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Grow Your Clinic
Want to know how to Grow Your Clinic? In this podcast, the Clinic Mastery team share the stories and strategies of successful clinic owners so that you can confidently grow your clinic too. Check out clinicmastery.com to access the growth resources mentioned in the podcast.
Grow Your Clinic
Andrew Daubney: Mastering Confidence in Decision Making and Time-Blocking Techniques | GYC Podcast E281
Is the constant juggle of entrepreneurial ambition and clinic growth keeping you up at night? Join us as we sit down with Andrew Daubney, a seasoned Clinic Mastery consultant and successful clinic owner from Sydney, Australia. Andrew pulls back the curtain on the emotional roller coaster of scaling a clinic—from the stress of managing a growing team to moments of self-doubt, and the invaluable support systems that keep him grounded. Discover how gratitude and external support play pivotal roles in sustaining well-being amidst the chaos of expansion.
Get ready to rethink your approach to time management with practical strategies that make a real difference. Andrew and I dive into the art of balancing the drive to innovate with the need to appreciate your current achievements. Learn how effective time-blocking techniques and leaving white space in your schedule can transform your daily routine. We also discuss the dangers of constant comparison with peers and the importance of finding joy in the process, rather than fixating on external validation or financial success.
This episode is packed with actionable insights and strategies for sustainable growth. We cover the iterative process of time blocking, managing focus and energy, and making strategic decisions that align with your clinic’s core values and long-term vision. With Andrew’s candid sharing and our shared experiences, you’ll gain valuable wisdom on leveraging community support and building meaningful relationships for lasting success. Tune in to navigate your clinic’s growth journey with greater confidence and intention.
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This is the Grow your Clinic podcast from Clinic Mastery. We help progressive health professionals to lead inspired teams, transform client experiences and build clinics for good. Now it's time to grow your clinic.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Grow your Clinic podcast. My name is Ben Lynch. If you're a clinic owner and you feel like your to-do list is just ever expanding, there's even less time in your day and your week and it's becoming all-consuming, overwhelming, perhaps leading to quite a lot of stress or anxiety, and you feel like you should be further along than you are, then this episode is for you. In this conversation with Andrew Daubney, who's a clinic mastery, consultant and team member, he works with dozens of clinics, but he's also a clinic owner of a team of 30, 3-0 in Sydney, australia, over two locations with four disciplines. They are a multi-day team.
Speaker 2:Andrew shares some of the hardships and challenges of growing a clinic. Not that he's got it figured out. None of us do. We're all just trying to learn from the mistakes of the past and get better at making decisions that really are run through our values and create a sustainable rhythm of change and bring to life the vision that we have. And through this conversation, we talk about reconciling really the challenges of that entrepreneurial spirit, of wanting and having this vision for more and being somewhat dissatisfied with what is today, and really the gap between the two is this comparison that we have of the vision we want, but we're not there. Our future self versus our current self, or, in fact, looking at peers as part of your community and really feeling like gee, I should be further along than I am and it really being this thief of joy that great quote comparison is the thief of joy, and so we look at how do we reconcile that, because it's a loop that continues to play out. We also look at practically what are some of the strategies that you can use really to grow sustainably into the future.
Speaker 2:This is an episode that really uncovers the raw challenges of being a clinic owner, but also the upside to the journey and the joy that can come from the challenges that are presented to us. All. Right, let's dive into the conversation with Andrew right now. One of the things that I've admired is seeing your growth as a leader, but also developing the team that you have. You've grown really quite quickly and quite a substantial size of a team, a multi-day team as well, you know, in context to what we typically see across the range of clinic owners. I'm actually interested in what's been one of the hardest things. What's been the thing that perhaps maybe team members haven't seen? What's been the thing that perhaps maybe team members haven't seen, other people haven't seen as the real hardship moment or moments that you've had in scaling up rebound.
Speaker 3:One of the lessons that I continue to learn, which Shane Davis often quotes, is that comparison is the thief of joy, and I think for me, even now, it's like how much is enough, right? And I think I've had that kind of mindset since we began. It's like should there be more? Should I keep going? Should I push? It's like, should there be more? Should I keep going? Should I push?
Speaker 3:And sometimes that's been to the detriment of my own health.
Speaker 3:Sometimes that's been to the detriment of spending more time at work than I feel like I should be with my family. Sometimes that's been like comparing myself to where I think I should be at any given point in time, and people don't see that that exists in my head. But it's a lesson that I, every time I hear Shane Davis say that, it's like this nice little reminder of like no, there's a gratitude to be had about where things are right now. No, there's a gratitude to be had about where things are right now, and you can stop and just smell the roses every once in a while, and that's a good thing to do. Yes, you can still want more. Yes, I still want more, but there is a purpose behind more and that purpose now is not at the detriment of my own well-being, my family's, my quality time with my family and, yeah, for me now it's more just pausing more often and being grateful for what we've built, the amazing team that we have and the impact that Rebound wants to have within our team within our community.
Speaker 2:Can you take us to where it was perhaps darkest for you, like when did it really become a significant challenge for you?
Speaker 3:Oh, I feel like most business owners that survived through COVID could kind of pinpoint that as a fairly difficult time, and Regnaar was no different in that context.
Speaker 3:I think there have been stages throughout our growth where you know I'd kind of be driving along and I'd see the nice car and I'd be like, oh, I wish, like I should have that Right, or I want to. I want to join a golf course, but like I can't afford that right now, but I should be able to, and for me that kind of ended into a bit of a spiral. It's like, well, you're not good enough, what are you doing? You could do something else. This is too much.
Speaker 3:And with getting some support and some help with that, it's actually again coming back to being grateful for where we are right now that the hard work is paying off, and I don't think we talk about that too much.
Speaker 3:We're often like we're in the weeds, we're in the dirt, we're navigating all of the issues that exist within a business and there are many, but we're doing this to ourselves, like this is very much within our control and the benefit of doing it is that the time and the money and the freedom that comes from building the business that you want to have allows you to be able to create the life that you want. And that's a very retrospective point of view, but there are definitely times where I needed to seek external help, saw a psychologist, did some sort of personal development, to be able to understand, to be able to write my desire statement, to be able to understand what it is that I really want and the actions that I need to take that are going to be able to get me there. That wasn't a direct answer to your question, because I feel like there's been multiple times.
Speaker 2:It's a good point because I think it continues to come up. You know, you see this now working with clinics I'm sure I do as well that no matter the stage of business, how long you've been at it, the size or quote success that you've got, you've still got challenges that happen in the clinic, but also, perhaps, challenges that you're dealing with yourself personally, and they continue to show up in different ways. And so what I love about that insight is how you've looked for support, for tools, for resources to help you navigate those into the future, because they're going to continue to come up. It's true for me, I think it's true for everyone personal development and also now what that looks like in terms of being proactive in managing that or when those moments happen. You've got some tools or resources to call on. Talk us through. What do you find useful personally? Not that it's a prescription for everyone, but what do you find useful when those sorts of thoughts come up, as they do For sure.
Speaker 3:I have support networks that I have built over time that I can lean into. I have a mentor that I can speak to these things about at a more even playing field. Now I discuss this with my wife. I discuss this with my friends. It's not something that is hidden, it's something that we talk about quite openly.
Speaker 3:I am a sucker for time walking and I feel like, for me, time walking represents me being in control of my week and not having external forces pull me in directions that I don't need to go in that particular moment.
Speaker 3:And I think that time walking extends to obviously work, obviously mentoring, but playing golf, to spending time with the kids, to going to their soccer games on the weekend, to going to the gym in the mornings right, it's not just the work that gets time locked, it's actually a greater degree of my life.
Speaker 3:But for me that means control and means that I can, when things are going through a stressful period or a period where I need to do longer, know, do longer hours, work harder produce more. There are these time blocks in my calendar that can just help take the edge off some of those things, and I know that. I know that those stressful times they, they are for a period and that they are not forever, and so I can push for a period and then know that maybe, coming out the side the other side of that, that, there are some things that I can reward myself with, not necessarily like external rewards, but like reward myself with an afternoon off or spending more time with the kids, and that just kind of helps me focus on right now and not sort of spiraling into this cycle of thinking that feels like it's forever.
Speaker 2:So when you pause, when you have your breaks, what does that look like? That sort of renewal time in your regular rhythm, maybe in your week, or even sort of larger chunks? What do you like to do to be able to refresh and renew your batteries?
Speaker 3:I play golf. That is a refreshing time. So I think for me, there's two sides to that. One is the business renewal time, which is the ability to be able to spend some time away from the clinic, to zoom out and to be able to see okay, where are we right now, what do we need to be able to progress to the next stage and actually put a plan in place, because I feel like for me when that exists, that story exists in my head and I just keep telling myself that story again and again.
Speaker 3:Of all the things that I need to do. It can become a bit overwhelming and it can wake me up at two o'clock in the morning with all of the things. So I I find useful just being able to to spend some time away from the clinic to behave, and that can just be an afternoon, to put all these things down, to understand when these things are going to get actioned, because not all of those things need to get actioned today.
Speaker 3:I can put a plan for the next 120 days, for the next year, for the next three years and understand like, when is the most appropriate time to be spending my energy working on these things that are going around in my head? So that's one on the other side is like the looking after myself and so, like I said, that can just be taking an afternoon off and spending it outside. I tend to find for me being outside in the sunshine. It doesn't need a lot of time for me to feel more grounded again, which is why golf is so useful because it is outdoors.
Speaker 2:It is, except for when it's sideways. Rain and windy, correct. And then you hate the game even more.
Speaker 3:Correct yes, it's a love-hate relationship. It's a love-hate, love-hate.
Speaker 2:Where do you think most people get it wrong? When it comes to time blocking, because it seems to be a common thread with a lot of people that I speak with. As to, I think they point to, as um you know, a key reason they're able to get flow in their week or feel a sense of productivity. But where do you think people get it wrong? Maybe you've had some of those challenges in finding what works for you.
Speaker 3:I felt so I went through a stage of zero time blocking to time blocking every single moment.
Speaker 3:I think, everyone goes through that Every second is accounted for, correct and while I thought that was what, what time blocking, what good time blocking was, I've come to appreciate white space in my diary.
Speaker 3:So my my journey with time walking and I'd be curious to hear your perspective on this one as well but when I time blocked every single thing and you looked at my diary and there was not a spare half an hour in the diary that didn't leave room for the fires, and so there was this battle in my head and it caused stress about well I it said that I should be looking at my dashboards right now, but actually this person needs my help. Oh, like, what do I do? And so where people can get time walking wrong is feeling like they need to time walk everything, and particularly as owners, like when we're going through stages of growth and things are coming up for us as owners. If we've got some flexibility in our diary that we can, we can put the fires out, we can. We can come to our, you know, urgent and important quadrant of our uh, of our to-do list. We've built contingencies in it's dedicated time that we can allocate to those things.
Speaker 2:Such a good point because I think so much of the stress comes out of expectation management Maybe there's a better way to put it but you expect I'm gonna have that time today to work on that thing, but something more urgent comes up and then you, you're, um, you get annoyed, stressed, frustrated, whatever it is that that didn't happen, because you're like I was meant to get to that today but I got pulled away from it, and that can play out in a number of different ways. I've had recent podcasts with um kate hawks, bid Linden and we. If you've got a lot of expectations around how your day or week is going to play out and it doesn't, you can feel this added stress. Especially while things are new and fresh in a family, it's even more emotional. So I think so much of it is around that expectation. Even to your point earlier when you're talking about, you know I should have had that or you know I should be at this point by now. You know, being in it, it's kind of it's all about that kind of what. I expected to be there and I'm not.
Speaker 2:In a way, I find this an interesting topic when talking with clinic owners and you're alluding to it now. This sort of balance or dance between having that sort of entrepreneurial spirit of wanting to create things, to push the frontier, reimagine healthcare, build bigger and better teams, better clinics which broadly you could say is doing more, and at the same time being okay with what is right now or being grateful, as you said. And actually that gap between the two is where you pointed out kind of the comparison game and that can really thieve the joy or the the experience of running a business and sap it out of you. And I think so much of my own experience has been just being cognizant of that voice of the expectation or the comparison and just falling in love with the process of like this is what I'm doing. I get to create every single day and if it's always benchmarked against an outcome how much money is made or how big a team is or you know, some external validation like reviews or whatever you always feel let down rather than focused. Those things are important as a feedback. I don't want to completely make it binary and discredit those elements. They're absolutely important. But if the reason for doing the thing is to get that thing, then it just becomes a very tough game to play.
Speaker 2:And Seth Godin's book. Actually the Practice I've got it here talks about it. Actually it's a really good book for clinic owners who are looking to get their team maybe to do like more content or put themselves out there. It actually is like a bunch of small paragraphs. I guess that is the definition of a book a bunch of small paragraphs, really bite-sized pieces, um sort of counteracting a lot of people's um resistance to doing content as an example. But part of this is sort of great artists don't paint when they feel like it. Um, they just they paint every day.
Speaker 2:And flow is actually not something that you wait to get before you do the thing. It's actually what you get out of doing the thing. And so this whole kind of just presence of like trying to be here and enjoy the moment, enjoy the ability to bring that idea that I had in the commute while I was making coffee, having a shower on the golf course, and bring it to life Like I've, over the years, sort of got way more of a kick out of doing that thing. That doesn't mean I don't think about kind of where we're going, what the future is, but that's just kind of my little riff on trying to find that reconciliation of wanting to progress and be better and also trying to be grateful for what is, and be here and focus on being productive or useful. At this stage, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that- the.
Speaker 3:Thing that came out for me as you were talking then was you're right, and I've definitely experienced this myself that when you look at a calendar and things don't go exactly the way that you wanted them to go, that you at the end of the day, you can feel like, oh, like I didn't do what I said I was going to do and I'm I'm hard on myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, so one of the things that I did for a little while was the to done list, not just the to-do list of all the things that I think I should do, but actually what I did on a given day. And that way, you could actually look at it at the end of the day and go like, although I didn't do what I said I was going to do, I still did all this other stuff, and all of that is helping me progress to like it's what I should have done today and it's helping me progress to where I should be in the future, where I want to be in the future, um, because we can miss that. We can miss the, the fires and the emergencies, but the impact that that actually has on the team, on the clients we want to, or we can quantify that, yes, and that can help us validate the fact that?
Speaker 2:okay, well, I didn't do the things that were in my diary, but I actually did these other things and they were really important, so that's okay one of the things you asked me about was how I go about time blocking certainly evolved over time but I found a lot more, um, sort of stability and the way I've set it up, maybe over the last two years or thereabouts and it was sort of removing the emphasis from like a task list or a to-do list and then specific time blocks where those things would get done and actually just really anchoring to a meaningful outcome that we're working towards, typically over this quarter or this year, and that really just simplified a lot of things just internally for me around wealth. Are the things that I'm doing today going to move the needle on that ultimate outcome that I'm working towards? And that became the primary filter, rather than what's at the top of the quote to-do list or what did I even to that expectation? I said I was going to work on that thing and I feel like I need to work on that thing, because I said I would work on that thing and actually one of my like sort of highest values is optionality and the opposite of that is obligation, and so time blocking in some senses became this like obligation of like well, I said I would do that thing and now I feel a little bit constrained to do that and then I'm not doing my time, blocking that I said I would do, and so now I feel like a bit of a failure.
Speaker 2:And so, and the distinction I sort of made between obligation and responsibility, because you've got to, I've got responsibilities, I have to do certain things, whether that's as a father or as a business owner, the distinction being really that it's something that I really I want to do and I've found a way to align it with that overall outcome as well. So I've actually found it a lot more liberating to try and get more quote white space in my diary, and that gives me a sense of optionality over where I allocate it to, so long as I can say, well, I know it's working towards this overall thing that on any given day it might change, or any given week it might change as to what is truly maybe the priority or the thing that I actually feel inspired to do. There might be some sort of system or policy or procedure that's fairly like I don't know, mundane or routine, very logical in doing that. I don't feel compelled to do that right now. I've actually got this much more creative thing that I want to work on that, I think, is going to add value to it, and so I feel good that I can choose that over this other, because that just feels like I'm in the sweet spot to do it right now and I found that optionality for me has worked really well, while still being able to get the other thing done at a different time, and that sort of time preference of trying to remove a lot of things that are urgent as much as possible.
Speaker 2:And actually so much of that has been really in the thinking about is it really urgent, rather than just taking on face value that well, is that timeline of next Wednesday? Well, why? Why is it next Wednesday? Like could it be the following Friday or could it be the next month? I thought, heck, what if we didn't do it? Like what would be the result?
Speaker 2:And yeah, I tend to be a little bit more liberal these days in that if it's a big enough and this is not for everyone, but if it is a big enough problem someone's going to send me a second or a third email and tell me in that if it's a big enough and this is not for everyone, but if it is a big enough problem, someone's going to send me a second or a third email and tell me Correct, otherwise I'm just reacting, reacting, reacting. I'm just not in a state as an entrepreneur, as a creator, to bring the future to life. That's really what we're trying to do is like I've got this idea or vision of what should be. I need to build it, and if I keep getting disrupted from that building time, then that future doesn't come to life and I just kind of keep repeating today correct, um, but being able to get some of that time availability depending on your circumstances.
Speaker 2:If you're consulting 60 hours a week, okay, there's a. There's a nuance, um, um, nuance to your narrative that's different to mine or yours or the next person, but there's some of the things around, I think, managing focus and energy, as distinct from managing time that I've come to use more recently.
Speaker 3:I think you touched on a really important point there and again, I appreciate that businesses and business owners are at different stages. Yeah, where to your original question about lessons that I've learned over time it's the things that you say no to just as, if not more important than, the things that you say yes to are just as, if not more important than the things that you say yes to. And you're right. Like, if it is urgent, someone will call you. Like, unless the building's on fire, you know what Call the fire brigade. Don't call me because I'm not going to be very useful.
Speaker 3:There's not that many emergencies like real, real emergencies. And to wait a day, a week, a month to do it in your time, when you've got a clear head, to be able to give that thing, whatever it is, the required amount of effort or thought is where better things happen from, from retrospect, behind you. There you've got the, the gary v, but in the clouds and in the dirt, and I learned this from you, uh, where you? I don't know whether you still do this, ben, but like doing a week in the dirt and then a week in the clouds, like a week doing all of the things that you should be doing and then a week to just do the projects, or do the higher level things, or to refresh.
Speaker 2:Is that something that you still? Yeah, and that's been one of the more sort of versions of time blocking that I've used for the last couple of years. And it came out of a conversation with my dad over Christmas lunch maybe four years ago. He went from working this sort of nine to five job Dad's a fitter and turner by trade, just kind of like a mechanic and he got this new job at the mines and he was telling me about it and he was really excited that it was a FIFO role and I was like what's that? And he's like, well, it's fly in, fly out. And it's like, oh, why are you excited about that? It was like, essentially I'm there at the mines, you know it's 12 hour shifts, seven days. You kind of know what you're doing. You just you go for it for a week, then the week after. Well, I got it all to myself. That's kind of how he was putting it. You know, to run errands it's actually funny how busy he is doing errands for everyone else.
Speaker 2:In that, in that quote week off, but it was it struck me as like a really interesting way to think about structuring my diary at that time. And again, every, every, not everyone can do. This um depends on stage of business, type of business, et cetera. But I thought, wow, wouldn't that be cool if I kind of batched a lot of my um meetings, a lot of the things um that just like admin needed to get done to keep things going in the dirt week, which is kind of like, to a degree, you're on someone else's clock or calendar, if that makes sense. And it also helped me with that expectation piece where it was like, well, I'm not expecting to move the needle on some of those bigger things during this week, it's okay. But if I do get an opportunity, maybe I can just like, you know, maybe it's just storing some thinking and ideas or riffing with some people and building a bank, so that next week I can come back and I can be, you know, broadly uninterrupted and go deep and do the deep work to work on those projects or initiatives that need to be done.
Speaker 2:And so, yes, it also so happened that Gary V used this terminology of clouds and dirt and I was like, oh great. So I took sort of FIFO and made my clouds and dirt week and it's worked really well for me. I know a couple of other members in the community have done it. A couple of team members at CM have done it as well, but I found it a useful rhythm for me, in particular on that expectation management of you know what it's a dirt week for me this week. I know that it's just head down, do a lot of the little bits and pieces. That's not to say that I don't do them on a clouds week, it's just that 80% of that week is to do the things that really try and move the needle. So yeah, it works well.
Speaker 3:I love it. I've heard it from you. I also heard it from Melinda Weber. I love it. I've heard it from you. I've also heard it from Melinda Webber that she applied a similar kind of framework to her weeks. I've done it since our Noosa retreat, in terms of being in the clinic one week and then working from home and doing the project work. How's it been? The output, the quantity and the quality it's it's been a game changer for me.
Speaker 3:Uh, and I again to your point before. I appreciate that you know that's coming from a privileged position where I've got full control over my week and I'm not seeing clients anymore. But if somebody had taught me that very early on, like that there there's a week to do all of the things and then the next week that's your project week, and I think for me I would have loved to pick that up earlier on because it would help, like it would help with time walking, it would help with energy, it would help with knowing that if it is a high value task that requires 60 to 90 minutes of me just sitting down and working, like I can do that next week because that is the way to do it. So I think it can look different at different stages, but I've seen a lot of power come from that.
Speaker 2:It's a good point, because anyone who's listening or watching here that's a long way off for me. I'd say that it's a progression. It's not like a flick of a switch that you do this and this did take me a while in my own calendar to make the shift. There's obviously a whole bunch of legacy commitments or meetings or appointments et cetera that need to change frequency or the week that they might be on to facilitate this. And I'd say there's a version of this that you can create straight away and that is just even adopting a, you know, a fortnightly rhythm like this if it resonates. And I always say to people when it comes to time blocking, if you hear someone talk about their time blocking, try it and see if it works for you and keep iterating until you find a really nice, perhaps mixture for yourself, because there are many different methods and suggestions and I'm sure they work for the people that talk about them, just like we're sharing this, but that might not work for you, but I'm sure there's an element or two that's in it that will work for you. So I just said, try it on and see if you can kind of skew your diary.
Speaker 2:I think it's one of the highest leverage, most overlooked, easiest to implement changes that a clinic owner could make to grow their clinic If they were able to just consolidate their diary rather than have things everywhere. I mean the focus that you get to work on things uninterrupted to get it done. Ultimately, everyone knows they need to work more on their business in order for it to be less reliant on them in various capacities. Well, that comes back to how much uninterrupted focus time do you have to get those things done? So everyone needs a solution that is around time blocking. It's just what's going to work for you and that requires a bit of testing. But it's such a journey of continual innovation changes there's never kind of a fixed spot.
Speaker 3:And I think that's a really good point that I don't know about you, but my time blocking from two years ago is very different to what it is now, and it will be very different for what my diary looks like in 12 months time, because my job changes. There's different commitments, there's different flows that happen through the week and I think again coming back to one of your questions before about the pitfalls that time blocking can give people it's that if I put it in now, it's got to be this way forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, great, and it's an iterative process.
Speaker 3:It's a reflection, it's a did this work? And I think for me it's like you know, if I put a time block in and I got to that thing and I was like you know what, this is actually not that important. This shouldn't be here. Yeah, remove, it's gone and it's not like it. We need to set it and do this and commit to it forever it's a great point.
Speaker 2:The uh, you mentioned it earlier and just to build on it is this sort of concept of seasonality which is, you know, for this season and a season could be a couple of months, a year, a couple of years, even that it it will suit a season and then the business changes, you change, and so you need to adjust, the season needs to adjust how you operate. It reminded me of one of our mentors spoke about our mentors spoke about. He said so tell me, you know what is the definition of strategy? Like no one's ever asked, and the way he sort of put it was really it's the reasoning behind your allocation of resources to do a specific scope of work, to achieve an outcome. And he said well, each one of those words is very purposefully chosen and can be thought about and and carefully designed. So the the resources being time, money and knowledge, kind of the key ones. And a lot of this comes from from the teachings of Peter Drucker, who's known really as kind of the godfather of business strategy, back sort of the 70s, 80s. A lot of derivative works have come from him. You know, in the world of business and strategy you can go and read some of those books. They're built for big businesses like Fortune 500, but you get some really good first principle thinking about business and decision making.
Speaker 2:But the flow and effect from that was, if it's essentially around well, decision making, your reasoning behind, how you allocate the people on your team, the money you have to work to achieve an outcome, then decision-making is strategy. And how often you're making decisions kind of like all the time. And for this he said well, really what's important is for you to be able to document a lot of the decisions you're making, the thinking that you have around those decisions, so that you can communicate clearly. To document a lot of the decisions you're making, the thinking that you have around those decisions, so that you can communicate clearly to the team, so that you can always anchor back to why did we make this decision, how did we come to this decision? And I raise that because if one of those key elements is the allocation of resources, and one of those resources being time, then actually it's very strategic, very purposeful for you to think about how are you allocating your time toward an outcome or a scope of work, a project, initiative, to achieve an outcome in your business? And so it's actually a really important thing to go and think about is maybe even starting from that outcome and working backwards to well, how would I allocate my time?
Speaker 2:I was having a conversation yesterday with a clinic that is like okay, we believe the biggest opportunity for us in lever is recruitment. Got a lot of certainty in the client flow that we've got. There's a wait list. We just need to recruit four to five therapists. That's kind of the key thing. I said, great, well, what does that look like from an investment standpoint? What's your budget and allocation of people or time to that? And they said, oh, we haven't thought about that, but that was the number one goal. But at least they had clarity on that goal. It was like well then, you're time blocking to a degree your investment in your budget. Does that actually reflect the outcome you're trying to achieve?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people actually look at their to-do list or project list and say I want to do all of these things, implement these changes or systems, because I kind of just want to do it. And to that, implement these changes or systems because I kind of just want to do it. And to that point almost of comparison, like I've heard other people do this or other people have said it's a good idea to do so. I want to do it, it's on my list, I haven't got to it yet, but I want to do it and they kind of focus on this scope of work rather than what's the outcome. And so just connecting a few dots there, that when you're so busy quote unquote you don't actually get the time to think, and it's actually the time to think that can be really useful in making better decisions, being more strategic in how you shape your weekend and what you do with the resources you have.
Speaker 2:It reminds me we had the quote on the huddle, the CM huddle, yesterday, which was I'm going to butcher it and I forget who it's from, but it's that old adage of two folks tasked with cutting down the tree within the next eight hours. One of them decides to sharpen their ax for the first six and then come back and cut it down way quicker. I think everyone knows inherently, it'd be great if I had more time, but then they don't make it, they don't allocate it. Yeah, they don't allocate the time. That's part of their, that's the kind of the first part of their strategy to growing. So just to connect a few dots there.
Speaker 2:I think that is one of the going back to it, one of the sort of highest leverage, most important practical applications that someone could do right away. On that note, what are some of the things that you're seeing? Because you get to see inside a lot of businesses, a lot of clinics now, especially in those startup phases, clinics that are just getting started. Maybe they've got their first one to two to three practitioners. What are some of the key challenges that you're seeing in those clinics? That is maybe quite characteristic of just being at that stage of business.
Speaker 3:I think we touched on a couple of those in this conversation so far the saying yes to everything without thinking it through, without thinking how does this fit into my 120-day plan, my 12-month plan? Am I saying yes to this because it's going to allow me to not do something else that I know that I should be doing but I really don't want to do right now because it's not as fun as this shiny new thing?
Speaker 2:What's some examples of that that you see?
Speaker 3:Like it can be doing. I was going to say, like a podcast, right, but I don't mean this podcast.
Speaker 2:I was going to say like a podcast, right, but I don't mean this podcast.
Speaker 3:I mean like, if you're asked to do something that is for the betterment of somebody else, it's going to grow their business and there's no direct like impact that that's going to have on you. I'm not saying don't do that, but I'm just saying like, is tomorrow the best time to do that for you, or is there a way that you can sort of put that into your diary at a time that is more suitable to your workflow rather than somebody else's?
Speaker 2:It's a great point, because the first thing that I jumped to was, you know, a version of like partnering with everybody in your community, community, and those things definitely take time, but there's this sense of urgency that often comes with it and it's not clear what they're going to get out of it. That's not to say, don't do partnerships and networking, but be a bit more purposeful, is what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Be a bit more purposeful, be a bit deeper, because what we know I certainly know this within my clinic is that practitioners really only need four to six people that refer to them regularly in order to create a sustainable workload or sustainable utilization for them.
Speaker 3:They don't need 50, right, you don't need 50 different people. So it would be better to use your time and this is just my example right now but better for my practitioners to spend their time building deeper relationships with the people that are already referring to them, rather than trying to scattergun approach and approach everyone on the northern beaches to try and get the the one referral every six months right. If you can focus and build long, particularly in regards to referral relationships, build deeper, more meaningful two-way relationships with people that value what you do, value that, the impact that you're having with your clients, that is going to be more sustainable than emailing 100 people.
Speaker 3:Now I'm not saying don't do that, because you know there are times where you should do that, but like bang for buck wise, do those things.
Speaker 2:What you point out is, again, we kind of come back to this thinking through being purposeful and and I think, just as you go through business, you have experiences, you learn the lessons, you hopefully reflect on them, um, and you go. Well, what am I going to do differently next time, especially for those starting out perhaps haven't had some of those experiences, um, and hence why they lean on us to help them navigate some of those decisions that they're making through a program like Elevate or the Business Academy in our consulting, as you said, to iterate quickly and get better at allocating your time, attention, focus to the things that really matter. What I take from what you said there is almost a version of constraining the question or constraining the thinking to well, if we only ever need four to six quality referrals and these are the ideal clients that we work with, you know who would fit that sort of um criteria or characteristic, and maybe we go a little bit deeper on that analysis and go okay, well, these would be. We think these would be actually the ideal folks to work with and let let's actually try and strike the relationships there and build on them there.
Speaker 2:How have you gone about making better decisions as a business owner yourself as you navigate new stages of business, growing the team, adding new sites and locations. How do you purposefully go about the decision-making process now to give yourself greater conviction and confidence that you're putting more of the odds in your favor? Because we know that none of us have a crystal ball. We're just trying to make the best decision we have. We can with the resources we have at the time. We've made it for the best outcome, but none of us know until it's happened. So how do you try and tilt the odds in your favour with a decision-making process?
Speaker 3:The first. So there's two components. For me, the first thing is does this align with our values? Does this, is this going to have a meaningful impact in the way that we want to do it? And if it doesn't and that speaks to not only what we do, but who we do it with, because we want to align our business with other businesses that not only say they do it, but do it, actually do it. So that's one, it's an alignment piece.
Speaker 3:The second thing is if I make this decision, am I still going to be doing this in five years time? To be doing this in five years time If I say we're going to bring on a new discipline, is this going to be? Is it going to stand the test of time? Are we willing to go through the ups and the downs and the bumps and the recruitment and the clients and all of this because we will still be doing it in five years time? And for me, that filter, it's a very quick answer. Once I apply that filter, it's like yes, no, and then it's like well, it either goes into the diary or it doesn't.
Speaker 3:Based off that, if it doesn't fit into what the vision for the clinic looks like in a five-year time frame, I'm going to say no to it and there are things that I say no to like that. You know. Maybe some point I should have said yes but, like, with all the tools and the thinking that I had at that particular time, I made the decision based on what I thought was best and I'm okay with that and I can live with that. But the fear of, oh, what if this and what if that and you know, this is just a short-term thing. I tend to find short-term things short-term things for a reason. And to invest your time and effort into something that is not going to fundamentally exist within the business in the, the three to five years, like should that be something that you invest your time in?
Speaker 2:it's a really, really good point about taking a long-term view, uh, over things. When you get through that part of the process, using some of those heuristics to make decisions and I really love the values anchor how do you then get certainty over how that might play out? You know, in particular, when it comes to, say, the financial investment or the workload investment that's required to pull it off, how do you go about giving yourself certainty around recruiting the next person or going into a new discipline? How do you get that?
Speaker 3:Your definition of strategy before actually lays out the answer to that really nicely If I'm going to recruit another person, or I'm going to introduce a new discipline, or I'm going to offer a new discipline, or I'm going to do, you know, offer a new service to the clinic. Strategy is about understanding the resources that are required to achieve the outcome that you are aiming to achieve. So it is defining what success looks like when we introduce this new thing. It is strategizing well, what are the components that I will need to put in to get the outcome that I want to achieve? And that is time, and that is money, and that is knowledge.
Speaker 3:And then are there other people that I could talk to that have done something like this or done this that I can learn from, because one of the great things about the CM community is that, like, we will share our experiences when things have gone really well, but also when you know what there were some learnings. And I would probably do it differently next time. And I think, if you can align yourself with people that, uh, are willing to share these experiences, or reach out to them and say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. I saw you've done it. Could you. Could, you like, give me some pointers? That's a great way to, on that next level of going like I think this is a good idea.
Speaker 3:I kind of know what I should be doing to get the outcome, but if I could get a little bit of a head start or if I could prevent myself from or understand what the challenges are going to be as I roll this thing out by learning from other people that have done it. I think that's a pretty useful thing to be able to reach into.
Speaker 2:I love that being able to lean on others. It just helps you work out where to focus your time and your effort and things to avoid along the way. We certainly found it really useful to have an external opinion also to call you out on some of the BS or things that you're telling yourself that just maybe aren't worth doing. So I like that, as hard as it is to hear. The humility pill is hard to swallow, but it's definitely needed to keep going. In business, dorbz, we've covered quite a lot, from time blocking to being very purposeful of using your values, some of the challenges you know riding the waves of different stages of business. As we put a bow on this episode, are there some kind of principles that you use regularly that you kind of anchor back to whether makes Dorbz work so well? Apart from steady flow of coffee? Yeah, what would I see you kind of doing as a key anchor point to you know navigating all the different ups and downs of business?
Speaker 3:Got probably a few answers to that question, one answer is to surround myself with amazing people, not only within Rebound, but also like with my mentor, with people in the community that I know that I can reach out to, who have got more experience in a particular thing than I do.
Speaker 3:I think, you know, building that network, that trusted advisor network, is such a powerful thing for not only the good times but also for the when things aren't going the way that you thought they were going to go, kind of times. I think that's really important. There is one quote that is on my screensaver on my laptop, and I first heard this quote at the very first Noosa retreat that I went to and it was one of those things that I don't know if you've had this, but it was like I know exactly where and when I heard this quote and it just like stuck with me for that five years ago. It's a john maxwell quote the signature of excellence is relentless consistency and that for me, every time I see that, I see it on my screensaver, every time I open my computer, it's like do the things like nobody's going to do them for you.
Speaker 3:Consistency is not doing it for a week or a month or a year, it's a decade yeah and that like yes, there are some wins, yes, there are some some times where it's a bit more difficult, but most of the time you're kind of hovering in this middle zone. But it's like coming back to the points that we've made about time blocking. It's what are some little things that I can do today that are going to move the needle to where I want it to get to. That's consistency and it's the consistency that I think for me personally, but also for the mentors, mentees that I'm lucky to work with, when you see consistent effort put in, you see results long term with.
Speaker 2:When you see consistent effort put in, you see results long-term. So, wise, gandalf, that is really really awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing so openly about some of the struggles and also some of the tips that you've found really useful for yourself, but also the abundance of clinics that you also work with, very, very insightful. So for those listening in, come and see us on YouTube, check us out. We're doing a bunch of videos how-to videos to help you grow your clinic. If you're already on YouTube, hey, hit the like, subscribe, give us a comment, that would be wonderful. All the show notes are over at clinicmasterycom and we'll see you on another episode of the Grow your Clinic podcast very soon. Bye for now.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to the Grow your Clinic podcast. To find out more about past episodes or how we can help you, head to wwwclinicmasterycom. Forward slash podcast and please remember to rate and review us on your podcast player of choice. See you on the next episode.