Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys

Will Humphreys on How Virtual Assistants Are Saving PT Practices $20K Per Hire

• Will Humphreys • Season 3 • Episode 36

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In this episode, Neil Trickett sits down with Will Humphreys, former physical therapist turned serial entrepreneur and founder of Virtual Rockstar, the fastest-growing virtual staffing partner for private healthcare practices in the U.S. Will shares the hard-won lessons from building and selling a five-location PT practice, why the front desk is really a sales position, and how Filipino virtual assistants are transforming clinic operations while saving owners an average of $20,000 in profit per hire.

Whether you're drowning in admin work, struggling to hire reliable staff, or just curious about what a VA could actually do in your practice, this episode is packed with clarity and actionable insight.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why the biggest operational mistake PT owners make isn't working too hard, it's not knowing how to hire
  • Why your front desk is a sales position (and why paying $15–$17/hour for it is costing you a fortune)
  • The hidden revenue leak most practice owners never see coming (and how AI call tracking is exposing it)
  • How virtual assistants are used across front desk support, insurance verification, authorizations, billing, marketing, and personal assistance
  • The "give your team the gift of a VA" approach and how to pilot it without disrupting culture
  • How Filipino VAs are raising the work ethic bar for entire teams
  • HIPAA compliance, training, and the 30-day pilot model
  • When NOT to hire a VA, and the honest truth about the 15% of placements that don't work out
  • What Virtual Rockstar's group interview process looks like (and why it's only 90 minutes total risk)

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Why This Conversation Matters

SPEAKER_01

Recently, I was a guest on the Practice Marketing podcast with my good friend Neil Trickett. He's the CEO of Practice Promotions, and our conversation was so good, I had to bring it to you guys. Neil and I go back over 20 years in the industry, and in our discussion, we're gonna talk about the biggest hiring mistakes we've made, what current mistakes are being made, what your network and your net worth have to do with each other. And we're talking about all these things so that we can help you feel that love and passion that you had the second you became a PT for the first time. Enjoy the show.

Meet Will And Virtual Rockstar

SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome to the Practice Marketing Podcast, highlighting successful strategies from North America's fastest growing clinics and experts so you can learn from their wins and power your practice growth. Hi, I'm your host, Neil Trigott, CEO of Practice Promotions, and today we're gonna talk with Will Humphreys, who is not only a former physical therapist, but he's turned serial entrepreneur, speaker, and founder of Virtual Rockstar. And Virtual Rockstar is the fastest growing virtual staffing partner for private healthcare practices in the US. And he and his team have placed full-time, highly trained Filipino virtual assistants into roles like front desk, insurance verification, billing, marketing, recruiting, and helping clinics save an average of about 20 grand in profit per hire while improving that patient experience. So today Will is going to share with you why you need a virtual rock star. And if you've had questions around virtual assistance and thinking about how I can improve the administrative experience within my clinic, you've

From Injury To Clinic Ownership

SPEAKER_00

come to the right podcast. So, Will, welcome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thank you, Neil, for having me. I'm so excited to dive into this topic today because we together are working to free up business owners, and this is a topic that is going to be so awesome. So thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00

You're welcome, excited too. And Will and I go way back. We did business training together, uh, gosh, I don't know, like 20 years ago or something. So we've known each other for quite a long time. Uh Will is an amazing individual, a super smart uh person and great entrepreneur. Uh tell us a little bit about your story being in the PT world and how how uh you've kind of evolved to where you are now.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So my journey started with a mountain climbing accident, broke both arms and legs, trying to impress a girl on a Friday the 13th when I was 17 years old. My physical therapist got me standing and walking. Immediately I was bought in for the rest of my career. So I went to PT school, not my within a year, opened up a practice for another company that didn't know any better. It was a private practice owner who later became my partner, Nathan Shields. And so he's like, Hey, you're you got a license, go open up a location in Florence, Arizona. And so I go out there, and uh then this is true, Neil. The night before I started my first day, I had this nightmare. And I don't think it was a nightmare, I think it was revelation. I really do. I was laying there, I was in the clinic that I had seen from the interview. It was a small 1200 square foot space, and there were hundreds of people circling around me, like asking me questions at the same time about their body. And like they were out the door waiting around the corner, and I was like trying to talk to people, but I couldn't think from all the noise and all the intensity. And I was like, I don't know, your shoulder. Well, you know, and I'm a new grad, like basically, and I'm I'm like, so I wake up in a cold sweat and I remember thinking, I think that was more than a dream. And sure enough, I will tell you, that was exactly how I felt for the next number of years as I opened that location and later bought it from Nathan. So I became owner of that location in Florence, and I as an owner, that was the drowning sensation I had over and over again of like constantly getting questions, needs, and just never feeling like I was catching up. And so that was a very hard journey for me, but with lots of coaching, and that's where you and I met, lots of great coaching, and I'll tell everyone who's listening right now. Number one takeaway, regardless of VA's, your network is your net worth. I'm a better human because I know Neil. And we got it, we knew each other because we were growing in coaching together. And then I went from that journey to five locations, sold my five location practice in 2018 because by the end of that journey, I had learned how to be free. I had a great team. They were running the company like it was theirs. Sometimes I wondered if they cared about it more than I did. And so when I sold, I was like, hey, listen, first of all, I am not quick to learn things. It took me 15 years to do this, but I wanted to help the industry in some way. So after 2018, after working in different businesses, I still own some companies I started at the time. I found Virtual Rockstar. And the reason I'm so excited about this company is because after everything I've done, I own a medical billing company, I used to coach. When I started putting virtual assistance in people's practices, my clients told me hands down that was the best thing that they've ever I've ever done for them. And we have scaled, meaning we hit 100% growth year over year for the last three years, Neil. So we are growing incredibly fast, which is why we're the fastest growing. It's because we're finding people in that way. So at the end of the day, the our passion, you and I, we're all about helping people increase their income impact and freedom. And for me, like anything I can do to help the greatest leaders in our our healthcare industry be free to be with their families and grow their practices is where it's at. So I'm just grateful for that experience for sure.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. Yeah, and I love the impact that you're making in the industry and helping so many practice owners with that. It's been fantastic to see. Uh it's questions that I've I've chatted with practice owners on. I mean, you and I have both uh had physical therapy practices. We know the headaches that come along with uh the administration side, so the front desk, the scheduling, the authorizations, the billing, you know, the marketing, the management of people, right? Payroll, all those kind of things, right? There's a there's a ton of things that make the clinic at the business side of it work, right, and and and run along smoothly.

The Real Cost Of Doing Everything

SPEAKER_00

Um so what would you say is the biggest operational mistake that you see PT owners making when they're just trying to do it all themselves?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I well the mistake is doing it all themselves, but I would say the biggest thing that they think is that um that by doing it, that like it's gonna get done better. So the reason I think most PTs have a hard time letting go is because they don't really know how to hire well. This is this is my this is hands down the biggest problem in in my opinion in the whole industry of physical therapy is that we don't get trained on how to hire effectively. So when I first hired people, it was the fogged mirror rule. You've heard of that, right? It's if the person fogs a mirror because they have a breath, I would hire them because I was so desperate. And I always felt like I was overpromising, or at least like if I didn't overpromise, I always felt like my first PT I ever hired, he would see 20 to 30 visits a week, and I was seeing 80. Like this wasn't ethical back then, but like this was me just trying to keep my head above water. So learning how to hire is a huge piece of it because again, what train with people don't realize that's the problem, what they think is the people suck. So when owners are like, well, it's not me because I don't know how to hire, they go, Well, you just can't find good help. When I hear people talk about, like, oh, you can't find good help anymore. Here's a common one too, Neil, you'll love this. A lot of people listening will will think this is true when I first say it, but it's not. Is that at my conference three weeks ago, we had over 60 companies in attendance. And I said, I was just asking the audience, like, what's the problem with recruiting? Why is it hard? And people said, This new generation doesn't know how to work. They're all a bunch, all they want to do is collect money for not putting effort in. And they kept talking about it. And one of the guys, Greg Todd, who's a great coach in our industry and he's had private practices for years, he's like, he's like, Don't all you guys want to make more money for doing less work? So shut up. You're all you're all hypocrites. He's like the entire group. And so when we when we find ourselves blaming the hires, or we find ourselves doing all the work because you just can't find good help, that's not the truth. You're doing all the work because you don't trust people because you actually don't know how to find people you can trust. Full stop.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. It your business is your people, right? I mean, that's it's I've I've learned that lesson so many times over and over again in both my uh PT practice and also in practice promotions. It's the people that you hire. You know, we have some amazing people here that have been with us for 15 years. Um and so that just kind of is a testament to who they are. Like again, that that hiring process, right? To because we're very, very finicky about who we led into the organization, and there's there's different processes that people will go through. And I think that took some time to develop in the practice for us for sure. Like, we didn't know what to do at the beginning, and then we learned through some business coaching, like, okay, there's a process to hiring, and like you want to find the right people, and it's not like you said, someone who is breathing and has a pulse and can just shuffle some papers, right? That's not what we need. Um, so from that from that angle, um, what are some of the mistakes that you then see like in the clinic? Is it is it typically more like struggles around the front desk or someone who's handling billing? Like what are some of the common things that you see there?

SPEAKER_01

You just nailed the two biggest problems that I see. It's the front desk and it's the back office in terms of like, because listen, PTs that comes and goes, obviously. I think there's a certain level of quality that gets baked into most PTs because of the formal education that it's required. Um, again, if people are like, well, this new generation doesn't know how to work hard and see things, it's because we haven't trained them appropriately. Right after hiring comes the training. And so if we don't know how to train good people, that's where we

Front Desk Is A Sales Role

SPEAKER_01

fall into it. But the biggest mistakes I see to answer your question is the front desk. Let's start with the front desk. People think that the front desk position is a reception position, and it's not. No, it's a sales position. 100% it's your it's your greatest point of view, and you know this, you're not because of our background. Like when I realize that that position is worth more money, it's worth to pay someone more money because they are actually affecting my income more than anyone else other than the therapists. And I would even argue you might even view it as maybe the more than the therapist.

SPEAKER_00

If you've ever had a lot of the most important position in the practice, so I did value that front desk higher than the therapist, you know. But because it, yeah, you gotta get you can't get someone, you gotta get someone in the door, right? You can't so you can't treat someone if they don't come to for for care.

SPEAKER_01

With AI coming out, Neil, there are studies that are people are producing because a lot of uh phone systems, a lot of VoIPs are recording statistically what are what's actually occurring at the front desk. And it's hysterical because people don't realize how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars every year they lose because there's only one person holding the position. Even if you have a rock star, if you're lucky to have a rock star employee and they're in charge of all the insurance verifications and authorizations and answering all the phones and being that smiley face when you walk in and you're trying to get them to you're trying to get them to do it for $20 to $25 an hour, it's like, yeah, man, you're gonna you're gonna struggle and you don't even know how much money you're bleeding. Like not like trickles of blood, we're talking gushing money because you never see it, you never hear of the person who was on hold for two minutes who hung up and called somewhere else. You never you never know. So the VoIP systems are and the AI are starting to capture the actual data, and it's scary. So, yeah, that's the first position by far that far.

SPEAKER_00

We actually have that uh with our clients. They we have uh AI analysis on calls, and it's you do, and yeah, and and so um it's something we've been testing out. We're gonna deploy it uh much more this year. But what was really fascinating is that there would be clients who were um, you know, they're they're like, oh, we're not really seeing much of the marketing impact here. We're kind of wondering, like, doesn't see we're getting leads, but we're not really seeing the new new patients in the clinic. Well, you pull up the the you know the the AI and it's showing you like, hey, this number of calls were dropped. Here's some examples. Here's you know, they could listen to what the front desk was how they were approaching it or missing things. Um and they were the the owners were astonished, like they didn't realize, like, like you said, that it's all that hidden uh loss that's occurring, and so they needed to go back and retrain on some processes at the front desk, but it's like okay, you can work really hard and spend a lot of money to get people uh in as a lead coming you know from Google Ads or Facebook ads coming to your your website and then calling in, but if you don't have a strong salesperson really at the front to make sure that they come all the way through, then then they're gone.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and then they got to be incentivized. Like salespeople, they want they want recognition for every little like financial recognition. So, like if you're doing one of those bonuses where it's like, yeah, if they get 95%, they get a couple hundred bucks. I mean, either the first of all, that's the wrong bonus for the right sales position. The sales position should be a little bit of they eat what they kill with every single schedule. Like the percentage should just be a back-end verification of the fact that they should be hungry because every time they get someone to sign up, it's like boom, a little something in their pocket. Even if it's little, it doesn't matter, but a little something every time is the most effective way to incentivize those right hires. So if we hire a salesperson, they're gonna be excited about a compensation model that has a base package and a bonus package. And uh, yeah, man, I'm I've I've networked with hundreds of companies outside of healthcare. This is just what you do. Yeah, and yet we keep hiring that $22 an hour front desk person who shows up like they're doing you a favor, and you're like and you're wondering why everyone's miserable.

SPEAKER_00

I can tell you from people I've talked to that some of them are like $15, $17 an hour, you know, and then they're like wondering why it's hard to keep them or they're not doing very well at the front desk, or the practice is struggling. It's like, okay, you bring a $15 person into the front desk, is that the right fit? You know? Right.

Using VAs To Unload The Desk

SPEAKER_00

Uh we have we had a conversation about this when we were at the combined sections meeting, and I thought it was fascinating around the virtual assistants, right? And so sometimes there's that fear of like, oh, would I replace my front desk person and put a virtual assistant in there? But I think we chatted on it, and I think what like what you were saying was that you have you want to as you were just mentioning, your front desk person could be severely overloaded, trying to handle calls, scheduling someone that came up to the front desk, they got something that they're typing on, right? And and if you can take the smaller tasks off of them, those more of those back end tasks off of them, they can focus on what makes more money for the clinic or keeps the uh patients scheduled for their appointments. So can you could you explain that kind of how you've seen things work with a virtual assistant across the front desk?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. You know, it's the second fastest growing trend in healthcare next to AI, and we are aggressively implementing AI with our VAs. So I'm really grateful that I feel like I'm on the front edge of every good thing that's coming in our industry. Um and the the most common people who've never worked with VAs before, this is just the and this was my experience. I call a company, I get clearly outsourced overseas, I can't understand what they're saying, and the customer service in personal connection drops to the floor. And we all built our practices on personal connection. So when you do get fortunate enough to have a rock star at the front desk with the face and the, hey Susan, how's your dog doing? And everyone loves this front desk person, it becomes like, why would I hire a VA? And you just nailed it on the head. So there's different steps, different companies are doing different things, Neil, with when it comes to virtual assistance, and I'll break the main ones down really quickly. The main one is they give their team the gift of a VA. So if you have that rockstar front desk person who's American and everyone loves, great. She's a salesperson, that's all it means. People who are super high-toned, who everyone loves automatically, they're drawing your business in because they're super, super likable, which is kind of the foundation of a good sales rep. So that person's good, and we could, as a side note, bonus her better when she's able to get more people in because we've given her an assistant who does the insurance verification, who does the authorizations, who does grunt work behind the scenes, who's pulling reports, who's dealing with any communications, and maybe even serving as a personal assistant to you as well as an owner. So that's where most people start, is they give their team the gift of a VA. And what's crazy is again, in the old world where we would get outsourced overseas for customer service, it was clearly a step down. We're seeing the exact opposite. Where people, first of all, we hire people who've who have perfect English, straight up. And they're from the Philippines, but they have perfect English, they've been working in the medical industry for decades. Our big secret, Neil, is that we just pay them behind the scenes a lot more than our competitors, and so we're getting a different quality of individual who's committed for the long term. But they show up, they're super like, they're part of the team. They're on the the team meeting call every week. They're they're on a computer around the clinic table when everyone's doing their lunch and learn. Like they're there, and everyone loves that person. And so that's just step one. It's by far the most common, but we're seeing in our world from there, people have done everything from having kind of a team approach with both Americans and Filipinos all the way to where I've seen complete front desk removal from Americans and completely replaced with Filipinos on screens. And I'm just saying those clients of mine who do that third option, all of them, and I mean 100% of them, have very high percentage of arrival rates. So the the the mindset, and by the way, per hire people are saving $20,000 a year when compared to a $20 an hour employee. So you think about the money savings in addition to the higher output of quality, it's like, and you don't have to hire them. That's why we're growing so fast because it's just the combination. But most people culturally should start with a pilot program, bringing one person in just to pilot it with people to see if it's a fit in their clinic. Little like spoiler alert, I've never seen anyone where it's not a fit except for people who are small private practice owners who've never hired anyone successfully before. The only time it stinks is when you have that first stage of business and the person has no HR experience, and they're hiring their first or maybe their second employee, and all they do is like, welcome to the team, dump. That has never worked. Ever. Yeah. So that's the only case, and we don't let people like that hire VAs. People are like, I want a VA. It's like, no, if you're desperate for a VA, you're you're not ready for a VA. You're you've got to augment something great behind the scenes for it to work. And if you have any sort of history of hiring decent people, then it's a good fit. But otherwise, no.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And and so there's the cost, right? And and what do people say then or how do you approach people who are just thinking it from the perspective of, hey, this is an ex should I spend this extra expense here? You know, or they're looking to ways that I save money.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

Savings Versus Culture And Quality

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So most people are it's it's kind of like the sizzle and the steak. The sizzle is what gets you excited about the stake, it's what sells the stake. And the sizzle for the VA is saving twenty thousand dollars a year per hire of profit. And again, without having to hire them, you you just show up on a one-hour call and we present your candidates live and you pick them. And they it's very group interview-oriented. But the stake of it isn't the money savings, the stake of it is the quality to your team that elevates everything. The number one, I've surveyed my people, I have hundreds of clients across the country. Almost all of them are PTOT and SLP owners. I've surveyed them repeatedly. What's the number one thing you love about your VA? And it's like the money, you know, all these different options. They all say this the by far is that they love the way the VA shows up from a place of work ethic because it rises the tide for the Americans. Like when they see someone like busting their butt and being like, what else can I do? Hey, I'm done. What else do you need? And at the end of the day, is there anything I can do for you? Hey, by the way, thank you for today. I was able to feed my family because of that. Yeah, that attitude rocks the American attitudes. And it's it's to me, that's the that's the purpose of this is that you are raising the culture of your company while you're bringing a family overseas out of poverty. And it's it's so there's the per the product, which is like a high stat individual who saves you money. Great, but the quality, the purpose, the why, oh man. Uh, we had at our event, we always play little thank you videos from the VAs to their owners, to the part to the business owners in between sessions, in between talks. You want to talk about a room with people who are sobbing. You have, you know, one team has uh 15 VAs, they're a large company that had 15 on there, and they all said the one thing that changed their life about working for them. And you've got you see these these grown men literally just tears and snot running down their face. I feel like there's a global impact these private practices don't even know they're capable of making. So yeah, man, it's it's really it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. And sometimes that's a that's a consideration or a fear that people have who have never worked with people overseas before, is that they worry about culture, they worry about uh quality of the person, you know, are they gonna, you know, and and if they've only worked with people in the clinic, oh, am I gonna be able to supervise this person remotely? There's all these unknowns, right? And I can say with confidence that, I mean, because we have teams overseas too. Like we I mean, we've since start, we've had teams in India, we have teams in South Africa, Philippines, uh, and and uh and a big um you know 50 plus people here in the US. And so our team here absolutely loves our overseas people, you know, because the work ethic is incredibly high. Is that why you laughed when I said that? You just heard it laughing. It's hilarious, right? Because you know, you get people uh coming in for interviews and they have a high salary expectation, then like what are you gonna do for me? blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you go and interview people from overseas, and they have like an incredible experience level coming in. I mean, they've they've gone to college, they've done all these things, and but the attitude is very different in terms of like how can I be of service? How can I help you, right? How can I elevate the company? How can I serve our our customers better? And that's kind of ingrained in some of some of these cultures, right? So I think that I love what you said there because I do think it helps the US-based team have a perspective in terms of how good they actually have it in this country uh compared to other countries, and and how uh it's it's almost like a breath of fresh air when you have an overseas person uh with a high work ethic come in. It does elevate everybody within the company to to have that similar attitude.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's amazing, and I think that's the connection piece that's missing from people who've never experienced it, is that we live in a digital age. The new generation of PTs that have come out have surveyed and said they believe the vast majority that a digital relationship is as meaningful, can be as meaningful as an in-person one. And so as we bring people in from around the world who haven't had the American opportunities that we have taken for granted, myself included, by the way, when they see that, it shifts the mindset of of into gratitude. And for me, that's the cultural impact of that type of influence is the the best part of what we do for our clients, and it's why they're so grateful. And it's why our number one growth is uh an existing client who goes from one to three to five, because you know, we get the American who first they they start by supplementing good people with good VAs, okay, and then over time, sometimes, you know, people leave, they quit. It's like, no, we'll just stick with the VAs. Like they just they get over it for the most part. Um but yeah, I get it. You know, even then though it's not a perfect process, Neil, I feel like I'm overselling it from a place of like perfection because it's still a people business, and I will tell you authentically, not every placement works. And so one of the things that we've done on that end is you we have this no contract, no long-term contract thing where people with a 30-day notice can pr try this idea and then pull out, which we encourage. We don't want people to feel restricted by that. And then if they ever lose somebody for whatever reason, or if they just want to keep trying, we replace them at no cost within a week. So it's this idea of you know, because I will tell you, we still it's about 15% of the time we'll place a V8 and it doesn't work out because they didn't, you know, for whatever reason. You know, we still that's a high percentage of acceptance, but we still about to our our 15% placement, that's something we're like proud of, but at the same time, that's still, you know, one or two out of every 10.

SPEAKER_00

It is what it is, right? I mean, like you said, you're dealing with people, it's no one's perfect, and uh you have to with anything, you have to find the right fit for your particular business, your area, and what your needs are um and skill set. And and I I don't care what position that you're in, that and whether this is a virtual or an in-person in your clinic um employee that you hire, there's a learning curve and there's an experimentation uh you know part at the beginning, so seeing if this person really works out or not. So uh you can do all you can to weed them out on the front end and say this is gonna be a great person, and then they come in and then you're trying to you what you're trying to do is you're trying to take the mask off when someone is interviewing you to see the real person underneath, uh, and then you think you got it, and then hey, it happens we're 30, 60 days into it, you know what, this wasn't quite what I expected, and or it just didn't fit, you know, or that it or you know, I thought that we would be able to do this with this kind of person, and and we just don't have the skill set or the capability. That's fine. The the thing is to be able to move on and quickly enough, right? Or and I think that's where I've I myself have gotten to trouble in the past is holding on for too long, giving like too many chances, and then you get into you know uh someone who can be toxic within the uh within the company.

Why Owners Wait Too Long

SPEAKER_01

I think that's everyone's biggest mistake, period.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Have you ever you know I got a question for you? Have you ever heard of a business owner who says, you know what, I fired them too fast? I was I should I you know I I I I regret firing that person. Have you heard any of those, have you heard either of those comments before? I have never heard that. I have in 20 years, maybe 30, I don't even know, it's 20 something years now. I've been aggressively networking with other business owners because I don't I didn't know what that was doing at all. So now I've got obsessed with building my network. And I have never heard once someone say, you know, I hired them, I fired them too fast. Or I regret firing them ever. Ever. I've only heard, oh man, why did it take me so long?

SPEAKER_00

Or you know, this is when you're uh when your other employees come up to you and tell you that story.

SPEAKER_01

I can't believe you did let her go sooner, right? Or let him go sooner. Why don't they say something earlier? Like it kills me because they'll come up afterwards and you're right, yeah. Yeah, they'll come up afterwards and go, hey, you fired them for this, but did you know the five things that did you know these five other things? And I'm like, no, I didn't know about those five other things. Like, it is so it makes me skin crawl.

VAs For Marketing Execution

SPEAKER_00

All right, so let's let's chat here on marketing, right? And the impact a VA can have on marketing. Because one of the challenges that we run into as a marketing agency for PC Clinics is that our clients get busy, right? They're they're super busy. We pump new patients in for them, so that's nice, but now they're super busy. And if if the practice owner is trying to run all the marketing too, it's the bottleneck, right? The practice owner becomes the bottleneck. And so, how do how have you seen VAs really help from a marketing perspective?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, so I see lots of different approaches. One of the by far the most common hires are front desk and back office. Insurance verification is where most people start, or it'll be like a support to the front desk. You know, then later they'll do authorizations, then we do full billing. But the marketing thing is starting to grow quickly, Neil. And what they do is they'll come in initially as there's this role that's quickly developing in my company where it's a personal assistant and a marketer. So this person like cleans your inboxes out, controls your calendar, books your personal travel, orders your groceries if you want. Like they're they really are freeing their their owner's time up, which some of your listeners are going, that's cool. And others, like, oh, I don't, I don't think I'd want to use them for that because they feel bad for that. It's like, no, no, man. Anything that frees up an owner, frees up their memory and their time, it will make more money. It gives them a job. And by the way, the people we hire love doing that. On the marketing side, it kind of bleeds naturally into that. So you see a lot of social media management. These are people who will, especially with AI these days, they can prov create full, consistent campaigns. Now, I will tell you from experience, because I do a podcast, the quality of the social media campaigns is fine. And I listen, this is me being really authentic about it. The people overseas that you hire that do those things that will post and um the they're they're they're fine, they're way better than nothing. But like to do it really right, you need the right infusion of a marking company to assist. I think of them the eight the virtual assistant marketers as more just like task task people who can task it. I don't think my experience again, and I've worked with lots of VAs, coming in and like owning your whole marketing strategy, that's not what they they do. They're really good about rubber meets the road, keeping in posts, following up on looking as you and like you know, responding to comments. But like most PT owners don't even have a social media presence. So it's like from there, it's like if they uh if they want to get started in recruiting in particular, you gotta start posting about your people on a regular basis. And the VA is really good for that. From a marketing perspective, they also can execute really cool programs like uh calling back uh existing patients who've been discharged. So patient reactivations are really great for them. Um I I really think a VA internally might be a really good assistive tool for great companies like yours to kind of just serve as like someone who once they get trained and empowered, they can serve as the implementer of what like what you guys do or whatever you need in terms of communication, because I know you guys do a full series of of services, but they can serve so they can serve as like that communication piece so that the owner doesn't have their attention as much or at all on it. Yeah, and so that's what I've seen on the marketing side. Um other than that, though, I mean, just being transparent, I've never seen a VA step in and be like, I've got your SEO, I can do your website, I can do, I can do all your email campaigns. Now listen, they can they can work with Chat GPT and create some email campaigns. Yeah. And that's okay. But again, I it sounds like I'm pooping on it, honestly. But I just I don't, I'm not. I think I think they're just they're better than nothing, they're way more effective than nothing. Right. But with the right support from a company that is a market because marketing dude, let me just say it like this. This is my experience. Here's sales, you for people who can't see, I've got my hands about three inches apart. That's about like what sales brought bread. There's a lot to learn. There's a mile deep, but it's about this wide. Marketing is like so freaking wide, all the components of marketing is is by far the most overwhelming part of my business of any business I've ever worked in is marketing. So to find a social media person overseas who controls that entire funnel and like understands all those elements is insanity. Yeah. You have to work with with specialists or people who can understand those pieces, but the VA is can definitely be an accelerant to that relationship and really help.

SPEAKER_00

Setting realistic expectations, right? Of not this person's gonna come in and be my marketing director and figure out all these campaigns and direct my strategy, like that's just not real, right? And so I'm sure sometimes you get people that have that sort of expectation, you gotta reel them back in, like, okay, you know, think of someone just on the side helping you out with these things. But I can tell you firsthand that we love working with people who have assistants that have marketing directors, and then I think that a lot of times that is the biggest bottleneck in terms of getting the clinic even higher because the practice owner is trying to do everything, right? And you they just don't have enough bandwidth or time to focus on marketing and all the million marketing actions that need to occur from within the clinic and coordinating things and asking for stuff. And you know, a company like ours is helping with the professional design work, the SEO experts, right? We use a lot of AI within what we're doing, the call tracking, all the different metrics and tracking systems, and obviously the websites and and Google Ads professionals and all these kind of things, right? That is an entire marketing team. But if the owner's too busy, we still need stuff from the practice. Like we need content, right? We need to have like who's organizing getting some pictures from the clinic, right? Or who got some uh of the uh the latest you know testimonials from what from patients within the clinic, right? And and who's organizing some of the things. Um, so that that to us is a challenge when a practice owner is too busy to be able to be part of their marketing, right? And that's where an assistant can really help bridge that gap. Um I I'm a big proponent for having VAs help out with marketing for sure.

SPEAKER_01

You you just described the perfect relationship that I've seen. And in my own company, I have a I hired someone overseas with a degree that has a a marketing degree. So I thought she'd be my full director. We put her actually as an assistant or a specialist, which is less than the director. And what I found was I didn't she she and I both had a knowledge gap between the two of us of what was needed. And then what we did, we brought in a company to help me set up my in-person events. And they have a marketing arm of just the events, not for the whole company, but just that arm. And it was interesting because when that company came in and started using my marketing specialist the way you're describing, I saw her brain from a different angle. I didn't realize how smart she was because she was like, Yeah, now they're talking my language. And she was actually like two to three times more effective because they were work, she was working with someone who knew marketing and not someone who doesn't know marketing, right? Like, so in a way there was that gap of like she wouldn't she wasn't able to function at the highest levels, but she did so much in terms of free me up, in terms of gathering information and materials, but not just like a task runner. It was like she knew what they were looking for and was able to get it the right, not just the right information and the right pictures, but do it in the right way to where then the market, because like that that company that provides my events, we're like, we love her, she's amazing. She we ask her for something, she gets it right back to us. So it's like that speed thing is huge for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's that is huge. So I'm curious because you've chatted with so many different practice owners over the years. Uh I'm curious in terms of for our audience out there, let's say they're you know they're considering a VA, uh they might know someone that uses a VA and they're kind of dabbling or thinking about it. Like, what are some of the biggest concerns or false ideas that you hear from practice owners about having a VA in your clinic?

SPEAKER_01

The

Objections HIPAA Training Team Buy In

SPEAKER_01

first is what I mentioned before about the the connection to the people they're worried about offending their current team and their patients. So we pilot it. You just pilot it, hey, I'm piloting this program. We don't frame it as I'm hiring someone to save money. That's gonna like you say, listen, it we are we are trying to, we're gonna do a better job of taking care of our people. So we are fire, we're gonna hire assistants to help offload you guys from the things you don't want to do. And we're gonna work, it makes our company's mission and purpose become international. We're bringing someone in overseas, and we're not outsourcing to them, we are bringing them in the family. They are gonna be a part of our team and our culture. I want you to know their names, they're just as important as anyone else because they're gonna be freeing you up, and this is my investment into you. That's the language. And then from the patient, and when they get to patient facing, it's very similar. Honestly, that that's the easier of the two. It's getting people to really get their team to buy into it. And you always say, we're just piloting it for 30 days. If we don't like it, we're not doing it. But when you have someone who's so likable, who works so hard, it that goes away immediately. The second concern is HIPAA compliance. We are very HIPAA compliant. We work with the same uh agencies that work with the National Pediatric Association and other large medical associations to make sure that we are meeting all the standards for HIPAA compliance. So that's the second concern. It's usually like a bottom one, but we we are all over the HIPAA compliance. Um, the third one is how do you train them? How do you work with them? We don't do the training at Rockstar, but what we do is we find people who are so like well suited for your role, and we teach you how to work with people overseas. We do train you on that. Like, here's how you're going to like work with someone overseas via video versus in person. And then we have a support team that works with you when you get stuck. If you get stuck, those people within 30 days are totally fine. What I tell people is it's not uh it's not a hard muscle to develop, but it's a new muscle. So that first little month is like, okay, we're putting a little extra work on it, but once you develop it, it's super easy to strengthen it. And so those are the the main three concerns, and that's one of the reasons we make it to where you can try before you buy. There's there's no like when people do a discovery call with us, we don't charge them or set up sign up contracts until after they've already met the person they're excited about. If we can't produce someone you're excited about, we don't have you sign a contract, which you can cancel with a 30-day notice, by the way. Right. But that's that's one of the things I built it for me. I bit said, what would I need in writing that would protect me as a as someone trying this idea out? And so I we take all that risk on, and I'm clearly it was smart of me to do that because people are like, yeah, I'll give it a try, and then like a year later they have 15 VAs working for them. So so yeah, I think it's great. And I so those those concerns are valid, they're understandable, that's why you can try it beforehand, but yeah, it's like ultimately it's the second fastest growing trend for a reason, right? Like it's coming, it's coming.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, and there's many reasons for it in in um our businesses, right? And in that uh it's become more global in terms of labor. And um it's we we all know where we're at right now for obviously reimbursements where the different challenges of clinics and the economy um is is really our our profit margins can be slim, right, in practice. And so it's it's really looking at how can we be more efficient uh with people, with systems to deliver a better experience for our patients, right? And and increase revenue for the business. So I think that looking at VAs as an option in your clinic makes a lot of sense uh because the capacity is there for not much cost.

DIY Hiring Versus Using An Agency

SPEAKER_01

It is, and one one one concern that I think will impress you that I'm bringing up, by the way, is some people say, Why can't I can I just do this myself without an agency? And the answer is yes. Please do. Which is like now you know I'm really committed because this this is like this is me saying, Don't use me. If you think you can go do it, go do it. And here's how you do it. You go to online jobs.ph, you post a job ad, just like you would indeed. You can also use LinkedIn or Indeed. LinkedIn would be my second favorite. The reason I'm pushing people who are thinking that right now is because they're gonna do it anyway. These are the people who sign up with me and then later are like, yeah, I don't want to, I just want to do this on my own. Like, great, just go do it on your own. But the this service is for people, the difference is like saving. Do you want to save $20,000 a year or $26,000 a year? Whatever that is. Like for me, it's like, don't if you're just like, no, I'm all about growing my business and I don't want another headache and I just want to push a button, have an amazing person show up, my service is for you. But if you're like, no, I I I want to save every nickel and dime and I want and I really enjoy recruiting or whatever those motivations are, go do it on your own. You don't need a service, and please feel free to go do so. Once you get to past five VAs, though, you gotta be you gotta be careful. There's different like regulations and things you gotta meet. So if you start building a large international team, just be careful. But if you're looking for one to five, go for it. Have fun with it, and by all means tackle it. But for everyone else who's like, I don't want to mess with that, push a button, we show up, we take the liability because there are employees, all those things, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Love it. And so, Will, what's the best way for people to learn more about virtual rockstar and and what you do and and about getting a VA in their clinic?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, please.

Where To Learn More And Closing

SPEAKER_01

Virtualrockstar.com at the bottom, you sign up for a non-pressure discovery call. You can ask questions. Again, you can get all the way to the group interview. I encourage you to go all the way to the group interview. It's a uh your total time spend would be 30 minutes on the discovery call, an hour on a group interview. And if we can't produce someone that you're like losing your mind excited over, you don't have to move forward at all. We're growing so fast, we welcome it because we need to we like the opportunities to source better and better candidates. And yeah, no hurt feelings. If you're like, no, this isn't for me, I don't, and you don't sign up. Great. It took an hour and a half of your life to really see if it's a fit. And if it is a fit, then you're gonna save lots of money and then you have a whole great growth opportunity. So yeah, man, that's how they do it, virtual rockstar.com.

SPEAKER_00

Love it, love it. Yeah, and I've heard wonderful things about uh the company there and the solutions. So definitely check it out, virtualockstar.com. Will's an amazing guy. And uh connect with Will too on LinkedIn. He's a he's a nice guy to know.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. And Neil, just for the record, you're one of my absolute favorite people in the industry. What you do with your company is by far one of the most important services. If I had known, if you had existed when I was starting my practice, my gosh. Anyway, I appreciate you. Thank you for having me on the show.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks, Will, appreciate it. And to all the listeners out there, thank you for joining us here on the Practice Marketing Podcast. I hope you get a ton of great ideas out of today's podcast. Uh, don't forget to follow and subscribe to us on the podcast, as well as our YouTube channel where we have all these videos up there too. And don't forget to go to practicepromotions.net. Tons of free advice downloads for you there on how to improve marketing in your practice. So, this is Neil Trickett from the Practice Marketing Podcast, wishing you much success in your practice.

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Will Humphreys

Host