Beyond Hormones, The Business of Wellness

Ep #52 - He Built the Engine Behind AMP — And He Happens to Be My Husband

• Jody Layne • Season 2 • Episode 52

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What happens when the person who built the systems behind your clinic is also the person you go home to every night?

In this episode, Jody sits down with someone she's never officially had on the show — her husband, business partner, and co-founder of Accelerated Medical Practices, Jamie Layne. Jamie is a serial entrepreneur with a background in software, technology consulting, and digital marketing. He's the analytical mind that helps AMP's clinic owners build scalable, sustainable businesses — and he brings a perspective on the hormone and longevity space that most clinicians have never heard before.

Jamie and Jody get refreshingly candid about their shared entrepreneurial history — including a startup that failed, the lessons they carried forward, and what it really looks like to build a business alongside your spouse. They also dig into the business challenges that hormone clinic owners consistently underestimate, and why so many cash-pay practices struggle to convert interested prospects into loyal patients.

Topics covered in this episode:

• What the failure of their first startup (Expect Referrals) taught them about business models, funding, and staying in your lane

• The biggest mistake clinic owners make when it comes to digital marketing and patient conversion

• Why your UVP (unique value proposition) can't start with "I listen to my patients" — and what to do instead

• The follow-up gap: how clinics are losing revenue by not nurturing leads over time

• What predictable profit actually looks like in a cash-pay practice

• How AI is already changing how patients research and choose their providers

• The right way to use AI in your clinic — and the one thing Jamie says clinicians should never outsource to it

• Practical advice for anyone thinking about going into business with their spouse


Connect with Jamie and the AMP team:

https://acceleratedmedicalpractices.com/

https://www.instagram.com/acceleratedmedicalpractices

info@acceleratedmedicalpractices.com


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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SPEAKER_02

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, Judy 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 chemistry 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. Okay, I have to be honest with you before we get into today's episode because this one's a little different. My guest is someone who knows me better than probably anyone on the planet. He's the comm to my chaos. He's the system thinker to my crazy ideas. And he's the guy who has sat across from me at the dinner table when I've talked about this industry for years before it became our business. He is my husband. He's my business partner, he's my best friend, and he's my co-founder at Accelerated Medical Practices, and he's Jamie Lane. Now, here's what I want you to know about why I finally dragged him onto the microphone. See, Jamie didn't come from hormones. He came from tech. He came from software. He's a marketer and he's an entrepreneur. And watching him look at this industry from the outside in has genuinely changed how I see it too. You see, he sees what clinic owners always underestimate. He sees the gaps in how practices market themselves, how they follow up with patients, how they define who they even are in the marketplace. He completely changed how I viewed the conversation. And in this conversation, we get into some real stuff. We talk about what it's like to build a business with your spouse, what predictable revenue actually means in a cash pay model, how AI, his favorite topic, is already changing the way patients find and choose their providers. And we talk about the number one reason that clinics leak revenue without even realizing it. Look, this episode is for you. If you've ever wondered whether your business is built on a solid foundation or just a whole bunch of hustle, and if there's one person that can there's one person that can point that out, it is absolutely Mr. Jamie Lane. All right, guys, let's get into it. All right, everyone, welcome back to the Beyond Hormones, the Business of Wellness podcast. Today's guest is somebody very special to me. Yes, he is my husband, but he's also my business partner. I would like to introduce Jamie Lane. Jamie is a lifelong entrepreneur who has built businesses across multiple industries, but in recent years has fallen in love with the hormone and longevity space. He brings a unique blend of vision, strategy, and technical insight to AMP, helping us design systems that allow clinic owners to grow without burnout. I have to admit, he is the calm analytical counterpart to my big crazy ideas. But together we have built accelerated medical practices along with our good friend and third partner, Patrick, to serve clinic owners in a way that's practical, innovative, and future focused. So, husband, business partner, Jamie, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00

Hey Jodi.

SPEAKER_02

How are you?

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. Great welcome.

SPEAKER_02

So I know you're a little concerned because I did not tell you in advance anything I was going to ask you. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00

None whatsoever.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Don't worry. I promise it's gonna be painless. I want to start by asking you this question. So you've been an entrepreneur for a long time before hormones were ever part of your picture. What was the first real taste of entrepreneurship that you had, and why did that hook you?

SPEAKER_00

That's a great question. I am I started my own software consulting business, Smart Technology, about 10 years ago now, in 2016. We were just coming off of leading technology engineering department, team of like 30 people, and just feeling burnt out and resigned to not being able to give the direction that I wanted. I could I would lead and yet the executives and the CEOs would go off in their own path. And a lot of times it's the highest paid person in the room, makes a choice that's not always the most beneficial for the business in practice. And so I decided to step out and get the taste of if it was just me talking with the clients one-on-one, how much more valuable could that experience be? And the moment I, you know, talked to my first client and made an impact, I really could see how much I could transform their business without any middleman. And so I found that exciting.

SPEAKER_02

That's so interesting. So you your first entrepreneurial experience was more technology?

SPEAKER_00

No, you're right. We um created our software as a service, Expect Referrals, and we ran that for many years. Yeah, that was our first true entrepreneurial experience, and that was an entirely different beast altogether.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So tell everybody what was Expect Referrals.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so Expect Referrals was one of the earliest online referral management platforms. And so we created a digital software as a service that allowed for businesses to systemize referral marketing where they could advocate coupons and incentives to their current customers and have them refer their friends through email and you know, come back and receive their own discount. And it just tracked it all, it automated it all and just made it very seamless and streamlined.

SPEAKER_02

So, for you know, just to give a little history. So that is the first business that Jamie and I did together. And, you know, we had some funding and we did it for three years, I believe. Two and a half, three years. And it was not successful. And so my question about that is like, what did you learn during that experience that you now bring forward into your entrepreneurial adventure with AMP?

SPEAKER_00

What I see there is our success or lack thereof. Like we were in many different countries all over the world, and it wasn't for lack of the product, and it wasn't even for lack of the need. What we saw and is we were a little bit premature to the market. And with that, we didn't have the right uh digital marketing approach or funding or or capability to really broadcast it out there. And when you wear many hats yourself, you feel like you're constantly on a hamster wheel. And so we were constantly innovating and building and doing customer support and doing the marketing and doing the software development, and it was exciting, it was fun, but it would never scale as fast as we needed to against the big players that had big funding and teams to do the same thing. And so bringing that into what we are doing now is recognizing our life learning lessons with that, how we can support other teams where we see some of those same failures in it, like help them identify that well in advance, help prevent that and help them grow scalably and more efficiently.

SPEAKER_02

We also didn't ask for any help. We tried to do it all ourselves. And and and the reason I'm bringing this up, it's a little bit of a sore subject between the two of us because you wanted to bail way earlier than I did. And so, and we were not even married at the time, we were just dating at the time. So it was uh it was definitely a very interesting part of our life. But I think it's very applicable to practitioners that want to start their own clinic because they have to choose a particular business model. They have to choose how much they're going to invest, they have to choose what assistance they're going to get. Is there any experience from that that you can kind of relate to how practitioners need to make their choices?

SPEAKER_00

Probably one of the most important ones is sticking with the lane. And what I mean by that is very early on, choosing who your identity is, who your market is, and what your unique value proposition is. Like, because just because you can do everything and offer everything, which we were sometimes trying to do is like, oh, if we bad add this feature or add this bells and whistle, it might provide more value. Right. Well, sometimes that derailed it. And that same goes with your clinics, is if you find what is your target audience and what your core value is and what that competency is, you really can really hone in on who your patients can relate to you as and then potentially add great new services down the way. Because if you make that bucket too big too early, they may not understand what your core value actually is.

SPEAKER_02

So was there ever a time, either Expect Referrals or Mark Technology, or even now in AMP, where you thought to yourself, maybe entrepreneurship isn't for me?

SPEAKER_00

I do have to say that the end of Expect Referrals hit me pretty hard. It was like a baby. We we innovated it, we spent a lot of time and invested and we created something from nothing, and we developed it from scratch, and we really had a pretty large group using it across the world, which was exciting. And the biggest shortcoming, you know, lesson learned is uh not all solutions are scalable if you don't have the right infrastructure in place. And so when that failed, I took it to mean that you know what we were producing just wasn't good enough. And that wasn't the case. We just didn't have the right business model, we didn't have the right business plan, and we didn't have the right tactics. If we were to go and recreate that right now, I think we'd be massively more successful and we'd probably approach a different way to find the funding, find the effort in the group to support that and make it as amazing as it is.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. So, because I obviously, as clinicians are trying to figure out whether or not they should go join a practice or open their own practice, you really kind of come face to face with some of your insecurities. And we teach in our workshop that failure is a good thing. And the more, you know, if you don't fail, you don't learn. If you don't learn, you don't iterate. If you don't iterate, you don't improve. And so that's kind of what I'm hearing from you. Is that kind of what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00

100%. I think one of the um most famous quotes I have heard over and over again in the business world is learn to fail faster. And so it's not about avoidance of failure, it's about recognizing when something is a failure and what can you learn from it and learn from it quicker so that way you can grow because you only grow from the failures. If you spend too much time holding on to the failure and don't let the failure actually occur, it could take months or years of derailment.

SPEAKER_02

So let's move into a different topic. Probably the topic that you're most afraid of. I want to ask you some questions about us working together as a couple. So when I decided to uh uh start AMP, and you know, we were just talking about it for me. And then the inner the cut the concept was entertained that you would join the team and we would do this together. What was the first thing that went through your mind?

SPEAKER_00

I went through a barrage of emotions. I was excited to work with you again because I know that we had a great track record well beyond expect referral, so you know, for years before that. It was a little tensuous in terms of there was us both going all in to this new solution puts a lot on the line for ourselves, our family, and our what we're doing. And I know that the more seasoned we've become in both our separate businesses, and we've scaled separate businesses very successfully, that we are very opinionated and very strong willed in what we do. And having a partner like Patrick that may not recognize that we have these conversations that are very intense, that are not they're not fights in any which way, but they're battles of strategy, they're battles of opinion and battles of experience that help overcome great objectives, but not everyone works well with that. And you know, it's the concern about having Patrick be on the group with us.

SPEAKER_02

Did we publicly apologize to Patrick right now? Patrick, we are sorry for any time we made you uncomfortable because we were looked like we were fighting, we weren't, we were working stuff out. That's really funny. So it's true. Um, what would you say is the biggest advantage for you to building a business with your spouse?

SPEAKER_00

Probably having a short code. And what I mean by that is we have years of context, years of background understanding. You know my strengths, my weaknesses, my skill sets, what I'm great at, what I'm not great at. I know your skill set through and through. So when a problem or opportunity arises, and we're all trying to have a different perspective on that same thing, we take the other's source of truth as truth without having to verify and say, Well, I'm not sure what you're coming, where you're coming from. Because I know all that, and you know all that about me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because there are a lot of practitioners that work with their spouse, whether it's they're both providers or one is administrative and the other is medical. And so it and matter of fact, we did a podcast, right? The name is suddenly uh leaving my brain.

SPEAKER_00

Second fig.

SPEAKER_02

Second fig, right, because I didn't want to say it incorrectly because it could come out really, really nasty. But um, and they just do a podcast about entrepreneurial spouses, which is so cool. So, so that was the advantage. What would you say is the biggest challenge of working with your spouse?

SPEAKER_00

Probably the lack of separation between work and personal. It's continuous, in which we're both very strong workaholics. We love what we do, we love providing for others and growing, but it spills over from an eight-hour day to a 24-hour day. Like there really is no off time. We have personal time and we do great things, but every now and then, even when we're on or off time, like, oh, what about this idea? Have you talked to so-and-so? There's no separation there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's funny, uh, you call that a challenge. I don't. I think it's amazing to work with somebody who is as passionate about what they do from nine to five as you are. And because I could talk about what we do here at Accelerated Medical Practices all day long. And luckily, so can you. So we do Saturday night dates. We're still talking about the clinics. Well, would you do you have any advice, you know, for anyone listening who is thinking about working with their spouse? Because we're a little bit different. We worked together first many, many moons ago, and then we got into a relationship. That isn't always the case. Knowing our history, what is some advice that you might give to someone listening who wants to work with their spouse?

SPEAKER_00

Probably one of the biggest pieces of advice is before getting into it, assign rules. And with that is create guidelines, roles, and rules where if there is a tie of a choice, that someone is the leader. Someone is the tiebreaker if there's only between the two of you. So that way it does allow for, you know, everyone has their own opinions and perspectives. And if there if it does come down to a tie, who gets to be the one that makes that final vote? And you know, who is the who's the leader, who's the follower, who's responsible for what? So that way it creates structure. And then finally have rules. And you know, those rules can be a support system so that it's doesn't spill over to your personal. And with that is, you know, if there is a disagreement in work, that doesn't mean it's a disagreement in personal. And like by declaring those rules up front and agreeing to it, it makes it easier to you know raise your hand and say, you know what, we're breaking this rule, put a pause on it, let's have separative work in private and get back to it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We actually, I think we do a pretty good job at that.

SPEAKER_00

We do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. All right. I won't ask you any more personal questions because I see you sweating through the camera. So let's let's move on to a different topic. I want to talk about hormones because you didn't start in the hormone space. You were very much a part of my journey with the clinic, not just from being a patient, but also I would come home and talk about it and you loved it. So, what was that moment where you thought to yourself, you know, I actually want to work in this, in addition to just kind of enjoying it anecdotally?

SPEAKER_00

The longer I was a patient and recognized the value I got out of that, and it was life-changing, life-affirming. And seeing at how that dramatically changed my mood, my results, my energy, all the above, that I saw that as a great calling and as a mission to say, like, how can we help more people? And that is our fundamental mission is you know, not just supporting providers, but how do we give this as access to more patients across the country so they have lived longer, happier, healthier lives? And so having that great gateway, because you know, at the state, I'm not going to become a doctor myself. I recognize that. It would be a long challenge to go down that path. So, how can we still maintain this opportunity to help more patients? And what that goal is to help the providers.

SPEAKER_02

So, you and I have no medical background, right? All the work that we've done has always been in the area of marketing. And so when I started working at the clinic and you started becoming more involved, is there anything that surprised you about how medical clinic operated versus what you were used to?

SPEAKER_00

Can you elaborate on that a little bit more?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, like in terms of how the business is run or how you hire people, like that's the operational side of a clinic. Is there anything that you were like, wow, I didn't really realize that's how this worked? And, you know, whether you liked it or didn't like it, but you know, what did you notice?

SPEAKER_00

Well, for me, I have, you know, zero retail background, zero in office medical background. So you had the great experience of actually working in the office and doing the hiring and working with the MAs and the patient liaison and with the with the providers. And I was just looking at it from the outside in. And so seeing that is I was expecting it to be more clinical, like more like a hospital. Because I worked at a hospital years and years and years ago, um, not in any medical-related experience, but worked at a hospital. And it was unionized and it was very, very rigorous, and there's a clock-in structure and a clock-out structure, and there was just very systematic. And I was kind of expecting all medical really followed that structure. And so seeing how the clinic operated and seeing how a lot of the all the clinics that we work with operate is that it is a much more medically forward retail environment. There is that front desk experience. The hiring goes through that same methodology as if you were hiring for an agency. Like all the same problems show up the same way, and it wasn't, it was uncovering my eyes, going, oh, it's not as black box protected as I expected.

SPEAKER_02

Interesting. So, with that in mind, what do you think is some of the bigger issues that hormone clinic owners underestimate about the business side of their clinic when they go in? So, like they go in with this, probably a very similar thought process to you, like this is going to be very traditional, but they realize it's not because cash pay equals retail. So, what do you think they underestimate about the business that you know they should be kind of pre-warned about my first assumption would be about the whole digital marketing approach is that when someone's at choice with a cash pay practice, they're investing in themselves.

SPEAKER_00

And so they're not buying a product, they're buying a relationship. And so if your patients and your prospective patients are out there, they're evaluating so many different people, and you know, everyone has a you know maybe hormones or they're doing weight loss or whatever it may be. And so the approach can't be just you're in my geographic radius and I have insurance and you're the right provider for me. And that was so easy that a patient would just show up. With this, they're investing in like they're buying a car. It's the same methodologies if someone's going to buy a car. They may go to different car lots, they may test drive for a little bit, they may show up and decide what's the aesthetic look like of the officer itself? Because they're investing in their their life and their longevity. And so they want to make sure that investment is sound. So there's trust and there's layers that have to occur well before they even decide, yeah, this is right for me.

SPEAKER_02

So you may have already answered this, and if you have, then just you know, maybe go a little bit deeper. But if a clinic owner came up to you, let's say at an a conference, like we we do. We do a lot of conferences and they said, you know, what what's the first thing I should fix in order to be successful? What do you think you would say to them?

SPEAKER_00

I probably lean towards, you know, looking at foundation. What does your core business model look like? Have you really identified what your unique value proposition is? Because in this day and age with businesses, it's not that you have a solution, it's about who and how do you present that solution? Like what makes your business that unique? Because if without having that well defined, you know, who your voice is, who your audience is, and how you want to represent yourself, that kind of dictates your pricing. It kind of dictates your decor. It kind of dictates your communication style, it kind of dictates your marketing style. And when that's not well solid at the beginning, it shows inconsistencies throughout the whole business. And I think looking back at that is, you know, who are you and why do you do this? And does your prospective patient know that? That's that identity level creation. Once you get that right, it's so much more beneficial to build from that.

SPEAKER_02

No, I'm really glad that you brought that up because what I see is that we share with these clinicians, these clinical nurses, that they need to have a unique value proposition. And then we make it very clear what you do with that unique value proposition. There seems to be a gap in the middle. So defining what your unique value proposition is really, really difficult because you look at yourself and you say, well, you know, I listen to my patients, I give them as much time as possible. And especially as this industry starts to grow and there's a lot more competition, how would you kind of guide a practitioner to really figure out what a unique value proposition is? Because these are terms that we've been using for years in the marketing side, but they're kind of new. So, like, how do you define unique value proposition? And then, you know, like how would you help somebody figure out what it is that it's actually unique?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's a great question because you know, the idea of unique now for almost any business is very difficult. There's so many competitive um practices out there and just duplicate businesses that exist out there now. How do they all have a unique spin, a unique approach? And so probably one of the starting questions I would like to lean into usually is well, why you? Like really think through why you. Because if your why you is I uh spend more time with the patient, I I care, I listen. If that's the same as anyone else, and you were choosing your own provider for yourself, would you choose that person for that reason? And if the answer is not really, then you should look back at yourself going, well, why is what is the real you that you're not sharing? Like, why did you open this practice? Why do you care about your patients? And make that clear. That's that's the starting point for creating a unique value proposition because it's it's not the service, because the service is sound and everyone's going to do the service. It's your approach, it's your why, it's your fundamental reason for creating this in the first place. What's your mission? There's so many great aspects that that story is where you find your tribe, it's where you find your patients within that story. Otherwise, when you say without a story, everyone's a potential patient and nobody's a potential patient.

SPEAKER_02

I'm glad you mentioned the story part because as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, you know, the why just may not be strong enough. As a matter of fact, I would say the why sometimes needs to be invented stronger because the why is very similar from hormone practitioner to hormone practitioner. I don't want people to get sick. I want them to have healthy lifestyles, I want them to have preventative medicine, I want them to understand their bodies, have the energy, but like all of those things. So that's why. So sometimes it's even like, and then it's a little bit that we're talking about this because there's no formula. It's not like you can sit down and go A plus B equals C, and that's my unique five proposition. So, and you can't ask ChatGPT for the answer either, because it doesn't come from external sources, but really coming up with what your story is, and like you said at the very beginning, why you over the person down the street? That's great. Thank you for that. What do you think? Now let's get into an area that you you delve into on a daily basis with the clients that you serve in terms of like marketing and sales. What do you think is the reason that clinics leak revenue or they don't in they don't improve their revenue? What do you see out there? What's happening? And then we'll delve into how they solve it.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. So probably one of the number one killers for revenue leak is the the inability to follow up and connect with patients, like the prospects. Like if someone, you know, called into the front desk and said, I might be interested in making an appointment and they got your after hours voicemail, or there's a form on your website and they filled something out and then someone called them back but didn't get through. A single callback now is not enough because I don't know if you just think about yourself for a moment. If you get a random phone number, someone calls you, how often do you pick it up for yourself? You wait for someone to voicemail, and then you listen to the voicemail, and then they even determine based off of not even what was said, but how it was said, how quick that message was, and how what action are they asking you to take? Because that is your first touch point and customer experience before they're even a customer, because they're evaluating you on everything, and so there's so much lost opportunity in that patients do want to be served and they're interested, but they're super hesitant. So they're you know, they're calling five or six people, they're waiting to see who responds quickly, and not just who responds quickly, but who is giving them the most trusting feeling that okay, you make me feel good beforehand. So I hope you're gonna take care of me. And that's the that's the lost opportunity is you know, having these systems in place that it takes more than one callback. It may take seven to ten callbacks over the course of time. And it may be if you know someone reached out once at 2 a.m. on a Friday night, it might not be until three months later that they're actually ready. But they saw something that inspired them, but without the right system in place to remember to say, oh, this person reached out at 2 a.m. on a Friday night, they could still be a patient a few months from now if you maintain a relationship with them, ongoing email, ongoing marketing, ongoing nurturing, proactive reach out. Every now and then is like, hey, by the way, we're just checking back in. Are you sure what's going on with you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you have to have patience with your patients.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So I talk about predictable profit all the time. I wrote a book about it, we have a course about it. Like predictable profit's my go-to term. What does predictable profit mean to you?

SPEAKER_00

It's almost like a money-in, money out methodology. Your business is stable in the sense that you know how many patients you have, you know how much your marketing budget is, and if you scale it a certain way, you ideally can have growth in the same predictable way. And because it's not randomized, it's it's not chaotic, it's not trial and error. It's it's taking a systematic approach where you know that you are working towards goals and you're working towards results where ideally month over month, you should be within a ball cart figure of the revenue, and that's the profit that you're shooting for. So when you have structure in place to reach that, that's the predictability, rather than saying what are we doing this month?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, very that's a much more reactionary approach. Yeah. All right. Let's take a hard turn left to a topic that I know you love to talk about, and that is AI.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So you are the tech department. You are fully invested in AI. I mean, you're you're you're researching into AI instead of taking me out to the movies. Like that's just who you are. How do you think AI is going to change this industry?

SPEAKER_00

There's no magic eight ball, but as I see it, the disruption is going to be about changing the view on how patients get their answers before they come in. So previously, and we'll bleed into digital marketing for a moment as kind of that lead-in way, is you know, if someone was interested inside, let's say formore healthcare, they might have certain questions and they maybe go to a frequently asked questions page, or they might watch a YouTube video, or they might read a blog article because they're trying to find some piece of information that appeals to them at that current state in time. And with AI, they have access to all that information all at once at any given time, and not just from one resource who's ranked well from an SEO perspective from any source on the planet. And with that change, is they've become the driver for educating themselves proactively. And so that means when people are making choices, they're later in the decision stage. And that decision stage is now about heavily investing in that qualification stage. They know what they want when they want it, and they need for you to prove to them that you are the right solution, whether it's from reviews, whether not from asking, you know, any of the AI solutions, you know, who's the best person in the area and what the results feedback is coming back. Um, and then finally going to your website and seeing the professional candor there is like, oh, they look professional. I can see the doctor's face. They haven't replaced themselves with an AI clone because that's kind of a little bit of a patient turnoff inside the space. So I think that's where I'm seeing is that the disruption is just changing how patients find you and how patients will ultimately be making choices from there on.

SPEAKER_02

So if a patient's walking in more informed, wouldn't that be a benefit to help get them on treatment faster? Or do you think that, I mean, AI is not always right. So they may come in informed, but they may be misinformed. How should the provider change the way that they do their consult in order to accommodate for all this extra knowledge that the patient's walking in with, whether it's correct or not?

SPEAKER_00

What I my recommendation there would be being prepared with the thought that this patient may have some level of information already. But as you said, it may not be accurate and it may not be applicable to them personally. And so, as providers, that really puts you more in the seat of not trying to just, you know, educate, but more so guide what they already know and where your experience comes in and what you would do for them and how to shift some of those knowledge. Because if they're demanding knowledge for themselves, they want to be taught by the providers too, saying, you know, this is what you're I'm gonna do for you, and this is why. And so becoming that professional authority and that guide, and not just dictating, oh, you should do this because this is gonna help you. It's about you may have seen this already, and this is how and why I'm doing it this way. Whereas if you possibly looked at some other resource, they don't do it that way, but this way provides you a result that's more applicable to you personally because everyone's different.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah, so that's great. So that's you know, a lot about using AI for marketing and for educating a patient and converting a patient. And a topic that I know that you've been working a lot on the last couple of days, you've been doing a lot of deep dive research on some of our clients to you know see if they're being presented properly through AI. Let's talk about the operations of the clinic. How do you think, or do you have any opinions about how AI will operate or change the operations inside of a clinic? Any thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_00

Ideally, when the balance between the technology, which is well rapidly advancing, and the legal compliance side of it, like HIPAA, like with that the software's on the back end, when they come to a head and you know, balance out each other and find a way to you know touch point into the different tools that the team uses in a secure way that's compliant and covers protected health. I feel that AI would help make better efficiencies. So allowing for you know some of those repetitive tasks that takes the you know the staff out of the way from being face to face with patient care and actually being experiential with the patient and advocating for more health and more of their time, that could free up their time to be able to be being a little bit more personal with them. So instead of spending time going, well, how does this tool work? Oh, I have to put my notes in, oh, I have to get logged into three different tools and the internet cut out for a second, and we're backlogged for you know, four patients and their I rate on the couch or whatever it may be, is the patient experience should be about spending time with the patient and not having frustration with the tools you're using to be able to serve the patient.

SPEAKER_02

Would you say that that's probably the most valuable use of AI for a clinician right now is to speed up menial tasks that kind of clog down the whole operation?

SPEAKER_00

And serve as a checks and balance for human error. Okay. So, my view is AI should never be a replacement for a role. It is an augmentation enhancement. So it's about having that support tool to make your team that much more efficient, that much more uh responsible, and allowed to you know catch things in the net that may have slipped through. Where you're like, let's say, you know, at the end of the day, a patient needed to have a prescription called in, but someone had so many different tasks on their chart today. Maybe it organized by priority and said, hey, by the way, before you leave, this is the one thing that really needs to get done. Maybe that would have slipped through the cracks, and maybe that would have saved a retention patient and had them stay longer because they didn't feel ignored. And it's those support tools that help prioritize tasks, you know, what's coming in, what's still to be done, and again, free that up so that you know what you accidentally potentially put a typo in this message. I think this is what you're looking for. With that proactive help, it's not saying do all my work for me. It's about how can we make things more accurate and that allows us to be more patient-centric.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's great. What do you think is the biggest mistake that a clinician can use AI and do?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I've got one. I mean, I probably got five or six, but one that comes to the top of my head. And the one that stands out for me is I do a lot of content absorption. I'm watching digital ads, I subscribe to things, I watch providers, I watch digital marketing, I watch Bluetooth. Like I'm a consumer of advertising, just to stay ahead. And there are a lot of products and resources that are really leaning into AI to make AI-centric ads. And that a lot of them are massively fake through to oh, that could be kind of real.

SPEAKER_01

But here's the thing patient care from a provider should never be faked.

SPEAKER_00

And so emulating yourself and creating an AI clone of yourself, and if it's recognized at all as a degree of fake, what that message is saying to the prospective patient is, I don't have time for you. So if you don't have time for them in that opportunity before they become a patient, why doesn't that translate to I don't have time for you as my patient? And so taking that approach of trying to make an AI video of yourself because it's fun, it's an interesting technology and it's possible, and maybe it saves you a few minutes here and there. That not every place in the technology stack should use AI. There's much better purposes that you can make your save time, save resources, but you're the voice of authority, you know, the face of authority, and patients want that authenticity. And when you eliminate your authenticity, there's not much trust left.

SPEAKER_02

You're talking about using AI video in marketing. Is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_00

And even in social media, like anytime that you just put yourself out there, it's like if you created a webinar that was you 100% AI, or a you know, TikTok video that was AI, or a YouTube, whatever it may be, it's like if there's any digital content that's put out there that is perceived as inauthentic, that has a negative repercussion on your patients.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I agree with that. I I don't I think that not everybody agrees with that. I do think that there are people out there that think that as long as you're the one that's feeding the AI video with your knowledge and whatever you're you're like utilizing it as a tool. But I do agree with that as well. I want the last industry I want to adopt AI fully is the medical industry. Like, you know, you really want to be able to trust your provider. So I think that's really important. How do you use AI in your day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_00

I use many all at once. Um, I do a lot of research, I do a lot of analysis, and I integrate into the marketing flow. I create documentation and I strategize and I created multiple different AI partners as the strategic growth partners where they are operating as the same wavelength as myself. So there are times where I've always, you know, wanted to have a peer mentor, and now I have a collaborative mentor because I can put in all my background and they can meet me at that level. And that really allows for some really unique perspectives, really unique paths. Um, because my view is on anything that you do, whatever the output is that you're asking for, if you're searching, or if you're creating, or if you're innovating, whatever it may be, that it should never be a hundred percent AI. Because a lot of times it's inauthentic, it doesn't have enough context, it doesn't have the right value, and that's that human touch that makes a big difference. But when you approach it as how can I take a good idea to a great idea and collaborate on that brainstorming, collaborate on what do you think about this and funnel in context, funnel in your experience, your background, you can really get incredible value out of it that you could have accomplished yourself in weeks or months, but at a much faster pace.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Speed is definitely the goal of using AI. Well, I used AI for something. I asked AI to come up with a few questions about me to ask you. So we're getting close to the end here. So I want to ask you some of these AI generated. I'm making sure y'all know is AI generated, so you can't be mad at me. All right, here we go. Who makes faster decisions? You or me?

SPEAKER_01

Definitely you.

SPEAKER_02

Who's more risk tolerant?

SPEAKER_01

Risk tolerant. I would say still view.

SPEAKER_02

Who's the visionary and who's the integrator between us?

SPEAKER_00

Ooh, that depends on the topic. We are both excellent at age, and it depends on which product line we're working on, which business we're working on, is this private household versus our current business model? Um, so we both have strengths and weaknesses in both, and one of us will always take the lead.

SPEAKER_02

What's the one thing that I do in business that drives you crazy?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's an unsafe answer. I promise not to get mad. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I would say you are an above and beyond helper, which is a great thing, but you say yes to a lot of things and help people so much more than they even realize that you're providing incredible value that you went to a finish line and ran sometimes another mile or another five miles for them just because you like them, which I think is it speaks to your character, but it also can slow down business too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I gotcha. All right, last one. What's the one thing that I do that makes AMP stronger?

SPEAKER_00

Your energy and your iron belief in where we're going and what we're accomplishing. As leader, you have the ability to rally the team, you have the ability to be magnetic with uh the providers we work with who love and adore you, and it's Heart and soul of the of the company, and that you you bring that, and you that's why you are the face of the podcast.

SPEAKER_02

So I wasn't expecting this to be an ego boost, but thank you. Those are sweet things. And thanks to Jenny, my chat GPT, for asking those questions. I really enjoyed talking to you today. This has been a lot of fun. I know you know this because you're the one person who listens to every one of my shows, which I appreciate. But you know that I end every episode with something I stole from my mentor, Steve Bartlett. I mentioned Diary of a CEO in every single podcast, hoping that one day AI picks it up and tells him that I do this so that he'll call me. But what?

SPEAKER_01

One day.

SPEAKER_02

One day, one day. So um, so you know, the last guest uh has asked a question for you, but she doesn't know who you are. So my question for you is, or her question for you is what is your biggest tip for rapid growth without succumbing to being overwhelmed?

SPEAKER_01

Pause for a slight second.

SPEAKER_00

So probably the tip that's helped me the most, particularly when I become overwhelmed, and you know, over the years and working with so many different projects and so many different people, is prioritizing focus. And it doesn't seem like a big tip, but when you set aside a fixed amount of time, say I am only going to work on this one item, this one task, distraction free. Uh I read this in a great book years ago that it's your harvest time. You can get so much more done in a four-hour window of hyper focus on one thing if you're not constantly switching gears. You're not looking at your email, you're not working on three clients at once, you're not taking phone calls, you're not taking text messages. Like you create a focused window. And oftentimes you can almost get a week's worth of work done in that heavily focused. And a lot of times it's so easy to get stuck in looking at the world of all the tasks that are in front of you all at once and trying to do them all at once, and recognizing when you focus, you can start slowly picking off the big ones and making a big impact for the next challenge.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's so true. I am the complete opposite of what you just described. And but yet I've always noticed that the day before I am to go on vacation and be out of the office for a week, I get more done on that Friday than ever because the focus is really about productivity because you know you're going to be gone. So although those of us that are like, you know, do work on 14 things at once and think they can multitask, your methodology still holds true because it's been proven. Yeah. Well, you're really good at that. You're really good at focusing.

SPEAKER_01

I try.

SPEAKER_02

All right. So I don't do this with anybody else. But since you are my husband and my business partner, I've asked you a lot of personal questions. Is there anything you would like to ask me?

SPEAKER_00

Oh okay. Well, since we're in the realm of podcasts, yeah. Who in this field is your dream, not co-host, guest? Who would you love if you could ever get on here and why?

SPEAKER_02

That is a great question. I you know, I could I there's a lot, but I will tell you the first name that came into my head because usually the first instinct is the right one, and that is Dr. Rousier. So for those of you who don't know, Dr. Neil Rousier is uh a pioneer in the hormone industry. He's been around for decades. He is the uh teacher at WorldLink Medical, an organization that we talk about a lot on this podcast, that I have been through his courses, even though it's way over my head. But the reason why I want to interview him is because he has managed to almost create a cult following with his work. He it when a practitioner sits in his course and they listen to what he says, it's as if they drank the Kool-Aid, but in a really positive way. I'm not saying that negatively at all. He has a way of explaining hormone optimization, longevity, the body in just so specific and so direct that he is, he's single-handedly transformed this community. And he has no social media account, no website, he has no digital presence, but he is the reason that so many people are hormone practitioners, and I admire him so much. So, Dr. Rousier, if you're listening, please call me. No, yeah, he he's an incredible human being. I'd love to have him on.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I had the joy of um seeing him speak on stage at one of the conferences we're at. And I loved the medicine whenever we're you know seeing all that, and it was delivered in such a way that I felt like I I could do it. Obviously, I I I can, but it was clear, it was concise, it was actionable, and it wasn't just the what's so, it was the reasoning behind it, the the why, the practical application. And you can also see from the crowd that it was all being delivered to help them be better. Yeah. So being of service to his entire community right from the start. Not about look at me and like what can you buy from me in this whole book. It was like, I want you all to thrive in the hormonal space. And I think that was just brilliant.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I don't know if a lot of people know this about him, but uh he has been an expert witness or supported a lawsuit, but with tons and tons of providers. Because there are, you know, obviously this is a non-traditional form of medicine, and there have been providers who've been sued for really poor reasons, not the hormones, but so whatever somebody decided that that it was the hormones and they went out for a lawsuit. And he will show up and be an expert witness, uh, go on the team and help. And I don't know whether he gets paid for that. I my guess is he probably doesn't because his heart is there. He doesn't want you know this medicine to stop. So he definitely has he does all this without ego. So that's yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah. All right, thank you so much for we had the schedule back in July. And I don't know when you're listening, folks, but it is now February. So it took me six months or more to get that get this man on my podcast. So thank you so much for for being a guest today. Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge and uh and me and waiting and being patient. You're welcome. All right, bye.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_02

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.