Part 2 with Dan Luna: Build A Direct Primary Care Brand Patients Trust

Your logo is not what makes patients trust you. What they trust is the position you hold in their mind, and whether the real-life experience backs it up. We talk through how to choose a clear positioning statement for a direct primary care clinic, how a name can instantly signal belonging, and why “brand assets” matter less than the feeling patients get when they interact with you. 

From there, we get practical about digital presence and local SEO. We cover how to set up a Google Business Profile, why you should never let a staff member own key accounts under their personal email, and how consistent naming conventions across your website, directories, and social media can improve discoverability. If you want patients to find your DPC clinic, the boring details matter, and we spell out which ones to lock down first. 

We also dig into operations: designing a clinic space that reflects DPC values, choosing an EHR based on strategy (not hype), and building a clean tech stack that reduces manual work. Then we move into payroll, staffing, and the money side that too many clinicians avoid, including break-even math, runway, reliable bookkeeping, and why looking at your bank balance is not a financial plan. Finally, we explore patient acquisition strategies that actually work, employer groups, onboarding tone, and how Claude AI can help you create a 90-day marketing plan, draft SOPs, and research competitors fast. 

Before you go, Dan shares a free resource: the DPC Pre-Launch Playbook will be available as a straight download on the dpcbookkeeper.com resources page. If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a DPC owner friend, and leave a review so more clinics can find it.

Thank you for joining us today!

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Series Context

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Yes. Okay. Here we go, Dan. You ready?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back, everybody. We are doing a series podcast uh interview with Dan Luna from the DPC Bookkeeper. And this is the um second episode. And today we are going to start talking about some other things. If you've missed the first one, we talked about um bridging the income gap. We talked about the legal and business setup, financial planning, and building your financial system. So we're just going to continue on with his book called The DPC Bookkeeper Pre-Launch Playbook. So welcome back, Dan. Thank you so much for being here again.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

So glad to be back and uh joining you. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yes, thank you so

Positioning That Builds Instant Trust

SPEAKER_00 1:00

much. So let's uh let me ask you the first question uh getting into branding and digital presence. How do I create a brand and logo that people will trust?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, so um caveat. All of my experience comes from one firsthand experience dealing with my own business, two hearing what's worked for DPCs, and three talking to DPC adjacent uh marketing people. Um, there's some marketing companies that have niched into DPCs. So all that being the case, I would say that the word brand is a little bit fuzzy of a word. I would choose a different word. I would choose positioning. So in a person's mind, when you think fast, cheap, efficient food, a lot of people think first thought comes to mind, maybe McDonald's. Or if I'm gonna send something absolutely positively has to get there overnight, a certain thought pops into my head. So what do you want your DPC to instantly trigger in somebody's mind? You know, I go like for me personally, I go to my DPC because it's very convenient, it's very easy, there's little friction. So that's the position that they hold. The brand itself, like the assets, like the logo or even the company name, have so much less to do with trust and and that part of it, as opposed to the position that you're choosing to consciously take in the marketplace, in in your in your future patients' minds, if that helps.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yes, absolutely. Um, I think when you hear my clinic called Faith Family Medical, what do you think of first when you hear Faith Family Medical?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah. So when I first heard your name, um I it instantly resonated because I have faith, right? I'm a Christian. And so for me, there's an instant, oh, okay, got it. I can be a Christian here. Like I can bring my whole self. And that's great because there's a lot of doctors' offices where that's it's neutral or it's neither here nor there. But at your practice, I'm like, okay, that's welcomed. Feel free to discuss it. Um, and so that's kind of the position that I hear. That's like that's the position that I that I take when I hear your your company name. And that'll either be supported or not based on the interaction that I have with you. Right? Like, because long story short, my very, very first accounting firm was called my best bookkeeper. Um, the reason it was called that is because somebody said, Yeah, name your company after the experience that you want your clients to have. It's like, oh, I want to be their best bookkeeper. When they talk about me, oh, that's my best bookkeeper. That's a tall order to be essentially the world's greatest bookkeeper, because that's kind of how it came across. So when I niched into D PC, I changed it very quickly to DPC Bookkeeper because it's very plainly what I want to do. But yeah, like your name, your logo, your company name, all that will be either supported or not based on the positioning that you choose.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, that's absolutely right. So uh I am a Christian and that works out well. Although I will say I do have plenty of patients that come in. Oh, hold on, let me do a segue. Am I echoey? Do I sound echoey?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Not to me.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Okay. All right, good. But if you want to take a minute and kind of like if you're hearing your own voice in your headphones, if you want to take a second and kind of Well, I'm sitting in my dining room and so the ceilings are high, so it doesn't sound as um I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's yeah, absorbing. So I just want to make sure I'm not sounding like it's coming across like that because I have an electrician working on replacing some outlets that have gone bad outside, and I can hear drilling and stuff. So I needed to stay here in case he needed me.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

No, I don't I don't hear any of that. Um, that's all being cut out.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Okay, perfect. Okay, so what I was saying was um I do have patients that come to me that are not Christian, and I appreciate those patients because they know that I'm a Christian, but even though they are not, they have this level of trust in me because I'm a Christian, which I know that sounds so ironic, but that's what they told me. That's what they say. So I just leave because I thought about when I switched to DPC that I would rebrand, remarket, maybe change my name to something that reflects that it's a DPC clinic. And then when I was getting feedback like that, I just kept the name the same because I still wanted to give the impression that we are trustworthy and we're not judgmental. You don't have to be a Christian to come to my practice, but we are gonna treat you with the moral convictions that we have because we're Christian. So that's just where I'm at with that. For sure. Okay, next question. How do I build? Oh no, sorry. Uh uh. Uh how do I set up my Google? Can't read my writing. What is the question? Google something profile? Oh, Google My Business.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, Google Business. Okay.

Google Business Profile And Local SEO

SPEAKER_00 6:40

How do I set up my Google Business profile?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah, so uh the Google My Business profile is the physical uh locations profile. So if you have a brick and mortar and you were to Google DPC near me, the thing that shows up would be the Google My Business profile. So it's super simple. If you Google, Google My Business Profile, um, it'll show up. It's free and it's easy. Um, it's a 10-minute process, it's not tough.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Um, I have I have an opinion about that or some advice. I have some advice on that. When I originally set up my Google Business profile, I did not do it myself. I let an employee do it. And the employee set it up under her email and her password. So fast forward, the employee no longer works for me for whatever reason. And it was such a major issue getting that information uh to be able to change it to my email and my password so that I could respond to review. So don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Let me let me state one other thing. So um the reason that we do that is to get found, right? And so for SEO purposes, and and obviously there are experts who can definitely go deeper on this, but a general guideline is whatever you do as far as spelling naming conventions should be identical on the website, on the Google profile, on the Yelp, on the everything. So if your phone number is parentheses, number, number, number, parentheses, and a dash in between the three and the four numbers, it should be that way everywhere, all the time, always. Um, if your Google business profile is faith family dpc, and then on your website it's faith family, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that'll that'll damage or that'll hurt the uh SEO results that you get. So whatever your Google profile is, whatever any other social media is, whatever the website is, should all be identical.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Okay. Mine is not identical because on Google it says Faith Family Medical Services, because that's the legal name, but we don't ever say services.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

I would uh I would kind of scrub that. Um, if you have a marketing person that you're working with, I would have them scrub that. Um, if you're DIYing it, I would definitely look at that and and create a form like for your own computer. Like this is the way and the only way that I'm stating my business name. This is how the phone number is presented, and it's the only way it's presented. And when it's all identical, then you're easier to find.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Oh, that's good advice. Thanks, Dan.

When To Outsource Marketing

SPEAKER_00 9:38

All right. Anything else you want to say about branding and digital before we move on to phase six?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

You know, I'll I'll say one more thing that in the beginning, like accounting or like HR or whatever, we're gonna DIY it. But once you get to a certain point, marketing is one of those things that you want to find somebody that you can trust, but it's one of those things that you want to farm out. Eventually, that's one of the things you want to take off of your plate, um, along with all the other administrative stuff. So just kind of have that in your mind when you have a DPC and it starts to get successful, and maybe you're looking at a second location, um, off-loading marketing is probably on the list of things to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, I agree with that. Marketing is huge, especially when you're trying to scale and grow your practice. Now, if you're at a standpoint where you've got a waiting list, it's not as imperative that you have a marketing structure. But if you are trying to grow, you're trying to add nurse practitioners or PAs or whoever to your panel and you're and you're trying to build their patient base, then you definitely need to hire somebody that can dedicate the time because you don't have time because you're taking care of your patients.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Right. One more thing. So I have found the the most consistently successful way that a new DPC gets patients is by networking, specifically like Chamber of Commerce or a BI. Um, that's scary to some people, totally get that. But if that's something that can be done, especially when you're sub-100 patients, that's probably something that should be focused on.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

I have I have a couple of friends that have done well in B and I, John Rothwell, uh Lisa McGarry. Um, but I was not. So but that's okay. I I probably didn't put into it what you have to. It's a big responsibility to be in the B and I group. The Chamber of Commerce is not as big a responsibility, but the B and I group, uh having to meet people um outside of the meetings and stuff, it's it's a it's an undertaking, but if you're if you have the time to do it and you're willing to do it, it probably does pay off in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Designing A Warm DPC Clinic Space

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Okay, phase six is the physical clinic setup. So, how do I design a clinic space that reflects DPC values?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah, yeah. Think of the most coldly clinical institutional medical office and do the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Like if if you were being brought into a a friend's home, what would that feel like? Right. And it's different for different people. We want it to reflect us, but it would probably be comfortable couches, it would probably be um some creature comforts, like maybe coffee or whatever. Um, the walls probably wouldn't be bare. Um, there might be a little bit of music, Spotify, which is a write-off, would probably be playing. So, what would be comfortable? There's there's some good data out there that says that the money that you spend on the waiting room, depending on who you ask, has like a one to three ROI. So if you spend $10,000 on your waiting room, you're gonna get $30,000 back in business. Um, so once you're established when things are going well, obviously this is a future thing. Um, the next money that goes into it might want to go into making sure you have a modern, comfortable um waiting room. It doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to be a place that you're comfortable having. Nice, long, friendly conversations.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Yeah, no monades are required. No. And no hundred thousand dollar um uh designers coming in to organize it all.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

No, yeah, no, it's it's really as simple as um one, if you're not friends with other DPC owners, get friends with them and see what their facilities look like. Super easy to just get inspiration from uh other DPC owners.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yes, and I'm happy to send anybody a picture of my waiting room. I cannot take credit for my waiting room, but I get lots of compliments on how cute the waiting room is, but I do not have an eye for design whatsoever. Like you could look around my house and tell that I'm lacking in that part. Uh, but my I had an aesthetician and the clinic that I have right now used to be my aesthetics side. I I relinquished my clinic side to the ATC fitness gym that's next door to me because they wanted to expand. So I moved over to the aesthetic side when my aesthetician left. So she had already designed that waiting room full of the cutest um furniture that really she just bought on Wayfair, but it looks so homey in there. And I left it, and everybody always comments how adorable it is in there. And I'm just like, oh yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah, I think it's so like that's the start of retention, right? Like as soon as they walk through the door, retention has started, even before they're a patient. And I think one of the strongest attractors, especially with a practice like yours, is the relationship, is the warmth, is the you're welcome here, you're a friend, we want you here. You know, as opposed to the assembly line that is some other practices like fee for service, where they have, you know, four times the patient panel because they have to, and it's just uh it's an operation versus it's a relationship with the DPC. And by the way, IKEA, nothing wrong with IKEA.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

No, our IKEA just closed up, so I don't know if all IKEAs are closing or if they just decided Memphis was not a good market, but they probably got stolen from too much over here. Oh, anywho, uh, I was gonna say um the culture in my clinic also is our patients, once they get to know us pretty well, you know, when they first join the practice, they don't really realize that they can do this. But once they've come a few times, they realize that the waiting room is not like this confined space where they have to stay. It's really, I mean, I only have 1200 square feet, so it's not that big, but my patients know that they can come in and sit in the waiting room if they want to, but they're also allowed to just walk back and they can go to the bathroom or they can sit on the couch in my office manager's office and wait for me. Like they can go back to the lab and say hello to Lisa. Like it's it really has this family feel where I'm not saying I'm back here behind this door and you have to stay in, you know, in front of the door until I let you back here. They just are allowed to, it's a free-for-all, really. And maybe that's not a good idea, but I think it's awesome because I want my patients to feel like I'm family that just happens to have some medical knowledge and a prescription pad, and not just like this person that is on this whole other level than they are, because when when I make them feel like family and they can come and go, the retention is really good. I I don't lose a lot of patience.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah. Assuming the computers and the files and the medicine is all locked up, yeah. Make yourself at home.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Well, yeah, they can't just go and sit alone in a place where there's, you know, a possible security breach or something or privacy breach. But um, but usually, you know, Marie's there and Lisa's there. And since there's only 1200 square feet, there's not a lot of space they can go to.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Not a lot of place to hide.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

No. Oh gosh. Okay, let's move on to um uh phase seven, which is clinical services vendors.

Choosing An EHR Based On Strategy

SPEAKER_00 17:53

How do I evaluate and choose my um electronic medical record or health record or practice management platform?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, it's such a good question because that that speaks to the strategic level of planning your business. So it seems like a straightforward question, right? Do I pick Hint? Do I pick Atlas? What do I pick? I think that instead of picking the tool first, I think you pick your strategy first. Like, so a couple of questions that might want to be asked first. Uh what's your plan for the DPC? Like, is this one of five or is this gonna be a micro practice that's gonna let you travel a bunch? Um, are you looking for 400 or 4,000 patients? Like, what's your goal? Um, and depending on that, that'll have downstream effects where it's like, okay, if I want it to be just a so if you were asking me, a super clean tech stack would be hint, gusto for payroll, hint for the EHR, gusto for payroll, spruce for communications, and then like relay or some other fintech online bank. And if I do that and I have the right person that runs it, or you can run it yourself, but yeah, I have the right person to run it, it becomes a very clean, low maintenance, low friction tech sack. The opposite is to pick tools piecemeal without thinking of how they're gonna integrate with each other. So somebody I have a client who sweet lady, she chose quicken for the books, um, square payroll for the payroll, and like optimantra, and like just like she just kind of picked at the time, just kind of cobbled a business together. And so that's that's a that's a choice that will have second and third order effects once you get past a certain point. Um so if you are pre-launch, this is a great time to really clarify. All right, this is the kind of practice that I want. Um, if you're comfortable like with modern technology and that's not scary at all, then yeah, use a fintech bank. Like uh relay is a good one, Mercury is another good one. If you need that brick and mortar, then yeah, wells and B of A are are there for you. Um, if you want to travel a lot and you want something that's kind of hands off, Gusto is a good one. If you feel like you need to be something that's a little lower tech, then you have an ADP where you can call somebody up and they'll hold your hand each time. Um, but really kind of clarify what it is that you want your DPC to do and what you want it to be from like an operational standpoint, like kind of take the patient care out of it for right now. Like you're building business systems, so what do you want the business to look like?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, we wanted to stay small, so we picked Atlas MD. What is your opinion on working with that system?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yeah, so Atlas MD is fine. Lots of people like it. Um if you were to ask me on a scale from one to ten how well that integrates with other things, um, I would say it's on the lower end of the scale. Um, they have just as a company chosen not to be super integratable. Um, and then you have a company like Sigma, which they're like very forward in that manner. Um, and then you have Hint, which is obviously a gigantic company, and so they have lots of money to throw at that department. So they're also very integratable. Like QB uh QuickBooks Online and Hint go super well together, really easy. It's very comfortable. Um, but if you like Sigma because of the experience, no issue. There's just uh some manual processes that have to happen uh in order to do like accounting and some other things like that. But yeah, like I mean. The accounting burden should come second to the experience that you want as a business owner and that you want for your patients. But know that there is an accounting burden when you pick a system like that. So yeah, it really kind of depends on what you want to do. Nothing wrong with Sigma. Um, it's just not uh super tech forward right now. Excuse me, uh Atlas.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Atlas. Well, yeah, everybody. Um, I have Atlas, and so Dan has to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah, no, no issue with Atlas. It's just um it's just more manual. Like it's really pretty. Like if if you've never seen Atlas, like it's it's nice to look at uh from the provider's point of view. Um just on the back end, it's just a couple extra steps. So hire somebody that knows what they're doing so that they can do those extra couple steps.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

I'm sorry, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

No, it's all good.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Uh yeah, I know. You're you're such a positive guy. That's what I love about you. Okay, let's talk about staffing then, um, which is phase eight or chapter

Payroll Tools And Hiring Break Even

SPEAKER_00 23:05

eight. Um, how do I staff my clinic and set up payroll?

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah, so payroll is the easy part. Um, my default suggestion for people is Gusto. It's really affordable, it's really easy to use, it's simple to be on the website. Like you can set it up yourself and have zero knowledge of how payroll works. Um, Gusto also files all like the 941s and all the IRS stuff that you have to do. Um, they file all they take care of all that compliance stuff. And so that's a that's a big deal. Like, I personally don't do any manual payroll. I never do. Um, if somebody's like, hey, will you do payroll for me? I'm like, you you have to use the system, you have to use a gusto or an ADP or whatever. Um, so like a lot of that liability is taken off of your shoulders. So you make sure that the 401k and everything else is taken care of. You can do 401k through Gusto as well. So picking a pay uh payroll platform is not uh super challenging. There's like two or three market leaders. I like gusto. Um as far as when to pick it, or excuse me, when to hire. So hiring is based off of for the business model of DPC, based off of your break-even. So round numbers. Let's say you have a thousand dollar a month hard cost expenditure. So you have to spend a thousand dollars a month, whether you have one patient or a million to keep the lights on, doors open, it takes you a thousand a month. And let's say it's a hundred dollar membership per person. So your break-even is ten patients. So until you have ten patients, we can't even consider hiring. But once we're well over those 10 patients, now I want you to think about well, a new MA is gonna be call it four patients. Got it. So my new breakeven is now 14 patients once I hire this person. And let's say I want to have a provider. All right, our new breakeven is 25 patients, and not until the 26th will we be profitable. So figure out what your breakeven is, and that's just simply, you know, what are your costs divided by your average membership, and then divide it, and that gives you a number of patients that you need for breakeven. And then you just kind of you know, schedule it out, forecast out what you think you'll need. On average, a 400-patient panel is about where you want to start looking for an MA. Um, 600 or so is maybe when you want to start looking for another provider. Um, obviously, it depends on utilization and you know, demographic, older, younger, middle of the road. Um, but on average, those numbers are are pretty good. Um, but yeah, sub 400, I wouldn't worry about hiring. Um now that's different than outsourcing, like payroll stuff, bookkeeping stuff, HR stuff, legal stuff, right? I'm talking about like in-clinic employees is where the break-even matters.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So you don't think that um providers that have less than 400 patients really can afford a medical assistant to help them with the clinic?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

It's totally possible. Yeah, like so um I have some some DPC clients that are in Los Angeles that are charging 250 per person, right? So that's different than the ones that I have that are in like Missouri, where it's a $75 a person membership. So and also you have uh, you know, older crowd, like if the majority or if a large chunk of your patients are in the Medicare crowd and they just are gonna see a whole lot more often, um, that's a different utilization rate than you know, everybody's happy, healthy, and it's a family of four. So there's a couple of different factors, and it's something that you want to think through, but um really like the the number that won't lie is what's your break-even. Um, if you're charging 300, which some DPCs do per person, um, you're gonna get there three times as fast than somebody who charges 50 to 100. Um, you know, and you also probably have a more of a premium experience. So maybe an MA comes a little sooner in that strategy, but really like figure out what your breake-even is and then count that person in terms of patients instead of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

I will say that I think that that is one of the main reasons that I changed my bookkeeper to you is because you had this strategic planning. Because one thing that I will say about my clinic that has been true ever since I opened it back in 2007 is I never really know if I can afford something. I just jump in and I get it because I because the QuickBooks is never um uh uh what do you what's the word when you when it lines up with the bank account? What word am I reconciled? So the QuickBooks is never um really reconciled with the bank. And so I'm just looking at the bottom number of the bank and it says I have such and such amount of money. So I just assume that I can afford things. So that is literally how I've operated my practice. Even when I switched over to DPC and all this money comes in. Um, I I know in my mind that the the people that are paying annually, I really shouldn't count on that money up front. But but on paper, it looks like I have that much money in the bank. When you helped me clarify that really you you have a twelfth of that, um, of some of that, not all of it, not everybody is paying annually, but the ones that are paying annually, I should really look at that as I only have one twelfth of that in the bank. But it it's it has been very scary to move forward and to purchase things or to hire even new employees because I don't really know if I can afford it. So we've just been jumping in and hoping that we stay afloat. So I'm really thankful that you're showing up with strategic planning for me. Once you can get everything organized and cleaned up, then you will be able to present to me a realistic picture of, oh, Amanda, you can afford whatever you want to, or don't even think about it, which I hope that you don't say that, but but I I am thankful that there's finally after 19 years of being open, I'm going to have somebody that's gonna be giving me the real numbers. And that's what I want for all of y'all out there that are you know running your DPC clinics is you need somebody that's gonna give you the real numbers and not just you speculating by looking at your bank account.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah, yeah. And it's so for everybody who who's gonna have you know a different bookkeeper than me, right? Which is gonna be the majority of people, um, there's really kind of two parts to it. Part one is is the data reliable? And that's just are you a good book? Do you have a good bookkeeper? Somebody who can look at your profit and loss, your income statement, and your balance sheet and find the find the parts that don't make sense and ask the questions that need to be asked. And so, does the bank and the QuickBooks do they match to the dollar without any uh unexplained differences? Once that's there, then and by the way, there's no real magic in the bookkeeping. Um, you want to have somebody who understands DPC because it's its own business model. Don't let it get treated like a nail salon. You won't like the data won't make sense. But once the bookkeeping is squared away, then you can take that data, and for somebody who has an accounting background, can tell you, all right, let's do a little financial planning and analysis. So let's start looking at budgets. Let's start looking at our runway, which is the the amount of if no new dollars came in, what's the amount of time we could operate? Right. A lot of DPC owners are stressed because they don't know how well they're doing. And um the unspoken metric that they're they're that they have, it's like an unconscious metric, is how long could I stay open? Like what's my runway? And so you have a three to six month runway, life is good. You can start taking some of that money and start putting it into growth. Um, if you have a less than a one-month runway, you might be injecting your own money into this business. Um, and you might not know where your break-even is. Um, but yeah, there's there's a bunch of moving pieces, but you want reliable data. And then once you get large enough to want to make strategic decisions, then you want to have somebody who can interpret that for you and and give you like a dashboard, almost like if you're a pilot, right? If you're flying a plane, which is just what a DPC is, right? You're you're in the air, you can't crash, you're in the air. So, what do you really need? I need a couple of gauges to give me the data that I need. I need to know how much gas I got in the tank. I need to know that the engine isn't overheating, I need to know that our airspeed is going to maintain maintain us in the air. That's kind of what I need right now. And there are equivalent metrics for a DPC. Like, and you may not have an answer to this, but do you have an idea of what you looked at to know if your business was healthy, your practice was healthy prior to us working together?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

No, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

By the way, that's most DPCs. Most DPCs that are just kind of winging it to use that analogy, are are just kind of like doing their best and hoping for the best. And that's like flying a plane without any gauges. It's you you know you haven't hit the mountain, but like that's about all you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Well, I will say uh if there was anything that I was using as a gauge, it's like, okay, what what what are our liabilities that we consistently pay every month? And as long as I'm making more than that, I feel like I'm successful. Okay. That's that was the only thing I had to gauge is like, I know how much my rent is, I know how much my utility bill is, I know how much my internet fees are, I know what my EMR fees are, I know what my malpractice premiums are, like all the things that come out of my account every month, and then my payroll. And then after all that, if there's still money in the bank, I'm assuming that's my that's my success number.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah, very, very common. Um, so for anybody who's hearing this that is still doing it on their own, there's a book called Profit First, um, written by, gosh, his name escapes me, but if you Google Profit First, there's only one of those. And what it talks about is how to, I don't know if your grandma ever did this, but like she'd get money at the beginning of the month and she'd have like five paper envelopes, and one of them was for rent, and one of them was for gas and one for groceries. That's treasury management, right? At a small scale. You can do the same thing for your business. So you have a bank account for operational expenses, you have a bank account where you separate taxes and you don't think about it, you have a bank account where you put your profit, and maybe that one gets funded first because profit should come first. But like if you are still trying to like figure out if you're profitable or not, and you're just doing it alone, the book Profit First is a good starting point. It'll it'll be a good conversation. And if you have an accountant who is familiar with that uh methodology, which I am, um that's a that's a good system to use.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Mike, can you read that?

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Malkowitz, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Malkow, oh gosh, that's awful. Yeah, Malkowitz.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

That's right. Thank you. Yeah, he's written some.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

I was gonna say, I was gonna say Warchowski.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Mike Wazowski.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah, that guy. But different. Okay. Um, thank you for answering that. So yeah, we we definitely all probably could do better on looking at what our uh bottom line is, but we didn't go to school for that, you know. We we went to school to heal people. So we got to leave that to the the people that went to school to learn accounting and numbers and stuff. All right, phase nine, patient acquisition and marketing.

Sales Mindset And Patient Acquisition

SPEAKER_00 35:50

So we're kind of moving gears uh into uh marketing the business. So, how do I develop the right sales mindset for DPC? You had already mentioned that uh you should get involved in Chamber of Commerces and BI. Uh, do you have anything to add that would be a good uh sales mindset?

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Yeah, I would say that you don't have to do as much work as you think. The DPC model, when simply and clearly explained, will do all the heavy lifting for you. Mr. or Mrs. Prospective Patient, you have two options. Option A, that's the insurance route, and you know what that goes. Option B is this is how I operate. X, Y, Z. Next day appointments, unlimited amount of visits, whatever, whatever you want to focus on. But the DPC model itself will do all the heavy lifting for you because it's so new. Last time I checked, there's like 1500 total across the entire United States uh DPCs. Like it's still really, really new, and you will blow people's minds when you tell them that they might not believe you. Uh, people ask me all the time because of the name of my company, what's DPC? So I've been one of the better salespeople for DPCs in my neck of the woods. Like, people have gone to DPCs for sure because of our conversations. And as soon as I tell them, like, yeah, it's like a gym membership, no copay. You pay a flat call at $100. And anytime you need to talk to a medical provider, you have one. It's like they're on retainer. So you got kids and they're sick, great. Don't worry about the $20 copay that you'd have to pay with your fee for service. And also the service level is just different. Like the experience is just different. Go try it and you'll be a believer. Like, that's let the DPC model do all the heavy lifting. It will.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Um, that is the only question I had in that phase. Uh is that good enough?

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah. So for marketing, for branding, for client acquisition, I will tell you that the ones who are doing the best at client acquisition are picking a couple, like two or three um channels and doing it consistently. So if you want to do social media, which is a choice, great, that's what you're doing from now on. That's just part of your lifestyle. If you're a chatty Kathy, great, and you like to network, awesome. Pick a few networking groups, and that's your marketing strategy, right? If you are bringing a bunch of people over from a previous uh practice, have a system, and it doesn't need to be complicated, where you talk to each of them about hey, is there anybody who you know that would like to have this similar experience? Whatever it is, consistency beats everything else. Like there is no magic pill. Consistency, like you, you can't help but be successful if you just consistently go out there and share the DPC message.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

And for those of you that are converting your insurance-based practice over to DPC, one thing that really was helpful was doing uh town hall meetings right in my waiting room where I had people come in at certain times about I did that about three times. And I had patients that came in to ask questions about what I was getting ready to do. And I literally landed every single person that came in to ask the questions because they were able to ask the ones that were on their minds that may not necessarily have been answered by them looking at my new website or anything like that. Like they had genuine questions that pertained to their specific situation, maybe. And once they heard how easy it really was, it was so easy to get those patients to sign up. So yeah, that's another thing you can do.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

I will tell you that once you've been open for a little while and and it's a smooth process from start to finish, employers are a really good place to look. Um, and it's a and it's a completely different sales pitch, so to speak, for employers. Um, a family wants to know that you're caring and reliable and accessible. Employers have a different concern. It's if I invest X, will I get a certain level of um robustness in my workforce? Like, for example, the trades, the trades are a great employer. Um, if you have a large general contractor, he's got a hundred people working for him. The amount of money that he's putting into his people in the form of DPC is just an insurance, and it's a cheap insurance because if a project stops, we're talking the hundreds of thousands sometimes versus the $50, $80 per employee times all employees. Like it's it's a no-brainer math. Um, there's a couple of people out there, like Brian, who's doing a good job um communicating that. And there's other people who are who are good at getting employers. But yeah, as soon as you were as soon as your patient experience is is dialed in, and if you had a hundred new patients tomorrow, your systems wouldn't break as soon as you're at that point. Employers, especially local employers, are are a good place. I have one client who uh she she's doing so well that a trade union said, Hey, will you start a clinic for us for this entire trade union? And so that's in the thousands of new members, like overnight. So if your systems are robust, then you can do that. And and you should. Employers are great.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Yes, I'm still trying to get my first employer group, but I'm still working on it. All right, all right, launch phase 10 launching.

Onboarding Tone And Team Clarity

SPEAKER_00 42:01

How do I create onboarding communications that sets the right tone?

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah, that's great. Um, there's a there's a lot to that. I will tell you that it's that's the experience that a patient has is the last step of a process, and the beginning of that process is a very clear idea of what you want your DPC to be. Right. I kind of go back to this idea DPC headaches and sometimes DPC failures, which happen, a lot of times result a from being under you undercapitalized, meaning they don't have enough money, but really it really comes down to the owner didn't have a clear enough vision of what they wanted. So I take a minute, really think about it. What do I want my patients to experience? And what do I want my staff to experience and yourself in this relationship? And once that's crystal clear to you, then it becomes very easy to be like, oh, okay, the onboarding should look like this. The systems themselves, that's the easy part. It's the what do I choose? Like, I'll give you an example. So in my business, um, assuming a client's um bank account, banks allow some smaller banks, don't allow, some do. Um, I do statement fetching, which means you don't have to go online to the bank, log in, download the PDF, and email it to me or whatever. Um, there's software that that goes and does that for you, uses like MasterCards backend. Um, so for me, the experience that I wanted to, and it's a core value of my company. Core value is the ideal client action is count is zero, which means I want you to do as close to nothing as possible. And I'm and I continue to build that. So that's like my guiding star as far as how I want a client to experience um DPC bookkeeper. But like if You don't have a super crisp idea of what you want your patient to experience from start to finish, from onboarding to offboarding, then it's going to be a fuzzy process and you won't really it won't be what you want it to be because it's not clear to you. How can it be clear to anybody else? The tool selection is not the is not the hard part, it's the clarifying what you want it to be. That's the part that takes work.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Okay. Um, so Marie had said to me, uh, it was like yesterday or the day before, she goes, Well, it starts. And I was like, What starts? She goes, I have nothing to do right now. I'm just sitting here while Dan does whatever he's doing over there. So I'm like, okay, come back to my office and hang out on my couch while I do my work.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

No, if I had a dollar for every time a DPC owner says I don't have an organizational chart, um, I'd have a lot of dollars. Um when there is a change, and that sometimes happens. Um, like I'll come in and the wife no longer needs to do the bookkeeping, or the previous CPA is wasn't a good fit. And so now there's this kind of gap because the office manager was kind of talking to the CPA on a regular basis, whatever the case is. Um, when that happens, when there's that kind of organizational change, um, that uncertainty can be a little bit of a stress for for employees. Um, and so one thing that can help is to do it could be rough back of the envelope math, but what's the organizational chart look like? Like Marie in this case probably does 50 jobs, right? She wears one hat, so it kind of blends together because it's not, you know, um specifically um spoken. But if you were to kind of, or maybe if she was to kind of break down exactly what it is she does, you would probably find that there's a lot of things that she's able to be held accountable for and can win at. Um, but the absence of an org chart is gonna because she might not know where she fits right now. That might be part of it.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah, well, she'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Sure will. That's what she gets paid to do. Sure will.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Okay. All right, phase 11. We got two more phases. I think we could squeeze it in on this episode and we will make this a just a two-part series.

Membership Growth With Claude AI

SPEAKER_00 46:24

So phase 11 is member experience. You've already hit on this a little bit, so I don't know if there's anything that you'd really need to add to it if you want to. But how do I grow my membership after the launch?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah, so so there's uh there's some pretty standard. You mentioned a great strategy, which has worked. I've I've mentioned that strategy to to DPCs. I'm thinking about one in Nevada. Um, she did it, it was great. The open house strategy, great strategy. Um, but really there's there's some pretty standard ones, you know. Networking is how you're gonna start um because you won't have the budget for online. Um sponsorships at the low scale are a good one, you know, baseball team jerseys or whatever, once you get to that point. Um, I like sponsorships for top of the funnel. Um, but here's kind of the hack if you're ready for the hack. Claude, write me a 90-day patient acquisition plan. Break it down by week, break it down by cost. That will give you the same result that talking to a $5,000 a month um ad person will. Um, but Claude is gonna be one of your best friends um as a new business owner. It will help you write SOPs, um, it'll help you write processes, it can interview you. Like AI is if you're not using AI in 2026, you're wrong. Like, hey, hey, Claude, ask me a hundred questions to understand what my vision of my DPC will be. Go. And just the thought process, just the thought work will help you tease out what it is you want to do. Like people used to ask me about business plans, and I'm like, yeah, business plans are great, but the majority of the value of a business plan comes in the thinking through the answers. Like, once you have this existing document, great, refer to it. It's a living document, cool. But all the value really comes from the having to clarify well, what is our marketing channel? Well, what is our value statement? Well, what is our cultural um philosophy? Like, what do we want? Um, so yeah, um, as far as client acquisition, if somebody wasn't gonna hire somebody at the very beginning, be like, ask Claude. I like Claude over Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Yeah, who's Claude? I'm sorry. I maybe I've been in a bubble. Yeah, I've never heard of it. Oh my goodness. What's Claude? Tell everybody what Claude is.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

I've never heard this is gonna be the most useful thing you hear between both of these sessions. Okay, so ChatGPT's main problem is that it will agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yes, that's true. I love chatty because she affirms me.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Which is great. If I needed to tell me that four plus four is nine, chat GPT was who I go to. Claude, Claude.ai is the future. One, it just like last week, it became the largest um AI company of its type. It superseded OpenAI, which is ChatGPT. Um, it's just more socially intelligent. Um there's a bunch of stuff you can do, like you can design websites with it. It has something called co-work on the desktop app. It has Claude Code, which has some really cool stuff. But chat, excuse me, Claude by itself is really smart. Everybody that I've suggested it to was like, yeah, this is way smarter than Chat GPT. Um, it's more socially intelligent, is how I experience it. But yeah, Claude, way better AI. But ask Claude, give me a 90-day plan on X and ask me some questions to make sure you understand what it is I want. If you try that today, you will have an impressive experience.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

I love that. Thank you. Yes, that is so helpful because um I have asked Chat GPT to do so many things for me. I was hoping Chat GPT would edit our last podcast so I wouldn't have to go through all that. And Chat GPT um attempted to edit it, but it said, at minute so and so, do this. At minute so and so do this. I said, No, never mind. You you know, I want you to do it. I don't know if Claude will do it, but Claude can.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

So yes, I'm Claude can do. So if you go to my website, dpcbookkeeper.com, um, on the resources page, there's some uh calculators like break-even calculator and some other stuff like that. Claude wrote the HTML for that. I gave it the formulas, but it made it like it was super easy. Um, Claude Cowork, which is the desktop app, is the one that will do anything you want it to. That's as close to agentic, an agentic employee as we have right now.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Claude what?

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Co work, so the desktop app.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

When when you download Claude, the desktop app, it'll have three options the chat, which is what we all think of, and then co-work, which is that's the power horse, and then code. And co-work is just code, but better. It's got it's got it's got a different wrapping, but it's essentially code. Um, and then code is if you like that's don't worry about code. I don't remember better. But co-work is the one. Yeah, co-work is the one that every DPC owner is gonna fall in love with. It's gonna feel like a magic trick. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Thank you, Dan. Okay, great. I am going to Claude as soon as we're done here, so I can play with Claude and pay for Claude probably. It probably costs money.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Yeah, get the $20 a month one. Um, so for example, I because I use it a bunch, I'm at like the $200 a month one. Nobody needs that. I I do a lot of stuff. I don't have like three employees. I have five right now, six now with Alison, but I have like there's three employees that I don't have to hire because of Cloud Cowork that just does basic stuff, like rename files. This like with cloud co-work, you can create uh Chrome extensions. So I have a Chrome extension.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Do you think that Claude could replace a virtual assistant?

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Oh, snap. I got some friends that have virtual assistants.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Claude Cowork, I now know every one of my competitors. I could tell you exactly who my competitors are, what they charge, what their value propositions are. It does hours of days worth of research pretty easily and quickly. Because it operates at the speed of the internet as opposed to the speed of a human being clicking. Like, yeah, if you want to know what your market looks like, use cloud co-work because that'll give you up to date. Claude chat is like uh a year or so. That's what that was a cutoff. So it's most recent thing is like a year ago. But Cloud Cowork can go online and actually search modern stuff, current stuff. Ask it about your environment. Be like, this is my address. What are the 10 nearest DPCs to me? What's their pricing? What's the latest thing they've put out on social media? Give me a one-page report. And where are the gaps that they're not doing?

unknown 53:50

Where are the gaps?

SPEAKER_00 53:51

See, I have to write all this down because I won't remember it. Where are the gaps?

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Well, shoot me an email. I'll give you. I have a library of prompts that I use every time I come up with a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

I know you're busy. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna ask Claude. I'm gonna say, Claude, okay, what did this episode of this podcast say about you?

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Claude, you know who writes the best prompts for Claude?

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Who's that? Yeah, Claude.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Yeah. Ask Claude to write you a prompt. Hey, I want to find out about my competitors in my area. Write me like a really detailed prompt, and it'll give it to you.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

That's exactly what I'll do.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

Okay. All right, let's move to the last phase.

Community Learning And Collaboration

SPEAKER_00 54:34

It is ongoing learning. How do I stay connected to the DPC community and keep learning?

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Yeah, that's so good. So um, I like the Facebook group, the PAs and NPs Facebook group. That's a solid one. I enjoy the people there, it's very cool. Vibe. There's seminars, there's conventions that are DPC specific. Um, and and really it's about building a community. Start to meet and network with other DPC owners, start to build those relationships. Um, there's no competition. Like, I'm in a lot of DPCs. There's there's so much business out there that competition should be the last thing on your mind. Work with people, collaborate, create a little mastermind, find two or three besties that think like you and talk like you and have similar um goals and check in once a quarter, maybe once a month. Be like, hey, how's things going? I mean, I have that with accountants, like there are some accountants that we have similar kind of um forward-thinking modern firms, and we want to have like cutting edge firms. So we talk about like, hey, what's working? What automations have you implemented, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but yeah, like build a community. Um, I think it's probably the the hardest way to do this, or really any business, but the hardest way to do this is as a silo. There's no reason for you to try to do it alone. There's so many people out there doing the same thing you are. DPCs are, and everybody's nice in the DPC world, like for the most part. Like people are really generous and want to help other DPC owners. Um, I think you'd probably be pretty, pretty well received if you just call up a random DPC, be like, hey, I'm thinking about starting one. Can I talk to you about it? Can I take you to lunch? They'll be like, Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

Yeah, I want to emphasize that so much because even in my area, uh, so I was the first one to open up a DPC clinic in the county that Memphis is in. But since then, there have been um several nurse practitioners that have reached out to me. And it doesn't make sense to hold on to that information. I want to share my experience so that they can open up a DPC clinic because in my mind, the more DPC clinics that are opening up in the area, the more patients that maybe I haven't reached are learning about it and they're they're hearing about it from those nurse practitioner or physicians marketing plans. And but they eventually come to my clinic. So it's kind of a win-win because if you help other providers around you that reach out to you and say, hey, can you tell me about DPC and how you got started and what's it like? And then they decide they want to do it by having more options like that for the community of people, they're going, there'll be more people that understand what it is. And so you're more likely to gain more patience as a result of that. That's how I looked at it.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

I completely agree. I I think the more people spreading the DPC message, the better.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Dan, I am so grateful to you. You have been a wealth of information. I think people are really going to be able to take these two episodes and really run with it and get their clinic started or or make it even more successful for everything that you said. So just thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

Yeah, you know, I'm really happy

Free Playbook Download And Closing

SPEAKER_01 58:09

to. Um, something, a thought that occurred to me. I'm gonna put that DBC launch, DBC pre-launch playbook on my website. Um, I'm gonna make it free. I'm not gonna require an email or anything, it'll just be a straight download. Um, it might be a little bit tough to find in the Facebook group, but if you go to dbcbookkeeper.com, um, it'll be in the resources page. I'm gonna have my guy just put it on there and it'll just be an easy download. It goes like it's I spent a lot more time on the book just because I had time to think it through. It was like an 18th-bunk project. It's like 197 pages of just kind of like well thought out, well, you know, well-intentioned um chapters. Yeah, I think that's a great start.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

There, and just so you guys know, I literally asked one question, one to two questions out of every phase. But when I looked at the when I looked at the outline originally, when I was picking what questions I wanted to do for the podcast interview, there's actually like 10 questions that go underneath every single episode. So there's, I mean, every single phase. So there's so much information that we didn't even cover. So y'all make sure you go take advantage of this gracious opportunity that Dan has given us. So, Dan, thank you so much. Hope you have a great rest of your day and a great weekend.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Thank you. You too, and I'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

Yeah, looking forward to it. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

Thanks, Amanda.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Bye. Uh, let's see.