Why Most NDIS Businesses Break (And How to Avoid It), with Trystan Conway (Ep 53)

In this episode of the NDIS Provider Growth Journey Podcast, Michael sits down with Trystan Conway, someone who has seen the NDIS from both sides. He has built and scaled an allied health business himself, and now works with providers across the country helping them fix what is not working.

This is a real conversation about what it actually takes to run an NDIS business properly.

Trystan shares why doing things ethically is getting harder, not easier, and why so many providers are feeling the pressure as the industry changes. He talks about the risks most directors are not thinking about, what happens when margins disappear, and why a lot of businesses are only one policy change away from serious trouble

They also get into the reality of running a business versus being a great clinician. Being good at your job is not the same as building something sustainable. Cash flow, reserves, pricing, and having options in your model are what keep a business alive when things shift.

Michael and Trystan also speak honestly about the personal side of it all. The stress, the late nights, the pressure on families, and the quiet trade-off people are making without realising it. There is a point where you have to ask if the exchange is worth it.

One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is around growth. Trystan explains how he scaled without spending money on ads, building everything through relationships instead. In an industry driven by trust, your network matters more than any marketing campaign.

They also touch on something most people avoid talking about. Walking away. Closing or stepping back from a business is not failure. Sometimes it is the most freeing decision you can make.

If you are an NDIS provider trying to grow, feeling the pressure of changes, or questioning if your business is actually working for your life, this episode will give you a clear look at what is really going on.

Connect with Trystan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trystan-conway/

If you are building in the NDIS space and want honest conversations about business, risk, and sustainability, this is one to watch.

#NDIS #NDISProviders #AlliedHealthBusiness #NDISGrowth #BusinessStrategy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the podcast. I'm here with Tristan Conway, and he is a Jedi knight at helping businesses make more sales, but not by throwing money at it, by actually doing intelligent things that makes people want to choose you instead of someone else. And he's also a guy he knows the NDIS inside and out. Uh Tristan, why would I say you know the NDIS inside and out?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I guess uh years of experience, right? And uh yeah, going from, you know, building an NDIS, mainly NDIS allied health business, to now, I guess, consulting and working with dozens of, you know, NDIS providers. So yeah, I guess I I know it as well as anyone.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

That's right. And the thing is both Tristan and I have put our own house on the line in the past. We've both been providers, and yet neither of us are now providers. Like, how does that work, Tristan? Are we crazy? Are we sensible? Like, how does it work that we were both there and now we're not?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, well, to be honest, uh, yeah, I sort of I I stopped being a provider almost a year ago, depending on when this goes out. So it was about February or so. And uh yeah, I was very glad to not have payroll to worry about when there's all sorts of reform and things going on last year. So yeah, I think both you and I are very empathetic towards providers because we know how hard it is to do, particularly how hard it is to do ethically and to do it well. If you're a dodgy provider, cutting corners, all that type of thing, yeah, you know, you've got bigger margins, you can make it work, but to actually be ethical and do it properly, it's getting harder and harder and becoming impossible, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah. It's so weird. I I I hear you say things, I'm like, gee, he's right. And then I'm like, it's because we chatted about that before. You've said that before. Okay, so what blows my mind is that you said it's hard to do things ethically. Now the reality is when you're a one-person band, you can probably be dodgy Joe and cheat the system and whatever, but you can't scale that because eventually that will catch up with you. And even Dodgy Joe one day, like he'll get away with things for a time, but there's the day comes, right? So it's like to do things in a way that means that our businesses will thrive in the long term means we've got to be looking after all the people we serve, our clients or participants, really well. We've got to make sure that our staff are well looked after, and we've got to make sure that we're not driving our business into a corner that's gonna end us if NDOS has a sneeze down the track. What what are the things that you're seeing people do well? What are the things you're seeing people do poorly?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah, so I think again from an allied health perspective for the reform and price change and that type of thing around July last year were I think a big wake-up call to people in our industry, right? So I think in terms of maybe the same thing, in terms of what providers do well and don't do well, is you kind of need, well, one, you need to manage your risk, and you kind of need to have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, that type of thing. Because if you're relying on a lot of government funding, again, we're talking about NDRs, whether it's age care two, whatever it may be, they can change the rules just like that. And you know, last July we got two weeks' notice of travel cuts and all that type of things. I know, I I know how hard it is, and no one, barely anyone has any margin, that type of thing, but you you do need some wiggle room in your model. You need some flex, you need some levers you can pull if things go go bad. Because again, like you said at the start, Moff, if you're a director, and again, I don't think enough directors in our industry are aware of this. That if you're a director and things go wrong, all right, your house, you know, your mortgage, your house, your libelhood, your family, that's kind of the thing that's on the line, right? And again, a lot of being included, you know, people started NDI's businesses when it was booming, things were easy in 2019, whatever it may be, and things are catched up to people now, right? Whereas if you are a director of a company who's you know insolvent or whatever, you could be the one who gets in trouble and you know you're paying your staff's wages, all that type of thing. So yeah, you can get into a lot of trouble, and I guess I went down a dark or grid path straight away, but uh levers have to be honest, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

So so what so like being real, Tristan, you and I see some crazy stories of people losing their houses and their marriages because they don't have options when NDIS changes things, right? What are these levers that you're talking about? So we don't have to lose a house.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, I think well, one is you need margin, and again, that's pretty obvious, and not many people have it, but if you have no margin in your model, you can't where do you go if prices don't go up or inflation or people need pay rise and that type of thing? So you do need a healthy margin, right? And again, that's hard to get, and you do, like we mentioned, you you still need to be ethical and you know compliant and all that type of things and maintain a margin. It's very, very, very hard to do and getting harder. So again, you need some, you need some, you know, cash flow, you need cash, you need you need margin, you need reserves, all that type of thing. Both if you're a director, you need cash reserves in your personal accounts, your business accounts, that type of thing. And then again, I think your model too needs some real room where, again, from an ally health perspective, last year in July, travel got cut in half. So a lot of providers were able to adapt pretty easily by just adding on return travel, adding on 99 cents per kilometer that they weren't charging before, adding some non-face-to-face time. Whereas if you're already maxing out what's sort of ethical or um, you know, compliant under the NDIs, if you're already maxing out and another cut comes through or there's no increase, you've sort of got nowhere to go. And I'm I'm not advocating for people to underbill, but I do, I guess I think you need, yeah, you just sort of need some options and some places you can go and you sort of need to model that risk, or if you're you know heavy on FCAs or you have a lot of the Thriving Kids type of cohort, you need to model what would happen if you lost that, like worst case scenario, and have a plan for what's going to happen if the worst case scenario happens, I guess. So yeah, managing risk basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah. And I guess what you're saying is if you're if you're driving your business in such a way that things are already ticking along well in terms of your staff are at capacity, your business is at capacity, but if you're not pulling out huge money in the boom moments of your business, then it means your model's utterly broken. And a lot of people get upset when I say this, but you really need to be earning one and a half times what your second highest paid person in your business is earning. And if you're not, then why don't you go and be someone else's two IC? You know? Like what are your thoughts when I say that?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that again, from an alley health perspective and support works and things too, is it's it's tricky because I have people say to me, it's like, well, I might as well just become a sole trader again. Like, what's the point? I can, you know, bill, you know,$193.99 and just see clients and earn way more. Yeah, I mean, if your staff are getting paid more than you, which happens a lot, what's the bloody point? Why you you're working again? And employees will sort of never understand this. And um, some of my best staff were you know clinicians who's like ran a company before, a small source trader or whatever, and then came and worked as an employee at a good company, they're like, Oh, this is nice. I don't get obviously don't earn as much the sole trader, but everything's taken care of. I get leave, all my admins taken care of, all that type of thing. So yeah, if you're a director, you're usually you're working, you know, you're on you're on call, you're essentially working, you know, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it's hard. So you need to be rewarded for doing that, right? Um otherwise, why are you yeah, why are you stressing yourself out and you know, taking years off your life, giving yourself grey hairs to run a business if your staff are earning more than you, uh, you know, or even their effective hourly rates are high because you might be earning the same, but you're working twice as hard, right? So yeah, it's gotta be it's gotta be sustainable, otherwise, what's the point?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

That's right. And people don't like to hear that because they think, Tristan, Michael, you're making it about money. It's not about money, it's about your life. So my kids are now at an age. I just I just had to pass my c my keys to my son so we could get in the house before I looked at him like, who's this tall kid? That's right, he's my son. I remember he was like up to my shoulders, and now I'm looking at him, he's huge. Just I haven't seen him all day, so that's why it was in my face. I'm like, man, it's not that you're being about money if you're extracting an income. It's that you're remembering that your income is not your life, and if you're gonna work twice like have much harder work and much more on-call sort of hours, your family's gonna suffer. There needs to be a balancing, a balancing piece. Uh Kristen, what do you see in terms of family life? Because like you, like you're a consultant, basically. You work with the big guys who are dealing with big funding, etc. etc. Whereas I'm more of a coach or a profitability coach, I I deal with the guys who, you know, their annual revenues between, say, I don't know, 400 grand a year and about four mil. So you deal with people at scale, I deal with people in the middle, and what I see is a lot of families being decimated by business problems. What do you see at your end of town?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, I think uh at at the top end of town, so I I do I I do, I guess, a bit of everything. So I do do the small guys and the big guys, and yeah, usually I guess the big guys, we're talking about cash, right? And a lot of the big guys have the cash behind them. It's kind of part of why my old business was successful, because there was cash available to invest. And when we're talking about cash and profits, it doesn't necessarily necessarily mean the director's driving a Lamborghini around or whatever. It can just be reinvesting or having a healthy buffer and having reserves there if there's a quiet period over December or whatever you can sort of ride it through. So I guess at the um, you know, at the top end of town, the big companies, uh, and again, I'm not, you know, I'm not uh I'm not saying all big companies are bad or anti-corporates or whatever it may be, but yeah, they've usually got backing of big funds or whatever, you know, um, you know, VC or whatever you want to call it. So that again, they kind of have their secret to success is they have the cash there uh to ride out bumps and and and make mistakes. And again, um there's just I guess there's different kinds of pressures and things that come with that. But yeah, generally, you know, you might, you know, rather than you know working ultra hard and running a small business, you you sometimes you may be better off being uh, you know, ops manager at a bigger company or whatever and earning slightly less or similar, but just you know, working nine to five right and uh actually having some kind of balance. So yeah, there's just there's different challenges that come with all different sizes of business. But yeah, I do think that 400k to four mil size NDRs business is really challenging because you kind of you don't have the um you don't have the cash behind you that the bigger d the bigger guys do, but you have more a lot more compliance requirements and so on than a a sole trader, right, who has no overheads. So it's a really tricky that sort of medium middle class of providers. It's a really tricky space to navigate, but they're often also the most ethical and most high quality providers, too, from an ally health perspective, too.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, they're working very hard. Uh and I guess it's interesting what you're saying about at the bigger scale, people don't have the the worry about the you know, they haven't been paid by NDIA for for three or four months on their biggest account. That's not an issue. That they can ride that through, or some of the guys that I work with will have to go to the ATO and be like, hey, I've got a problem here. Can I pay this off over a year? Which is great, just kicks a can down the road a bit. But either way, like that's the problems that they have. Whereas the guys you you work for at the big end of town, I mean, what but when you're working for the bigger guys, they have different problems. It's not cash flow effects. Well, what I see a lot of, Kristen, I'd love to know what your thoughts are on this. I see a lot of people who don't have enough revenue coming in to pay others to do a lot of the things that the director is doing. So yes, he's got an accountant, yes, he's got a bookkeeper, or yes, she's got, you know, a VA who does stuff. But at the end of the day, when when the phone rings at 9.30 at night because something went wrong, they're the one who has to drop everything and go and solve it. And what I see is a lot of kids feeling this slight resentment towards their parents. I see a lot of spouses being like, hey, you said this wouldn't keep happening, and it does. And I see a lot of directors almost feeling like martyrs, like, oh, but I have to do it. It's like, well, like Kristen said, go and be someone else's two I see. Take it in charge. Like, like to your head when I say a lot of what I do is actually helping directors get back their life, and it scares me how many people are, to be honest, they're gonna get divorced in the next two or three years if I don't make some really big changes.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, no, I I totally get what you mean. And again, the the July uh, you know, Allied Health, NDS pricing changes last year was sort of that hysteria around that kind of exemplified that where I it was it was bonkers, right? And I think it was very personal for a lot of people. And the thing is with government funding, business, whatever, it's you like you, your family, or whatever, you personally, the government, you know, the government is bigger than that, and you're also the business is bigger than you personally, too. So yeah, it is it can be hard, and it is deeply personal running a small, medium, you know, company or whatever it may be. But I used to always say no one's bigger than the business. And even um, so even you know, that was true in my old business that the business was always bigger than directors, alts managers, clinicians, whatever, the business has to survive. And then even now, my my business now it's me and my wife who's my bookkeeper, and there's some things I would talk to her differently or whatever, like uh if it is about the books and the business, like it's not it's not personal, it's not us, our marriage or whatever, it's it's about the business, right? So, yeah, I think and I think if you want to scale a business, you need to sort of almost not not like two personas, but like you need to take the emotion out of things, and that's probably what I was good at. I'm very, you know, systematic, operational, all that type of thing. So yeah, and again, that's kind of what I and even you uh now as form providers, now consultants who are independent, we have that clarity, I guess. And I um it's almost like a privilege to even for me, again, navigating all these NDIs reform around allied health and so on, like it was a a privilege for me to not be a provider to be able to see clearly sort of what's happening and step back and be objective about a business, whereas it's really hard to do that when you're essentially, you know, oftentimes like your whole family revolves around the business, right? So yeah, there are a lot, it's it's tough times, and unfortunately, I think things are only gonna get tougher, which again, depending on how you look at it, that can be a good thing to get rid of dodgies. The people who remain will be the ones who are really here for the right reasons, but it's gonna be bumpy times ahead, I think, are in our NDIS industry.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Um, yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is to always be calculating, is the exchange I'm making worth it? If you're gonna put 55 hours a week or 60 hours a week into your business, is that exchange that you're doing worth it? Because you're not actually just trading away your time, you're trading away a significant proportion of your time with your kids, your spouse, your health is gonna be the next thing you're not exactly going to be going to the gym daily, are you? So the question is, is it worth it? Now, you and I are on the other side of being a provider because we wrapped up our businesses a couple of years ago. It doesn't mean we're not involved in NDOS. If anything, to be honest, Kristen, you and I are probably a lot more influential on helping people in NDOS than we were back when we were providers. But we want people to see that if you wrap up your business, it is not the end of the world. Like you talked before how there's the business and there's you, okay? And sometimes we we think that those two separate entities have blended into each other because we're just trying so hard to breathe life into this business. But they're actually separate. And you can close the business and you just continue. You just find something else. There's a bit of a loss of identity or or a loss of self-importance when you wrap up a business. Like I've wrapped up, um, I've run like, I don't know, say eight businesses or something, six, I don't know. Two of them have wrapped up. Yeah, uh you lose count, never mind. Two of them are wrapped up, and each time I've wrapped up a business, I've felt so sad inside because the relationships you had with your clients are gone, the relationships you have with your staff are gone. You used to be in this spot where you just said the words and things happened, and now like you're going and getting milk from the shops, looking around, going, huh, I used to be able to influence things. Now I'm getting milk and I've got no influence. There's this sense of loss when you step away, but what that actually is, I think, Tristan, is just a recalibration of hold on, I'm actually realizing life was never about my work. What was a lot well that was like for me, what was it like for you when you wrapped up your work as a provider?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, yeah, really hard. So again, that was a huge part of my identity. I still miss it, right? I'm a I'm a year out now. And again, I had hundreds of, you know, I had hundreds of clinicians reporting up to me, you know, all the way from, you know, startup to yeah,$15 million revenue business. Um, and I would I did all the recruiting too, so I got to chat to students and new grads and that type of thing. So yeah, that was part of my identity. That's what I really that was almost my favorite part of the job was talking to students, new grads, early career clinicians, that type of thing. And now I don't really get to talk to them at all anymore because they're not they're not potential to do my own thing, and maybe I'm too arrogant or proud or whatever. I'm sure one day I'll go back to a more normal job, who knows? But um, yeah, I do think it it is hard. It is a pride thing too. And again, a lot of business owners have a lot of pride, or and I had way too much, and it got me into trouble sometimes. I was too arrogant, too proud, thought I knew best, that type of thing. So it is really hard, but it also can be just the most like uh freeing thing sometimes, too. It's like I have a a few clients who have done that or are doing that, and they're kind of either wrapping up their business, they're selling it, or they're handing it over to the other director, or they're getting an operations manager in to run things and they're kind of doing something else, or going to work for someone else. But yeah, again, um it's there's a lot to analyze or to figure out about that decision. But going from running a business where you're worried about paying everyone else to um, you know, just getting a fortnightly salary is it can be the most uh freeing thing of all time, too.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah. And I guess it's freeing if you've left a low profit margin business. If we were talking about a healthy business that had bare minimum like a healthy business outside of NDIS should have bare minimum, minimum minimum would be 15% gross profit. Okay, like obviously you pay tax on that, whatever. But that would be the bare minimum of what you'd consider a really healthy business. In NDIS, there's very few businesses like that, even Allied Health, the way you work, because once you've got scale, you lose all of that profitability. And it's the narrow profit margins that create stress. Because you're like, right, the shadows of wood just went up. You know, I remember one year it went up 5.75%. You're like, that means anyone who had a 5.75% profit margin is now done. You know, it's it's like it is a hard industry to be in, which means you have to be good at what you do. When you step out of that, you realise I thought that who I am was some magician who was rescuing the world. And you step out and you realise actually all I was is a guy who was building a system that was designed to help people that was held together sometimes by duct tape, you know, and staff go away and staff come back or whatever. It's like I was never that important. Yes, we were helping people, but when you look around, you're like, there are bigger things in life than your work. What did you have any any other thoughts that happened for you? Because that's what happened for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, I totally agree. And again, that's when you're in within the four walls of your own business, like you sometimes like almost like drink your own bath or whatever, and think, oh, I'm such a yeah, you know, well, again, I'm sure you are a mild business we were, like helping lots of people and doing an amazing job. But again, it's it's a drop in the ocean. And again, uh it's particularly common in the Allied Health space, the that martyr word you used before where it's like, oh, I'm going to work myself to the bone and you know, make, you know, just basically spin the wheels, make no profit just so I can help people. But it's like it's almost like what's the point? Again, you're helping participants and things, which is great, but you also need to look after number one, which is you and your family and so on. So yeah, don't pay uh don't pay your staff more, or again, like you even see businesses running at a loss. It's like, why? Well, I don't quite like what what's the point? You're not sort of doing you're kind of like you're not doing anyone any fa again, you're helping participants, which is great, but and again, it's not talking about money as like a fatal flaw of allied health businesses and business owners and clinicians, because and again, it's kind of why I do some of my content and stuff. There's a bit of altruism behind it because you do need margin, and you as a business owner and your staff kind of need to understand it too. I think you know, clinicians are a lot of I'm sort of guilty, there's a lot of people pleasing, I don't retain my staff, all that type of thing. But again, you're doing your participants and your staff a disservice if you're running at a loss or you know, not at a healthy margin because you're just you know you're risk you're risking it all for everyone type thing, really.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Yeah, and and stepping on that lets us see that. So for the people who are still in it, first up is we need to acknowledge they're doing a great job. Well done. Second up is what do you need to do so your business can last another five years, not another five months? Okay. Now, one of the things that you're really big on, Kristen, is not throwing money at marketing. So my background's obviously like let's let's make marketing work for us. And I would have spent, I don't know, seven or eight hundred thousand dollars at least in my lifetime on Google ads, Facebook ads, stuff like that. Some of that my money, some of that others. Well, because when it works, it's beautiful. But it's very hard to make your marketing money work for you when your business is not that special, it's not that different from the one down the road. What is your answer? Like if you're saying, all right, don't throw money at marketing, well, you must have another magic lever. What's your what's your magic lever that's not throwing money at marketing?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, so if you have the money to spare, it can be phenomenal and a great way to scale, right? But yeah, basically with my old business, um, we didn't spend a cent on marketing or ads. We basically grew based on relationships. So it was all sort of old school hardcore business development. And I was very lucky, that's not my natural strength area. I was very lucky to have a phenomenal business partner who uh who was good at this. And we basically, again, too, it's a bit different now, but to launch and scale our business, we just went to every networking event across the country and uh we leveraged that. We built our business on relationships. You know, that's free in terms of it takes time and effort, but it doesn't cost money, other than maybe a coffee or a you know, ReadySet Connect or Able Plus or whatever, like you can go for free as an attendee or pay a small amount for a table and so on. But yeah, basically NDIs we're talking about, it's a relationship-driven industry, right? So you can spend squillions on ads, an SEO or whatever it may be. But if you don't manage, nurture, and account manage your relationships, you're wasting your time because those relationships are the most important, whether it's sport coordinators, participants, family members, other key stakeholders, other providers too. And again, I think we're seeing I think we're seeing people get better at this. Um, you know, not so much competition or whatever, but actual relationships. So yeah, basically, again, a a saying that I'm fond of, which I thought was more common, but someone said they've never heard of heard of it before, is your network is your net worth. And it could not be more true. And it's you know, from my own perspective, that's the best thing of me doing consulting for years. I've built my network. And then the other thing I would say is if you are going to spend money on marketing, you need to track your return on investment. You need to track if you're spending X amount on Google Ads or SEO or whatever, you need to track, okay, how many leads did I get from that, how many converted lead clients did I get from that. Again, that basic data and reporting. Otherwise, you're just going to spend money, waste money on a marketing agency paying for SEO or ads, and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, don't worry, you're gonna wait a few months, you'll see results. You should you should see results straight away. And you need to, you know, a simple thing like on your referral form, for example, or contact form or lead form, or whatever you use is how did you hear about us? Again, not enough people track that where okay, I got 10 referrals in January, five are from ads, two are from Google, blah, blah. You know, I paid two grand for my SEO, I got two leads, it was, you know, a thousand dollar per lead type thing. So just basic stuff like that. So same with networking events, if you're spending money on marketing or business development, whatever, you need to know what am I getting from this. Otherwise, you're just spending money with you not tracking your return on that investment.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah. And people are hesitant to track their track what's working, what's not. Part of it is they fear that what they're doing is not working and they almost don't want to know. The other part of it is they're like, oh, but if I set up my Google Ads tracking, that's complex. It's like, oh, it's actually not. Just find someone on Fiverr, pay them 300 bucks and problem solved, you know. So but if you don't track it, well, how do you know if it's the Google ads that's working or if it's the fact that you went to a networking event? How do you know? So then how do you know what actions to take? I love what you're saying. And and and I love that uh you've you've found ways to grow without throwing money into the giant robotic companies. Because let's be honest, Google and Facebook, they're not exactly adding to society. So I love what you're doing. Kristen, I want every man his dog to know about you. Okay. So if you look at sort of the coaches in the industry, you've got say someone like Paul Bryan, who's great who is uh really good at giving you a thorough 12 month worth of across 12 different skill sets, 12 months, that's Paul's thing, right? Pretty much he's great at building a broad skill set. Or if you look at say my skill set, I sit down with people and my coaching is what's the problem you're facing right now? Okay, what's your next move? And what's the next problem? What's your next move? So that you walk away with three next steps every single session. What does it look like when someone's engaging someone like you, Tristan, as a consultant? Like, what does that look like? They know what they get from Paul, they know what they get from me. What do they get from you?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Yeah, so it's interesting. I'm still um I'm still, I guess, figuring out my identity a little bit, right? Like I'm a year in and I've done a lot of reflecting. I'm sort of figuring it out, but yeah, I much prefer the term consultant to coach for me because and I guess the reason why I started as a consulting company is I like helping people and I like solving problems. The more complex, the bigger, the better, to be honest. So yeah, I will kind of, for me as a consultant, I will basically give you answers and tell you what to do rather than uh again, there's every man, you know, everybody second person's a coach out there, right? Um, and uh, you might go to someone, they're like, Oh, let's do this six-step method to uh whatever, just some sort of cookie-cutter template type thing, which again, that's not not me, and I'm sure not you and uh you and Paul, you guys are awesome. But um, yeah, so with consulting, I'm very bespoke to your business. I'll try solve your problems. Um, and then I guess the other thing too, again, I'm I'm not predatory at all. I could make a lot more money if I if I was, but what I normally tell people is I'm a resource for you to use, you know, when and if you need me. So I don't have any lock-ins, there's no programs, anything like that. You can you pay me when you need me for whatever package or service that is, to be honest. And again, I'm probably I'm a typical I'm a clinician, right? So I I undercharge, under bill and stuff all the time. I you know, I tell my clients not to do that, and then I'm sort of doing it myself. So yeah, basically, if you need problems solved or answers, or the other thing I do as a consultant is I'll get hands-on and build things for you, or you know, be embedded in your team, or whatever you need, basically whatever your I guess whatever best suits your business and the stage it's at. And yeah, I guess the other thing too, the difference for me compared to some other, you know, allied health coaches or whatever are out there is I don't offer a I don't run a clinical business on the side, I don't work clinically anymore. I also don't do groups, so I keep my entire client list private and confidential. So if I am working for you, you're paying me to work for you, you are getting my full attention and there's no like there's no hidden agenda or conflict of interest or anything like that. Like I'm purely an allied health consultant.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yeah, that that makes sense. And obviously, your specialty is the guys who are at a big scale, because not everyone in Allied Health has had a hundred staff working for them, you know. So sure, you look after people across the board, but if I was a big player in Allied Health, I'd be talking to you, Tristan. How does someone find you, Tristan?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah, uh, Google, LinkedIn, that's the two best places to find me. Just Google my name, you'll find me and my website and so on. But yum, uh, yeah, just yeah, just look me up there.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Tristan Conway, Tristan with a why. Otherwise, send me an email, MichaelAthletichoala.com.au, and I'll put you in touch with him. Tristan, thank you for being real. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Congratulations on your new life, okay, and all that you've got ahead of you, and thank you so much for serving people so wholeheartedly for so many years. No worries.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Thank you for having me on, Michael. Appreciate it.