Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys
Freedom isn’t just possible… it’s kind of the point.
If you’re a healthcare leader or entrepreneur drowning in to-do lists, juggling team drama, and wondering if success has to come with burnout...this podcast is your lifeline.
Hosted by Will Humphreys, a former physical therapy practice owner turned serial entrepreneur, The WillPower Podcast is your go-to resource for building a business that actually serves your life.
Each week, we tackle the big stuff: leading with vision, scaling with systems, and figuring out whether AI, virtual assistants, or a clone of yourself is the best path to freedom.
You’ll get unfiltered solo episodes, candid interviews with leaders in healthcare and beyond, and just enough humor to cancel one meeting and feel good about it.
So if you want more income, more impact, and way fewer 10 p.m. emails… this is your new weekly habit.
Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys
Why Lance Gross is Betting Big on Virtual Assistants for Ultimate Freedom
Welcome back to the Will Power Podcast's special season, "AI versus Virtual Assistants"! This episode is a game-changer, especially if you dream of building a thriving business without losing your mind, or your spouse. Our guest, Lance Gross, just returned from a ten-day Bahamas vacation, boat and all, with zero work calls to return. Seriously.
Lance and his wife own over 25 locations and a small empire of businesses, yet he's more relaxed than a koala on melatonin. How? He's mastered the art of freedom, chill leadership, and building a business that runs itself.
In this masterclass, we dive deep into:
- Scaling a private practice without sacrificing sanity or relationships.
- The surprising impact of small, $8 Sonic drink investments on team morale and retention (he's lost only one therapist in 7 years!).
- Lance's secret weapon: not just one, but seven virtual assistants, with VAs even hiring VAs!
- The "Who, Not How" mindset and its profound influence on his entrepreneurial journey.
- How to build layers of leadership and systems (even old-school paper ones!) that protect your time and empower your team.
- The philosophy behind his decision to personally treat patients, even though he doesn't have to.
- Why Lance is all in on Virtual Assistants and his current perspective on Artificial Intelligence.
- Rapid-fire questions covering his top book, time-saver hacks, biggest business regrets, and more!
If you're ready to learn how to cultivate a freedom growth mindset and build a business that allows you to truly live life on purpose, this episode is for you. Buckle up, Rockstars, and get ready to transform your approach to business and life!
Don't forget: If freedom had a love language, it'd be delegation! If you're tired of wearing all the hats, book a free discovery call at virtualrockstar.com and see how a Virtual Assistant can free you up. We've paired hundreds of private practice owners with their ideal virtual rockstar assistants, helping them save over $20,000 per year in profit per hire. You deserve a business that gives more than it takes!
Virtual Rockstars specialize in helping support or replace all non-clinical roles.
Learn how a Virtual Rockstar can help scale your physical therapy practice.
Subscribe here to our completely free Stress-Free PT Newsletter for your weekly dose of joy.
Welcome back to the Willpower Podcast and our special season of AI versus virtual assistants. Our guest is Lance Gross, and this episode, guys, is amazing. I would have killed to listen to this episode 10 years ago. Lance just came back from a 10-day Bahamas vacation where he rented a boat with some friends and after 10 days he didn't have a single call to return any work he had to do. He's either a wizard or he has to return any work he had to do. He's either a wizard or he has mastered something the rest of us want to learn.
Speaker 1:Spoiler alert it's both Lance and his wife own 25 plus locations and a small empire of businesses, and somehow this guy is more relaxed than a koala on melatonin. We talk about how he scaled his private practice without losing his mind or his spouse, and how he was able to benefit his team with small $8 Sonic Drink investments that sometimes were the best investments he made. Oh, and his VAs. Not only does he have a small team of VAs, but he's got virtual assistants hiring virtual assistants. So buckle up. We're diving into a masterclass on freedom, chill leadership and how to build a business that runs while you're on a boat somewhere in the world. Let's roll. What's one thing you wish you would stop doing way sooner in your business?
Speaker 2:I'm treating patients. I do that every day, so I probably need to stop doing that as much, and I probably should have stopped doing that a little while back, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Well, Lance, thank you so much for being a part of the Willpower Podcast special season VAs versus AI. I want you to first just set the table for your audience a little bit here. Tell us about your businesses, the size of your organization, and then I'd love for you to explain afterwards your purpose and path, like why did you choose the thing that you're doing right now?
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, thanks for thanks for having me first. Good to see you again. Um, so I'm, my name is Lance Gross. I'm a physical therapist. My wife's also a physical therapist. We're from North Arkansas. Um, been a therapist for 28 years. Uh, had therapists. We're from North Arkansas, been a therapist for 28 years. Had my own business that whole time. Have only been in the outpatient business for about seven years. We currently have 24 outpatient locations opening our 25th August, the 1st. So we're over 25 locations across North Arkansas and one in Southern Missouri. Also, I'm a half owner of a DME company, half owner of an assisted living retirement community, half owner of a residential care facility, half owner of a home care business, half owner of commercial real estates and all those things.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's a lot. Before you go into the why, it sounds like you have your private practice with the multiple locations and you're expanding rapidly that you own as the primary owner, and then you have partners and all these other businesses.
Speaker 2:Right. So my wife and I are the only owners of the therapy business. We're the primary a hundred percent owners of that, and then the other business I'm going to have a partner in. The others.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and then let me let me, before we get into the why of it, I do want people to hear this.
Speaker 2:Tell me how many business calls you had in that 10 day period. Oh, when I was okay, so I was, we were talking. Before that came on, I was. I was actually gone last week on vacation for 10 days and I had zero business calls the whole 10 days. So and came back and everything was just still on keel, running smooth, so yeah, remember, freedom isn't just possible.
Speaker 1:It's kind of the point. If this episode helped you laugh, learn or at least cancel one meeting, go ahead and hit subscribe, share it with your overworked friend and leave a review. I read every single one, usually while avoiding emails. Want more behind the scenes stuff? Then hit us up on the socials. Now go delegate something and take a nap. You've earned it, yeah, guys. So, rockstars, are you catching the vibe now of the new season? You heard the first episode last week, that short introduction about the mindset. So now we're talking about results. Do you want that, rockstars? Then buckle up Like we're getting into this freedom growth mindset and we're going to talk about, like, the latest trends and everything. But first let's go back to the mindset with Lance. Lance, tell me about your why, like, what was the purpose that got you into this space and why you're doing all these things? What's your driving force behind it?
Speaker 2:Well, that's changed over the years, of course.
Speaker 2:So, you know, at first, when you're the first sole owner of a business and the sole proprietor and you're the only one ever then your idea there and remind them in was, you know, to make a good living, to make money or to have your own place so you can be the boss and in charge.
Speaker 2:Um, as that's evolved now to where I've gotten way more people on my team, my passion now is, honestly, it's for them to have a great place to work, so like for those people to have a great place to go to work every day that they can be at forever, for like a lifetime career, that we're setting up a place for them to be able to do that, and that's honestly what I like doing and it's to that we're getting to that point.
Speaker 2:I think we're really close to that precipice where people that are on our team like feel like this is the home place they're going to be forever and they're going to stay here and work for our company forever and ever so. And then now, later on in my career, at 54 years old today not today, but my birthday is going to all back it up as we're speaking 54 right, um, I'm looking at you know, not stopping of course, but winding down to where I'm stepping away, kind of like I did last week when I was able to vacation not had not be the one running the business the business kind of went to itself. So that's, that's where that's, I guess it's where, if that makes, I wouldn't have the two sides of it.
Speaker 2:I'm in for being the chief cook and bottle washer Now. I'm just like setting the charting, the course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing to think about how your purpose is twofold and one of them is deeply personal. The first one is the team, and that's a big thing for people listening and it was a big shift for me was when I realized that the team that I was building was the greatest gift that I could build and, ironically, that's when my freedom and money increased. But I love that you're being really direct Lance around this thing called like yeah, I'm 54. I don't want to be working crazy hours anymore. So it's the other side of the same coin and it's your purpose. Your purpose is to live life and love what you're doing and to be able to leave for 10 days and not have all these messages pop up.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yes, it was pretty enjoyable on vacation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm super jealous. So, listen, I want people to relate to you. Can you share a time where you can explain how you can relate and connect to people's strife, like the pain of building these things, because there's a time in your life where you experience that?
Speaker 2:Right, right. So I'm painting the picture here where I'm just sitting back with all these businesses doing crazy. I'm doing nothing. Well, that's not really the case. This hasn't been the way from the start.
Speaker 1:No, you're hyper-entrepreneurial.
Speaker 2:Right. So for 25, 28 years it was me doing everything, working just around the clock-ish. So start early in the morning, 6, do notes until midnight, work weekends, try to fill in the gaps. Someone's off I'm covering Someone doesn't show up? I'm going to cover their shift. Someone's sick? I'm the one. I was it doing everything.
Speaker 2:So that was the way it was for years and years and years and strife that was some of the strife. And then, or hardship, probably the biggest time I would say, was when we made a decision. So our history of our business we were a contract company for years where I'd be contracted therapists with home health agencies, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, whatever. So we had a bunch of staff or team members that we contracted out. There came a point in time, seven years ago now, where I was thinking man, I'm getting close to 50, my business is just all based on these contracts, the whole thing, and if someone else comes in and takes my contracts or someone decides to hire their own therapist, my business is gone overnight. So I said, what well, what can I do?
Speaker 2:So we decided to go into our just kind of brick and mortar type private practice setting. So I announced to our staff, our team at our Christmas party. I say you guys ever thought about having our own clinics? Anybody want their own therapy clinic? And like they're all like, yeah, let's do that. So we opened five clinics in like four months. So we went from a December meeting to open our first clinic in March and by I think, may or June we had five clinics open and at the same time we were building a house, my wife and I building a house and our kids were in high school at the time.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, all kinds of athletic sports. So I might I had I had zero hours in every day and $0. Because if you go from a pretty nice profitable contract business where there's really no overhead whatsoever other than paying salaries, and also now you're opening five new practices with buildings and equipment and all those things and there's no revenue coming because you have no patients yet, uh it was pretty stressful, uh pretty stressful time for me and my wife and if I'm a little even keel on things like things don't really upset me too much and my wife is the same way oh, is she the same way?
Speaker 1:because I've always been jealous about how you're. You know, hey, you owe a million dollars. You, you won a million dollars.
Speaker 2:You're like cool either one right, same text, yeah, and, but we're the same way. I'm a little more even than she is. She's yeah she, she steadies me a little more. She's like, hey, you should paint it in here because we're bleeding over here. We should look at this and and I'm like, oh okay, it'll be okay, it'll stop eventually, correct?
Speaker 1:So it's amazing I will say, especially having had high schoolers how difficult that is. In addition, there's like a financial and emotional bankruptcy that's occurring there in that journey. And the other thing, rock stars, I want you to hear, as Lance is talking, is that he's only on this PT practice for seven years. Right, I mean you're in your late forties, when you started.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I wish I. I wish I would've done this when I was 25. It would have been a lot better.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So rockstar is no matter where you are. Remember this rule it's not your age, it's the stage. It's not your age, it's a stage. Don't look around and say, oh, I'm too old or I'm it's too late for me to get on social media or to figure this crap out Like this is.
Speaker 1:This is legitimately an example. This is why I'm starting the season with Lance. He is an example of what's possible and I love, lance, that you've. You've put yourself in this position, in your, in your stage of life, where you're like really accelerating and recognizing like, hey, what do I want? Like you're not a victim to the, to that piece of it, where you're just like feeling overwhelmed. You know, what I would love to know is is like from that place where you were going through a great deal of strife to where you and, by the way, before we get any further into how you got from there to here tell people what you do with your time now oh, so my my like during the daytime time yeah, like we were talking about, yeah so I treat patients, so I'd still treat patients throughout the week.
Speaker 2:So this week, today's friday, as we're filming this and it's noonish noonish where I'm at um I've already done three evals this morning. I've got three more scheduled this afternoon. It'll make I'll have 23 evaluations done this week. So I do I do typically anywhere from 15 to 25 evaluations in the out patient clinics per week and then everything else but. But I like doing that, I enjoy seeing patients, I enjoy being around, I enjoy being around my team.
Speaker 1:Do you have to treat?
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't have to.
Speaker 1:No. So, rockstar, I want Lance to say that to you because I want you to hear that treating isn't bad. But there is such a difference between building a company that runs on its own and choosing to go in and Lance and I were talking before that we hit record that like one of the main reasons you're doing this is to really just to show your people that you're willing to walk the walk and talk the talk that that you set as the leader. You don't have to, but you choose to.
Speaker 2:I do choose to. Yeah, I could. I mean at this point I could stay home every day and and do something different. But used to, I've always treated so. I used to. You know, four years ago or three or probably three years ago now. I would treat all day and then go home and like manage the business all night. So go home and then like work on books, payroll and all those things. Well, now we have other folks in place to do much of that stuff. So I don't I have to really do that. I still, obviously I still do some looking at numbers and financials and making sure things are on track, but as far as the day-to-day operations, I don't really have a whole lot to do with that.
Speaker 1:You know I don't want to put words in your mouth, but as you're talking, I'm hearing Dan Sullivan in my head about who, not how.
Speaker 2:It's a great book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how much did that concept play into that transformation of where you were doing everything to where you are now?
Speaker 2:Right. So I actually read that book the first time. I think you gave it to me to be truthful, sure, yep, and that's what prompted us to hire our director of operations. Some of you might call her a CEO or whatever, but she's our director of operations. Hired her almost three years ago, I believe now, and that's been a huge burden off of myself and off of my wife. So just running a day-to-day operations of everything, she oversees the whole business.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:From hiring, firing, credentialing, payroll. She oversees all those things. And then there's other people that blow around her team that should do those tasks. But she makes sure they're being done and her and I obviously talk every day. A report at the end of the day, kind of a summation of what's going on. What do I need to address myself? Those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, rockstars. I want you to hear how he's describing what freedom looks like. It's his passion. Going back to your team, lance of like, you're really passionate about creating a place where people are so thrilled to get up and go to work, to be a part of things, and that's one of the reasons that you're driven to treat. It's not just because you still like to treat, it's because you like to be with your people and then you know, but in a way that serves you. But yet Lance is still free and able to take these big breaks if he needs to.
Speaker 1:And I just again, that's what a CEO I always tell people I think the most important roles that CEOs need to remember that they have is, first is visionary, second is cultural leader and then third is team development. If they can be in that space, they can have ultimate you know, ultimate profit and freedom to be able to do what they want. So, lance, let's get into some of these things that you've. I want to ask you some really specific questions for our audience. Around some of the freedom helpers that you've had, can you tell me what is something that you've implemented in your practice that has freed you up outside of hiring people?
Speaker 2:Outside of hiring people. What has freed you up outside of hiring people? Outside of hiring people would just free us up. So well, hiring people people free us up. I mean people that take things off us. So we do put in systems. Obviously we have systems in place that do things, so we have teams of people that do different stuff. So, just from in a physical therapy practice I'm assuming most people watch this or some kind of physical therapist practice owners.
Speaker 1:PT, OTS, LP are most of our audience.
Speaker 2:So most everybody understands what I'm talking about. When you're worried about credentialing and revenue cycle management and referrals coming in and marketing and all those things and if you're the a lot of you guys may be sole practice owners, where you have your own practice, but where you have your own practices we were doing all those things. So we have people that do each one of those things. We have a whole marketing crew that just takes care of that. We have a whole credentialing crew that takes care of just credentialing. We have a whole team that just takes care of new referrals coming in and insurance author verifications. We have a whole team of people that take care of authorizations. So all these things are done individually and they all report to one person and it comes back to this anyway.
Speaker 1:So the leadership thing you hit kind of hard. It's hard because I said without people to challenge you, because I know that people is the main way that you've grown. But it sounds like what you did say it was systems. I heard like you've implemented like some processes and then leadership. So let's talk about systems really quick. Like what do you, do you use Google docs? Like how, when you say systems, what does that look like in your company?
Speaker 2:So systems are well. Funny enough, a lot of ours are on paper.
Speaker 1:So straight up old school paper systems they're really like right down.
Speaker 2:Here's what we do, here's our outline of what we're going to do, and we do that. So it's hard to explain that there's so many. We have you know, weekly meetings, weekly things.
Speaker 2:People check in. So if you're on that team, report to that person. They've got tasks they've got to complete and once they're completed everything's good. If they're not completed, they're marked in red and then they report back to her and if she can't figure it out, then she goes to our director of operations. If she can't get a problem solved, then it comes to me. So it's like a three-tier thing before it comes to me. No summit ever gets to me. Honestly, Everything is done.
Speaker 1:It's already organized in that way. Let me summarize this because Lance is living it so well. I'm going to take a step back and give you a little bit of perspective, because these things that Lance is doing is like gravity and sometimes we get worked up in terms of like. Should I use an online training platform? Should I do a paper? Worked up in terms of like? Should I use an online training platform? Should I do a paper?
Speaker 1:Look, you can't deny Lance's results with pen and paper systems in some of the cases that he's built it out. But here are the things that are universal for anyone who gets totally freed up, that Lance is demonstrating. That first piece is having accountability meetings. Meetings are a huge part of culture and in those meetings, matt isn't just or sorry. Lance is looking at statistics as well as green, yellow, red, and then he's got leadership, and then you have layers of leadership, so that it's almost protective of you and only comes certain things come to you. So let me ask you this, lance what are the things that do come to you Like? You've got layers of people handling most things, so what are the types of things that you do want to come to you?
Speaker 2:Things I want to come to me, like if we're seeing a, obviously any kind of um HR issues, which we hardly ever have like those usually come to me quick, like this comes down to having to have a crucial conversation with someone that's usually me, that has to have that Like the end I'll be all if there's someone's not pulling their weight, someone doing a thing you know they need to be kind of put back on.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing they've been coached already to a degree, but you're coming in more like you're not having the first conversation as much as like the last.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right, I'm, yeah, I'm dad's coming home. They don't want to talk to me, so talk to me. That's that. And anything that's going to be a financial leak or a problem, I need to address that. So anything that looks like there's something here that's costing us money more than it's bringing in. So we don't want to make millions of dollars on everything we do, but we want to make at least something. We don't want to lose money on anything we do, so we've got to monitor all that. So everything we do. But we want to make at least something. We don't want to lose money on anything we do, so we got to monitor all that. So if we see a profit leak somewhere, I got to figure that out, and that usually comes to me to figure out what's happening with that, and I'm Pretty good at finding out where the issue is on that.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Awesome stuff.
Speaker 1:Those things have really added up over time and we could do podcast upon podcast about all those things and I'm tempted to dive in there. But let me ask you this last question what's the best business purchase that you've made under $100 that has impacted your business?
Speaker 2:Business purchase under $100.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, what can you get for under $100? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It may not even be a question that we use moving forward, but I'm curious to see.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Honestly, I don't know Anything I could invest in my team honestly with that. So just. But you know, buying them, buying them things to work with, doesn't really affect them, but investing in them. So you know, it could be as simple thing as stopping a sonic and pick up some side drinks to take to them on the way oh my gosh, that's such a good answer. I didn't know if we were going to come up with anything but that's a great answer so like a small treat for your team member.
Speaker 2:That's it. Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, I mean we can do a whole other podcast about building teams and staff retention and all those things, because we have I don't even know how many employees we have. I don't know, honestly at the moment Hundreds Counting all the businesses, but we've only lost one therapist in the past seven years. That's left us.
Speaker 1:You guys listen to what just happened. He's got hundreds of employees. He's lost one therapist in how long?
Speaker 2:Oh, seven, seven years Okay.
Speaker 1:So listen, hey, rockstars, will you put in the comments if you want episodes on that, because I'm building this next season for Q4. I'm trying to piece that together. So, rockstars, I need your feedback to know. Is that what you want to learn more about? I would love to go into that, but right now I want to pivot, lance, because, as you know, the theme of this season is artificial intelligence versus virtual assistants, and you have how many virtual assistants?
Speaker 2:Seven altogether, seven across the board. Should I use five in my PT practice and we have two in our DME business at the moment and we're going to add a third in our DME business just right next week. We'll be looking for an interview for a third one. So if you're talking about freeing up time and freeing up labor, so you mentioned earlier about, can I you mind if I talk for a minute?
Speaker 1:Always, always, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned earlier what strife is. I kind of mentioned the big thing. You know, opening mentioned the big thing of the clinics. That was strapped to me. But daily, daily worries or things are our staff or team turnover. So I mentioned we haven't lost it there, we haven't lost a therapist in one therapist in seven years. But ancillary staff members, those are the hardest to keep. Front desk people, insurance verification people, authorization, people that just don't work behind the scenes and you can't pay them enough to keep them. I mean you can't, you can't afford to pay them enough to keep them because someone else offers them 50 cents more to go do the same kind of job or work from home. They, they jump at that. So we have, even though we have fantastic benefits, fantastic culture, all those things, people that make those kinds of wages for 50 cents more. They're going to think they might leave for that. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm just being honest.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, after you spent months or weeks or years training them to do the things you wanted to do whether it's authorizations or verifications or those things that they have to do and they do them well, and then they leave you for another $2 to work for a dentist somewhere.
Speaker 1:We've all been in that position, Lance. I used to tell my wife she'd go. How was your day? And, like everyone at the front desk showed up, it went great. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:So so that's what I was saying, so, so, so those were the things we were having issues with. Like we were, we we obviously have seen some growth. So we've seen tremendous growth from one clinic to 25 clinics in seven years. So with that comes adding multitudes of people to try to keep up with all these things we have to do every day Verifications, authorizations, denials, all that stuff and we just we're having trouble keeping up with that, even though we had great people that couldn't do it all by themselves. So we have basically one person trying to do authorizations for 27 clinics. Well, that's an impossible task.
Speaker 2:So the virtual assistant option came along and we added one. We thought we'll give you know, let's give this a try, see how this goes Hired one, came on board, had some experience with authorizations, which we were able to step in the role and help that out. We're like, okay, that's taken a significant load off of this one person that's been doing it for a long time. So we had hired another one, and then another one and another one. Anyway, so now at this point we used to have someone stateside that did authorizations and oversee that team. Well, now our virtual assistants we have one there. His name is Archie. He is in charge of the. He has four that work for him. So he's in charge and we give him promotion. He's totally in charge of all our authorizations, all our verifications.
Speaker 2:The last virtual assembly we hired, he did the hiring we interviewed. He actually hired them, picked them out who he wanted. We just sat back and listened to him talk. And now he trains them all and he oversees everything they do. So he gives us a report each week of what's going on and we essentially don't have to worry about them. It's literally seamless. So we get a referral that comes into us, we send the stuff to them, they verify the insurance, they do authorization part. They just take care of it and it's very organized and they actually live in the Philippines.
Speaker 2:Some people may not know that they all live in the Philippines. The virtual assistants do so. They do their training. They listen to him more because he's Filipino. So when he's training them they buy into it and they're all a team because he's Filipino. So when he's training them they buy into it and they're all a team. So that has been giant both mentally, not having to worry about those things anymore, not having to worry. So if our authorization person didn't show up to work that day. Who's going to do all? Who's going to check authorizations? I don't know. I have no idea. I wouldn't even know where to start. So know, I have no idea, I wouldn't even know where to start.
Speaker 2:So we'll be dead in the water when nothing's getting authorized, cause I would not even know where to start that Um. But now we're. We're at a point where that's I mean that's, it's covered and it's a, it's a worry off, totally off of all our plates.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and you know, again, I think what's great is that you have a company with systems that have really supported that and as you've implemented that, it's so obviously refreshing to hear that there's solutions, because that was so hard for me and that's one of the reasons I'm passionate about. The virtual assistant side, as you know, is like that was I remember hiring people and they'd show up like they were doing me a favor versus the virtual assistants now who, honestly, will cry when they get hired. And this is like life changing, I think, for the audience. I think what they would want to know is you know, how does your team communicate with your VAs? Like, how do you work with your VAs remotely? That would be different than how you'd work with somebody you know stateside.
Speaker 2:Great. So we, our VAs, are. They're part of our team like anybody else, like they're literally part of like every single correspondence. We get every email we send out every talk we do. We do a weekly meeting like a weekly Zoom meeting. We get every email. We send out every talk. We do a weekly meeting like a weekly Zoom meeting. Every Tuesday morning we have what we call our back office meeting, which is our authorization, credentialing marketing team. All those people come together for a Zoom meeting and I'm on that meeting. Every Tuesday morning we spend an hour and a half or so going over topics of the last week, topics of the next week coming up, and the VAs are on there every time. So they're just like everybody else on the team.
Speaker 2:As far as our communication with them daily, we set them up on a Zoom, so we're on an international Zoom with them and the Zoom is essentially open all day long. So it's basically like they're in the office. They're just literally a monitor sitting to the side of someone's desk and if the VA has a question, they just say, hey, steve, and they go oh, what do you need? And they just ask the question and literally it's just open all day long. So it's an open communication. They're just on a screen. Have you ever watched Big Bang Theory and you see the one where Sheldon has these like the screen and he walks around the house? That's kind of what it's like. They're just right there.
Speaker 1:That's so funny because I've never thought of that in any way.
Speaker 2:They're right there at easy access all day long and they we give them all. They all get their own company email address. So they have their own company email, the international Zoom. They actually use that. They can use that to call with. So they can actually use that system to make phone calls to the States with. And we have them set up with a local number. So if they have to call a doctor's office or an insurance company, it looks like a local number showing up and we go through some VPN stuff for security and things like that for for all of them. But the communication is really pretty easy, like once you're used to talking on a zoom with someone, it's it's just like they're in the room with you. It's not. It's not. And they worked our same hours, you know, eight to five, monday to Friday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. I always tell people it's not a hard muscle to learn, it's just a little. For this is that the power of bringing them into your culture is the key thing that has to be done, but medical private practice owners do that so well, especially PTOTs and SLPs. Your whole focus is building your team. I wonder what that's like for the Filipinos, because you're benefiting all these amazing Americans who are blessed to live in the greatest country on the earth, but then you have Filipinos who are coming from also a great country, but they don't have the same financial opportunities that we have. I just wonder what that's like for them to be able to work for you and I don't really have a question here, as much as just like a statement that I think it's really neat that your focus is on your, your culture, and that it's actually becoming global, like you're impacting people, but um, I mean, we do we do it.
Speaker 2:Do we do us? Well, if all of our new hires come on board, we do us. I mean it looked like a welcome package.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They just get a welcome package from us. But the I know this is working the team and you know a couple of two or three t-shirts and some like swag you know, that has our logos on it some cups and tumblers and all this thing. Well, the Filipinos get them too, so we send them to them all you ship it to the Philippines. I do so they all get one too. They all get a box with all their T-shirts, and so we treat them like anybody else on our team.
Speaker 1:What have they said when they got those packages? Because I know they don't get that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they love that, so it's so. They're no different to anybody else that works stateside. So no difference to us amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how was that? When you were first adopting that, how did your american team respond to like oh, because there's like a total stigma right about like yeah being outsourced overseas and not understanding the english like. How did your team respond?
Speaker 2:yep. So there was definite I wouldn't say pushback, but definite skepticism going into that, like, how's this going to work? Is not going to work, I don't see how this is going to work, so let's just try it, let's just be the pilot program, let's just see how this goes, let's just give it a whirl. If it doesn't work out easy enough, we can cut it loose after a month and just let it go so. But after that now it's like hey, everybody that works like in your stateside they're like hey, can I get a va? Do I need a?
Speaker 1:but he wants someone of their own, like their own little their own va, to help them do stuff. I'm like you're swell, hang on, so yeah. Yeah, I think the idea is that vas are going to replace americans, which they can to some degree, but, like, the positions that are already are harder to fill. But the people who are great, they're seeing them as like a personal value add. It's like, oh, you're taking care of me If I get a VA. Um, you know, lance, just telling you from personal experience, like my personal VA was a big shift for me, just having someone to go through my emails and stuff, cause that was a big shift. And um, where's your vision for you with? The last thing I'll ask you on the VAs is where's your vision at this point with VAs? Do you have any thoughts on next steps for you?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, we're gonna. We'll keep adding more and more so to do, to do that, those, those things. So, those things that are, like we mentioned earlier authorizations, verifications um, we do for our dma company. They do billing, so we have two that do billing for our dma company wow well, pt practice will be outsourced to billing.
Speaker 2:So we don't do any in-house. We in-house that we would probably use some vas or probably outsource that um, but our DME campaign is billing and we're adding more for there. So probably anything we talk about it internally quite a bit in our meetings weekly, anything that we could that we need someone to be very dependable, very reliable and that's going to stay with us. We're probably going to put them in that role that they can do what they can do. Anybody that can work from home, we can use a VA to do it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:If you can work from home and do this job, then a VA can do it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And the VAs that come. I mean, some of you people don't realize this. They're pretty educated. They're pretty educated. So two of ours are actually physical therapists. Two of our VAs actually have a PT license. They're actually licensed physical therapists in the Philippines. So they already speak our language, they can read notes, they can read diagnosis codes. They already know how to do all that. Archie came from a billing background. He actually worked for you and your billing company. Yeah Right, he had a billing background. So billing and coding is he knows all that stuff. So it's not like you have to train them. You have to train them. All you have to train them on is your systems. Really, you have to train them on your EMR platform and kind of the way you like things done, because they kind of have a good knowledge base of everything else and they're rapid, they can learn and, like anybody else, if you hire someone stateside they're not going to know what to do. You have to train them so. So it's no different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lance, such a powerful summary there of the VAs. Thank you for that. Now let's shift over to artificial intelligence. Are you guys implementing any AI tools right now?
Speaker 2:None Interesting, and how?
Speaker 1:come? How come at this point? What's the? Is it just the lack of knowledge of what's out there, or have you looked at things You're like? Eh, not for me.
Speaker 2:Like, where are you at with that? Yeah, I've looked at several things over the years, the last few years, and just nothing. I'm kind of waiting a little bit, I guess, until things get to. I mean, things are great now, it looks like, but just a little more, a little smoother. I guess. Our EMR that we had currently used doesn't use any AI tools in it. Who do you use? Right now, we use Strata PT, strata PT. Right now, we use strata pt, strata pt. Yeah, they don't have any ai tools in in their software at the moment or that we can access, so we just don't. We just don't do that. I'm not opposed to it. I mean I think it'd be great, but we just don't.
Speaker 1:We just haven't yet yet it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like to me, you know it's coming, but you're, you're in a position where you're what you're doing is working so well. You're kind of letting the bigger, because when I think about big names, I know a number of AI softwares, but like that's part of this season is probably on the AI side is going to be more about discovering for the audience, like what is even out there, because I don't think the you know, the two fastest growing trends in healthcare not just in PT or OTSLP but like globally hospitals is AI and virtual assistance, and there's products that are popping up, but they're early stage adapting, so some of them are working well, some of them aren't, and so I really wanted to know cause I respect you, like where your perspective is. So you're really far down the road with the VAs. You're, you're open to AI. You're just waiting to see what's going to be the ones that are adaptable.
Speaker 2:We're definitely going to utilize AI. There's no doubt Everybody's going to, we're going to, but right now, I mean, if you have I'm sure you have and I have, and a lot of folks have it's overwhelming a little bit. There's so many new AI companies out there and they all have these things they say they're going to do or can do and you're like, can they really do that? I'm not sure they can really do what they're saying for sure, but because they all, they all sound so amazing and they're going to save you like you're going to get time back. You're going to be a time traveler if you start using ai, you're going to like have hours back in your day, like extra hour. You know, I get 27 hours a day instead of 24 because you're using our ad tool. Um, I don't, yeah, I just I just don't know which one to pick. It'd be be like wow.
Speaker 2:It'd be like you'd be like go into a, go to the dance. Look over there there's like 12 pretty girls. You're like okay, which one do I pick? I want to, maybe a psychopath. You don't want to pick her Right.
Speaker 1:You'll pick the one that chooses you, and I think that's true for AI as well. It's funny because, like, look at just your chat GPTs right, there's there's Gemini, there's Perplexity, there's all these different chat I don't even know what to call them. They're AI solutions, long language model solutions that you can use as a resource In my world. Lance, just to share for the audience, I have this network that has not a single healthcare company in it, and two of them are tech companies that are very like cutting edge, and so they're teaching me a lot about it, and it is even still overwhelming, because they'll tell me perplexity is good for this, whereas chat GPT is good for that. And then you have Google's Gemini, and this is the thing I'll just kind of hit, kind of for the audience and maybe for you as well. Gemini Google got into it late, but Google has such a powerhouse engine that just last week this is we're filming this in the first full week of June. Last week, gemini came out with these video producing I think it's VO three or something. It's. It's a. You can start putting um prompts in and it will create actual live video all artificial but it looks real of people talking and saying things, and so Google, because of their resources and power they have, they've caught up to and in some ways starting to pass, and then people are projecting that will be there.
Speaker 1:So I, just for personal use for the audience, cause I don't know how much we're going to get into AI I use chat GPT nonstop. I don't communicate without it. Um, I am going to for example, I don't have a meeting without that on in the background, like an AI note taker in the background, just because at the end of that meeting I can like download the transcript, throw it into chat GPT and say please create an email for all the delegations with due dates and identify anything that was missed that we can put into an email. So there's lots of ways that I think are going to be used. But, lance, like you, I'm kind of sitting back a little bit and partly excited about this season going. What is the ai solutions that people are going to bring up? So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what comes up over time, um, but I respect the fact that, like you're leading the charge when it comes to the second fastest growing trend, which is vas, I think that's awesome all right, man, let's do some rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1:You ready, ready, let's go. Number one what is a top book that you have read that has blown your mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, who Not how?
Speaker 1:Who Not how Love?
Speaker 2:it. It's a great book. I've read quite a few books recently, but who Not how is probably the one that has had the biggest impact on me lately lately being the last three years. So it prompted me to hire our director of operations, which took a huge burden off my plate, and then now it's got me thinking about hiring other people to do other things that I I do. So I mean I mean simply never read that book. It's like you need to hire someone to, like, mow your yard. I mean that's like that could be the person. I mean to be honest, so I still mow, should hire someone to do that to buy myself back a couple hours a week of time.
Speaker 1:But you know it's so funny about that. I am Nathan Shields told me about that book. The great Nathan Shields, who owns the PT owners podcast. He was telling me about that book and I went, yeah, I got the, I got the message from the title. I think I'm good. But then later I was on vacation and I was reading it and I'm like, oh, it's a mindset shifter. And even our conversation, as you and I are talking, Lance, right now, I'm thinking about people like, oh, I need to hire people. I want to hire people to go do some things that I'm doing right now, cause that's a big book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that. So normally I listened to both time there I listened audio version to books, so I'd listen to books, but who knows how I was going to actually carry. I carry it with me in my like wherever I go and worn, but it stays in my backpack all the time with me, so it's just my travel book. So I've read the whole thing in its entirety. Never walk all the way through, but I've read the whole thing in its entirety, probably five times. Just little snippets and pieces here and there, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and rock stars listen to this. Like you heard at the beginning of this episode, what Lance has got going on and the freedom that he is protecting and what does he have tattered in his bag who, not how, and I will, I will throw, and I get it sounds like we're salesmen for this book, but I will tell you we get nothing for that. That book was such an easy read. That was the weirdest thing. It wasn't like this book where I felt like I had to grind through. This was like an entertaining, like oh, I'm done so. I love that you mentioned that. Let's get to the second question. Uh, what's one of your top time saver hacks?
Speaker 2:for me time saver hats, I guess. I mean I'm wow, I don't know, um, I guess just delegating things to other people. I hate to say, but I don't like the word delegate. I really like that word too much.
Speaker 1:But you know empowering other people to take on some responsibility, wow that's way better.
Speaker 2:That's a way more like a way to say don't responsibilities, Wow. That's a way more elegant way to say don't push me around. That's a way more yes.
Speaker 1:This is such a fun episode, lance. I just got to tell you this has been such a blast because if I had heard this episode 10 years ago in my career, it would have changed everything. So, number three, what's one thing you wish you would stop doing way sooner in your business?
Speaker 2:That I would have stopped doing way sooner.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm wish you would stop doing way sooner in your business that I would have stopped doing way sooner. No, I mean honestly, I've mentioned we just now I'm treating patients. I could do that every day. So like I probably need to stop doing that as much and I probably should have stopped doing that a little while back, to be honest, so I could have more time to work on the business. That have in the business, so to speak, um, and probably would have been probably been way more successful quicker if I'd have done that years ago and but but I I didn't. But now somehow, somehow I managed to muddle through that and it's still get the treat patients and now it's kind of the business kind of runs itself without me having to be on the phone all day or worried about things happening, cause I was such a good team in place that they take care of stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, even though you wish you had done that a little bit sooner and you're looking at it now, it's it's more of a, it's more of an optimization than a judgment. Okay, Number four what's the most time consuming task that you secretly enjoy?
Speaker 2:Oh, so my, I I've still, you know, I still use pen and paper for a lot of stuff, a lot of things. So I really just like enjoy sitting back done and look at like going through numbers, like end of month numbers or end of week numbers for each comparisons. I love comparing trends for for flows, for percentage of growth, percentage of whatever, and ebbs and flows and how things go, and I compare those month over month. Like I know I know the last week of May is coming. We're going to see a downtrend of 12%, because I know that's coming, because it happens every year statistically. So I just like doing that. I do that almost every night. I do some sort of statistic looking at our business just to make sure I can do a quick look at our EMR setup and just how things are turning. Okay, everything's good here, and if I see a blip on the radar, something's not right, I can go, we can go address that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you love the power of you inspect what you expect and the way that gives you the information to make decisions. It might be why you're so even keel because you have knowledge. Maybe, All right. So what's the latest thing you delegated?
Speaker 2:What did I do? What have I delegated? What have I empowered someone else to do for me there?
Speaker 1:we go. What's the latest thing? You've empowered someone else to take off your plate. I'm going to put that in my notes. That's a great way of phrasing yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Probably honestly, the last thing kind of the biggest thing was the last VA we hired. I usually would sit in on those interviews and go to that and make the decision and we put that off to Archie, the other VA, and let him do that. That's the last time I'm like empowered him to do that, like this purchase is going to work for you anyway, so why are you in my end? But you don't need that. I was there, I was on the call with them, I introduced myself and told them good luck in the interview and then you know, let them go and then let Archie pick it out and that's it.
Speaker 1:Archie picked the next VA, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent. Your VA, picked your next VA.
Speaker 1:By the way, Archie, I hope you're listening to this. We miss you over it in the black, but we're so grateful that you're with Lance, because you know you're growing in a way that is just how you're meant to be. So love that. What an inspiring way. Okay, last question. This is the big question for the season, In your opinion which is it AI or virtual assistants?
Speaker 2:Wow, so I'm going to have to. You know you vote for the home team, I guess, so you got to say, since it's virtual assistants, but I probably ai. I mean in the long term, 10 years from now, we're gonna ai, ai is gonna be I mean 90, 10 years, probably less than that's gonna take over every our whole life. I mean you're talking about the stuff google is doing where you can just create a video like you're not gonna, where they don't know. I mean you already don't know what's real and what's not. I mean it's coming, pops up on your phone or TV or movie or anything that's like. Is that real or not? I have no idea, there's no way to even tell.
Speaker 1:I agree, you know it's interesting and this is true because, the owner of a VA company.
Speaker 1:As we know, in 10 years we're dead in the water if we don't start integrating AI aggressively. So I agree, I think. But guys at home, listen, this isn't even an exciting episode. So, uh, seth, the amazing podcast editor that's not his title, by the way, he's our creative specialist who's behind the scenes. Super big shout out to Seth, who we can't do any of this without. If you would, for the people who are watching on YouTube or any of the video platforms, let's see the score. It's episode one. So, yep, that's one for AI and zero for VAs. But, lance, thank you so much for being on the show man, it has been such a gift to be with you and truly thank you for embodying everything that I am trying to help other people see in terms of what's possible. Any parting words?
Speaker 2:I think anybody's capable of doing great things if they really set their mind to it Not that I've done great things, but I've done good things and continue to get better every day. And I think empowering your team or your people around you whether it's whether your team is your wife or your husband, or whether your team is your people that you work with every day at work like empower them to do things and lead them and get them to train the need and get them to buy into you, to be part of you and want to be around you or part of your party organization that has that's the key they have to. So if they don't want to come to work with you every day, nothing's going to work because you can't do it yourself.
Speaker 1:No way. Awesome, lance. All right guys. Well, thank you for tuning in to the Willpower Podcast. As always, this is Will Humphries reminding you to lead with love, live on purpose and, above all, never give up. Until next time. Thanks for tuning into the Willpower Podcast. As always, this is Will Humphries reminding you to lead with love, live on purpose and never give up your freedom. Until next time.
