Ep# 50: Workforce: The People Who Make (or Break) Your Clinic

You can have the best systems, the sharpest positioning, and a beautiful clinic — and still struggle, if the people inside it aren't the right fit.

That's what this episode is about.

This week on Beyond Hormones: The Business of Wellness, we're diving into the third pillar of the POWER framework: Workforce. And if you ask me which pillar matters most, this is it every single time.

I learned early in my career that the most important asset in any business isn't the product, the marketing, or even the service. It's the people. When you have the right team around you, there's no obstacle you can't overcome. When you don't, even a thriving practice can start to feel like a grind.

In this episode, I'm sharing the three workforce strategies I've used in every business I've helped grow — including the hormone clinic in Orlando that hit $4.2 million in revenue. These aren't theories. They're practices I've done, in the real world, with real teams.

Topics covered:

• Why hiring on values — not just skills — changes everything about your culture

• How to use core values in interviews, performance reviews, and even difficult conversations about letting someone go

• What it actually means to treat your staff the way you want to be treated (and why the best people will leave if you don't)

• The quarterly meeting strategy that sounds expensive but pays for itself in retention and team performance

• A simple first step you can take this week to start building a more intentional culture

If you've ever had a team member who just got it — who worked like you, cared like you, showed up like you — you already know what's possible. This episode is about building a whole team like that.

This podcast is powered by Accelerated Medical Practices, where we believe hormone and wellness care should be both life-changing and profitable.  If you own or run a clinic and are interested in being a guest on the show, please complete the form here and let's connect!  Or email Jody at Jody@AcceleratedMedicalPractices.com.

 🚀 Grow your clinic with proven systems at AcceleratedMedicalPractices.com

For more Insights and Tips on Growing Your Hormone Clinic, subscribe to THE AMP Report sent every other Thursday and follow us on social media for "almost" daily tips! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to Beyond Hormones, the Business of Wellness, the podcast for hormone and functional medicine providers who want a thriving, predictably profitable practice, and maybe a little less stress along the way. Hi, I'm your host, Jody Lane, and I've worked with lots of clinics in marketing, sales, and business development, and I have seen what works and what doesn't. And here's what I believe hormone and wellness care should be available to everyone who wants it. And while providers know the medicine, many struggle with the business side of their cash practice. And that's where I come in. See, this podcast is here to share real strategies, real stories, things you can implement in your practice right away. So I am so glad you're here. Come on, let's go. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Beyond Hormones, the Business of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, Jody, and this is the fourth episode in our power series, where we're walking through the five pillars that AMP created that help hormone and wellness clinics grow in a way that is predictable, sustainable, and honestly, a lot more enjoyable. Now, in the last episode, we covered operations, the systems, the SOPs, and the issues list method that keeps a growing clinic from tipping into chaos. Today, I'm so excited, we're moving into the third pillar of the power framework. It's W, which is workforce. And yes, this is honestly my favorite one. You see, I learned a long time ago that the most important asset in any business is not the product. It's not the marketing. It's not even the way that you deliver the service. It's the people, it's your staff. See, when you have a great staff, there are no problems you can't solve. There are no obstacles that you can't overcome. But building that kind of team, well, that doesn't happen by accident. It actually takes a lot of work. It takes being intentional, intentional about building culture. It takes consistency. And it takes a few things that might seem a little strange or feel outside your comfort zone, but I promise you they work and I'm gonna tell you all about them today. I have done these things in the two companies that I have grown over to millions of dollars. One of them is that hormone clinic that I ran in Orlando, which I talk about all the time, that I grew to 4.2 million. The other is the marketing agency that I started in the early 2000s that grew past to grew to past$3 million. Now, both used the same three workforce strategies, and I am going to share them with you today. All right, here we go. But wait, before we get into the three strategies, I want to acknowledge something. See, building and keeping a great team is genuinely harder than it used to be. I started my career back at a time where it was customary to start at the bottom of a company, learn the ropes, work your way up and stay for years. Leaving after a year or two was actually looked down upon. That is not the way it is anymore, guys. The way the world works now is that the best people will job hop after a year or two, and that's how they climb the ladder. Now, they come in with more skills than they used to. They have access to all this information on YouTube and TikTok and everywhere they can gather to come in and be a little bit more qualified. So therefore, they have higher expectations about salary and benefits and how their environment is. And if they're not growing, they're leaving. And that's actually okay as long as you understand all this going in. But here's what I also know to be true. If you have a stellar employee, I mean someone who thinks like you do, works like you do, is committed to patient care and team culture, and just makes coming to work better, well, you know there is no greater gift or nothing more valuable than that person in your business. So the question becomes how do you attract that kind of person? How do you build a team filled with those kinds of people? That's exactly what we're going to talk about today. And I'm going to give you three strategies that are designed to do exactly that. All right, the first strategy, it's knowing your core values and then actually using them to hire, train, evaluate, and when necessary, let people go. Now, again, if you have heard me speak before, you know I come back to core values a lot because they solve a lot of problems in the workforce. See, when you are very specific about the values you want to have and you implement them into your clinic, they do wondrous things. So the first thing you got to do is just figure out what they are. What are the five to seven values that matter most to you? Not as a concept, but as something that you live by day to day. And if you could have a team of people that operated inside those exact same values, you would feel like you were completely at ease at work and everything just worked better. Now, for me, two of my biggest ones are integrity and being coachable. Now, integrity to me isn't just about being honest. It's about something way bigger than that. See, my definition of integrity is do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it. And if you can't, you communicate and make a new promise. Now, the third part of that definition is what is so important. See, I can work with just about anybody who communicates what's going on. I learned a long time ago that if you're up to big games, if you're an overachiever, you are going to put more on your place than you can possibly accomplish. So therefore, you've got to communicate when things don't go well. Now, the second one for me is coachable. See, I have a lot of opinions and I'm not afraid to share them. And I want to be able to share my feedback and my observations or a different way of thinking about something so that people can hear it and maybe even receive it with openness, not as criticism. And it's not because I want to be agreed with all the time. Look, I'm not ever really agreed with, and that's okay because sometimes my idea then spokes their idea, and it's a dialogue, not a dictatorship. And if you don't have someone who's coachable, that's just not gonna happen. And those are my values. Yours may look completely different, and that's okay. The important thing is that they're very specific to how you actually operate. All right, step two is using those values in your hiring process. Don't just communicate the values during the interview. Don't say, these are the values we have, what do you think? Ask questions that reveal whether this person actually lives them too. So, for example, instead of asking, do you believe in integrity? Try something like, tell me a time where you made a commitment and you couldn't keep it. How did you handle it? See, that answer would tell me everything I need to know. Now, step three is keeping the values present consistently. And this is the hardest part. You want to reference them in staff meetings, build them into your quarterly reviews, not just reviewing performance in those reviews, but reviewing the values. Ask them how ask yourself how is the team living these values? Ask them how the company is showing up for them. And when it comes to difficult performance conversations or letting someone go, which always sucks, anchor that conversation and values too. So you're not telling someone they're a bad person when they're not doing the job. You're saying these are the values that we both agreed are important here. And right now, they're not showing up in your work. That changes the entire tone of a conversation that's hard. It becomes about whether they fit in your culture, not about judgment. And when your whole team is operating from the same core values, well, culture just builds itself. Now, the second strategy sounds simple, and I know some of you are going to be thinking to yourself, okay, Jody, I already do that. But I can tell you that there are a number of clinics that I have walked into where the dynamic between the owner and the staff is still operating from a very old model, where the owner, sometimes unconsciously, treats the team as people who are just there to do what they're told because you're the one that writes the check. Now, as I mentioned, I started my career in the early 90s and my bosses treated me like I worked for them. And I didn't like it, but I accepted it because that was just the norm. But I didn't feel like I had a voice, I didn't feel like I was appreciated. That model doesn't work anymore. If people feel like they have no say, if they have no voice, if they have no future in your business, the best ones, they're gonna leave. Or worse, they'll stay and they will resent you. And when that happens, it shows up in their patient interactions, it shows up in team dynamics, and sometimes in your bottom line. And you may have dealt with this in the past. So, what does treating your staff well actually look like? First of all, it does mean paying people well. Look, you know what they're worth. They know what they're worth. So just pay them what they're worth. But it also means showing genuine appreciation, even for things that are in their job description. It doesn't matter. People want to feel appreciated, so thank them. And it also means creating some kind of path for advancement. Even if you have a small clinic, that path doesn't need to be a big title change. It can really just mean more responsibility. It could mean paying for them to have more education. It could mean sending them to a conference or some kind of an increase in pay that's tied to performance. There just has to be something forward to grow to. And the most underused thing you can do, ask for their feedback. Your staff is inside your business every single day. They're talking to your patients. They're seeing things that you're not. They're working inside your systems. They see things that often go unnoticed by someone in your seat. And if you never ask them for their input, not only are you hurting them, but you are missing an enormous opportunity to improve your practice while you're sending a quiet message that their perspective doesn't really matter. And that hurts. And that little resentment eventually is going to cost you. Now, when you ask for feedback, you don't have to implement everything you hear. And you want to be honest about that. Sometimes you're going to get suggestions that just don't make sense for the business because they don't see the whole picture. And that's totally okay. What matters is that people feel heard and that they know their contributions are genuinely considered. If the idea of asking for feedback makes you a little nervous because you're afraid of what you might hear, I hear you. But that's a discomfort that's actually worth paying attention to. And we're going to save that conversation for another episode. What I'll say for now is this a team that can give you honest feedback is a real gift, not a threat. All right, here's number three. And this is the one that I get the most pushback on when I first introduce it. And it's the one I got the most pushback from my boss at the hormone clinic in Orlando when I suggested it. But it is also the one that I am most convinced makes the biggest difference. Quarterly meetings. Now I want you to hear this because when I say a quarterly meeting, I don't mean a staff huddle. I don't mean two hours. I mean a full day, once a quarter, usually on a Friday in the third or fourth week of the last month of the quarter. That's right. You close your clinic, you don't see patients, you pay your staff, and you spend the entire day working on the business and building the team. I know. I can hear the objections forming in your brain, even though I can't see you. You're closing for a whole day, you're losing patient revenue for a whole day, you're spending money on food and decor and activities and all this stuff. That is so unnecessary, Jody. But here's what I know from experience because I ran 28 quarterly meetings at the Orlando Clinic and about 30 at my marketing agency. And both of those businesses had very low turnover. We had high revenue. We enjoyed going to work every day, and we consistently hit our goals. The numbers and the feelings speak for themselves. So let me walk you through what a quarterly meeting really is so that you know exactly what to do. It starts with a theme. Now, I always pick a theme that reflects something that I've noticed the team is working through that during that last quarter. Let me give you an example. During COVID, when everyone was disconnected and we some of us were working from home and some coming into the office, and communication got really strained. The entire quarterly meeting was built around the theme of communication and listening. Everything we did that day, the activities, the conversations, the exercises, it reinforced the skills of communicating better and listening better. Now, I also love a decor theme. I've done prom night, I've done under the sea, I've done decade parties, I've done Academy Award red carpets. And you don't have to go elaborate on this, especially when you're doing your first one, but that's the moment when a team member walks in and sees the room. It sets the tone immediately for fun and enjoyment. And between Amazon and the dollar store, I never really spend more than a few hundred dollars. And for a team of 20, that's less than$25 a person. And that's not too bad. Now let's talk about what the agenda typically looks like. So this is what I do. We open with a team building exercise, something that creates connection right away. It sets the tone for the rest of the day. It's especially important if you've recently hired new people since the last meeting. I've done things like two truths and a lie, I've done guided meditations, I've done gratitude exercises where everyone shares something that they're grateful about, the person sitting next to them, all sorts of things like that. And you don't really have to work very hard to find these things, just go to Google, type in team building exercises, and you'll find them. Then we go through the agenda. So no one is wondering what's coming next. And next is what I call the state of the company. I share our revenue goals and how we did against them because I believe in transparency here. See, when the team understands the financial picture, they show up with more ownership. Now, this may be uncomfortable for some of you, so I'm not telling you what to do, but I will tell you that I have seen over and over that when people understand the finances, they're more invested. Then we cover what Gina Wickman in the book Traction calls rocks. These are basically quarterly projects, the things that need to get done to move the business forward, but tend to get started, stalled, and then never finished. At our clinic, we kept a running list throughout the quarter based on things that came up in the staff meetings. And at the quarterly meeting, team members would choose an item or a project from that list. And I love that part because they chose it, they would take ownership of it, and they would commit to completing it before the next quarter. This is powerful because, again, they've chosen it. That means they're excited about it, which means that there's a greater chance they're actually going to do it. Then we move into personal development and team building activities. Now I want to be clear about the personal development piece. This is not hormone training or clinical consulting or excuse me, or clinical continuing education. This is about helping your team grow as human beings, as communicators, as collaborators, as problem solvers. Because you see, when people improve at the personal level, it shows up every day in their role and in their work. For the listening-themed meeting that I mentioned earlier, we did an exercise in pairs where one person shared something from a prompt that they had been provided. And then the person, their paired person, had to listen and reflect back exactly what they heard. And then they responded thoughtfully. Now, it sounds simply and it was genuinely powerful. Team building could be as simple as a shared activity or as fun as something else we did, which was a full lip-sync battle. And yes, we did that with the providers and everybody there. It was exactly as chaotic and joyful as it sounds. The point of it all is that people walk out of a quarterly meeting feeling something that they probably didn't feel when they walked in. Most clinics rarely feel like community. People walk out of a quarterly meeting feeling something that they didn't feel like when they walked in, like they were a part of a community, like they are part of something, not just coworkers, but a real team. And that feeling, it carries. As a matter of fact, it carries across the next 90 days until you do it again. Now, before we close out today, here is a simple exercise that you can start this week to just move the needle forward. I want you to sit down and write out your core values. Not a giant long list, although you can do that and just take some away. But I want you to think about every principle you believe in and then pick the five to seven ones that are most essential to you and how you operate. And that if everyone around you shared them and worked towards them, your work life would just work. Write them down. Give each one a brief definition in your own words, the way I did with integrity and coachable. Because a value without context is just a word on a wall. And once you've got them, think about your current team. Not to judge people, just to answer honestly. Are these values present in how we work together right now? And if not, what is the one thing you could do this month to start bringing them into the conversation? No one's gonna do this if you don't start. That's it. That's all you need to do. Look, it's no accident that workforce is the third pillar of the power framework. Because if you have a truly, truly exceptional team, people who stand side by side with you to run and grow your business, you can handle anything. Slow months, COVID, really anything. Now, in the next episode of this series, we're gonna move into the fourth pillar, which is experience. We're gonna talk about the patient experience, what it actually feels like to be in your clinic from the very first touch point all the way through to ongoing care, and how that experience drives retention and referrals or quietly works against your growth. Now, interesting how it comes after workforce because your staff needs to have a great experience before they can give one to your patients. Now, if you're finding value in this series, do me a favor, subscribe so you don't miss so you don't miss the next episode. And as always, I just want to thank you for the work that you do every day to help your patients live healthier and fuller lives. All right, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. If you have any comments whatsoever, go ahead, send them to me. Send me an email, Jody J-O-D-Y at accelerated medicalpractices.com. I would love to hear what you're thinking about these pillars that we have in our power framework, or just comment on whatever platform you're listening on, whether it's YouTube or Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would love to hear from you. All right, thank you so much. See you on the next one. Thank you for listening to Beyond Hormones, the business of wellness. I hope that you're walking away with fresh ideas and real strategies you can use to grow your practice with profit and purpose. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow the show so you never miss a conversation. And if something you heard today resonated with you, do me a favor, share this episode with a friend or colleague. It's one of the best ways you can support the show, and it might be exactly what they need to hear right now. If you want even more tools and support, go ahead and head over to accelerated medical practices.com. Until next time, keep doing the work that matters. Your patients need you, and I am cheering you along every step of the way.