Answer These 7 Questions to Achieve Explosive Business Growth in 2025

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Have you ever felt like you’re doing everything right, but the results just aren’t there?

You’re probably asking yourself the wrong questions. 

The questions you ask determine the answers you get, and those answers drive your results. So, if you want to grow your business, it starts with learning to ask better questions!In this episode, I share the exact seven questions I ask myself to ensure every year is better than the last. These aren’t just about goals. They’re about clarity, focus, and unlocking hidden opportunities.

If you want to make 2025 your best year yet, answer these seven questions! 

—

Key Takeaways: 

• 00:00 Intro 
• 02:15 Question #1 
• 05:24 Question #2 
• 12:36 Question #3
• 14:20 Question #4 
• 16:54 Question #5 
• 19:13 Question #6 
• 20:47 Question #7 
• 21:37 Call to action 
• 22:47 Outro  

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about my 12-month program.
• Interested in 1-on-1 coaching? Apply here.
• Grab a copy of the "The EntreMD Method" book.

When you are ready to work with us, here are three ways:

• EntreMD Business School Accelerator - If you are looking to make a 180 turnaround in your business in 90 days, this is the program for you.
• EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
• EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

To get on a call with my team to determine your next best step, go here ...

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's wisdom you have because of the experience
you've had.
Now, if you have an experienceand it's not evaluated, it
doesn't translate to wisdom.
But if you stop and youevaluate it, you learn lessons
from it.
It turns to wisdom, and so whatthat means is the thing that
was your disadvantage or thething that was a setback or
whatever, is not as much of asetback anymore because you've
learned so much from it.

(00:20):
What not to do or what to do,hi.
What not to do or what to do,hi docs.
Welcome to the EntreMD podcast,where it's all about helping
amazing physicians just like youembrace entrepreneurship so you
can have the freedom to livelife and practice medicine on
your terms.
I'm your host, dr Imna.
One of the best things you canlearn how to do is to ask better

(00:45):
questions.
The questions you ask determinethe answers you get.
The answers you get determinethe results you get right Based
on what your analysis is, andall of that.
So today we are going to lookat the seven questions you need
to ask yourself before the endof the year.
Now, the time of this recordingis the end of 2024, but really
you can ask these questions atthe end of a year, at the end of
a quarter, at the end of amonth, at the end of a week.

(01:07):
The idea is, the more questionsyou ask, the better questions
you ask, the better thoughts youhave, the better actions you
take, the better results youcreate.
Okay, so this is going to be awhole lot of fun.
Now, this is something that Ilearned how to do a few years
ago and it's something that hascreated really massive
transformation in my business,because I'm very clear on where
I'm trying to go, I'm very clearon what's working, I'm clear on

(01:29):
what's not working.
I'm clear on the things thatget me the biggest results.
I can do more of what works andless of what doesn't.
It's just set me up to do that,and I'm so grateful that, year
over year for the last, I meanlike six years of EntreeMD, all
six years we've had, you know,like growth years, like one

(01:50):
level of growth to the next, andI credit a lot of that to
questions that we ask.
So let's take a look at thesequestions.
Okay, now, this is one of theseepisodes where, if you're
driving or you're taking a walk,that's fine, you know you can
listen through, but you alsowant to come back to it and pull
out a journal and, you know,maybe sit somewhere quiet and
kind of work through thesethings, right, because the more
work you put into it, likepaying attention to think it

(02:12):
through, the more you get out ofit.
Okay, all right.
So first question here is thiswhat are the top seven wins in
my business?
Okay, so, in this time periodso what we're talking about is a
year so in the last year, whatare the top seven wins I've
experienced in my business?
And you may be tempted to saywhat, like?
I've had so many challenges, somany problems.
I'm in the middle of a problemright now and I'll tell you what

(02:34):
I tell every one of my clients.
I say this often, very often inentrepreneur business schools,
so much so that they've adoptedthis line of thinking and that
is that your business is, andwill always be, a construction
site.
There will always be somethingto fix, it will always be noisy
and something will be broken,and they're, you know, team
members wearing, you know, dirtycoveralls because they're
working in it.

(02:54):
There will always be something.
And so the fact that it's aconstruction site doesn't mean
it's not working, it doesn'tmean it's not helping people, it
doesn't mean it's not creatingfinancial freedom.
And you have to be aware Ifyou're waiting for a perfect
business, that's like a box witha pretty bow tied around it.
That's not the way businessworks, especially if you're
trying to grow it Like.
When you grow things, you breakthings.

(03:14):
You know what I mean.
So, anyway, you want to stop andlook.
If you haven't done thisexercise a lot, you may not be
able to find the wins.
You're like Dr Una, I reallydon't see it, and that's okay.
It's a muscle that we build,right.
So here's some of the thingsyou can do Like run month by
month.
What happened, right?
What happened in these months?
You can take your goals for theyear, like these are the things
I wanted for this year.

(03:35):
Which of them have happened?
Which of them has a percentageof it happened, right?
Like.
So you start looking at that.
You can go to your phone andpull out your pictures and you
start looking through them,right?
You find you did this event.
That was amazing.
You find this one time.
You know that you got, you know, 10 new clients.
So this award that you weregiven.
It is so unbelievable, thethings that we can forget.

(03:55):
It is unbelievable, right.
So you want to stop.
And the reason why thisquestion is really important is
because when you look at this,you realize that it's working.
You realize that it's alwaysworking.
You realize that you're muchfurther along than you thought.
One of the things we do in theEntrepreneur Business School is
we have this quarter and reviewhabits that we do right, like.
So you know I've talked aboutthis many times on the podcast

(04:16):
that we live a quarter at a time, and so the beginning of a
quarter we're like happy EBS NewYear.
So we do this four times a yearand we do a review of what
happened in the quarter we justfinished.
And I'm like guys, please, Iknow that it can be terrifying
to do this, but I need you to dothis exercise.
They're like but I don't knowabout the wins, and I'm like
trust me, just do the exerciseand without fail, at least 20%

(04:39):
of the people come back and say,oh, my goodness, I did not
realize how much I had done in aquarter, I didn't realize how
many wins were created in aquarter, I didn't realize how
far I've come, right.
And so you want to take thetime and do this.
It shows you how far you've come.
It shows you that it's working.
It shows you like, oh mygoodness, these are things that
were on my vision board or thatI dreamed of.
Or maybe you from three yearsago would go like I cannot

(05:00):
believe you did this right, Icannot believe you accomplished
this, and so it's really goodand it's a great place to start
because it puts you in theenergy of gratitude and
possibility and it's working andall of this stuff for you to do
the rest of the work that we'regoing to look through.
So that's a place to start.
Don't skip out on it and justmake it a habit.
It's a great muscle to havewhere you can see the things

(05:20):
that are working, because ourminds are designed to see what
is not Okay.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is you want toask this question like what are
the top seven lessons I learned?
Like what did I learn?
And we look at wins and lessons, lessons meaning things that
didn't quite work out.
But okay, they didn't work out.
What did I learn?
What did I learn about what todo, what not to do, what, not to

(05:40):
avoid what, not toprocrastinate on what did I
learn?
And I always say this like weobserve, we don't judge.
So it's not about you looking atyour life oh, my goodness, I
suck, look what I did.
It's about you looking andsaying, oh you know, like wow, I
mean, I guess when you know,when you don't have meetings
with your team members, theyjust don't rise.
I guess, when you decide not tomake sales for three months,

(06:06):
that the next three to sixmonths can be very interesting
and in the worst way possible.
And you start making the likeif I hide from my profit and
loss statement, bad things canhappen, whatever that is, but
what this does is it puts you ina position where you tap into
your wisdom.
Right, there's wisdom you havebecause of the experience you've
had.
Now, if you have an experienceand it's not evaluated, it

(06:27):
doesn't translate to wisdom.
But if you stop and youevaluate it, you learn lessons
from it, it turns to wisdom, andso what that means is the thing
that was your disadvantage, orthe thing that was a setback or
whatever, is not as much of asetback anymore because you've
learned so much from it what notto do or what to do Right, and
so this is a very powerful thing.
What are the, what are the toplessons that you learned?

(06:47):
One of the lessons I learned afew years ago, after, you know,
we had taken now we had taken asecond company to seven figures,
so my private practice and thenEntremd, and I didn't want to
do the work of building the team.
Right, I mean, I had some team,but I knew I needed a more
competent team.
I knew I needed more teammembers and I just didn't want

(07:08):
to do it and I didn't want to beresponsible for the hiring,
building, the culture,onboarding, training, all of
those kinds of what if itdoesn't work, all of those
things.
What happened is the level ofgrowth I wanted to experience.
There was just no way for us todo it.
We simply did not have thebandwidth to do it.
And so one of the big lessons Ilearned was you know, the
people with the companies, withthe best teams win, and the

(07:29):
price for multiplied impact andthe price for more freedom is
huge more team, both in volumeand in quality.
So that was a powerful lessonthat I learned.
And then the following year, Iwent all in on learning how to
do that and I have such aphenomenal team, but that's
because I tapped into my wisdom,right?
Okay, one of the lessons Ilearned this year this year has

(07:51):
been a very good year for me.
It is a year where, as a company, we put so much effort into
serving the clients we have at amuch higher level.
So much, like you know, wechanged our onboarding process.
We really did tweak thecurriculum that we had.
We introduced different kind ofcall types, we went all out

(08:11):
with our events and all of thatlike to serve them at the
highest level.
We worked on our workshops sothis is now to the people
outside of, you know, thegeneral EntreeMD community and
we worked on delivering those atthe highest level.
We worked on our workshops sothis is now to the people
outside of the general EntreeMDcommunity and we worked on
delivering those at the highestlevel.
We even tweaked them,introduced two new workshops,
and that was super powerful.
We see what is happening in theprivate practice space and how

(08:32):
much, how dangerous it is Likefor every private practice that
goes out of business.
You're talking of thousands ofdisplaced patients, right, and
so you know, helping privatepractices thrive.
It's a national thing, likewe're solving a national problem
, and to us we decided we'regoing to take it on.
We know we launched theNational Private Practice

(08:52):
Physicians Day, wrote a book,the Profitable Private Practice
Playbook.
We most recently launched theProfitable Private Practice
Movement.
This is a movement ofphysicians who are like we're
going to defy the odds, we'regoing to build great, profitable
practices and once you haveenough empowered physicians
running private practices, thenwe can go after the system.
We can't go after the systemright now.

(09:13):
We just don't have enough of usto do that.
We did a lot of these things.
There's a lot of work, andsometimes it did feel like a lot
of work but the return oninvestment immediately was not
as big.
But now that we're at the end ofthe year, I see how putting in
that work, putting in the effortcontinue to push against
resistance and all of that doingit over time is so powerful,

(09:37):
because what you go on to createis a tsunami.
And so I cannot tell you howexcited I am about 2025 because
we have laid the foundation tohave, you know, like an
exponentially higher impact,exponentially higher team, the
level of effort put intotraining the team and bringing
other team players on board andall of that stuff.

(09:59):
It's been so good, and so alesson I learned is that great
success takes a while, and so ifyou cannot work against
resistance, if you cannot workwhen you don't see the results
right away, even though you'redoing all the right things, if
you can't continue, thatgreatness will elude you, right?
And so it's like, yeah, if youplant corn, like in a few months

(10:20):
you can have corn, but ifyou're going to plant an orange
tree, you're going to wait.
You know what I mean, and sothat's a powerful lesson that I
learned, and the reason whythat's powerful is because when
that time comes again, you know,next year, chances are we're
not going to be launching awhole lot of new things.
We're going to be optimizingwhat we have because we've laid
this really good foundation.
But the next time I know that,okay, we're going to make

(10:42):
another like quantum leap.
I understand that.
What follows it after that isalmost like chaos.
In a way.
It's almost like chaos Thingsthat work to start breaking, and
you have to rebuild systems,you have to rework your team,
you have to do all of thesethings.
But I'll recognize the patternright, the same as during the

(11:03):
pandemic.
During the pandemic, it's veryinteresting, you know.
When I think about it, I'm likewe launched the Entremet
Business School in 2020, likeright, smack in the middle of
the pandemic and I'm like whatwas I thinking?
I don't know how much I wasthinking, but what was driving
me was the fact that, you know,there was so much uncertainty.
People didn't know what to do.
People had already shut downtheir practice Like, oh, I'll

(11:24):
shut down my practice for threeor four weeks, for this thing to
blow over.
And people were so scared and Iremember just coming and
shouting from the rooftops likewe're going to thrive, like
we're going to be exempt fromthis, we're going to move
forward against the resistance,all of those things.
So the drive was to help, and Ididn't realize that in real time
when I look back this is whygreat questions are important,
right?
So when I look back, I'm likewow, like it was so dark, so

(11:45):
scary.
And here I came and I was likeno, there's a way we can be
exempt from this, we can thrivein the midst of this.
I'm still working on thestrategy, but we are going to
win.
I didn't realize how valuablethat is for you to be the voice
of reason, to be the light whenit's so dark, and so I was like
huh, if there was ever apandemic again, I would hold

(12:06):
nothing back because I recognizethe pattern right.
So this is the reason why andI'm not saying there'll be
another pandemic but wheneverthere's a crisis, for me it's
not a time to run away, it's atime to do the work, find the
answer, find the strategy, showthe people say come on, let's go
, we're not rolling over, we'renot playing dead, we're still
going to win.
Right, like times may get toughto tough, get going.
That's what we do, so anyway.

(12:27):
That's why it's important tolook at those lessons, because
when that shows itself again,you know you're, you're smarter
now, right, okay, so that's thesecond question.
The third question is what aremy top three goals for 2025,
right, so for the next year, ifyou're doing this on a quarterly
basis, for the next quarter,all of that, what are your top
three goals?
And I want to say this herebecause you know I've worked

(12:48):
with thousands of physiciansover the years and a lot of
times they would set goals andthere are no revenue goals and
stuff like that.
Okay, so you can pick whatevergoals you want, but one of them
must be revenue Let me not evensay should must be revenue.
Pick revenue.
You know, pick revenue If youare in your pre-revenue phase.
Pick the size of your emaillist, but pick one of those

(13:09):
numbers, okay, so revenue, oneof them.
But what are your top threegoals?
Think about it and, you know,I'll give you a sub question
under that when you're donewriting.
Whatever those three things aredeciding on them, ask yourself
okay, so let's say it's a year,december 31st, 2025.
If all I accomplished in mybusiness were these three things
, how excited would I be?

(13:31):
On a scale of one to 10?
If it's not a 10, you haven'tactually owned what you really
want, right?
And so you tweak that and tweakthat and tweak that till you
get to a 10, because you knowwhat you really want, right?
And so you tweak that and tweakthat and tweak that till you
get to a 10, because you knowwhat you really want, okay, and
go after it.
And sometimes people are like,but what if I don't get it?
So what?
You don't have it.
Now the thing is decide on whatit is, reverse, engineer it to
see what you need to do, do thatto the best of your capability

(13:52):
and let the chips fall wherethey may, right?
So, anyway, what are my topbusiness goals for 2025?
And you don't want to walk intoa new season not knowing where
you want to go.
Right, you don't know where youwant to go.
You don't know how to get there.
That's like going to a new cityand just waking up in the
morning and driving.
You don't know anywhere, fromanywhere.
You're not really going to goanywhere.

(14:12):
Significant, right, you'regoing to move, you're going to
have a lot of action, butchances are you're not going to
get the result you want.
Okay, so what are they Right?
Question number four this is avery powerful question to ask.
Now, when you have those goalsand you have a revenue goal, the
question you want to ask is therevenue I'm creating in my
business now, where's 80% ofthat revenue coming from?

(14:33):
Okay, where's 80% of therevenue coming from?
Chances are it's only from 20%of the things you're doing, or
one product you're offering, oryou know the specific activity.
Whatever it is, where is thatrevenue coming from?
The reason for that is, ifyou're not aware of the activity
that is driving most of yourrevenue, you can find a shiny

(14:54):
object and get rid of that, andI cannot tell you how many
businesses have crashed that way, because they don't understand
the things that are making thebusiness work and they stop
doing them.
So you want to know what arethe things like, what are the
things that creates 80% of myrevenue?
What are the things I'm doingthat are creating them, so you
can do more of what works andless of what doesn't.
This is a very, very, verypowerful question.

(15:15):
Now, this is, for the most part, is not a I think the answer is
not an, I think kind of answer.
You're actually looking at thedata, right, actually?
So so say, you're a coach andyou're like, oh, you know, like
80% of my clients come when Ihost this monthly masterclass
that I'm doing Okay.
So the question then becomeshow do we optimize that

(15:36):
masterclass?
Do we need to do it morefrequently, say, if you're doing
it once a quarter or twice ayear, do we need to do it more
frequently?
How do we get more people intoit?
Because the more people you getinto it, the more people would
convert.
Do I need to learn to becomebetter at delivering, better at
doing my pitch?
Does my voice change and do Ifeel weird, and all of that when
I make a pitch?
Okay, how do I becomecomfortable with that so you can

(15:57):
optimize and make what isworking better.
Your private practice and you'velooked and you're like most of
my people are coming fromreferral sources and that's
amazing.
Okay, good, of all the referralsources, what are the top three
referral sources?
Right, and so those are thepeople you stay in contact with,
you build relationships with,you take gifts to the office.
You do all of that because 80%of your revenue is coming from

(16:18):
there.
Like, you want to know whatthat is.
This is a powerful, powerfulquestion.
Okay, you must understand it.
So sometimes I would talk topeople and they were trying to
troubleshoot their businessesand they're like you know, my
patient business has stalled andall of those things.
And I started digging and oneof the questions I asked was

(16:40):
okay, so, historically, wherehas 80% of your revenue come
from?
Oh, it's come from referralsources, or it's come from ads,
or it's come from whatever.
Okay, great, so tell me whatyou're doing there now.
Oh, you know what.
We got busy, so I stopped.
I'm like, yeah, that is exactly.
This is not complicated, justreinstall what was working.

(17:04):
Okay, so that's a very powerfulquestion.
Question number five Now,question number five is if I
want the goals, so those topthree goals that I decided for
2025, what is the new 20% I mustembrace?
Now let me explain what I meanby 20%.
Okay, so this is off of thePareto principle that 20% of
your activities create 80% ofyour results, right?
So the more you focus on the20%, the more you can get done
in less time, because the 80%,not only is it only going to
give you 20% of the result, butit also takes four times as much

(17:24):
time right, it was four timesas many activities as your 20%.
So the more you live in the 20%, the more you focus spending
80% of your time on 20%activities, the better.
Everything else is right.
So so the question becomesthese goals that I set it's
wonderful.
Now, so, since I set them, whatare the 20% activities that

(17:45):
create these?
So, for instance, if you'rerunning a business and your big
thing is, we want to crack the$500,000 mark and stuff like
that, or let's even go, let'ssay, a hundred thousand dollar
mark, your 20% activity isselling, selling, selling,
selling, selling, selling,selling, selling and putting
yourself in front of new peopleyou can sell to.
That's it, I mean, that's notit, but those are one and two
for sure.
The closer you get to sevenfigures multiple seven figures

(18:08):
then, yes, you still have tohave the selling done, you still
have to have the brand stuffgoing on.
But team now becomes animportant thing because you're
approaching the end of yourbandwidth.
And a team now becomes animportant thing because you're
approaching the end of yourbandwidth and if you do not
bring team on board, you cannotexpand your impact.
Chances are you get burned out.
Chances are you startsabotaging your own growth
because you know more growthmeans more work, which means
more burnout, right, do you seeit like?

(18:28):
So what is that 20% activity?
What is the thing that you needto focus on?
Maybe you have a business andyou know.
Sometimes you know how to findthe 20%.
It's like what's youropportunity?
That's low hanging opportunity.
That's right there.
And so maybe for you you have agreat business.
You have no referral sources.
It's not something you'velooked at at all, but it's
always, always a game changerfor a business and you're like,

(18:50):
wow, I need to embrace that.
I have some hangups around that.
I need to work through that.
I need to get some wisdom, someknowledge about how to do that,
knowing that when I bring thisin.
It changes my business.
Do you see what I'm saying?
So the 20% puts you in a placewhere you become very strategic,
you become very intentional,you start doing less things, but
with the less things you'redoing, it's like getting more
results.
It is magical.

(19:10):
Your 20% is a magicalneighborhood, okay, so you want
to be there.
Question number six if I wantthose goals, what are the 80%
activities I must get off myplate.
So deciding on the 20% is great, but the 80% we also have to
decide on that.
And so maybe you're spendingway too long on your social
media because you're the onedoing everything and you're
making all the graphics and allof that stuff.

(19:31):
Maybe it's you're spending toomuch time collaborating to get
times on your calendar when youcould get a VA to do that.
Look for those things Like.
What are the things that needto come off my plate?
For many of you, especially forthose of you who are running
homes, you have kids and stufflike that, your 80% may not even
be something in the business.
Your biggest 80% may be thingsat home that you're still doing,

(19:53):
and so you're stretching atwork and you're stretching at
home.
You're doing the laundry,you're doing all the cooking,
You're doing all the cleaning,you're the only one who cares
for the babies and all of thatstuff.
It's time to then say this ispart of my 80%.
I need to get help so I candelegate some of this stuff.
Some of us, we don't even needto get help.

(20:13):
There are people who arebegging to help us, but we have
this complex that we can do itall ourselves, and I just want
to invite you to say yes to thepeople who are offering to help
you anyway.
Right, so what is the 80%?
This is very powerful becausethis is the deal.
The gravitational pull of yourformal self is so strong, is so
strong that if you don't takethe time to think about this and

(20:33):
make decisions, you'll findyourself where you're like me,
2.0 and all of that stuff, andyou show up and you act exactly
the same as you always have,because that's your default.
For you to create a pattern,interrupt, you have to think and
you have to make decisions.
Okay, now the seventh thingsuper powerful is who's my next
critical hire?
Right, like so, this is wheremy business is now.

(20:53):
This is where we're going.
Where we're going, who's thenext person I need to bring on
my team.
Right, who's the next person Ineed to bring on my team to turn
everything around and take usto the next level?
And so that may be a virtualassistant, that may be an
executive assistant, that may bea practice administrator, that
may be a business manager, thatmay be another doctor, whoever
Like.
If I could only hire one personand this hire will help me

(21:17):
accomplish the goals that I'veset for this business If it
could only be one and I knowyou'll be like Dr Una, I need
seven people, I hear you.
But if it could only be one,who is that person?
Right, we want to know who thatis, because that's our domino,
and we want to hire that person,bring them on board and they
will work with us to take thebusiness further and generate
the salary for the next person.

(21:37):
Okay, so these are sevenquestions.
Again, there's no set answer.
You just want to sit andreflect and come with the
answers and you'll find so muchwisdom that you've been walking
around with.
It will help you make verystrategic decisions and you'll
be shocked.
You'll be shocked.
So this is what I want you todo.
I want you to go answer thesequestions and you'll be shocked.
You'll be shocked.
So this is what I want you todo.
I want you to go answer thesequestions and you can literally

(22:00):
get a couple of friends you know, you know physician colleagues
who are physician entrepreneursas well, and you guys can do a
little workshop type session,sit together, answer these
questions, all of that stuff,and I want you to do this.
I want you to think about thebiggest aha, the biggest

(22:21):
takeaway, the discovery you madethat really shocked you, and I
want you to do this.
I want you to think about thebiggest aha, the biggest
takeaway, the discovery you madethat really shocked you, and I
want you to send me a directmessage on Facebook or Instagram
.
I'm Nneka Una Chukwu onFacebook, I'm Dr Una Chukwu on
Instagram and you can find me.
I'm Nneka Una Chukwu onLinkedIn.
So whichever one you like andjust say Dr Una.
I listened to this episode ofthe podcast seven questions to
ask before the end of 2024.
And, oh my goodness, Idiscovered this.
Okay, so send that to me,because I want to celebrate it

(22:41):
with you and say oh my goodness,this is amazing.
2025 is going to be ourabsolute best year yet, and you
have set the stage for that tohappen.
Okay, so go, do this with yourfriends.
Come up with your biggesttakeaway, share it with me, and
I am telling you, just doingthis will give you so much
clarity, so much wisdom, so manystrategies what you need to

(23:02):
make this next 12 months yourbest 12 months.
So I'm rooting for you alwaysand I'll see you on the next
episode of the Entree of thePodcast.