tie, I have a feather bow tie, a paper wood tie, I have a metal bow tie. I have the ones with lights and without no lights.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Anything you want, we got that so we give our patients the opportunity to pick what they want, what color makes them comfortable, at peace before going to surgery. And every once in a while the patients would buy. One time, I was getting a cancer bow tie and that’s how I received so many bow ties. So I said, “You don’t have to bring anymore. I’ve got the color. You pick whatever color you want. I have it. You don’t have to give me anymore bow tie gifts.” That really helped because I was getting bow ties every day. I didn’t want the patients to feel obligated to buy me another bow tie. I said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Adam DeGraide:
Exactly. They’re paying for surgery. For the listeners and watchers, and we’re going to get to this right now, we’re going to transition into what you do. Stanley Okoro runs a fantastic business. It’s an elective surgery practice. A lot of people listening and watching the show, doctor, don’t realize that there’s a whole segment of medicine where it’s out of pocket, patient pay, it’s not insurance based.

Adam DeGraide:
People are choosing to have these procedures. Tell people a little bit about Georgia Plastic and then also your med spa, just to give an overview. Two or three minutes of what you do there at the practice.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
All right. So I’m a double board-certified plastic surgeon right here in Atlanta, Georgia, and the medical director for Georgia Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Our website is very simple, georgiaplastic.com. On social media, just #georgiaplastic. We provide elective, cosmetic plastic surgery for both men and women. We also provide surgical and nonsurgical solutions to those things that you want to look better at. Again, it’s not for everyone. It’s for those people that want to look better. And our attitude is you do you, and don’t judge anybody that wants to do it.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So maybe you want to look better, and some people don’t. You just like the way it is. We also have a medical spa, AmaChi MedSpa, A-M-A-C-H-Imedspa.com, where all we focus at the spa is nonsurgical and antiaging solutions. Things like Botox, injectables, facials, Emsculpt and CoolSculpting, and those kinds of things that does not require you going under the knife. And as we get older, our body changes a little bit. You see that you are growing taller or you’re growing wider. We don’t judge you in that way. If you want to be smaller [crosstalk 00:08:05]-

Adam DeGraide:
Especially after the holidays. Maybe I’ve grown a little wider, man.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah. You and I both. It’s life after a while. Especially after age 50 or after age 40, your body tends to start to change a little bit and you want to look better. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people say, “Hey, just don’t judge anybody doing what they want to do.” It’s an elective surgery.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
It’s a choice. Like Adam said, it’s not covered by insurance. It’s this for those that have a little bit more extra income to spend on themselves. When you look good, you feel better too. You look good, you feel good. That’s it.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah. And it’s amazing because for the listeners and watchers, my previous business was a company called Crystal Clear DM, digital marketing. It’s now been acquired by a company called patientNOW, which does EMRs for elective practices, med spas, marketing, photo storage. They still do it, they’re doing amazing [crosstalk 00:09:10]-

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Pretty much everything, Adam. They do everything for your business.

Adam DeGraide:
I know. It’s amazing. And it’s interesting because when you’re in this space, I worked with almost about 850 some odd providers in the space, you run across all different folks. But the one thing that’s always been fascinating and rewarding for a guy like me, Dr. Okoro, is when I met you, and we shared with you some principles in business. They not only resonated with you, you put them to action. So when you think about Georgia Plastic as a business right now, because we have aspiring entrepreneurs, existing entrepreneurs, they’re running a business.

Adam DeGraide:
Tell them a little bit about the staff you have. You and I talk about this all the time. You have to have the right people in your business to serve your customers or in your case, your patients. You and I have also talked about how that’s difficult to find them, to hire them, to train them, to motivate them and to keep them. Tell the folks, and the listeners, and the watchers a little bit about the composition of Georgia Plastic and AmaChi MedSpa.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Before I get to that, I just want to say, Adam, when I met you a few years back, I think it was in Atlanta at a meeting here. I think we clicked even before we signed a contract because I just love your there’s no success without discipline. Do you understand? Dude, I miss you, man.

Adam DeGraide:
I understand. I understand. We don’t need to get emotional on the thing.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Okay. Okay.

Adam DeGraide:
I miss all you guys too. Hey look, we’re still friends. We still talk.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I know. That’s true. That’s true.

Adam DeGraide:
We might not be able to work together, but we’re able to live together.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
That’s true. I think the way to run a successful business, the most important ingredient in any business that’s many of them, I think, the most important is having a team that works with you. And to create a team is you have to know how to hire stars, right? You need to hire them, train them, keep them or retain them. And over the years, our practice has been in existence for 12 years now. We’ve learned a little bit of one or two. I don’t always try to hire the person who has the most skill because they can have the best skills, but they can’t get along with anybody else. That means you can’t work as a team. No man is an island.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
You can’t win a game without having a strong team. You can have the best players in the world, but if you don’t have a good team you’re not going anywhere. So what we’ve learned over many years is always try to hire somebody… First of all, I have my own personal, a good person. They’re a good person and somebody is going to work with your team. And if they’re good and they are a good team player, they can take very good care of your patients or your clients, and no matter what you call them. And then you have to pay them well. You pay them well and then just be good to your people because they are your best assets.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I have a very famous saying. It’s not about the money, but without the money, we’re not in it. It applies to every business so I think when you have something to offer people and you have a good team, because if you treat your people well, they’ll treat your clients well.

Adam DeGraide:
No doubt. No doubt about that.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah. So for me, I don’t even call them employees anymore. They’re not my employee. The way we have it set up, Georgia Plastic has about 25 employees for our purpose, but we have 25 team members. They don’t work for me, we work together. And as a team, that’s the only way it’s going to work.

Adam DeGraide:
I love that you said that because I’ve been talking about this in the last few episodes as well too, is when it comes to our team or even our clients, you don’t want an adversarial relationship. You come alongside of them, right? It’s not like they work for you, although technically they might work for you. They work with you in this common mission, which is to love and serve your patients, in your case, clients, in our case.

Adam DeGraide:
And we want our employees to be alongside of us and also to be alongside of our customers. Now, I know you’ve been in business for 12 years. In the beginning of the year, having an elective medical practice that is a for-profit obviously, do you do planning and goals? Do you sit down as a team together? I know Aggie’s very much involved in the business. I love Aggie. Tell Aggie I said hi. I miss her as well too.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I will.

Adam DeGraide:
I saw her the other day online. I love following you guys online. It’s awesome. Tell her I love her. Aggie, I love you. If you’re watching, we love you, we miss you do you guys, you and Aggie, and the team core group of people, sit down and say, “This is what we did last year. Here’s all the procedures we did. We want to do this much more.” Tell the audience a little bit about your planning strategies.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So we have something that we do. I meet with my team every week. Adam, for the last 12 years, except when I’m out of the country, I meet with my team every Wednesday. We don’t wait until the end of the month, or end of the quarter, or end of the year. I like to be proactive so we don’t have anything that this is… Tomorrow is our first Wednesday of this year. We are meeting with the providers and we’re going to look at, “Okay, this is what we did last year, and this is what we’re going to do this year.”

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So for us, it’s an ongoing event. It is an investment in time, and training, and all of that stuff. So our approach is not to wait till the end of the year. We have an ongoing, we meet every week actually. We also have an annual meeting to review, but nothing is a surprise to everybody because we have been talking about it the whole year.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s great that you say that because it’s good to plan in the quarter, and to meet quarterly or to meet monthly. But if you can meet weekly as a team, it’s a game changer. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. So give an example of how is your meeting run? What do you cover in that meeting?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So the meeting tomorrow is our first meeting of the year. We meet with the doctors, the peers, the managers. Literally, first of all, I am going as a member of the team, not as the boss. There’s only one boss in any business and you know who that is, right? Adam, who’s the boss?

Adam DeGraide:
To me, it’s going to be the big guy up top.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
No, the boss is the patient. The customer is the bosses.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah. I was way off. I was way off.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah. So in our practice, we have the principle that the customer is the boss, and they can fire us at anytime with the moment we start serving their purpose. I’m going as a team member, and then we’ll cover things about, okay, first of all, we cover so many things. We cover financials, we’ll cover financials, right? That’s very important. Like I said before, we are not really in it for the money, but without the money, we’re not in it. The reason why I said that is when we provide good service, people will pay for good service so the money is going to come.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So we don’t go into business looking for the money, we’re there to serve people and give them what they want. They’re going to pay us for that. We know that for sure. That’s not our focus. So cover financials, we cover our patient satisfaction. And of course, we cover day-to-day business and other things that happens in the office. If you run a business, you will know and understand. Those are the main focus, then we cover things like what services we are providing. What’s doing well, what’s not doing well. What do we need to improve on? What do we need to remove, that kind of stuff. Even though I’m getting my MBA, but it covers everything. Then we cover our personnel.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
And tomorrow, we’re also going to talk about training. We love ongoing training. What kind of training? Every January, we train on everything. We train every week on that, so many things and stuff like that. That’s in essence, that’s what we do every year.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah. That’s amazing. So Dr. Okoro, we got to take a break because we’re not in it for the money, but without the money, we’re not in it here at David vs Goliath. Stay tuned, this is a message from our corporate sponsor, Anthem Software. We’ll be right back.

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Adam DeGraide:
And we’re back with Stanley the manly, a double board-certified plastic surgeon. I think I introduced you as a board surgeon, a double certified board surgeon. So I think people would be like, “A board surgeon, what does that even mean?” But anyway, that was a little faux pas in the intro, but I’m going to leave it because I think it’s funny.

Adam DeGraide:
But at the end of the day, doctor, what does that mean? Tell people a little bit about how you became a plastic surgeon because the road is never straight, right? You’ve had a very interesting journey to get here. Tell the folks about it. I think they’d love to hear it.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Of course, I am here from Nigeria. I came to this country when I was 16 years old. My dad brought me here for me to go to school. I did undergrad at the University of the District of Columbia. After that, graduated with honors, went to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. I did four years there, graduated with honors. And I was recruited to train at Emory University here in Atlanta, Georgia, where I did my general surgery training for five years.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So medical school four years, general surgery five years. Then I joined the United States Navy where I served about four years prior to going back into plastic surgery for another three years, and come back into the Navy. I served a total of 12 years in the Navy and I [crosstalk 00:20:26]-

Adam DeGraide:
Thank you for your service, by the way. Thank you.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Thank you. Thank you. So in all, I did about 12 years in the Navy. Five years of that, I did training in plastic surgery, in general surgery. And then I did additional training in plastic surgery at University of Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. That’s where I did my plastic surgery training.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I came back into the Navy and after serving my tour in the Navy, I left the Navy in 2010. Came back to Atlanta during, I don’t want to call it repression, but it was tough in 2008, ’09, and ’10. Started the in practice 2010, humble beginnings then here in the Atlanta area. And like you said, the rest is history. We are here.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s amazing. I think this is really important for the watchers and listeners. Think about how much education Dr. Stanley has been through. How much experience he’s had before he opened up his first business. I think we take it for granted, doctor. We see plastic surgeons, a lot of them own nice houses, a lot of them drive nice cars, but that’s not on accident. That’s hard work and you have always been focused on that. And when you started Georgia Plastic, you really had no internet presence, but you believed that marketing is essential. Obviously for a plastic surgeon and an elective practice in general, you wanted to be one of the best on the internet. And you’ve invested a lot of time, energy and money on that yourself.

Adam DeGraide:
You don’t have to talk about vendors and people who view views, but principally, what have you done to market and brand Georgia Plastic in Georgia? Because I know right now, if I go and I type in liposuction, Atlanta, Georgia, you’re going to be in the top five, respective of how they put that in. That’s not easy to do and you did it in a four or five year span. And then now, you’ve held onto it over the years as well too. Tell people some of the marketing that you do for the practice, some of the tools you use to market in your practice and communicate with your customers. I know they would love to hear that.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So as you know, Adam, there’re different ways to market your practice. What we found is the best way, the best marketing ever, as you know, no matter what it is, is good customer service and good care of the patients. When you take care of patients, they’ll take care of you. Okay. But besides that, when I opened the practice, social media was just starting. There were a lot of established practices in Atlanta. Of course, nobody knows your name. You’re just new in the business so it takes time. Word of mouth was one thing.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Of course, with your website, which is your internet presence, is very important. And by the way, at that time we used another service before I found Crystal Clear, and I’m going to say something about that in a minute. Social media, we embraced social media. And we also, we spent a lot of money that wasn’t working for us, things like TV, and radio, and our newspaper, but you do all of that stuff. All of that stuff goes into marketing, right? I think it takes time.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
You can’t start business today and expect to be on Facebook or Google. You can but you have to pay a lot of money for that. We did all that, but at the end, one of the best advice Adam gave me, you probably forgot about this. Do you?

Adam DeGraide:
I think I remember, but let’s see if I remember.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Okay. So Adam, when we brought on your company, your prior company, Crystal Clear, we spent a lot of money. And if you remember in your database, then I remember we had the most visits on Google. I don’t remember what you guys called it.

Adam DeGraide:
Organic.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
Your organic traffic was… I looked at your first report and I said to you, “Why are you spending anything on any marketing?”

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Exactly.

Adam DeGraide:
Because your organic traffic was feeding enough opportunities in to live for the rest of your life, and that doesn’t happen with a lot of businesses. I looked at that report. I said, “Oh, he’s got a gold mine. I wonder if he knows he’s got a gold mine?”

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah. He called me, Adam and Tim called me and said, “Guys, you spend too much money on marketing.” He said, “Stop.” I said, “What do you mean? We spend on Google AdWords and all that other things.”

Adam DeGraide:
You were on TV, you were on radio, you were on.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah. What I was doing at that time was I was branding the business. I was not advertising for people to call us. I wanted people when they think about plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery in Georgia and Atlanta, I wanted them to think about Georgia Plastic, that Georgia Plastic was a place to go. That’s why we spend that money and that was an investment. But after that conversation with staff, Adam, since that conversation, I don’t remember what year that was. I have not spent that much money. We haven’t been on TV or radio.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I’m sorry, Google AdWords, sorry, Google AdWords. I don’t play Google. If Google is listening, they’re amazing, I still love Google. Don’t punish me, please. But I don’t want to play the Google casino anymore right now. I’ll come back in the future, Google, if you’ll listen to me. And I’m not even going to talk about Facebook. That’s a different conversation. I want to say thank you for the advice, but we still continue to spend some money on here and there, things like Real Soft and stuff like that, where people are offered my surgery.

Adam DeGraide:
Now, I think people would find this fascinating. Your Instagram and your social media feeds actually show you in some cases, performing surgery. And that’s fascinating because I can’t watch it. I was in the industry for so many years.

Adam DeGraide:
I still never get comfortable with it, but people love it, man. Like potential customers, and patients, and people want to learn about these things. Where can they see you perform a live surgery and where can they follow you to see this online.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So we have a very active Instagram page at Georgia Plastic. We, also on our website, we’ve recorded some videos on website and also on our YouTube page at Georgia Plastic. We used to do live surgery. We still do every once in a while on Facebook, but then we had some issues with Facebook, which we’re dealing with right now. But we want to destigmatize surgery because you have the fear of the unknown. And some people have this vision of what the operation was like, the culture. So what we did was we brought the patients into the e OR and said, “This is where you’re going to have the surgery.” And then they didn’t know who was in the room, all that kind of stuff.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Of course, we protected patient privacy and it’s social media so we don’t really show you any body parts and stuff like that. Just see how the OR is and what the demeanor was in the OR so you understand that the people who are taking care of you are good and excellent professionals in what they do. And the care that we took to take care of the patient was we want to show that safety is our number one priority. And that made it less scary for people and made it more comfortable for them to come into the OR on the goal, whatever it is that they’re doing. That was the goal of that. And also, of course, that was marketed as well. Again, that’s a way to market that spending money.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s awesome. We have to take another break from another sponsor. But when we come back, I want to talk about some of your philanthropy, because I know you’re also very philanthropic. Is that the word for it? I don’t even know if that’s exactly how to pronounce it, but maybe it’s close, maybe not. Somebody, I’m sure, will send me an email saying, “That is not the way you say that.” I would look forward to getting that email. That’ll be fun. And then I want to talk about some of the challenges you’ve had in running your business. And then one of my most important and favorite subjects, the courage it takes to start a business. We’ll be right back with Dr. Stanley Okoro. I’m your host, Adam Degrade. You’re watching David vs Goliath. Here’s another message from another important sponsor. Stay tuned.

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Adam DeGraide:
And we’re back with Stanley Okoro. Stanley, The Bow Tie Doctor, one of the coolest guys in the elective medical space. There’s no doubt about it. I really believe our listeners are having a blast with this interview. One of the things that struck me too about you, as we got to know each other over the years, is your passion for your charity that you run.

Adam DeGraide:
And I think it would be very important right now for us to tell people what you do and how you do it because being a general surgeon as well too, you give back and that’s critical. Tell the folks exactly what I’m talking about.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So we are all in business to eventually make money, but we truly believe in giving back. You can’t just take, take, take. Life’s about give and take. You have to help the less privileged. It is a privilege. I don’t believe that I am successful because of all of my own hands. Of course, if you do have a belief in God, that God also blesses you.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So my true calling is I am blessed to be a blessing to other people, so I take it to my business. A certain percentage of Georgia Plastic income goes to charity. We do have a foundation, it’s called the Georgia Plastic Foundation, which you have supported before.

Adam DeGraide:
I have.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Through the foundation, we do a couple of things. One, we support education, scholarships to underprivileged individuals all over the world. We do support medical and surgical missions, to provide surgical access to people that don’t have access. So we are in America where you can go to the hospital, see a doctor, have insurance, but guess what? It’s not like that all over the world. We take these things for granted. Some people haven’t even seen doctors ever because they don’t have the money. We recognize that and we support that. Number three, we also realize that we can’t just solve the world’s problems.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Make no mistake about it. So what we do is with some of the other charities that are struggling, so they have a charity supporting another charity. The things that we don’t have access to, or we can do. And some of the charities that write us, “Can you help?” So we support those charities, so those are the main things that we do. And besides Georgia Plastic Foundation, I support other charities or nonprofit organizations that I participate in, like ANPA, Association of Nigerian Physicians in America. I’ve been a member of that for over 15 years now, so I support that to extend the care that we give. We truly believe that we are a blessing to bless others. That’s what we do.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing. I know you and I were talking in another interview that you yourself go overseas on charity surgery missions and perform cleft palate surgery, hernia surgery in these impoverished areas of the world where they don’t have that high quality U.S. doctor. You do that, and for that, we give you kudos, man.

Adam DeGraide:
Changing gears a little bit, on the pre-show sheet I was reading it. You talked a little bit, and I think this is important. Some of the things that, one of the questions is, have you ever failed in business? And I think we’ve all had degrees of success and failure, right?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yes.

Adam DeGraide:
What I thought you said there was interesting. You said that you felt like being a role model for your kids in the beginning, you might have been failing at that. And I think this is a really important point for A type personalities like you and I.

Adam DeGraide:
Self-starters entrepreneurs, people who love what they do, we can sometimes lose sight of sometimes things that are even more important than that. Talk to the listeners and the watchers a little bit about what you said there. I thought it was fascinating.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So you guys were asking me what was my biggest failure? I didn’t think it was business. I think we’ve had ups and downs in business. If you ever owned a business and an entrepreneur, you’re going to have ups and downs. That’s just the way it is. There’s no up, up, up, up. It’s just like the stock market, it goes up and down. But as a person, personally, I think, I wish I was a better role model for my kids because so far, none of them are following my role. None of them are going into medicine. Of course, I had kids a little bit earlier. I had kids starting in medical school so medical school was brutal.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I did general surgery, which was brutal. I did plastic surgery, which was brutal. And I was a United States Navy medical officer, which was brutal with deployment and travel. I wasn’t always there for my kids. My wife helped a lot and she was the primary carer as well. I was traveling all over the world, creating all of these successes that we’re talking about. But you see that at home, you have home. So what I was talking about is don’t forget home. Now, I’ve done all of that stuff. What I’ve done is now, Adam, I work four days a week now. On the day that I’m at home, I’m at home. I don’t go to work. That’s how I’m trying to make up for lost time. But those things, I had to do those things. I had to go to medical school. That’s what I wanted to do. You can’t go to medical school part-time.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
You can’t be in the Navy part-time. You can’t do plastic surgery, create a practice. So all of those things were sacrifices that I had to do, but the sacrifices comes with, I don’t want to call it punishment. But the right word for it would be the sacrifice that I made for my success, there’re some consequences for those. Those are the consequences that I call my failures.

Adam DeGraide:
Thank you. I think this is important, man. If you’re watching right now and you’re listening and you’re a driven person, don’t forget home. We’ve all done it, Stanley. I’ve done it, but when you’re home connect at home. If you’re at work, work. But my problem was I would bring work home all the time. And so one day I came up with this idea, I think I heard it somewhere at a church sermon, the trouble tree. There was a tree out in front of my house. I trained myself early on when my first set of kids were young that I tried to do this. I wasn’t perfect at it, but I did it most days.

Adam DeGraide:
I’d come and I’d look at that tree, and I’d put all my problems on that tree. I’d then walk in the door and I’d try to engage with my kids. If I had a hard time going to sleep that night, this was back in the days where you didn’t have an iPad or an iPhone, I called my voicemail at work and said, “Adam, you’re worried about this, this and this. Don’t forget it.” Hang up, out like a light. So there’re tricks, and there’re tips, and there’re tools that all of us can use, but don’t forget home. Now, Stanley, the last and final subject I want to talk about is courage.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s a smooth stone that David used to fling into that giant’s head and kill him. How on earth did you have the courage after all the success you had in your life, all the different things you could have done, the crazy idea of hanging up a shingle called Georgia Plastic, taking up payroll debt, the whole kit and caboodle? What intangible in you helped you open that door the very first day? And second, after that, the very first night, when you were laying in bed, what did you feel like?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Wow, that’s a bit of a loaded question, but I will start. There’s a saying that says necessity is a mode of all invention. I think a lot of entrepreneurs starting businesses because of the need that was not filled. That’s what drives most of us. But if I hinted the reason, 2010, when I was leaving the Navy, the economy was crashing. We were in a recession. There was no money in the economy, nobody was hiring. I put in my paperwork many years ago that I was going to leave the Navy, so now there was no money. There’s nobody doing plastic surgery. People are trying to eat and stuff like that. So I applied to a couple of jobs. There was no jobs. I take that back. I tried to create a job.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Literally, nobody was hiring. So I said, “I’m going to create a job.” Because I’ve always been a type A personality, I’m going to create something out of nothing. So I applied to a couple of hospitals and people companies. I said, “Hey, I’m a plastic surgeon. I’m well trained. I’m a general surgeon, both board-certified in general surgery, board-certified in plastic surgery. I’m a veteran, a war veteran. I know how to do everything from the street to the war. So can I start a plastic surgery department for you guys? And you don’t even have to pay me. I’ll just kind of create the money for you guys because I had the vision.”

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
So some of them looked at it, invited me for interview and, “Nah, we don’t see it.” People with no vision don’t see how that’s going to happen in this economy. After a while, I even thought about going back into the Navy, because when you’re in the military, you get a guaranteed paycheck regardless of the economy. My wife went, “Nope, you can do it,” so she believed in me. She said, “You can do it.” Then we came to Georgia and we started a practice. As you know, nobody was calling. Sometimes you have to call your own phone just to make sure the phone is working.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s the best tip you gave. That’s the best tip you’ve given any business owner right now is call your own phone number.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yeah. So I’d have to call the office phone number, make sure it’s working. It was just my wife and I. We brought in one more person. And then I remember when the first time somebody called, when I said, “I’m Dr. Okoro. How did you hear about me?” Oh, that’s the patient I saw in the wound clinic. At the hospital, I was in the wound clinic. She goes, “When can we see Dr. Okoro?” She said, “Anytime, the schedule’s wide open.” That was funny.

Adam DeGraide:
These are stories, by the way, for the viewers and watchers, that this is why you tune in to David vs Goliath. Stanley’s all excited. He opens up his first business, person calls wants to book an appointment. This guy is so open, you can pick whatever day, whatever time, whatever hour. Clearly, you’ll be the only patient. I’m sure you learned some pretty valuable lessons with that one.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Oh my God, so those are humble beginnings. Of course, we put everything in it. Everything that came into the practice we put back into the practice. I did not pay myself for at least six months. We were living off of my savings, our life savings. We borrowed money for the practice and that wasn’t enough.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
We had to dig into our savings to pay our employees. There was no money coming in, so those are the investments that we made. And of course, it’s paying back now, but it has been a very interesting, humbling and difficult road. But would I do it again? Absolutely, yes. That’s nothing like when we run a business.

Adam DeGraide:
No doubt about it, man. We’re going to be closing up here soon, but I don’t want to leave without having you part some wisdom. Right now, there’s somebody watching the show that’s either thinking about starting a business, they started a business, they’re struggling, they’re having a lot of stress. What advice do you give an aspiring entrepreneur or a struggling entrepreneur to keep them in it to stay focused?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
I think if you are starting your own business, remember that this is a long game. It’s not a short game. One advice is one, is a long game, not a short game. So it takes time to build that business. So you have to be in it, be present, give it all you got. Number two, I hope your business is there to serve a purpose. If you can find what people want or need, you’re going to create a business. Don’t start a business because you think it’s a good idea, but make sure that you are feeling a need. Many small businesses don’t succeed because they have not figured this out.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Have to have a need out there, fill it, give it all you have. There’s no success without discipline. So it is hard work, but it’s very rewarding. And number three will be, be honest and to serve your customer. Don’t forget who the boss is. Your customer is the boss, not you. You are not the boss. You are literally providing the service for the boss. And if the boss doesn’t like you, they can fire you anytime. And when the boss fires you, the business goes out.

Adam DeGraide:
Don’t forget who the boss is. We’re not in it for the money, but without the money, we’re not in it. Stanley, have you had a good time today on David vs Goliath?

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
The best podcast ever.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s a tongue twister.

Dr. Stanley Okoro:
Yes.

Adam DeGraide:
The best podcast ever. I might actually use that in the trailer, but I think there’s going to be some other things. Dr. Stanley Okoro, thank you so much for joining us. For my watchers and listeners, another amazing episode is in the bag here on David vs Goliath. We’ll see you next week. Have an awesome day.