Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Hal Hargrave, founder, and CEO of The Perfect Step, located in Pomona, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

TPS treats hundreds of clients every year and has trainers with thousands of hours of experience to show for it. TPS treats clients who suffer from spinal cord injury, stroke, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, ALS, and PLS. Our approach toward exercise-based therapy leaves individuals who have paralysis in a better position to succeed and regain self-identity, self-confidence, and independence through intense training.

The Perfect Step exists to provide an improved quality of life to people with paralysis through intense exercised-based recovery programs, education, research, and development. The Perfect Step believes that "Exercise is Medicine," and the best form of medicine that any doctor can prescribe is a healthy, active, and fit lifestyle based on exercise. The Perfect Step understands that every client has special needs. Therefore, we offer several programs to best meet those needs and optimize our client's chances of recovery. Clients have the option to visit one of our locations or participate in a home recovery program. The Perfect Step helps give people with paralysis further their independence, hope, and dreams that were lost because of this devastating reality.

Tell us about yourself

I'm the owner and founder of The Perfect Step Paralysis Recovery Centers in Pomona, CA. I serve as the Facilities Director and am a member of the facility’s Board of Directors. In 2007, I sustained a severe spinal cord injury in an auto accident. Since then, I have committed my life to understanding my injury's complexities and constantly striving to find the best possible solution for neurological rehabilitation post-injury.

The Perfect Step is a state-of-the-art, 7,000 square-foot facility designed exclusively to treat spinal cord and other neurologic injuries & conditions. Our facility treats nearly 100 clients per week (over 900 client hours per month) in our flagship location. In collaboration with my innovative and highly trained staff of 15, I have pioneered a unique approach toward neurological rehabilitation recovery and produced results that are nothing short of amazing. The sad truth is that a significant percentage of spinal cord injury patients are told by their primary physicians or neurologists that they will never walk again. Nonetheless, since its inception, the innovative therapy protocols implemented at The Perfect Step have seen 80% of its clients regain function below the level of their injury, and of our roughly 400 clients since opening, approximately 75 of them have taken steps!

To drive our results, we have launched a world-class training and certification program specific to our focus. My senior staff and I have authored more than 1000 pages of training and operating manuals, lectures, seminars, presentations, coursework, and both written practical exams.

I am co-responsible for the manifestation of a world-class methodology, The “S.T.E.P. Method,” a groundbreaking methodology comprised of unique-minded practical applications, quantitative evaluation, and non-cookie cutter approaches. This unique approach has changed the minds of many longstanding practitioners in the field and created tangible outcomes in the lives of those living with neurological injuries and disorders.

My educational background is in Leadership and Management, and Speech Communication.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I would say my greatest accomplishment as a business owner is a fact that I feel as if I am involved as a business owner on the day-to-day operations of my business with my staff. Collectively, we have been able to develop a world-class training and certification program that is starting to hold national prominence for how we are viewed, looked at, and reviewed as people of immense knowledge and education in the field of paralysis recovery. Together we have developed a comprehensive curriculum program inclusive of multi-tiered levels of certification, 800 pages worth of training and operating manuals, tests, lectures, seminars, and more. This was nearly a four-year project that culminated and was even developed into a fully comprehensive digital offering as well.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

One of the more difficult things that I've had to navigate as a young manager and owner has been figuring out what my values, ethics, and intention is as a manager. I've had to navigate the understanding that it's more important to be respected as opposed to just seeking to be loved. I've come to understand that those who respect me will love me for who I am regardless. What's more is to work alongside people I consider friends and family, trying to determine where the line is drawn and how I treat and approach everybody fairly.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. As opposed to only giving feedback to others, seek feedback. Not just from your employees but also from your client. We are all so fearful of what others might have to say about us that we often avoid this topic because we want to assume that everything we are doing is out of good intentions and moving the company forward as it should be. However, the more information that we gather, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent, can be valuable information for us to reframe our approach, mindset, and our direction to get our company where it needs to be quicker and more efficiently.
  2. Seek an understanding of what it means to you to treat your employees fairly. My understanding of fair treatment does not mean that everybody gets treated the same. Everybody gets treated according to what they are putting into the business and the team in the form of their efforts, consideration, and pursuit to want to be more. Ultimately, those are the individuals that I reward. This does not need to be rewards based on title or tenure with the company. Anybody can be a leader, and anybody can deserve that type of treatment regardless of how long they have been with the company and what their role is in the company. Ultimately, what an employee puts in, they will get out in the form of opportunities and responsibility.
  3. Don't be everything to everybody. There's a sense in our world that the idea of "boutique" is very few and far between nowadays. Everybody wants to offer everything and do everything to create new and more revenue streams. This is not to say that we should not be creative beings, but we should find ways to create more revenues with what we know best and what we are good at rather than trying to provide every product and service offering possible to make our revenues more robust. Look at Amazon. They offer everything to everybody. This is not to say that this is not the right way to do business or will not create larger bottom-line revenues. However, I have found that the more meaningful and purposeful work derives from finding a problem in our local communities and doing our best to solve that problem through innovation, creativity, and an investment into your team as opposed to things.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Modern-day marketing has turned into messaging. How do you want to be perceived? Ultimately, people are not necessarily interested in what you are selling; they are more interested in you. This is mainly true for the service-based industry, where we have direct contact with our customers and clients. People will buy into your intent and who you are before anything else. Thus, you need to create a story around what that intent is.

Messaging has to do with storytelling. What is the story that ultimately needs to be told that will send an appropriate message to the masses of who you are as a company, what your intent is, and what problem you are trying to solve. Most importantly, answer the question of how they can benefit from the problem that you are solving. Make sure you can find the best person to tell your story, and the rest will take care of itself.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://theperfectstep.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theperfectstep
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_perfectstep/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-perfect-step/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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