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
Clinic Mastery | Why Your Clinic Systems Don’t Stick (And How to Fix It) | GYC Podcast 322
Struggling to get your clinic systems to actually stick?
In episode 322 of the Grow Your Clinic podcast, Jack, Dan & Bec dive into why so many systems fail - not because they’re bad, but because they’re abandoned too soon. From battling “shiny ball syndrome” to building a culture of consistency, this episode shows you how to stop reinventing the wheel and start locking in systems that last. You’ll learn how to become the ‘Chief Reminding Officer,’ why documenting beats overthinking, and how to use tools like task lists and centralised hubs to keep your team aligned. Plus, get practical tips to streamline onboarding, reduce overwhelm, and make your systems so clear and useful that your team actually wants to follow them. If you’re ready to build a clinic that runs smoother - with less micromanaging - this one’s a must-listen.
Need to systemise your clinic? Start your free trial of Allie!
https://www.allieclinics.com/
In This Episode You'll Learn:
🔑 The number one reason systems fail in clinics
⚙️ How to automate, delegate, or delete tasks effectively
📋 The importance of team member onboarding and culture
📈 Daniel's three circle method for simplifying clinic systems
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G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by And if a clinic owner has ever been asked the same question twice, It is a real and present danger that we over-systemize and over-engineer things. Written instructions or video, which is more helpful for a One of those key principles we had in our clinic was blame the system, not So we've got step one, team member onboarding. Welcome, it's great to have you here. Are you the type of person who writes a task that you've already completed just so you can tick it off or scratch a line through it? 100%! You are? This episode will be right up your Allie if you're looking to improve systems in your clinic. We'll be diving into how to streamline your operations without all the red tape. Stick around for Daniel's three circle method to simplify your clinic systems. Plus you'll get a look behind the scenes at Bec's setup on Allie and how it helps her team run Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organized and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And, in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email helloatclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast and we'll line up a time to chat. All Welcome back to another episode of the Grow Your Clinic podcast. We've commandeered the podcast, kicked Ben and Hannah out and yeah, it's the new three amigos. So welcome, we've got Daniel Gibbs, co-founder of Clinic Mastery and affectionately known as the swan around Clinic Mastery. I'm expecting there to be an edit flash across the screen. So our team, if you could Thank you. Nice to be here. I hope one day we're going to see you pull out some nice Oh, yeah. Decorative purposes only recently. But yes. And Rebecca Clare, welcome back. Good to have you here. Our regular Thursday co-host. Bec, if you were an animal, what I'd be a lion. Absolutely. It's always been a favourite animal of mine. King or, well, queen of the jungle. King. Beautiful mane. Leader of the pack. Yeah, and you'd hope that you could be soft and affectionate and cuddly as well. Being a cat lover, they're just Okay, very nice. There you go. Well, before we get into today's topic, quick shout out to those recently joining us on Allie. There's been a whole bunch of clinic owners recently jump in, so welcome. We've got Ellie here, who's a SPLOSE user. For those listening along, we have recently integrated with SPLOSE, Halaxy, and Nookle. And so if you're on one of those practice management softwares, come and join us over at Allie. Also got Lauren, Stephanie, and Sally. So fantastic to have those folks join us. And Joining us inside the Clinic Mastery Business Academy and our Elevate programs, again, number of clinic owners. So welcome to Nicholas, who is a physio. Welcome to Sarah, who's an OT. Welcome to Kieran, Fiona. So just in the last couple of weeks, in the last couple of days, sorry, there's been a whole bunch of new clinic owners join Great time of year to do so too, Jack. Why, Daniel? Well, we're thinking about April next year and thinking about the squeeze on available trading days in April and how do we prepare for that and get us through December and January and then set us up nicely for I like that. And if you join us before March, you can join us at the Grow Your Clinic Summit. It is a members only event. We'll be packing out the aerial venue on South Wharf in Melbourne. That is for members only. So if you want to get in on that, it is the go-to clinic owner event for the year. Come and join us, couple hundred clinic owners. Canapes and cocktails are on me, or us, and we'd love to welcome you. I know teams bring their practice managers and clinical lead team We have 19 speakers lined up, so many topics to go through, really good summit sessions and Hands down. Okay. Well, today's topic, systems that stick. How to streamline your clinic without red tape. Take it away, Bec. I'm going to throw to you first. What's the number one reason systems don't Consistency is key. And often as business owners and serial entrepreneurs, we have shiny ball syndrome. So we pivot from one thing to the next without perhaps properly cementing that first system. And as clinic owners, our role is also to be our chief reminding officer for our team. So sticking at it and being really consistent and ensuring that it is in place before we're layering Well, firstly, as a definition, what are we thinking about when we talk about systems? Because some people can think about it's the software that we're using, the systems, or it's the processes and procedures that we have in place, the systems, the way we do things. When we talk about systems, essentially, we're talking about the habits that are formed around how to get certain outcomes in a clinic. And I guess the good news is that every clinic in every part of the world has systems already. It's just that the systems are not that good. You know, if your system for recommending someone stick to a treatment plan is, hey, give us a call in six months. You know, that's a treatment plan. It's not a particularly good one, but it is a treatment plan. If your system for answering the phone is, you know, pick up the phone and say what you like, that's a system, that's a process. But there are opportunities to make things more cohesive, more systemized, more on brand more towards a particular outcome. So in terms of the question, why don't systems stick? I think it's literally that there's just not enough attention put on what is the way we want to be doing things. And if a clinic owner has ever been asked the same question twice or more, then there's an opportunity to put in a process that You touched on something really important there, Dan. The way we do things around here. I'm not sure who I'd love to attribute it but it's kind of a definition for culture, right? It's the way we do things. And I assume what you're saying is like capital W, the way as Yeah, I think for us in our clinic, what happened was we came to a moment where we decided what do we want to be known as or what do we want to be known for? And the little moniker was we want to be known for providing the best client experience. And we had a little mantra that we used and we had a little, um, yeah, little things that we started to infuse into the clinic. And it started with a happy team is able to bring a happy environment to clients. And so we put a lot of work in connecting our team, doing daily huddles, weekly meetings, having a good rhythm of meetings and having a good process behind those meetings happening. Before it was sort of ad hoc. We've got a team meeting, but this client needs to be seen. I can't run the meeting. We'll cancel the meeting for now. We'll just see the client instead. But then it turned to, actually, we have a process around team meetings. We have a structure. We have an agenda. Same thing's happening. It's just we get a better outcome with one than the other. And that sort of led to, then, the little things that we did to make sure that the client experience was amazing. And we borrowed from other industries. we tried to think about how could we make this work in a way that doesn't feel like it's an extra burden. And so, we were doing things like serving herbal tea, we were doing mineral salt and essential oil foot baths, this is a podiatry clinic, which is nice for the client to do before they come in for the appointment, but instead of our admin reception team going, oh my goodness, this is all this extra work, It actually became part of how we do things and became part of our culture. And by systemizing it, it meant we're able to deliver it without it Well, it's a good point because that burdensomeness that you're speaking to is the feeling of red tape. You know, for those maybe not so familiar with colloquialisms and that type of thing, red tape is this like overburden, some bureaucracy things for the sake of it. And yeah, making herbal teas and foot baths can probably feel like red tape or can feel super liberating and luxurious depending on your team culture, right? And you mentioned, you know, when we talk about the way at your clinic, you're almost describing an operating model, yeah, a way of operating a model, Yeah, so our systems covered things like how we greet clients. And if we don't set the rules, then other people are going to set the rules for us, right? So we just sort of put out there, if we're going to be known for providing the best client experience, how would someone expect to be greeted if we were providing the best client experience? And then once we'd workshopped that and figured it out, we went, OK, that's the way that we're going to greet now. And so that became the process. What then happened was there were so many things that we were doing, right? And we needed an actual centralized place where we could house all of our procedures. And so we started with an intranet site where we said, hey, this is the situation, this is what we do. And I just, well, we just built it out bit by bit based on the questions that were being asked by the team over a period of time. So, hey, here's this situation here, what do I do? I would answer that and then I would go, all right, let's put that in the intranet and in this situation, do this. And then the next time that came up, I was able to say, well, have you checked the hub? We called it our hub. And so, oh yeah, I didn't think to do that, so I'll check the hub first. Still not clear. Okay, well, let's put a video with it or let's tweak the instructions. Let's make it easy for our team to be able to do this. And then ultimately, let's make it easy for anyone to be able to walk in and on their first day, feel And I took examples. from you when we first started with Clinic Mastery around the way that you set up the trust in the systems, which was explaining the why, however, always being, again, consistent about where they could find it. So it evolved for you to be part of the hub. However, it started with Asana. So you started using Asana for a task list for your admin team and see the instructions. You could add new tasks to it that they haven't done the day before, but they knew that if They went to Asana, the instructions would be there for them. We still do that now. And we still have our daily tasks list that we can edit, flex up, flex down as we need those things. But the team now trusts that the instructions or the link to the Well, I can tell, so it's something that we did with the power of task lists. It's just, it's incredible. So the way we organized our systems was imagine three concentric circles. The first one is the team. So the team, the principle here is that everyone on the team knows what everyone else on the team does. There's clear position descriptions, clear outcomes for their roles. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing and how their role affects other people on the team as well. Now the team are guided by the task list, the second circle. The task list tells the team what to do in any particular moment. Now this task list was gold because yes, we used Asana as well. There are lots of task management apps, but the point was, We actually started with a spreadsheet, and then we thought, we're going to add a practitioner to our patient management system. And the practitioner's name was Tasks, and we would book appointments with that practitioner, and the appointment was the tasks that needed to be done at that time. And then we could book recurring appointments so that the things that needed to get done around the clinic were done at the right time. These were simple things like putting the bins out, or vacuuming, or making sure that paperwork was prepared for the next day, or whatever it might have needed to be. But the power of the task list was awesome because one day I noticed that when I rocked up to the clinic the sign out the front was a bit dirty, you know, there's a bit of road dust, there's a little bit of bird poo, you know, it didn't really look awesome and it wasn't exactly that great client experience that we wanted people to have when they saw our clinic. It didn't really represent us well. I thought actually it's probably a good idea if you know, perhaps once a week someone was able to brush down the sign and just, you know, make sure it looks good. So it was a Monday and I thought what I'll do is I'll just go into the task list and I'll set a task for Wednesday where the front sign gets a bit of a brush down. Here's some simple steps for what to do. The next time I was at the clinic was Thursday. And the sign was clean. And I went inside and I thought, hey, this is awesome. The sign's clean. Who did that? And Emily put her hand up and said, oh, that was me. I didn't, I haven't seen that one before, but I just followed the instructions. Is that okay? And I said, yeah, that's awesome. And so essentially what happened was, We didn't have to have a meeting. We didn't have to train anyone in what to do. We just needed to put the task on the list and schedule it. And with our team understanding that their role is to do what's on the task list, it was able to get done. And so that is a good way of putting in a system and making sure that it works. And then the third concentric circle, which sort of ties everything together, was the hub, the intranet site. And this was the what-if scenarios. So what if this happened? Well, do this. Or what if this happens? Do this. And we also put in our team training. We put in our dashboards. We put in a whole lot of other things into that intranet site. But it became the centralized single source of truth for our systems framework and also for I really like that, Dan. I'm thinking about the clinic owners who are listening along and they're thinking, you know, I want more time to work on the business. That's something that clinic owners would often feel a sentiment if you're listening along. And the way to do that is to have a culture like you've described. And then also the streamliners. Yeah, the topic of this podcast is about streamlining. And so the process of adding a task, popping in the description and the team just follow the task. That doesn't happen overnight, but when you build that culture over time, it frees Yeah, it was obviously linked with that purpose of providing best client experience. It's obviously linked with the reason things are on the task list is because it's leading to a particular environment that we're looking to create. And it enabled us to be able to create that culture where we could put things on the list, but then we could also acknowledge each other for doing those things too. So, you know, performance acknowledgement, recognition, we used another app called Bonusly to be able to help recognize peer-to-peer. So one of the team members might say, hey, thanks for chipping in for doing that. Here's a few points for you or whatever it might've been. But yeah, the culture is wrapped around less of this, you must do this, but it's more by doing this, we all get to create the working environment that we love. Right. Yeah, that speaks to that red tape piece. Beck, I'll throw it to you. What's the role of a practice manager in this context? Is it to execute the ASAN task list? Is it to build out the task list and the hub? Or is it a blend of both or something else? What's the role of the practice manager there? It really depends on the stage and the lifestyle, the life stage rather of the clinic. So, you know, your practice manager could also be your primary admin team member, in which case they could wear multiple hats. Or you could be a larger clinic, in which case you have an admin team and your practice manager is coordinating what they are doing. So, it really depends on the life stage of where you're up to. I'd see your practice manager curating the list, helping create it and then curate it. The thing about a task list is reviewing it to make sure that it has remained relevant, that that task, as we evolve in time with greater automation, we often look at can we automate, delegate, delete? Are these still key tasks that need to be done in the manner in which they're being done? So, it's really the role of the practice manager to ensure, firstly, tasks are on the list, they're relevant, and that they're being completed. So, a mechanism for ensuring that we don't want to micromanage anyone, right? That's the purpose of having a task list is that people can actually go about their tasks autonomously without needing someone watching over them. There are, however, systems that we can put in place to ensure the consistency of that execution. And I guess to Daniel's point is start somewhere. A lot of clinics I started, we started with a piece of paper and a checklist and you'd tick off the little boxes. It graduated to a practitioner on the diary to then a task list management system. Point is start documenting somewhere. And what I see the very best clinic doing is documenting versus creating. So as they go to do a task, using that moment to work out what it is and how it Like Daniel said on the fly, oh the sign needs to be cleaned, I may make that into a task. Bec, you mentioned writing task lists down for you in the first instance. Are you the type of person who writes a task that you've already completed just Absolutely I am. You should see my G-Cal. I put my task now on my G-Cal and I all have little emojis next to them. And as I go to complete them, I use the little tick emoji, but sometimes extra things get added just so that I can tick them for the dopamine hit, I got a story on this one, Jack. Because task lists, you know, bring out sometimes the best and the worst in people as well. And they can be quite overwhelming. Oh, my goodness, look at the day that we've got ahead. Or they can be empowering. Oh, great. These are all the things that I need to do. I just need to focus on these things. And they can also feel quite rewarding once you do tick some of those things off. But But for one of our team members at one point, the habit was that she would come in at the beginning of the day, tick off all of the things on the task list for the day so that it was clear, and then go about her day and remember in her mind to do all the things that she ticked off that morning. It was a preemptive tick. I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to do it. Different people work with task lists in different ways, and you can have the best systems in the world. But the point is that people are going to be running those systems, and sometimes we need to make them foolproof. Sometimes we need to make them people-proof, too. But the point is, you know, if things got missed, at least we knew why. But yes. But then to more on the task list. For example, one of the tasks might have been at our clinic sterilizing the instruments. Now, sterilizing instruments is something that requires some training, some hand-holding. You need to make sure things are sterilized. And for the most part, with the autoclave, the reporting, the document-taking, the testing strips to make sure things are done properly, the packaging of instruments, and all of those things that go into play, it's quite an involved process. Now, because this is something that Most of our team did every day in the clinic. It became quite routine and automatic and that's fine. But that didn't mean that we don't systemize the process. It actually meant that it's more important to systemize this process. In the task list, it might be sterilizing instruments for the day. But then that links to the hub, which actually has a video walkthrough of what we do, a process flowchart, the step-by-step instructions, a printout that if someone was doing it for the first time, they can watch the video, they can have the printout with them, they can tick off all the steps and complete that task. And the idea was if they were first day at the clinic by themselves, they would be able to complete that task without being taught what to do. And so that's how we tested whether our systems were good enough or not. And so, yeah, it Dan, question for you. In terms of creating resources for your team to be able to follow through a process, written instructions or We tried to cater to different learning styles. So, the video does not need to be polished. You know, you can grab your phone and you can just, you know, video the process and, you know, put that on an unlisted YouTube link and then link it, you know, on anything. Like, that could be the most basic way of doing things. But then we went a step further by having a written checklist as well to make sure and it was actually easy to do the written checklist first for me and then do the video because I was able to think about all the steps that are involved and then do the video. And then we did a process flowchart so it's like a visual this is what happens next and then a sort of things to check, did the indicator strip get the date put on it or was it a successful completion of the sterilizing? That was one particular process. We did that for stock ordering, we did it for all sorts of different processes in the clinic. But the point was, if someone was there on their first day and they were by themselves, they If it was me, first day, trying to do this work, would I be able to, you know, that was... That's interesting, Dan, that you would do checklist first and then the video in our clinic. And what I was speaking to a clinic owner just last week is they do the video first. And particularly if it's a screen record, you know, maybe you're showing a team member how to do something inside your practice management software inside Allie. Do the screen record. It's a bit clunky. You're sort of following your nose and fumbling your way through. These days, there's AI softwares that will take that clunky, fumbly video and translate it into a really succinct checklist of bullet points or visual flows as you describe. And ultimately, to your point, Beck, we want to have written form, video form, image form to cater to For sure. I think that to your point, Anne, about record the video on your phone, progress over perfection, it doesn't really matter. It's an internal video. And I think to the video that actually for our team that gets watched the most is where are the dryer filters located and how do you clean them? Because our team, given their stage of life, have never used a dryer and they don't know how to get the filters out of the dryer and what to Dan, on the creation of processes versus just adopting. Now, I think of varying degrees of specificity. Clinic owners could Google and get a template. They could maybe use ChatGPT and get vanilla garbage from ChatGPT. Or if they're a user of Allie, we've created hundreds of ready-to-plug-and-play processes. How should a clinic owner, Daniel, think about Yeah, so the reason we created A11y was to help solve for the problem that we had, which was we wanted a centralized intranet site, a centralized place for all the policies, procedures, for how to do things, for links to training resources to follow on continuing professional development, to know when certain things are due like registration is due and insurance and all of those things. So we actually created Allie off the back of this exercise of creating our own intranet site so that Allie could fulfill that purpose for clinic owners. But in doing that, we realize that every clinic has their own policies and procedures. Some are written down, some are not. And for all those clinics that have policies written down, they vary so greatly. But there are national quality health safety standards, there are NDIS standards when it comes to policies, and there are frameworks that a lot of clinics need to abide by as well. And so what we thought was it would make the world a whole lot easier for a clinic owner if they were able to plug and play certain policies that are pretty pretty much applicable to most clinics out there and to be able to implement them and to be able to then get their team to acknowledge that they've read and they accept the policy as well and if that policy needs to be acknowledged every year then it would remind you to do so or if it also needed to be updated or changed then it would prompt you to do so. So policies was a key one that we thought to be able to grab those templates and make them work. It just takes so many hours out of, you know, how do we actually do things here? And then the second one was procedures. Every clinic might see a client, but people do it in different ways, right? Or people may, every clinic may answer the phone, they may just do it in different ways. So it's simply a way of going, when this happens, do this. And so when there's a situation, do this. I think we overcomplicate procedures in the clinic. You know, we start putting in all of the This is why it's important. This is who it affects. These are the people who are responsible. These are the reporting lines. These are, you know, and that's great. But when it comes down to it, you want your processes to work. So when there's this scenario, do this. Where it's not clear what to do, then you can make some changes. Where there isn't a representation of when this happens, usually the question will get asked anyway, so we just go, oh, here's a situation where something's happened and someone didn't know what to do. And as you said, Beck, documenting, not creating. As we go through the process of running our clinic, we document the Dan, we loved adopting Allie and all the policies and procedures and components that were in there. And we were able to blend what we currently had with what was already in Allie. And it was just super. I'm looking at our playlist now for the onboarding of our new team members for 2025. And it's just so much more streamlined than we've ever, ever done in the clinic. And I can see these new team members going from strength to strength. And that's really what this is about, is how can we have our team members perform at a level that as directors we would have been, or we are, how can we fast track that development for them? What can we take from here and from here and ensure that they've got and they're instilled with all of that amazing knowledge and It's a really good point, Beck. We want our team to own it and to lead with it in a streamlined way, not to create more bureaucracy or hurdles or anything like that. So that's on the assumption that people do what the process is or what the task list says. I'm curious, Beck, if and when you notice or observe in your clinic that something isn't being followed according to the agreed standard or the agreed process. Can you walk us through what that conversation looks like with that team member? Like how would you handle that situation in your clinic, a team member not When you're noticing it versus say, perhaps repeated instances of that. It's fresh for you both. And we can look at what needs to perhaps change in the system or there might be some education that needs to happen around that. And it comes from a point of seek first to understand. So, I would have a chat to the team member like, so, hey, Dan, I just noticed the sign outside. So, every Wednesday, we really want to ensure that the sign is clean as part of our client experience. I just noticed that it had been skipped yesterday. Is everything okay? Okay. Yep. Let's, let's role play this out. Uh, I'll say, uh, yeah, yeah, Well, I actually, I actually think this is a really good point about staying curious because when your team do things a different way to what perhaps you had prescribed, maybe it's because they feel like there's a better way to do things. And I would actually trust the team member in the first instance, who is on the call face, who's responsible for this particular procedure, because there may be something about that process that they go, you know what, if I do it this way, it's probably better, better for me, or better for the client. So if you adopt that curiosity, then it's a case of, well, what can we do to adjust the system based on what you're saying here? But then, of course, there are situations where it's like, oh, we were so busy, we didn't get around to it, didn't think it was a priority, or whatever it might be. It's like, OK, that's cool. That's good to know. Is there any adjustments we need to make to the timing of the task? Or is there any adjustments that you feel we need to make to the, the perceived feeling of the task being bigger than it actually is. And so in terms of making it easier for them, and then just acknowledging and moving on. One of those key principles we had in our clinic was blame the system, not the person. So it was really important to continue to provide that position of safety for the team, that they're not going to be blamed if something goes wrong. It's the And to your point, I hear often in the Practice Leaders Program, the days are really quite busy, or as I refer to them, quite full. And there are times in the clinic that perhaps tasks will either slip or not be prioritised in the way that we feel as clinic owners that they should. There are times we do need to trust our team that ultimately the client experience, and that is prioritised in terms of the people in front of you, the people on the phone, people who are enquiring, versus some of the other tasks. And the point about that conversation is, well, how do we then pick up those tasks in other times? So, what's our handover process? And understanding that in that handover process, we are actually giving that task to someone who might equally have a very full debt. So, what adjustments do we need to make? And having open and honest conversation exactly It reminds me of, again, I don't know who to attribute this to, but the notion of assuming positive intent. You know, if I noticed a system around my clinic that isn't being complete, when you're distanced from it, particularly if you've come off the tools or maybe you work remotely, sometimes it's just our human instinct to think, oh, what's that team member up to? Can't believe they'd skip out on that. when in actual fact there's probably a little bit more context and then they're not nefarious. They're not trying to sabotage your clinic. They probably got distracted or they probably found a better way or they probably prioritized something else. So staying curious, but assuming positive intent to your question, Beck, like is everything okay? Am That's where things can get super red tapey or bureaucratic, or you might feel like you're being micromanaged by the systems. This is the way we're meant to do it. This is what's written down. So you must do it like that. Why didn't you do it like that? Rather come at it from a point of view of just staying curious. If someone takes your car parking space, you have two ways that you can react. You either, and I forget where this is from, this particular. and this particular example, but it is in a book that I've read. It's in a book that I've These are people all sitting on a podcast, all going, oh my goodness, I can't Yeah, I know that book. But if someone takes your car parking space, you might go, you might fly off the handle. How could they? How dare they take my car parking spot? And then if you see them inside, you're going to confront them, or maybe not. And at the very least, you're just going to feel angry towards that person, whether you confront them or not. Another way to respond is, oh my goodness, I wonder why they needed to use my car spot. I hope everything's okay. There was obviously a reason. And so you just assume positive intent or you assume that the intent is not going to be against you. And I've seen so many clinic leaders sort of get into a spot where they feel like it's it's them against their team. And I don't think that really builds a great culture in a clinic, nor does it actually help people want to follow the processes that are there. So team first, it's always team first, then the system. And I think if we can keep that front of mind, you won't over systemize things, but Well, that's right. It is a real and present danger that we over-systemize and over-engineer things. So there is a bit of a Goldilocks principle at play here, right? It's not too much, not too little, but finding it just right in the middle. Bex, you alluded to a Tim Ferriss quote there earlier of like, we need to sometimes delegate or automate or delete things. What do you mean by delete? When would I ever think about deleting a Well, a process or a policy may be superseded by technology. As an example, deleting, running your traditional dashboarding, as an example, by using Allie. That's a task that no longer Yeah, it's a really good point because we're talking about streamlining. And sometimes we think we just need to add more processes or policies. It's like, no, actually taking Absolutely. And also looking at ways we can delete off of, and this is probably to the delegate part, which is, does this need to be done by this person? And right now, could this be done either by technology or could it be done by someone remotely as an example? who is non-client facing, who can concentrate on that task at that time and be more effective and efficient at it. So it's really about working out what happens when and how is it most effective. That's Yeah, I think a lot of people fall into the trap of trying to automate everything. And I think the principle here is to automate a process that already exists as a manual process, because you'll find so much more enjoyment out of doing that. If the process already exists, and it's a manual process, and you find a benefit in automating that process, then the automation is likely to work a whole lot better. I see people fall into traps where they try and automate too much, they automate this, they try and automate that, and all those automations are great, but because a manual process didn't exist beforehand, no one really sees or understands the benefit of Hmm. So Daniel, I've got a question for you. One of the things that we don't want, one of the things clinic owners should avoid is creating all these policies, procedures, task lists that live, they no longer live in a binder on the shelf. They just gather dust virtually on a Google shelf. And so we don't want that. How should clinic owners think about a rhythm for reviewing their policies, Yeah. Okay. So you can, you're touching on a great point here. You can have policies and procedures, but if they're gathering dust on the shelf, cause they're printed in a binder binder that no one reads no good. If they're gathering virtual digital dust in SharePoint or Google drive, that's not going to be very useful either. So it is important to have a process of review, and it is important to have that centralized place where people can actually know what to do and when to do it. The National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards, there we go, I said it all, NSQHS, this is an Australian thing. talks about the advisable review process and most policies should be reviewed on an annual basis, or at least acknowledged by the team on an annual basis. So there is that regular rhythm of review, but then there's also the review that happens when something falls apart. So if there's a situation that's happened, you had a policy or you had a procedure written for that situation, but either it wasn't followed or it didn't work or it wasn't applicable in that moment or whatever the case may have been, you then go through a process of reviewing that policy or procedure and then having the team acknowledge the changes to it so that next time it pops up, you're less likely Yeah, having a system to do so, to pop it up for yourself and then to review it. And Daniel, are you reviewing these things in isolation yourself or would you recommend clinic owners do it as Well, some of the things, some of the procedures is sort of, I think this is the best way to do it. I'm just going to put it in place and it'll work and it's done. Other times we need to sort of get the team involved and look at what's going to work best. And hey, we've considered everything together. And the reason the procedure is the way it is, is because we've worked through that together. So there are some situations where it's more appropriate to involve the team and there are others when you can sort of decide yourself. And there are still other situations where there is a health safety framework that exists. And so we go with what the standards say. What I found was often very difficult was in the clinic, knowing which version of the policy is the current one, or knowing which version of the procedure is the current one. Do we still do it like that? Is that still our policy? It seems a little out of date, you know, whatever it is. And we don't have time to go and do policies all the time or anything like that. So as it sounds like one big ad for Allie, doesn't it? But as one part of Allie, what we did was we put in place the review Um, the review framework. So if you put in a place, a policy, you can set it so that everyone on the team needs to acknowledge it either once or on a recurring schedule. And when you make a change to a policy, you can then, um, put it out to your team to acknowledge the changes that have been made to that policy. And that way. Everyone or people can say, Oh, I didn't know that was our policy, but actually it's Yeah, I think that's a really good lesson or action item for either clinic owners or if you're a practice manager listening along here is you individually want to have a regular review or regular rhythm rather, a regular rhythm of review and also be able to update these things in real time. That's the point of streamlining things is that we can, you know, make changes or make suggestions in something like Allie or insert whatever system you use, but we don't have to wait until the review date to change these things. We can change them on the fly and it gives us an opportunity to democratize across our team. If they know better, let them contribute. You, as the clinic owner, don't have to be the arbiter of the best way of doing something. Ultimately, we're trying to, I've heard it said, we want to bottle the collective genius of the team so that we find not just a good way, but a better way or the best way of doing something. So when it comes to, When it comes to these processes, systems, procedures, what are some of the low-hanging fruits that a clinic owner can start to implement, can start to streamline their clinic and reduce some of the red tape? Bec, I'll throw to you, what's some of the low-hanging fruit that clinic frequently asked questions. And Dan, you mentioned if you're getting asked that same question twice, that's your low hanging fruit. And often it's your sick leave policy, your annual leave policy, your travel reimbursements. How does all that work? You know, someone calls the wrong person when they call in sick. That's your sick leave policy that needs to be front and center and low-hanging fruit that everyone understands that everyone can undertake that process seamlessly. So as Yeah, if you're listening on Spotify, come across to YouTube. You'll be able to see Brilliant. So, we've got step one, team member onboarding. Welcome. It's great to have you here. A lot about our culture values, clinic orientation, job requirements, the clients we serve and the services we deliver. So, a real background sort of fundamentals. Then we've got our PhysioWest support. So, this is the what's in it for them. We do this really early. Voices of our team is a set of testimonials from team members who are part of our current team, but also Physios alumni. So, it's a pre-framing of how great it is to be here. All of the benefits that we have available to them, how they get reimbursements, our complaints policy, how to request a roster and site change, and people partnering. We then go into personal development. So this flows across every member of our team so that they can handle difficult conversations, their tone of voice. prioritising tasks, so irrespective of the role. And then we go straight into the policies that they need on hand. So, these are the FAQs. These are the ones we get asked about all the time. And they now know that Module 4 in A11y, they can come here all the time, log in on any device, and they can check what is the latest part of this policy. Who do they need to call? And then we roll into our practitioner and performance, patient expectations, and we try to break it up a little bit too. And then we go into client-specific training and processes and procedures here. It's quite extensive. We've broken it down into each one. And then partway through, we've gone the boring stuff that you need to read. So, our drugs and alcohol policy, HR. They get to this fairly quickly, I must say. And we sort of flow through and you can see here we've still got to be completed. So we're still iterating still building and our team are contributing to these modules in particular because their services and parts of our. offering that they specialize in. So, the team of leaders and mentors are helping contribute to what is Amazing. Thank you for sharing. I'm sure there's like an abundance of inspiration there for clinic owners. There's so many places to start, but Dan, I'll throw to you if a clinic owner is like, okay, all right, I get it, you've convinced me, I need to streamline my clinic, but I got no idea where to start. Where My advice would be just to sit down and brainstorm all of the current processes that you have in your clinic, thinking from how you greet a client to how you do the handover at reception and rebook. the next appointments to the various policies that you might have for your team, and whatever the case may be. When I first did this, I wrote down everything we did on each individual thing on a post-it note, and then I was able to group them all over my desk and computer screen, and then start to get some themes that were coming through. And those themes helped us to identify five or six key things that we wanted to get right every single time. And they became what we refer to as our jump shots, referring to Michael Jordan, practicing that jump shot so that in the heat of the moment, when it's a game winning time, he can rely on that jump shot to hit that score. And so, These, yeah, so these became known as our jump shots and there were things like how we greet our clients and welcome them in our welcome room. Or it was things like this is how we do a handover at reception. And so we knew that that process was consistent and it was the same every single time. So just pick. a few, just pick three, four, five things that you just want to nail and go through those with the team. And that'll be the first step towards having a greater, a better client experience, which then means better health outcomes, but then also better communication with I really liked that. And it reminds me of something Michael Risk said at the Grow Clinic Summit this year in 2025 was, you know, you don't have to start out with 27 systems. If you just rolled out three to five per month, every month for the next 12 months, you'd have a really solid library of processes or policies in your clinic. So just get started with some of those low-hanging ones. It might be the front desk scripts that Daniel's talking about. It might be an appointment reminder system or an intake system or a complaints handling process. Get started with some of that low-hanging fruit. Bec, did you wanna show us Yeah, I've got one more example to that point about how to sit down and work out what systems and when. We had the scenario where we're about to go on maternity and paternity leave, co-directors having baby, and we needed to work out what would the team need to know. All we did was start a Google document, how to manage a situation when the directors are not here. So, sharing screen with you now. All I did was brainstorm. So, the first part is remain calm. Just set out a code of behavior. How to escalate things. So, team inquiry, go to the emergent leaders, go to Spencer, go to our CM coach. Spencer would go to our CM coach and then contact Beck and Grant. But it's power outage, critical incident. We have a break-in. We have a fire. There's a theft of a vehicle or something in the clinic. What are the bad things that could happen and we're not hearing the team go, oh my goodness, I don't know what to do. There's an accident in one of our home visit cars. There's vehicle damage, a vehicle breakdown, a flood, a hot water or toilet leak or a major appliance outage. What situations would a team member need you and you're not there for? It's simple. It was one Google document with a few dot points under each as to how we would expect them to navigate Yeah, we did something similar, which we called our what-if playbook. And so we had all those what-if scenarios and they ended up having their own page on the intranet site, each one of those scenarios, which is essentially what built out the site in the first place. And that's the sort of thing that you can do in Allie too. What if this happens? What Well, let's land this plane. I can imagine there's clinic owners thinking, yes, it's time for me to streamline this clinic so that I can find some freedom, so that I can get off the tools, so I can create space to work on my clinic and work on my business. Or maybe there's some clinic owners listening along who are like, I've done this and it's a mess. It's chaos. There's Google Docs and Word Docs and Apple Notes. And I've subscribed to Allie, but I've got it everywhere. I don't know what's going on. Beck, can you speak to the former, the clinic owners just starting out? And then Daniel, can you give us some Starting out, listen to your team. What have they asked you this week that you could document the next time you Yeah, I like it. Think of the questions you've been asked. And Daniel, for that clinic owner who's got stuff, you know, proverbially post-it notes Firstly, you're not alone. It's likely to be the case for majority of businesses out there, not just clinics, but businesses in general. But I think maybe it just begins with what's frustrating you the most and tick that one off. And I think through the momentum that you gain by those small incremental wins, I'm just going to I'm just going to do our email signatures, you know, or I'm just going to make sure that the initial consultation is a standard process across our clinic. You know, whatever it might be, there are some quick wins that you can make, but just what's frustrating you the most, and I like that. What's frustrating you the most? You know, you could get to the end of your week and be slightly less frustrated. That would Well, that's a topic for another day, Daniel. But, Beck, Daniel, thank you for your contributions. And clinic owners, if you're listening along, you think, I need some help with this. You don't have to recreate the wheel. We have done this. We've handled the brain damage for you, and we can help you implement this in your clinic. So the way to go about that, to see if you're a good fit for us, and if we might be able to help you, would be to get in touch. Send me personally an email, jackatclinicmastery.com. and we'll walk you through what that could look like and whether there's scope to be able to make progress in your clinic to ultimately amplify your impact. Likewise, if you wanna get in touch about Allie, you can head to AllieClinics.com. There's a free trial over there, whether you're on Cliniko, Splose, Halaxy, Nucle, or a different practice management software. It's practice management software agnostic for the resources component of A11y. Anyone can sign up for a free download and a free trial there. So that is at a11yclinics.com. That's a11yclinics.com. And for Clinic Mastery help, you can email me, Jack, at clinicmastery.com also. Rebecca Clare, Daniel Gibbs, it's been wonderful. Let's do this without Ben again,
