Treat Your Business

115 Taking Control of Your Clinic’s Operations with Janice Cook

• Katie Bell / Janice Cook • Season 1 • Episode 115

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Welcome, fabulous listeners! If you’re a clinic owner feeling overwhelmed by juggling multiple responsibilities, this episode is a must-listen. Today, I’m joined by Janice Cook, an operational systems specialist who helps clinic owners streamline their processes, track key metrics, and regain control of their business.

Episode Summary

As clinic owners grow their businesses, taking on more team members, adding services, and expanding locations, many find themselves drowning in operational chaos. Janice explains how having the right systems in place can remove stress, save time, and improve profitability. She introduces her Fractional Operations Manager service, a flexible solution designed to help clinic owners implement systems, track key metrics, and make informed decisions.

Key Takeaways

✅ Define ‘Good’ – Establish clear, measurable targets for key business metrics like patient visit averages (PVA), occupancy rates, and revenue goals.
✅ Engage with Your Metrics – Don’t just collect data, use it! Regularly review your numbers to make informed business decisions.
✅ Outsource Operations – If systems and processes aren’t your strength, delegate them to a professional like Janice, so you can focus on growing your clinic.
✅ Stop Bottlenecking Growth – Many clinic owners unknowingly hold their businesses back by trying to do everything themselves. Having clear systems in place allows for better delegation and leadership.
✅ Prepare for the Future – Whether you plan to scale, step back, or exit your business, having strong operational foundations will make the transition smoother.

Resources & Connect with Janice Cook

📩 Email: janice@janicecook.co.uk
🌍 Website: www.janicecook.co.uk
📱 Follow Janice on Social Media: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

If you’re feeling stretched too thin and need help organising your clinic’s operations, reach o

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Katie Bell: [00:00:00] Hello, my fabulous listeners, welcome to the treat your business podcast. If you are very new here, this is your first episode. Then you have chosen a pretty juicy one to dive into. If you are a clinic owner who is in a position where you are growing your business, you may be taking on some more people, looking to take on some more people.

Might have two or three treatment rooms, maybe multiple services. And you just feel like you are spinning a million plates, juggling all the balls. And you don't drop one, so you work in extra hours, you are thinking about it at night time, at weekends, first thing in the morning, you've got a to do list that never ever gets done, and you know that there's loads of things that you should be doing in your business, because you've listened to this podcast before, or perhaps you've read my book, and there's all these metrics that you should be reporting on.

But you just feel in a state of overwhelm, then this episode is for you. I am really excited to welcome, today's guest onto the podcast. She is here to [00:01:00] share with us how, we can take this overwhelm away from you. How you can create more space in your head to do the things that you are actually really good at doing or that you really want to do.

rather than get wrapped up and overwhelmed in all of that massive to do list. So without further ado, please listen up because this is going to change your life to Janice.

Welcome to the Treat Your Business Podcast with Katie Bell. I am Katie, and this is the place to learn the strategies, tactics, tools, and mindset needed to build your clinic or studio into a business that gives you the time, money, energy, and fulfillment you want and deserve. My team and I work every day with overwhelmed with excitement.

Sources, clinic owners like you to shift them from a business that is a huge time and energy drain and is not giving them the income they want to Confident clinic owners that are making money, saving money, and getting time back in their lives. So if this sounds like something you want, let's dive in.

Hello, Janice. Welcome to the [00:02:00] Treat Your Business podcast. 

Janice Cook: thank you for having me, Katie. It's good to see you. 

Katie Bell: It's great to see you. Janice, I'm really excited about this because I know what we're going to talk about, obviously. And I'm very excited about something that you are here to talk about. We're going to get onto that you can potentially offer our listeners, which I think is going to change some people's lives.

If they are prepared to take this step. But Janice, for our listeners, tell them who you are, how like on we worked together before, but tell them who you are and who, what you do, who you help. 

Janice Cook: Okay. So I'm Janice Cook. I'm operational systems specialist. I'm not really a label person, but that's the closest thing I can come up with.

I tend to work with clinic owners who have. Maybe multiple rooms, multiple locations, multi discipline, several therapists. They've got a lot of moving parts. And they're looking for some support to [00:03:00] coordinate all that stuff that's going on. As the name suggests, I look at the operational systems end to end, just from the whole customer journey point of view, the running the business across that point of view.

What are the operational systems that just make it all tick and what does that mean? What problem do I actually solve? What do I help with? And it's basically the how to. So clinic owners might come to see your, this to your podcast or come to your business coaching and you'll say so what's your PVA tracking out?

What's your profitability? And they'll go, oh yeah. And then go, how in the, what's that? It's that, how, it's that. Technical systems processes bit of how you actually track and pull together all those operational systems. So it's what has to be done, who has to do it, when do they [00:04:00] do it? And then most importantly, why, how is that supporting the business?

Because if it's not supporting the business strategy, there's no point in doing it. Yeah. It's looking at all those jigsaw pieces, creating new pieces if there's needed, and putting it all together to make a complete picture. So that's the sort of end to end operational systems that I look after.

Katie Bell: So how I hear this, Janice, is like, all the things that you think you should be tracking in your business, That we talk about on the podcast. It's in the book of all these measurables. And then you think, yeah, I must be doing that. I definitely should be doing that. And then you go and you look at your system, whether you're using Jane, Clinico, MuCalm, PowerDiary TeamUp, all of the the great software out there.

And some of them do some of it, and some of them don't do some of it, and some of them don't talk to each other. And then you end up just being in this place of, I know I should be tracking this, but I've got no idea how to make everything talk 

to each [00:05:00] other. 

Janice Cook: Exactly, and it's not just about talking to each other.

You might be simpler than that. You might just have, say, Jane, or you just have Clinico. And, yes, there might be, A report that tells you that but it's not until you run that report with that report at this time in the month that they all work together that it gives you the answer that you want.

So it's just about pairing which jigsaw piece connects with another and it's that. That how to do that is not always obvious, it really isn't, it's not and you might walk away from reading the book or whatever because it talks about things in that, high level way and they can see the value in it, but the actual mechanics of how to do it you need to be a systems analyst, you need to be a technical guru you need to know this software inside out and back to front who's got time to do that, 

Katie Bell: nobody. 

I [00:06:00] can promise you there is not one listener that is going, Oh, that sounds right up my street. I've got all the time in the world to go and dive into the, I was going to say the back end. That sounds so awful. The back end of Jane or the systems. That sounds awful. But that's the point, isn't it?

That we haven't got the time and it isn't our zone of genius. 

Janice Cook: No, exactly. Exactly. And that's the thing about, Operations is not for everybody. It doesn't float everybody's boat. And basically, if you can, stay in your happy lane. And this is my happy lane. And let's get all lanes going in parallel is, what I'm offering.

Katie Bell: Janice, we I was recommended to you by actually one of Our Thrive clients originally a few years ago, and I, so to give people an example of what you've been able to do in my clinic, we have, [00:07:00] we use Jane and we were needing to report better on patient value average and follow up rates, et cetera, within all team members across.

All the months and, there, there is an element of the system that doesn't deliver the information that I need when I need it to be delivered. So you came along and you have built this PVA tool for want of a better word, haven't you? And just tell the listeners, because I don't even have to get involved with it.

I've got my team sorted. It's fabulous. 

Janice Cook: So a lot of the tools, jane, Clinico, TMP, they'll all have somewhere. Oh, I'm showing you the PVA for your practitioner. Now, each one will define that a little bit differently, but it's essentially the patient visit average. How many appointments does somebody coming through the door tend to have in their treatment for this time?

Generally speaking, so just to set the ground rules, that's what it is. And some of [00:08:00] the tools will have sort of a performance dashboard and they'll show What that is for a particular practitioner and let's say it's only Jane does that say and it say for one your PVA For this time period is 3. 4. 

Okay.

Yep. 

Great. What do I do about it? Yeah, what should it be? And if I want to increase it, how do I do that kind of thing? So yes, that's a number and Jane will show it to you So it's about make sure people get Rebooked in. So there'll be an unscheduled report that you can go and look at. How do you put the numbers that are on that unscheduled report or the people in that associated with increasing that person's PVA?

So what we do in that example of that tool is we take the Jane reports of appointments. We take the Jane report of initials [00:09:00] and we combine them together to give a picture. over from 12 weeks from when they had their initial or however long you want to define your PVA and say how many appointments have they had and with who have they had them?

And lo and behold, you can calculate the patient visit average. What is the average number of treatments a patient has from an initial from a therapist for a period of time? And from that, you can actually see the individuals who Maybe don't have any appointments booked in or have less than you would want to have booked in And this is something I've gone to a defining good and then therefore you've got an actionable list by someone to call up that patient and see if they should be having more treatments and then that comes back to Marrying that with another process, which is your patient recalls.

So from a [00:10:00] patient point of view, you don't want a call in the morning from the admin team saying, Oh, we've got this outstanding invoice for you, would you mind settling it? And then two hours later, a call from a therapist going, Oh, you've not been booked in for this. And then a call from the studio.

And going, Oh, do you want to come on our next Pilates course? So all those three processes are essential processes in your business to make sure the customer is looked after. But you need a process that combines those together so that the customer gets one call. And says, Oh how about we'll look at your recalls for your therapy treatment, by the way, while you're on, do you want to book on to the next Pilates course?

And, oh, by the way, there's this other invoice, just so could we just settle that while we're on? And that's about bringing all your processes together. And that's that end to end view that I prattled on about earlier. So it's taking that one example that we talked about of building one [00:11:00] tool. And that's a tool.

And then the process around that is who looks at that tool. And then they feed the results into the other process, which is the patient recall process. And then you get a customer centric process that they get on phone call. That's taking one example of a tool and putting it into that end to end process, that jigsaw pieces of a picture.

Ideally, all your operation systems fit together too. 

Katie Bell: And Janice, you said we need to define what's good. So in my clinic, the reason that you said we track within 12 weeks is because we have a specific standard that we expect a client to be seen five times within a 12 week period. And we have decided as a team that is what we think on average.

Sometimes it'll be lower, sometimes it'll be higher. On average, we think of all the different conditions and things that we see on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis in the clinic, and we can, [00:12:00] we consider soft tissue healing times and we consider evidence and science and. And, how people get the best results and how we can facilitate that as clinicians.

We decided as a team, it was a minimum of five in, in, 12 weeks. So that's why you've been able to build us a system, a process, a tool that shows me that information. So if it's. over 12 weeks. If I'm, seeing we've got an average of three in 12 weeks. It's are they booked in beyond that?

Why are we not, why are we not shortening their treatment time? Why? Nobody wants to wait to get better. People want to get better in the quickest possible timescale. And that's what your tool has allowed us to do is we've got to define. What the standard is, what the expectation is to be able to track what's good and bad.

Janice Cook: Exactly. And that's where you get the hook between the strategy and the operational systems. Yes, you as your clinic owner do all that really good analysis [00:13:00] of what do we think is the best customer outcome? And when we think it's five. Yeah. That's two good facts. So we build that into the tool to say, that's all good points.

So it can measure. And then the key point about your operational systems is you need to engage with them to see what are the results? So that you can look at that and go I'm actually only getting three over 12 weeks. Why is that? If I extend to 16, do I get to five? So why is that? Yeah.

Or if I'm not getting five in 12, is it because I'm not offering a different service? Do I need to introduce a new service? So this is the bridge between the operations and the business owner and the strategy. And. The tools really need to have that definition of what is good, but, [00:14:00] and that constant review and engagement with the metrics that it's measuring to say what do I need to change to make it different?

Katie Bell: And you said at the beginning, Janice, that you tend to work with people that might have multiple premises, multiple locations multidisciplinary, multiple services, multiple team. Not always, because people that are running a two or three clinic treatment room with one or two numbers of staff, there's still, there is still a argument to have these things in.

It just doesn't have to have the complexity that some of maybe ours would have. But, as we grow to having multiple members of team and you're now stepping into that leadership role, the worst thing about going into a meeting where ultimately you really just want to bollock the therapist that's in front of you and say, why are you not seeing them as many times as you should do?

I've told you this a million times. What you can do with this is go, this is the data. 

Janice Cook: [00:15:00] Absolutely. 

Katie Bell: This is what the data is showing me, here is the evidence, help me understand why you are not hitting the company standard of 5 within 12 weeks. Let them tell you. What support do you think you need from me?

to enable us to serve the clients in the best possible way. And I would always say and meet and align with our values, which is delivering exceptional standards of treatment. So you're not aligning the values, you're not meeting expectations. The data proves that. And then let's have another meeting in a month.

And with your data, I can say we've had an improvement of one. Exactly. In the patient visit average. Great. How do we now make that two? So we're up to five. 

Janice Cook: Exactly. And it's those conversations that for many business owners, they don't want to have those conversations. It's too stressful. They're getting up in the morning, making their cup of tea, trying to take the kids to school.

And they're worrying about how am I going to say to Fred that actually [00:16:00] and it's, not human nature for a lot of people to want to have those conversations. Whereas if you've got the report, the data. In a way where you can just open it and go, can we just talk through these numbers?

And all of a sudden it becomes a meeting that's just going to happen through the day. It's not something that's occupying your brain when actually you want to be, dropping the kids off at school or going to Sainsbury's. 

Katie Bell: Absolutely. And the numbers don't lie. Data doesn't lie. And being prepared as a leader with that evidence.

It's going to mean that we are approaching this more as a business owner rather than as a friend or a fellow clinician or a fellow therapist going, Oh I've noticed that you're not getting the minutes. Many people rebooked him. I've noticed that your diary is a little bit quieter. What does that mean?

It should be. Our clinic standard is 85 percent occupancy. You're working at [00:17:00] 62%. Patient visit average is 2. It was meant to be 5. Yeah. Explain. Help people understand why that's happening. Makes those conversations, Janice, so much better. 

Janice Cook: It does. It does. It makes them easier and less stressful. And then if you get down to a point where, It might be that actually, we've done this now for three months.

We it's not, improving maybe we need to, or so it helps that, which can be a very difficult conversation, but equally it can be the, actually, what I was thinking about in Sainsbury's this morning was I could really do be taking a holiday. And actually, do you know, you've really improved now in those three months.

So you can take the reins for the next two weeks and I'm going off on holiday. Do you know what I mean? It works both ways. 

Katie Bell: Absolutely. And, interesting, just something came into my head then, Janice, when you were saying that about, performance management. Because we are hearing that we are going to [00:18:00] have some changes to our employment rights the legalities of employing people.

And one of the things that they're talking about is that the probationary period is going to go. And so people will have full employment rights from the date that you employ them. So we've had this kind of two years. It's protected, whatever it is, that they don't have full employment rights, which ultimately means you can basically walk somebody out the door without much complexity.

You should just do it in a professional way. And I was having a conversation with somebody at Christmas around this. God how wild am I, Janince, is talking about employment and stuff. But they were saying I think it's ridiculous. It's just another thing that's taken away from the employer.

It's just another thing that doesn't back us up. And I said, or we could look at it in a different way, in that if they have full employment rights from day one the business owner from day one has to be managing, leading, holding them accountable, and performance managing them [00:19:00] from the very first day they arrive at your company.

And with that, Janice, we are going to need more data. We are going to need more measurables and more metrics. To have evidence to support being able to get rid of somebody when they are not performing without the whole complexity, because now they're entitled to everything from day one. 

Janice Cook: Yeah. 

Katie Bell: So actually, if we just look at this from a legal point of view and a HR point of view, I think this is a great opportunity for business owners to stop being so fluffy, stop being so unclear about what our expectations are of our employees.

And use you and systems and tools that you can provide to, to give you that data. And then it's I can now eat rest and not panic that if this is not 

working, I have evidence to prove it. 

Janice Cook: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, the point hopefully before that, [00:20:00] is If they come along and say I've worked here for now six months or a year, it's time for my pay review.

I'm due a pay rise, aren't I? Yes. And again, we'll go let's just look at your utilisation for the last 12 months. Let's, just look at your PVA for the last 12 months. All those measures of good, have you hit them? And it's such a good point that yeah, and then the flip side of that is that prior to that, you can say when we get to your annual pay review, which is on that date, you need to be hitting our good, which is why it's so important to find your good.

Yeah. Consistently for the four months, six months before that, or after a probationary period kind of thing. So again, that's another conversation that the business owners are going to be like, Oh God, I've got somebody's pay review coming up. Really? Just, and again, it's just there in black [00:21:00] and white and because you have defined good and you know that aligns with your goals and your strategy, everything is fitting together.

Yeah. And you then get that. Karma, less anxiety feeling about going into those discussions because it's got all those foundations of Absolutely. behind it. 

Katie Bell: This is such a powerful conversation for people Janice. So here's what we see is we've got the clinic owner. They have started to grow their business.

They've got more team. They might have another premises or they might have got more treatment rooms. We've added some services in. The clinic owner. In the large at this level, I think why your, new service I'm so excited about is going to really support people is for me, it's that clinic owner that is, I'm still clinical, but now I've got more team, I've got more problems, I've got more challenges, I've got cashflow [00:22:00] issues.

I'm not, doing the marketing that I should be doing. I've not got a minute to blink and breathe in the week. And they listen to this podcast and we two weeks before, three weeks before this one airs live, Janice, we had Nicola on and Nicola was talking about operations and processes. 

Janice Cook: Yes. I listened to that one.

Katie Bell: Did you? 

Janice Cook: Absolutely. Good Nicola. 

Katie Bell: She's fabulous. You and Nicola are like, oh, you just love all that stuff. We do. Get you, together and you can't stop talking about processes and systems and tools and spreadsheets. It's fantastic. I know, you just love it. You just love it. So they listen to that podcast, right?

And they go, yeah, I've got to get more operationally efficient. I've got to put systems in place. I need to get some processes because this is going to relieve me of the pressure. I'm going to listen to this with Janice today and I'm going to now know that I've got to really got to get these metrics under control, but I don't have time to implement it.

I just can't make that happen because if I do that, I've got to drop the [00:23:00] ball somewhere else. And it just is this ever ending cycle for clinic owners. So Janice, let's talk about how you can then come in to this. type of clinic this clinic owner who was struggling with these things and help them. So give listeners a flavour of your fabulous new service.

Janice Cook: So the new service it's not actually that new to me. I've been doing it, but generally speaking, these clinic owners would come to me and I would do, they'd see a gap with their PVA measuring, as we just talked about. So creating that tool. Implement and then I'd go away. Yep. Thinking, wonder, I wonder how thats going.

Another one they, wanted to know their affordability. When can I afford pay? So went and did them a cash flow model. Another one was a dashboard with that practitioner performance report, that type thing. So they're all tools that I've gone in and [00:24:00] implemented, whereas what I see. is actually needed, is just sharing the load.

So being that operations manager. But on a, to, to use the buzzword of the term, of fractional operations manager. So a service, rather than hiring someone in, getting them all trained up in your, how your clinic wants to run and all the rest of it. So it's the fractional operationals manager service. So that would be coming in to a clinic owner who, as you described, or maybe they're looking to take a step back.

They want to see that the business can work without them. They might want to focus on something else, like writing a book, or going on holiday, or they are looking to exit. And what they want to do is just take that operational mechanics burden and go, off you go Janice. Can you just look at them, I think, and then [00:25:00] that might be some point projects to there's a gap there, let's create.

The cashflow model, let's create the PBA tool, but it's more about looking at that overall. What are the operational systems, keeping them going? As you said, the operational challenges come up day in, day out. What's the next thing that we need to look at? But then looking at what all those metrics are generating, what story are they telling?

And is that progressing the strategy? So that then. I can sit down in that leadership role with the business owner and go this is the story, the metrics telling this is your strategy story. You want to execute. Where are they? Are they aligned? Is there a gap? If there's a gap, what do we need to change to fill the gap?

So that's all about, we create the systems, we enable them by saying what's good. And [00:26:00] then we look at what is the engagement in it? Are they working? Are we reaching good? Are we not reaching good? Are we exceeding good? And looking at that engagement, then what changes do we make in order to make it happen?

So that's the operations manager relationship with the business owner. And what the service actually does is Look at all the operational systems, fill any gaps, operate the systems, look at the metrics and feedback up. So that's the new service. So it's basically looking at the overall operational management day to day, rather than coming in to look at specific things.

And the key thing about it is it's flexible. So it's about. What does your business need right now? Is it a soft light touch over the top? Maybe just identifying some gaps, see where we are. Do we need a more intense, more projecty [00:27:00] phase? So it's all about being flexible and supporting the business owner with what do they need right now.

Katie Bell: And that takes the pressure off the clinic owner when they are faced with the the moment of realization that they are not operationally great. They are not an implementer, they are not a complete finisher, and I speak, on behalf of our listeners here because I, am also this person, I like the ideas, but the systems and processes and tools behind it, I have got no interest in whatsoever, I just like the outcome.

Yeah. And I think that everything can happen in a minute. So this is what our clinic owners are like, in the main they are visionaries, and yes we get stuff done, because we have to get stuff done, but. When the clinic owner realises that actually the biggest gap here always is them themselves because they are often in the way of any growth or that they're bottlenecking because they're holding on to everything and trying to do everything [00:28:00] themselves and not doing a great job.

They then need, they go I need a practice manager. I need a practice manager or a business manager, but I can't afford that. And so they instantly shut the idea down because, old school way of thinking is that we might need to have somebody. 30, 35, 37 and a half hours a week employed.

There's another person on the payroll. It's another thing that we've got to consider, manage, train, all of that. And so the beauty of a fractional Ops person is that it can be, it's bespoke. It's based on your business needs now and where you're going in the future. 

Janice Cook: Absolutely. 

Katie Bell: And I think one of the biggest benefits here in Janice is and I'm going to say this, you don't need training, like you don't need handholding through the whole bloody thing. You come in and say, this is what you need, Katie, tell me what systems you've got. Let me just let it all talk to each other. Leave me alone. I do what I do. I'll [00:29:00] ask you questions when I need it.

And it's oh, this is just music to my ears. So you get Jane, you get Clinico, you get. The systems that our clinic owners are using because you're working with them day in 

day out. 

Janice Cook: That's right. And the thing is because I've been working with them, I've now built my toolkit. So think of your plumber coming in with his toolkit.

Yeah. I've got mine and it just needs to then be tailored to what, what have got QuickBooks? Have you got Xero? Have you got Jane? Have you got Clinico? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And some give some information, some give others, and that's the tailoring part. But I come with the, I know the types of things we need to measure.

I've got the toolkits, the basic toolkits to measure them. We just need to then tail them to what you've got. So let's say you've got that low risk, flexibility expertise that can just walk straight in and do the job that you need doing for the time that you [00:30:00] need. 

Katie Bell: For the time that you need because I think what I hope I don't do a disservice here Janice, but how I also see this happening is you're going to come in, you're going to make them more operationally efficient or profitable, essentially, because that's what you're looking at is profitability of the company.

And you're going to put processes in place, you're going to look at metrics, how you gather data, how we look at this on a regular basis, make sure it's accessible. So as they grow their clinic and some of our elevate members are moving into that multiple six figure clinic, you will need a full time operations manager in your business at that level.

It's an absolute requirement, but rather than an ops manager coming in, excuse my French, Janice to an absolute shit show. They're going to come into a Janice show, which is we've got systems. We've put these things in place and it's going to get this ops manager off the ground quicker. 

Janice Cook: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm not the long term solution. I'm not your full time ops manager. [00:31:00] It's to come in and create that picture, put the jigsaw together and it's then there and I can operate it for as long or as little as you want. But then, as you say, if you're continuing to grow, you will need a longer term solution and you will need that.

full time ops manager or however much time you want for, an ops manager to come in. So like for one example, as I say, this is a sort of new service, but it's one I evolved into for a couple of my clients. Cause it's I went in and did something and then I just stick around and just keep checking it out there.

And then and for that one, it was build these things because yes, I'm bringing in my, a new business manager, but they're not a systems person. They're going to. Share my business load and that so come and put all the operational systems in so I did all that and then handed over When they were recruited kind of thing and that is the longer term goal [00:32:00] that it would go to and even then with them I just Touch base quarterly and go I think, all right, you need to expand it.

You need a bit more on your dashboard whatever. And then that's now just dropped back to that extremely light touch of just supporting their system. So that's the key about it being flexible and to enable you to get onto that next bit. 

Katie Bell: Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited.

You Janice and for our clinic owners out there that need this so much. Okay. We are way over time because I'm so excited about this, but it's fine. I can come along for England. Because this is great. This is what people need. I want to just give our clinic owners just three things, three quick things to just think about.

Now, they might be going, this sounds great, but I'm not ready yet. Because a lot of clinic owners need that time to think this through. Some of them are already going to be picking up the phone and ringing you guys as soon as this podcast has ended. I'm all about value on this [00:33:00] podcast. So three very quick things, very simple things, which are your tips.

The first one, I think you said you've got to define good. 

Janice Cook: Yeah. So I'd say that is the first thing you've gotta do is just define good and mean at a level of something that you can change. Yes, you might define good as say, I want my turnover to be, just to pick a random number, 10k. Yeah. What can change that?

So it might be number of new patients in a month, number of follow ups a new patient has in a month. The price of the service. So what's good in those three things? Because there's, there are three things that are movable objects. Yes. In order to make the turnover. 

Katie Bell: So you've got to decide where you're going.

Like what is the target? What is the goal? 

Janice Cook: Yes. So target, goals, good. Define it. Yep. Yep. Because that will enable any metrics. Measuring something is just a number [00:34:00] until you enable it. What's good. 

Katie Bell: Okay. Tip number two, which I really liked was you've got to make the time when you've got all this, these fabulous tools and processes and things like that, you have got to look at them.

Janice Cook: You have to engage with it. You have to engage with it. So you've created the visibility, you're measuring something. You've enabled it by saying what's good and what's bad? Is it £8k month good, or should it be £10k and then engage with it. Because if you are asking your practitioners to achieve a PVA of five, and they're Jane report saying they've achieved a PVA of three.

And you never ask them about it. So what? 

Katie Bell: Complete waste of time. 

Janice Cook: Complete waste of time. Complete waste of time. You have to engage with it. As the business owner, you have to engage with your results. And are they aligned with your strategy? Because if you stop looking, they'll stop doing. 

Katie Bell: What's the thing I always say? [00:35:00] You must inspect what you expect. 

Janice Cook: Yes, exactly. Exactly. If you don't look at the results, it is a complete waste of time. There's no point in having the system in the first place. 

Katie Bell: Okay. And then the third thing that I thought was a great tip was like, this is not our bag. This is not what we are here on this planet to do.

We are great clinicians. We are great therapists. Lots of us are learning how to be better at running our business. But that still doesn't mean you have to be the one that bottlenecks and holds onto everything. So if this is not your bag, if you're not operationally wonderful, like you are Janice, then outsource it.

That is your third tip. 

Janice Cook: Absolutely. And it's the same for every business owner with the outsourcing question. When you can, if it doesn't bring you joy, outsource it. We all have our happy lane, and they say, we're on this planet to be happy. Yes! At the end of the day, when you are doing the school run, you want to be focusing on that school run, not the, oh my god, I've got to [00:36:00] look at that spreadsheet today.

Yeah. Stay in your happy lane. It's what we're here to do. 

Katie Bell: Absolutely. So Janice, for people that want to get in this happy lane, because this sounds, great. How can they reach out to you on the back of this podcast and just open up a conversation and learn a little bit more? 

Janice Cook: So I'm very happy to talk to anybody.

It's free consultation. I'm not going to shudder in time because I love to learn about your business and see if I can help, see if we're a good match and see if there's a problem I can help you solve. Best way is you can just. Email me directly. It's very simple. Janice at JaniceCook. co. uk. Go to my website, JaniceCook.

co. uk. Nice and simple. And I'm on all the usual socials. So Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, just type me in and I will pop up. And say, there's no obligation. I'm very happy to just have a chat with anybody and let's see where we go from there. 

Katie Bell: Janice, I absolutely love this episode. And I said this to Nicola and I was like, Oh God, we're going to have to talk about [00:37:00] operations systems and processes.

And I have to say they've been some of my favourite ones. So thank you. 

Janice Cook: It's because it can add so much more value to your business.

Katie Bell: I know what it does because I have operations people in both Thrive. I have Nicola and in KB, I have my business manager. And you have been in there and helped us with implementing stuff.

So I know what a difference it makes to my life. And I, wish that for the clinic owners as well. 

Janice Cook: And that's it. At the end of the day we're, here to be happy. So take some of the stress away. Absolutely. Janice, please. Can you come back, please? Oh, absolutely. We'd love to have a chat all the time.

Katie Bell: Thank you, Janice. Thank you so much for your time. 

Janice Cook: Oh, you're very welcome. My pleasure.

 

 

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Katie Bell

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