Naomi and Jim Rhode-

Published on September 2, 2003

Naomi and Jim Rhode- Founders- SmartHealth, Inc.

Just like HP and other well documented success stories, SmartHealth, Inc. started in business over 30 years ago in the garage of its founders, Naomi and Jim Rhode. Today, it is a bustling concern grossing over $80 million and taking up thousands of square feet in several buildings. SmartHealth, Inc. started out with a targeted niche in dentistry. Its specialty was practice management and patient communications. Today, they have taken that same core business and applied it to vertical markets including realtors, chiropractors and other professionals.

Naomi and Jim are marketing and leadership experts who speak to thousands of people annually. During a recent trip of mine to Phoenix, Jim invited me to take a tour of his facilities. Several things Jim spoke about stood out as common but critical principles on how they have built this business.

The first thing I noticed was they bought their own printing presses and brought the capability to print most of their marketing materials and products in house. Looking at the huge commercial presses run, Jim mentioned that 50% of the press volume is used solely on their own marketing materials.

Selling the deal should take up at least half the amount of time you have in a given day. If you are not selling at least 50% of your time, you probably are not meeting your numbers. If you are spending a great deal of time fulfilling orders and only a little time selling, you will wind up with a drastic reduction in revenue once those orders have been filled.

In watching Jim walk around the buildings, he knew every employee and exactly what they did. He would shake their hand with a smile, and ask them what they were working on. Within seconds, he knew if the company’s resources were being used properly or wasted. You can’t do this if you do don’t fully understand your business. Jim knows everything works within a system. If you follow the right system, success is just around the corner. If you follow the wrong system or no system at all, you will keep waiting for success to arrive.

Ultimately, Jim and Naomi are specialists in keeping their most treasured resource, their employees, fully motivated and highly productive. During this tour, several managers told Jim how they really liked Naomi’s talk on leadership earlier that week. If only one person says it, you believe it. If several people say it, you really FEEL the impact Naomi had on the troops.

Thank you Jim and Naomi Rhode, our Titan Profiles of the month, for showing us how to build a world class business.
(To see if you any of their products will help your marketing efforts, please to visit them at www.smartpractice.com )

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