IAM530- Podcast Host Provides Healthcare to Children With Special Needs

Dr. Cortney Baker is an award-winning entrepreneur, podcast host, researcher, author, TEDx speaker, and a nationally recognized authority on women’s leadership. Her experience founding and growing KidsCare, a multi-million dollar enterprise that has provided healthcare to over 50,000 children with special needs from Texas to Colorado, offers her the unique opportunity to leverage her depth of expertise to help women who are in positions similar to the one she was in 15 years ago. In her work, Cortney helps side hustlers transition to CEO of their business, something many of them find very scary.

• CEO Hack:  Traction – Entrepreneur Operating System to create that team
• CEO Nugget: Success is not final, failure is not fatal – it's the courage that counts
• CEO Defined: Owning and operating a business by setting up a team to make it happen

Website: http://cortneybaker.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcortneybaker/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cortneyabaker
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cortneybaker/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/drcortneybaker/

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Cortney Baker of Kids Home Health Care. Dr. Cortney, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Cortney Baker 0:39

Hey, it's good to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Yeah, definitely super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about Dr. Cortney so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Dr. Cortney is an award-winning entrepreneur, podcast host, researcher, author, TEDx speaker, and a nationally recognized authority on women’s leadership.

Her experience founding and growing KidsCare, a multi-million dollar enterprise that has provided healthcare to over 50,000 children with special needs from Texas to Colorado, offers her the unique opportunity to leverage her depth of expertise to help women who are in positions similar to the one she was in 15 years ago. In her work, Cortney helps side hustlers transition to CEO of their business, something many of them find very scary. Dr. Courtney, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Dr. Cortney Baker 1:27

I am.

Gresham Harkless 1:28

Awesome. Let's do it. I wanted to kick everything off and just hear a little bit more about your story, your CEO story, and what led you to get started with your business.

Dr. Cortney Baker 1:36

So I started my adult journey as a single teenage mom and I was on Medicaid and food stamps. Fast forward, put myself through college. Then got out into the working world and realised pretty quickly at the age of 28 when I knew everything that I did not want to be an undervalued employee for the rest of my life. I decided that I was going to do it myself and started a business and 2003 so what was right after September 11, when the economy was in the toilet, my newly married husband, my husband and I had just gotten pregnant, and he was laid off. I mean, all the things were stacked against us.

It was the worst time to start a business. But it just amazingly worked out 16 years now, and we are all over Texas, and Colorado, and we just branched into Idaho. It has been an amazing ride, we have about 650 employees. Then in 2012, I transitioned out of the daily operations, to fulfill a lifelong dream that I'd had since being a single teenage mom, and decided to go get my doctorate degree in leadership. Now I work to decrease the gender gap at the highest levels of leadership for women, and by helping women start and scale their own service-based businesses.

Gresham Harkless 3:23

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that I always love to hear stories about how people are able to reach a level of success. Then not just say I'm comfortable here, but to go back and reinvest in the community and the people, and I'm sure there are best African people probably that have helped you out as well, too. So to also be that person that the women can also look to say, hey, you're inspiring me, but you're also providing me a lot of tools to be successful, which I think is phenomenal.

Dr. Cortney Baker 3:48

Thank you. Yeah, and honestly, when I started my business, starting a company wasn't something that was like everyone was doing. I mean, it was, gosh, I don't even know if Google was really a big deal. So to be the resource to people that I never had is so key to me. According to research, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality at sea level and that's not good enough for me. I've got two little girls who are 16 and 12. I thought what am I doing to make the future better for them? So that's really my why.

Gresham Harkless 4:37

Yeah, I love that because a lot of it comes back to legacy and sometimes in the day-to-day of running a business especially, you know, we can forget the why of why we're doing everything that we're doing. And I think that you know, that making the world a better place for everybody for your daughters for everybody else was definitely a phenomenal thing. I know you touched on it a little bit, but I want to drill down a little bit deeper. Can you tell us some of the things that you're doing to kind of help out when I'm in leadership and some of the different initiatives and programs you have going on?

Dr. Cortney Baker 5:03

Sure I have a, I offer private coaching. I also have a course an online course called From Side Hustle to CEO and it launches in February. For the second time, it's been out and been available. But it's an online course that tells the basics of starting a business, getting your LLC, making sure the company name that you are looking at having is not trademarked, just the things that foundationally you need to do before you set up a business. But it also talks about marketing and sales and building a team. I mean, it's pretty robust, but it's not overwhelming. It's only five modules.

Gresham Harkless 5:55

Okay, that's awesome. I know that you mentioned that creating that resource. That's what I love about entrepreneurship a lot of times we see like there's a gap, or there's something that's not being fulfilled or fulfilled to the level we think it should. Rather than just sit on the sidelines and say, hey, somebody should create it, you actually go back and create it yourself. So I think that's pretty cool. In your podcasts also focus on that as well, too. Am I correct?

Dr. Cortney Baker 6:17

Yeah. So women in business are also inspirational stories for women entrepreneurs is the second part of it. But on Mondays, I do interviews, and then on Thursdays, there are business tips, advice, and strategies for starting and scaling a business.

Gresham Harkless 6:37

Awesome. Yeah, you definitely need all those resources. Because I know that anytime you're starting a business especially I can say that, as well, too, is that it's just like a fire hose. Because there are so many things coming at you. You don't know what to do, what not to do, what to use, what not to use. So it's great to have resources like podcasts, but also courses, especially so you know, like, Okay, what is an LLC first of all, and let me figure out how best to incorporate my business? How do I let people know about all the awesome stuff I'm working on and to get that kind of step-by-step process outside of time?

Dr. Cortney Baker 7:09

Yeah. To have guidance from someone who's been there and also tell you in the no fluff, no BS, like, here's what it is cut to the chase, let's get it up and that's what I'm all about.

Gresham Harkless 7:27

Absolutely. Yeah. I think a lot of times I'm glad you talked about somebody that had been there before. Because I think sometimes we don't realize something that's possible until we see somebody do it or hear that somebody's done it. So that empowers us and gives us permission to be bold to go and do the things that everybody else might not want us to do, but that we are sometimes called to do.

Dr. Cortney Baker 7:48

Yeah, absolutely and that's the thing, like when I like I said, when I started my business, it wasn't super popular or sexy to be an entrepreneur, everybody was like, What do you think you are pregnant, you're newly married, like all these things. But I just knew that I was not going to Job hop for the rest of my life, until I hopefully found somewhere that treated me, right. I thought if I could create a business in this niche because I feel like I knew I had a niche in providing home health to kids, then I knew if I could be the employer that I wanted to be, the success would follow.

Gresham Harkless 8:32

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So it's important to remind ourselves a lot of times we have to create the world, we want to see just sometimes within our homes, and once we are able to do that, then it starts to create that energy where it starts to magnify, not just our homes, but also everybody else's homes and it just starts to create that effect from there. I wanted to ask you for something I call your secret sauce and it could be for you, personally, or it could also be for KinderCare definition initiatives that you have, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Dr. Cortney Baker 9:06

Well, for KidsCare, I have made sure that I have supported the team that we've built because it still operates I'm still CEO and chairman of the board, but I'm not in the daily operations. So KidsCare is actually set up to run without me. Then my secret sauce for my, from side hustle to CEO is I make sure that I call it like it is and have a strategy to help the women that I'm helping that is really going to focus on profits and not if people are popular, I mean a lot of the coaches now talk about build your following and, and I think that's a vanity metric that is that is fluff. I want if it's not good for your bank account, we don't need to focus on it.

Gresham Harkless 10:04

Awesome. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Dr. Cortney Baker 10:16

My CEO hack is too, for a book or attraction. The attraction is it's an entrepreneur operating system is EOS. It helps you determine who operates and what setting in your business, but also helps you capitalize on their strengths, and really create that team and move forward.

Gresham Harkless 10:50

Awesome. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This could be around women leadership, but what's like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice you would give for our listeners and readers or something you might even tell your younger business self?

Dr. Cortney Baker 11:02

There's a quote, and I'm trying to remember who said it. I think it's Winston Churchill. But it Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It's the courage to continue that count.

Gresham Harkless 11:18

Yeah, absolutely. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on this show. So Dr. Courtney, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dr. Cortney Baker 11:31

I think being a CEO is being able to own and operate a business by setting up a team to make it happen. Yeah, because you're but anyone can be a CEO, it doesn't mean that you have to have this massive team. But I think also having all the different pieces of what it takes the finance, the marketing, the sales, all the different pieces of operating a business, being able to do them well through other people.

Gresham Harkless 12:14

I love that and I love that perspective. Related to your courses, as we talked about is that a lot of times, when you first get started, you don't see all those different pieces. But once you're able to see those pieces and see how the puzzle can go together, as you said you can have a big team, you can have a small team, but just understanding that you still have pieces and how they need to go together in order to create that that vision and that mission and that goal that you want to hit.

Dr. Cortney Baker 12:38

Yeah

Gresham Harkless 12:39

Awesome. So, Dr. Cortney I truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Dr. Cortney Baker 12:55

Yeah, I mean, your journey is in your own hands. You really can achieve anything that you want. If I can go from a struggling single teenage mom to Texas Businesswoman of the Year, have my doctorate, and have a team of 650 people, anybody can do it. But wasn't special. It wasn't like I was unique or had this. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Anybody can do it. It's having the grit and the belief in yourself that you can do it and be committed when times get hard. You can find me at cortneybaker.com. My name doesn't have a U in it. So just cortneybaker.com and you can look up from sidehustletoceo.com. Or if you're more interested in the KidsCare route, then kidscarehomehealth.com.

Gresham Harkless 13:54

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, we will make sure to have those links in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you as well and see all the awesome things you're working on and of course, subscribe to the podcast. Thank you so much again and thank you, especially for the reminder that we do have it within us and a lot of times we just have to remind ourselves that it will be difficult but as your husband said as well. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So that's what we need to remind ourselves of.

Dr. Cortney Baker 14:20

Absolutely

Gresham Harkless 14:21

Awesome and have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 14:24

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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