Grow Your Clinic

Kate Hawkes: Building Teams, Task Prioritisation, and Financial Strategies | GYC Podcast E284

• Kate Hawkes • Season 5 • Episode 284

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Can the right early decisions make or break your clinic's success? We sit down with Kate Hawkes from Clinic Mastery to unravel the questions that new clinic owners face, such as whether to onboard an admin or a practitioner first. Kate introduces a groundbreaking task categorisation system—black, blue, and red levels—to help prioritise tasks and optimise your time. Gain actionable insights into planning, budgeting, and managing a successful clinic right from the start.

Building a thriving clinic isn't just about the numbers; it's about people. Discover how to establish a robust support system and attract the right team members to foster your clinic's growth. We'll explore setting personal boundaries and making strategic investments in your hires. Kate offers practical advice on understanding client needs, defining your ideal candidate, and leveraging your network for recruitment. Plus, you'll learn the significance of structured mentoring and supervision sessions for new hires to ensure they thrive and contribute meaningfully to your clinic's success.

Financial management often poses significant challenges for new clinic owners. Learn how to build confidence in your financial decisions with tools like the breakeven forecasting tool and by optimising your relationship with your accountant. We'll also touch on balancing family and business, drawing from Stephen Covey’s "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," to underscore the importance of planning and setting boundaries. Tune in to gain valuable strategies for sustainable clinic growth while maintaining a balanced life.

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Speaker 1:

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.

Ben Lynch:

Welcome to the Grow your Clinic podcast. My name is Ben Lynch. If you're a clinic owner that's new to business, you've just started or are in the early stages of business, or perhaps you're a practitioner thinking about starting your own clinic, then this episode is for you. I'm in conversation with a friend and colleague here at Clinic Mastery, kate Hawkes. Kate is known on the team as the go-to coach for helping young businesses get started and create a sustainable element of growth, so that you go beyond just having a job where you might just work as a solopreneur out of a room to actually building a team those first three to five team members and how you get to that point sustainably, knowing your numbers, knowing what to focus on.

Ben Lynch:

Where are the key levers that you should focus on to grow your clinic? Kate shares quite openly about some of the challenges that are real for young businesses and what you need to do if you want to create sustainable change. Kate is known for being a systems and analysis wizard, so we're talking very structured terms about the playbook that you can use for starting and growing an early stage clinic. All right, let's pick up the conversation with Kate. So you work with a whole bunch of clinics, in particular startup clinics, clinics early in their journey. Maybe they just opened their doors or they're emerging with a couple of team members. What are some of the key problems or challenges that you see in that cohort of clinic owners?

Kate Hawkes:

Well, clinic ownership, I think overall is quite a humbling experience for all of us. We are qualified allied health, you know, generally health practitioners, and so as business owners, you know, we kind of learn the ropes through just going through the motions and the experiences. And so with startup clinics generally, they have started out by focusing on just growing some clients, you know, starting to focus on the client experiences. And then maybe they've had the opportunity to grow a team or have someone come on board and so really they've landed in business ownership or in this stage of business where they're not sure what to do. They're looking for help, really. They're looking for help really. So it's a matter of what do I do next and how do I get to a place of making informed decisions on what is the next right move, because we can kind of just end up in a position where we're all of a sudden feeling a bit overwhelmed and not sure how to manage the business and we're kind of out of time.

Ben Lynch:

We don't have enough time or we're feeling really stuck in that stage. It is a scary time, can be an overwhelming time, as you said when you spoke about informed decisions. So often I hear clinic owners that are early in their journey ask the question you know, should I hire admin first or should I hire a practitioner first? You know which one should I go with? Perhaps more importantly, how do you go about supporting them to make those decisions? Are there any tools or frameworks that you like to lean on in helping them think through that and maybe calculate what decision is right for them?

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, I think it's a matter of understanding it in their current role, where are they spending most of their time, and if they can seek to understand first where the value in spending their time is going to be. So, essentially, we go through a level of tasking. We call it a black and blue and red level tasking. And the black level is the higher level we want them to be focusing on business development and growth. And the blue is where they're transacting, you know, consulting, generating revenue or supporting a team member. And the red level is where it's just tasking. It's not really producing any revenue or value, it's just tasks that need to be done. And so when we go through an evaluation, we have a look at well, what hat are you wearing mostly? What's taking up most of your time wearing, mostly what's taking up most of your time? And if we can see then that through delegating a lot of the lower, non-value tasks, then they can progress more in terms of revenue generation or supporting a team member to do the same.

Kate Hawkes:

And so we need to look at a few, I suppose look at the objective data of how they're spending time and working out if we can delegate the administration, would they have more opportunity to grow and increase revenue.

Kate Hawkes:

So that can be a trigger for when we're looking at admin support. But it's also a matter of looking at the framework to say, well, are we at the capacity currently, in terms of revenue, to be able to support a support team member in terms of a wage? And so we look at a few different triggers as to it's more so a matter of when than if, and we look at is it now in terms of a wage? And so we look at a few different triggers as to it's more so a matter of when than if, and we look at is it now in terms of the admin tasks that you need to delegate, or is it that we can retain some of those tasks? Grow your team to support and finance an additional team member in terms of admin. So there are a few triggers, and it's usually around planning, good planning and having a look at the budget and when the timing is right. It's usually around planning, good planning and having a look at the budget and when the timing is right.

Ben Lynch:

So tasks black, blue and red. So you go through a bit of an audit, get clinic owner to write down literally what those tasks are, categorize them into those three buckets and then is there a version of like how does that fit into their week and their schedule? Where does that sort of fit in and how do you navigate, actually looking at their calendar of any given week or a fortnight or month?

Kate Hawkes:

Well, one of the common, I suppose, challenges when we're asking new members when they come on, is that what is front of mind and it's well, the business relies on me for everything. And so we say, well, let's have a look, let's break this down, show me your diary and actually show me where you're consulting. And we have a look at that and say, well, you know, there's plenty more hours in the week. What are we doing in those hours there as well? And so I suppose it's a matter of then looking at well, where is that value that I was saying, are we working on the business or are we working in it heavily generating revenue? But we've got no capacity to be able to open up and move towards that black level which is really what we call the $1,000 an hour where we're working on some of the bigger projects.

Kate Hawkes:

It might be growing your team, it might be growing referrers and looking at different sources of revenue and product streams. So it is time blocking and tasking. Then it's doing an audit on your week. Look at the diary, show me where you're spending your time. Is it valuable? Or can we actually pull some levers to make some changes and slowly but surely move towards a more ideal week where we're actually separating out. What is that? Business development. The black level, higher level, versus the blue level, where you're consulting still and maybe some people are coming off the tools, but we need to plan for that. And then the lower level, where we're still going to be doing box ticking activities. You know that are not super valuable. They need to done, but we want to minimize them over time and make sure that we're prioritizing more high value tasks. So what about?

Ben Lynch:

the practitioner slash clinic owner that is, you know, consulting 40, 50 hours a week and they're like I just don't have all this time and where am I going to find the time? How do you support someone like that who perhaps is, you know, packed to the rafters in terms of their current appointment schedule? If you open up their patient management system, have a look at how many appointments they've got personally maybe they're running the business, you know, at nighttime, on the weekend. How do you sort of go through the process of supporting someone like that and maybe even talk to some of the timelines or expectations of progressing towards more of that ideal week that you spoke of?

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, well, obviously, when we get to a certain capacity and for sole traders, if they're working alone in terms of the revenue production, we often see this. It's just the client focus. We've done really well in nurturing referrers. We've got all the clients coming in. We're retaining them well, We've built up to a capacity that we're happy with, but all of a sudden we realize we've got no wriggle room. We're super busy. We don't have any flexibility.

Kate Hawkes:

Perhaps it's in taking time off and leave and those sorts of things we have issues. So we need to be zooming out and having a little bit more of a conversation around a desire statement which is really looking at your goals for the business and for your ideal role moving forward. And so, if we can understand that we are desiring to grow to help more people and we are at our capacity, we know we need to grow the team to be able to help more people eventually. So it's a matter of understanding. Okay, what again, is the timing? Just like we talked about recruiting administrative support, it's a matter of looking at. Well, perhaps we need another therapist as a priority to be able to come in and support and delegate some of your clients to be able to work on these other systems.

Kate Hawkes:

So how do you make it happen? Well, you start to have boundaries, I suppose, in terms of your maybe it's taking on a certain amount of new patients. You need to be looking at what is the low hanging fruit. Where is the time going to come from, initially, to create space, to create opportunities, to be working on the next steps for growing your team, looking at team attraction, onboarding and training? And so it's really personal boundaries, I suppose, and understanding that there needs to be a change. I won't call it a sacrifice, but there needs to be something that happens for us to enable the next stages of business growth. We can't keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

Ben Lynch:

Yeah, such a good point and I think, having seen a lot of practitioner clinic owners where they are consulting a lot, the business relies a lot on their own income it can seem or feel like a sacrifice to say, well, maybe I could free up a couple of hours in my week, but it would be at the omission of seeing patients and therefore generating revenue.

Ben Lynch:

But what you're saying is actually, if you go out six, 12, 18 months and look at, well, where do we want to be, and then work backwards from that, then perhaps we start to understand that that's an investment that we're making rather than a sacrifice in kind of building the future state of the business, which is really good. So, when it comes to a clinic owner that has quite full books themselves and they're trying to grow their team, what are some of the things that you like to get them to do in order to attract a team member, because presumably they don't have a lot of time maybe to do various recruitment activities. What are some of the things that you get them to do that are maybe some of that low hanging fruit that you spoke to that can start to generate interest applications for them?

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, and in terms of knowing the ideal business model, who are you serving in terms of your clientele, understanding what the need is for your business to grow further, and having a look at, well, if we've got an ideal client, we've got referral partners and we know that we're just a limited capacity to continue to grow, you can then identify who the next ideal team member is going to be.

Kate Hawkes:

So it might be based on a level of experience.

Kate Hawkes:

You might be happy to bring on someone as a new grad, but, knowing that they are going to require a bit of your time in terms of nurturing and support, maybe you'd be looking at someone with a little bit more experience to be able to step straight into the role and they've got some experience in a similar cohort of clients.

Kate Hawkes:

Maybe it's a, you know, it's a type of presentation or perhaps it's, you know, maybe it's just something to do with the product or service that you're offering that they have experience in. So you'd be starting to speak to, through your networks and through your if you have a social media presence or an online presence, you'd be starting to speak to who would be an ideal team member and through looking at how they can support with the clients that you're currently seeing and so you've got a role that's ready to go, someone who could come and step in and immediately support you and to be able to help. And it's really about the vision, mission and purpose speaking to that, how you're looking to help more people through growing a team and encouraging that support in the community. So it's understanding the clients that you're serving, who would be an ideal fit based on their experience. What level of experience do we really require for this next team member? What level of support can we offer them? And then looking to market that and putting that out there.

Ben Lynch:

You probably see this, like I do, on a lot of ads that are put out for a position that people will say we offer great mentoring support. But also you get to see a lot of clinics behind the curtain as to what is or what is not provided. And I can totally understand for a clinic owner that's packed to the rafters with their diary that it can be hard to provide the time and support for a team member. But we know it's so critical, so important for that team member's experience, their longevity, their length of stay, length of tenure. What are some of the things that you encourage those clinic owners making their first or maybe their second or third hire but it's still early days in their team around what they should do from a structured perspective in providing that support?

Kate Hawkes:

When we're looking at what is support for team members and if we're suggesting that we offer meaningful mentoring and career progression and supervision, what does it really mean? And so it'd be looking at having a rhythm for meaningful connection within the team. So, based on the desire of the team members, based on what you know that they would also need for accountability, it'd be looking at setting a rhythm for mentoring or supervision. And so having a dedicated rhythm, dedicated time for that meaningful connection with those team members so that they knew that they would have.

Kate Hawkes:

It's not going to be an ad hoc. You know, we say we're going to provide a certain level of support, but we haven't actually got a system in place to back that up. So it would be a regular rhythm, pre-booked, non-negotiable boundaries around that, making sure that we have that time dedicated to that team member in terms of providing feedback, but also some developmental, clinical support and skill as well. So to prepare for that, it would be looking at making sure you have the time as a priority, but also having a look at a structure for accountability. So you know what would be the structure for mentoring. And so we suggest setting up things like a focus sheet, questionnaire and making sure that the team member has an opportunity to reflect on their needs and their support requirements, to be able to send that through to the mentor.

Ben Lynch:

Can you talk us through? Yeah, just for those that aren't aware of what a focus sheet is, it's quite Clint Myles' sort of language. What is it very practically? And maybe what are some of those questions as part of the self-reflection, even just some key ones that you find are quite useful for a productive discussion.

Kate Hawkes:

Well, generally, what we want to have in a questionnaire. So essentially it's a very short, brief survey that any of your team members would be able to fill out prior to a mentoring session with you. So we want it to be partially a reflective piece. So just to speak about their experience, what they've noticed, some wins and insights. You know some things that we can acknowledge and celebrate, but also some things that would be front of mind and challenges. Maybe it's a clinical case study that they want to talk through, or maybe it's something about client experience.

Kate Hawkes:

You know, maybe we're noticing that we're having some difficulties in terms of conversions or retention. There could be anything that's going on in the clinic room that we need some help with. So it's an ability to speak to those things that we're celebrating but also that we need some help. It's also accountability, and so when we set up expectations for clinical team members, we would have expectations around certain we call them clinical excellence indicators around the utilization, client experience, rebooking rates and things like that. So it's an opportunity for the mentor to really be accountable to these expectations in clinical practice. So a reflective piece supports addressed and needs met in terms of the clinician's perspective, but also accountability from the mentor.

Ben Lynch:

I see a lot of mentoring structures that do a lot of things well. The accountability piece is so often missing. We run a lot of really good sessions, but then there's maybe a big to-do list that never gets done, partially done, or the delays of getting it done. We said we'd do this six weeks ago. We haven't yet got to it, maybe for various reasons, and so I think it's a really good point that you make around accountability, because that is the key to really creating progress. If we said we're going to do something, have we done it? How well have we done it? Because surely you committed to that for a reason and ideally you're hoping that yields some version of progress, whether for clients, the clinic or the team member overall. So I like that.

Ben Lynch:

So the focus sheet is something that we really like to do, I think as well. It actually puts the onus back on the practitioner to come prepared or be focused. Literally, that's where the terminology comes from, because you probably see this a lot, lot, especially in the startup clinic space, where the onus or reliance is heavily on the owner, and so if we've seen a lot of mentoring structures where it's like I've got to always solve the problems for them. You know they never come with solutions, just problems, and so it's actually quite a good little system very quick, easy, simple, effective to actually get more of the team members to come with a solutions mindset rather than just always looking for you to solve their problems.

Ben Lynch:

So I really like that as a part of reducing reliance as you grow, which is so important for clinic owners because, as you said at the top, kind of everything comes to you and you become some version of a bottleneck or overwhelmed. So we've spoken a lot here to time being a constraint perceived, real for those early stage businesses. Money is also typically quite a constraint in the early days, so so many clinic owners seem overwhelmed or unsure about where to start when it comes to money. Understanding it. What are some of the things that you help them implement to get confidence and clarity around money?

Kate Hawkes:

Well, it's a really important point that most people, when they're looking for help initially, it can be that I'm just not sure of my numbers. I can't make any informed decisions essentially around recruitment or around getting the next clinician whether it be sorry, a team member, whether it be a clinician or an administration. I'm looking at a new clinic space. I've reached my capacity. I don't know how much to budget for that. I want to do a marketing campaign. I don't know what my return on investment should be, so it can be purely a cashflow. It just doesn't feel like there's enough money in the bank to make any decisions, or it can be. I'm just not confident. I've got this opportunity that's popped up and I don't know whether I should negotiate on that or whether I should accept it. I'm scared of the risk of making that decision, and so it's a really exciting framework that we work on early with all of our members, and that's essentially we call it the finance framework, and so there are a few key components to that, and it's understanding their accounting primarily, which is looking at things like a profit and loss, and for some people they don't have an accounting software that they're using yet. There might be a spreadsheet. That's absolutely fine. We've all got to start somewhere, and so I would say that a lot of our members are coming on with a low to no confidence in the numbers, and so we can really seek to understand some of this. And, through an initial audit stage and coming on as a member, we also ask a lot of questions just generally around. Well, can we ask around these numbers, how you're performing in terms of the numbers in the business? And so that might be the first time that someone has actually gone in and reflected on their accounts and or their practice management software to pull some of this data. So we're looking at accounting, we're looking at profit and loss, we're looking at cash allocation, but we're also starting to document and dashboard some of the performance within the practice. So, looking at their weekly numbers, looking at revenue, looking at actual practitioner performance, things like rebooking rates, cancellation percentages this isn't something that everyone has understood or known how to do. So when we understand the performance of the practitioners, we also have an understanding of actually the money that's coming in and going out.

Kate Hawkes:

We can then look at pulling some levers as to, well, what decision would be the smartest? What can we actually afford to do next? If we are looking at, potentially, a decision around another investment, what is the risk benefit analysis? And we can do that through some of the tools that we use, and particularly the breakeven forecasting tool, which is really just looking at current money in versus money out and what lever would we pull next, what would happen if we were to invest in a larger occupancy or, let's say, another team member or an administration coming on board? We can actually see the impact of that.

Kate Hawkes:

And coming back to the decision around, you know the full clinician, the sole trader, who's, you know, working 40 hours a week and they're fully utilized. We can actually paint a picture. We can forecast. Let's have a look at what it would look like to bring in that next clinician, delegate a portion of your client load to them. Have a look at the break even what would it actually take for us to confidently bring on this therapist and be able to meet the investment so that the cost of the wage and then, from there, the potential which would be to have them filling up their caseload as well and it's a light bulb moment for a lot of members to see actually the impact of doing that. It feels like it's all a little bit too uncertain. We're not sure whether we can sacrifice those few hours consulting to put into team mentoring. But wow, the difference. When we can see it on paper, then it's just making it a reality through good systems and planning for that.

Ben Lynch:

It's a great point. So much of that maybe lack of confidence or certainty can really be solved by putting it into a rolling break, even the asset that we have, which essentially shows, here's, the impact financially of a decision recruitment, as you said, or changing any cost center, a version of a budget, really a forecasting tool, which just helps because so often, like we've all got this, you know, internal dialogue as business owners about different decisions that we're looking to make, as you said, marketing or recruitment systems, et cetera and there's there's an element of certainty that we get when we understand what are the financial ramifications of that decision gives you a certain amount of confidence, which I love. There's a couple of things you touched on there accounting and also cash allocation, to go a little bit deeper. So none of us, I would just say, are accountants. We went to health school.

Ben Lynch:

Health science is some version of, and, as you mentioned, we have to learn a lot of these things as we go reading books, listening to podcasts, et cetera, and there are some really good accountants out there that are good educators. Most, though, are somewhat reactionary Send us in your receipts and we'll process your tax, for you are somewhat reactionary. Send us in your receipts and we'll process your tax for you. Accounting is an entire profession around understanding the language of numbers, how to make decisions, and I think so many clinic owners perhaps come to us not knowing how to make the most out of the accountant relationship that they have. I'm interested in your thoughts on what you think is some of the best practices there, because we can certainly help from a business advisory perspective, but our accountants also can play an important role, I think, depending on your rhythm, that you meet with them and the questions that you ask. But what are some of the things that you advise clinic owners to do in terms of their relationship with their accountant?

Kate Hawkes:

Well, absolutely, we need to lean on their expertise to make decisions around the growth of the business and the investments that we're making, and so what I love when working with new members is to essentially introduce some foundations or some concepts around accounting and that we, generally in the allied health space, have some benchmarks and targets that we would like to look at, and so it's really an educational process that they can learn and take proactively to their accountant, and I think accountants would be overjoyed to know that their clients are engaging in this process and wanting to be really successful. And so, yes, accountancies can be very different and, as you said, reactionary versus proactive, but I believe it's really up to us to take initiative, and so our plan or our goal with members is really to help them to understand some of those benchmarks that we have around the allied health space in particular. And so working with members sometimes, again, it's a, it's a real light bulb moment to say, well, let's have a look at what we're spending, particularly, um, in a different area and maybe it's occupancy at the moment. Let's have a look and and see what that looks like and compare that to maybe some industry standards, and all of a sudden they say I didn't know, there was one. Uh, you know and and maybe it's, uh, it's around. What are we spending on admin or what are we spending on certain areas? And let's just have a look and see is that really an issue or is this, around what we expect?

Kate Hawkes:

And again, these investments are really valuable. There's a return on them. So we educate our members around these foundations to then go and have these meaningful conversations. It could be with a bookkeeper or it could be with an accountant, and it's more so around. Okay, well, if we're looking to make this next decision, it could be recruitment. This is how I expect that to be a great result or a good return on investment. And so then they can get the backing from their experts in that area to assist them in making decisions. And again, the bigger picture, things around tax planning and all sorts of things that are not necessarily within the scope here. It's more so making sure that they have a plan with their accountant and we're working together. It's a collaborative approach and we really welcome that.

Ben Lynch:

Yeah, I think if you're meeting with your accountant, you know, between monthly or quarterly, you've got a proactive rhythm in place so you can be addressing how you're going during the financial year, preparing for the liabilities, the taxes, the big investments perhaps that you want to make as well. So I think that's really important for people to do. If you don't have an accountant or you have questions about the accounting service that you're getting, you're watching, you're listening in here feel welcome to send us an email. We've got a few partners that we regularly refer to who do a really good job and specialize in allied health. The other one was cash allocation that you went to and I think you and I have probably seen this quite a bit where you get the quote, unquote, unexpected tax bill or you mentioned it before am I going to be able to meet the next payroll? The cash allocation is a way to address some of those things. Can you just talk through? What does that mean? What does that look like? Practically Another piece of getting certainty for a clinic owner.

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, great. And again, depending upon stage of business, this may not have needed to come up yet or it hasn't come up as something, but certainly we want to educate members at any stage on how this is a really beneficial system to have in place. And so what we're looking at is preventing financial fires. Essentially, we don't want to get any surprises, and it is a collaborative approach again with your accountant or bookkeeper. But what we're really speaking about here is making sure that weekly or fortnightly whatever the ideal rhythm is for our members typically I'm going to say it's around payroll, so it would probably be fortnightly.

Kate Hawkes:

For most is to ensure that we understand what are the entitlements and obligations that we need to be factoring into the picture in our accounts everyday trading but setting up some other accounts that would enable you to allocate for entitlements for team whether that's just a super, it could be the leave and also tax obligations. So then, separating that out from our everyday trading so we know exactly where things are at and when we're looking at our balances. If you are using, for the accounting program, the likes of Xero, you would be able to create these reports and have a look am I allocating enough? So that, come the time to actually pull these funds together. It's all ready to go and we have very minimal surprises along the way, and so, generally, we'd be reflecting on a previous period to have a look at what are the averages in terms of tax obligations that we need to be forecasting and tax planning for. What about the super, what about leave and what about long service can potentially come into play there too for some clinics, depending upon their team.

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, I really love that we're preventing any surprises.

Ben Lynch:

Jack O'Brien had this nice little quote that every dollar has a purpose and needs to be allocated accordingly, and I think that's really what you're speaking to is. I like to make things as foolproof as possible because I know I'm going to make errors or bad judgments or overlook some important piece of information, depending on what's going on. There's always things happening, so the more foolproof it can be, I think, the better for you. But it also enables you to delegate certain tasks over time that it might be a bookkeeper or a practice manager that starts to handle those things on your behalf. That again just makes it so much easier and more foolproof.

Kate Hawkes:

I think it's a matter of establishing these frameworks and these systems and getting into good rhythms and good habits.

Kate Hawkes:

That's what we're really educating our members on is that when we are going through these foundations and setting up a finance framework, for example, then we would be looking at the rhythm for when we're checking and monitoring these things, and so it's not a once and done and we forget.

Kate Hawkes:

It's a regular occurrence where we're building confidence for our members to look at the figures and not be afraid and I want to speak to that because I think that a lot of our members are, as I said, low to no confidence in the numbers area and a little bit afraid or concerned about generating a report to you know, what's it actually going to say? I'm not sure I want to know. You know, I'm not sure I know what to do with these numbers. And so we really are looking at not only building that initial understanding, but confidence along the way to be looking at forecasting for things, and we're not always just about the numbers, but it is super important to use them in making any decision moving forward. And that's where I feel that we've had a lot of progress and lots to celebrate with members when they are starting to make really great decisions on the next stage of their business, based on this knowledge that they've gained.

Ben Lynch:

Yeah, it's such a great point around. The reality is, if you've chosen to go into business, you absolutely need to know numbers, and it is confronting, especially early on, but to continue to get better at it. So, kate, you're speaking to quite a number of really practical solutions, really great systems. But what about for that clinic owner that's just like oh, there's everything here and I just want to do it all at once? Or perhaps another version of the same thing is I'm totally overwhelmed, a bit of a deer in headlights. There's so much to do. How do you go about navigating sustainability for the clinic owner in creating changes over time?

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, generally, that is most members when they arrive. So they're kind of a combination of being really excited, wanting to do all the things. I just want help. I feel like I've found the right place. Now let's get into it.

Kate Hawkes:

Let's get started and the nervous you know someone who's a little bit more concerned. You know I've got so much I don't have any time I'm worried about. You know how to make any of this work, and so we really need to slow the pace down and have a look at. Well, let's just really prioritize based on urgency and need and high value, and so our role here is really to understand what are those things that are, let's say, front of mind. You know, the things that are currently feeling like roadblocks and challenges to making progress, and if we just want to get into and get excited and do everything at once, it's still not really valuable for us to just start to pick from all different systems within the business to try and do it once.

Kate Hawkes:

So what we tend to do is have a look at, based on the audit, we look at what members are desiring so what is it that they really want to make happen, based on, then, the numbers, and what are the numbers behind what the business is doing currently, and then we marry together Well, what levers do we need to pull? And so, generally, through a foundation process, when members come on board, we really seek to understand these things and then focus on the systems that are a priority. So if we want to recruit a team member, but we're client attracting and we're trying to do marketing and recruitment, but perhaps we don't have the admin support and we need to do a lot more admin efficiencies and create automations and things, you know, it's sort of like, it's hectic and I'm sure that resonates with a lot of people hearing this. And so we'd be saying, well, let's look at the numbers. What do they tell us? Okay, we are just max capacity, there's nothing we can do unless we recruit. Okay, so we know that all those things are coming into play. Every different system in the business wants our attention, but we know that we can't make any movements until we really have some more capacity.

Kate Hawkes:

So we would be breaking down and understanding, well, what is it that we need to be focusing on as that higher level project over this period of time? It's really then delegating all of the other things and fitting it in over a period of time. So we put this into planning. We call it a 120 day plan, which is aligning with a 12 month and further into a three year kind of desire statement. And so it's really our focus is to take all of that, that brainstorm of all the things we want to do, all the things that are overwhelming us, and prioritizing and just taking the first step, which is really organizing our time. So it's usually coming down to personal productivity to be able to make the rest of the things happen.

Ben Lynch:

What do you notice, then, between what the best are doing quote unquote versus what someone who's struggling might be doing, especially early on in that journey? Describe the things they're doing, the things perhaps they're not doing that are allowing them to create some momentum.

Kate Hawkes:

I think clarity is really key. So when you say, what are the best doing? Well, they have had a moment to zoom out and look at the bigger picture, not just focusing on the problem. There's always a problem, essentially, you know they're always going to be there. We get better at managing them. Managing them, we say and so it's, it's zooming out and having clarity on the bigger picture. Where are we actually headed? And then we can come back and say well, if we're focusing on this, is that actually going to get us towards our goal or do we need to actually stop doing that and pivot and move in a different direction? And so for those, let's say, those that are not yet in great efficiencies, we're noticing that we're churning through the same sort of spot fire type work, just dealing with the issue at hand, and we're not able to see the forest through the tree.

Kate Hawkes:

So it's usually about bringing things back to what's happening right now versus where we wanted to go. So, again, we're always going to zoom out and have a look at our clarity on the plan. When we're clear on the next step, we know how to action. It's when we're not clear that we start to chip away at all things and we don't feel like we're making progress. So usually it's got to. It's got to start with. Am I clear? And if not, I need to get clear, first through good planning and then implementation yeah, great distinction around.

Ben Lynch:

that clarity reminds me of I think it's in the stephen covey book uh, seven habits of highly effective people, the um parable or analogy of the guy sharpening the sword. You remember this one, the two, two guys cutting down a big tree. One disappears for several hours and then comes back and the other guy's like you know what, what were you doing? And he's like I was sharpening my saw and I was, you know, able to cut down the tree way more efficiently, way more effectively than the other folks. And I think that speaks to kind of that idea of getting clarity, you know, improving your skill set and slowing down actually to enable sustainability moving forward. So that's a really great distinction.

Ben Lynch:

So many of the members in our community, but also perhaps representative of allied healthcare in the market, have families and so they're juggling family, business and everything else happening in their world and it's rarely a balance, but it's certainly some version of an integration and at various times a bit of a circus, a traveling circus. I've got four kids and can definitely be a traveling circus at times. What do you suggest for those that are maybe starting a family, expanding a family, whilst also trying to do the same for their business. How do you go about supporting someone through that journey?

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, yeah, it's a really good question. It's a really common situation and a similar situation for myself going through business with two young children and trying to do all the things and expecting to be able to keep going at the same pace. So I'm going to say it's around managing expectations to some degree and setting boundaries. So if we are expecting that we're able to allocate as much time in all of these different areas but the situations keep changing, we keep having more being added to our plate. It's a matter of actually managing that and saying, okay, how am I going to be focused in different areas of my life, including family and home time, and how do I really separate? What needs to happen for me to be able to separate, to put my work hat on and then obviously, to take that off and, you know, focus on the family, and so it's a process of identifying again where are the opportunities, what am I actually doing with my time and how effective is that? Then getting the support to be able to delegate certain things. It's a matter of what do I keep doing, what do I stop doing, and you know, and what do I start, and finding the supports that really help you in your unique situation, and sometimes that is support in the home.

Kate Hawkes:

And I was meeting with a member recently actually, and what we were talking about was business structure and strategy. But when we actually pulled it apart, we identified that we didn't have good workflow at work because we didn't have good rhythms at home, and so I think that that was the first time that we've actually gone and discussed that and said, well, if we are able to focus at work, what needs to have happened first? And that was where we started and we put different rhythms in place. It was some of the simple things around shopping, cooking, planning, you know, getting support in the home, cleaning, prepping, maybe it is childcare, and it's looking at those things to enable us to free up our capacity in the workplace.

Kate Hawkes:

So it will be different for everyone, but I think it's auditing your situation and really being honest with yourself around what are we expecting and what is the reality and what sort of help do I really need? And as, and maybe as a mother, that's hard to do. Asking for help can be challenging, but I think that once we really understand what help we need, we can ask for it and really lean into the supports. That doesn't come naturally, so I think that's a lesson, and through experience we start to be a little bit more okay with seeking the right help.

Ben Lynch:

A really great point and so often in a similar and parallel context, like people look at others and they think they've got it all figured out and they don't. Everyone's running their own journey, and so I think it's a really important distinction that you made there around adjusting your expectations. I think that's such an important thing. It definitely needs to be more fluid, more flexible and less balanced and binary, because that's the reality of it. Um, and if you've got that support network, that's awesome. It is challenging for some, but just finding how can we be more resourceful with what we have and coming back to, like you said, how can we get more flow at home, and then I'm a better you know, partner, mother, husband, father, boss, leader, uh, clinician, et cetera.

Ben Lynch:

I think that's a really great way to reflect. Where does it all start? That's really wonderful. I think it's a great forcing function. I was speaking with Bid Linden on a recent episode about this as well. I think it actually forces you to get really good at prioritizing, as you kind of pointed out, because you realize, well, maybe I don't have as many hours available today or this week, or I have to now adjust because I thought I had those many hours but I don't because something's happened. I think it actually helps you level up in some sort of way at your ability to work through what needs to be done and what matters, not only on a business front, but on a family and personal front as well. So, yeah, there's a great benefit, maybe a side benefit that's not so obvious at the time when there's chaos, so that's really good.

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, we also noticed that when I remember saying I've time blocked this time to work on the business, but I never seem to get to it. There's always something else and so it's really a good opportunity and even if we're not talking about families or family commitments, that we've got still this time block for business, but client inquiries or, you know, accounts or invoicing something always creeps up and takes over that time. You know, I don't seem to be able to have any capacity for that and so again, it's just really saying well, what are we expecting? If we have these tasks and we're not time blocking for them, they're going to creep up and they're going to creep into your higher value time.

Kate Hawkes:

So we need a better system Generally. We need to have a look at how well are we doing these things Generally. It could be client notes. You know I'm just busy with catching up on patient notes, patient histories reports. It's creeping into my marketing networking time, okay. Well, we need to look at the efficiencies in that clinical time first yeah, yeah, great point, um kate, as we wrap up this conversation.

Ben Lynch:

So many really practical bits of advice that you've got, especially for those early stage clinics, but also true for any stage of business coming back to you know the fundamentals and doing them really really well, or asking how well are we doing them and how could we improve them. What is your sort of final piece of advice, wisdom, for those clinics that are early stage in particular, that are feeling a little overwhelmed and perhaps questioning whether they've made the right decision to go into business and maybe even entertaining, selling or getting out of it. What's your advice to those people?

Kate Hawkes:

Yeah, I would always bring it back to we spoke about this heavily but the numbers and understanding what the potential is, what's currently working well, what's not working so well and what are the opportunities. So we might not be that far away from reducing overwhelm and actually having, let's say, more profitability or cashflow to address the immediate concern. And so it's knowing what's next and it's looking at things objectively rather than subjectively. So if we're feeling overwhelmed with this, everything's pulling on our attention, we need to understand well, actually, what is valuable to be working on, and so we would always be looking at what is the objective. Next step, to get clarity and understanding Make an informed decision, Know what your action plan is I like.

Ben Lynch:

that sort of anchoring to the meaningful outcome for them really helps you make good decisions today. Kate, thank you so much for all those insights. You can catch the recording of this podcast at clinicmasterycom and all the show notes Also over on YouTube. Come check it out. We're posting a number of how-to videos, practical videos for helping make good decisions, sharing some of these assets and resources you can use in your clinic so that you can make better decisions and ultimately grow your clinic more sustainably. Kate, this has been really fun. I'm sure we'll do another episode in the future, but thank you so much for sharing so openly.

Kate Hawkes:

Welcome, thanks, pleasure, see you.

Ben Lynch:

All right, 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.