Adam's '3 Things I Learned in 2024': Delegation, Sales, and Leadership Development

[00:00:00] Sales is really the art of language, right? You're using language to help people make decisions. And so if you're not equipped with the right language that you need, that you're never going to be able to influence behavior. Welcome to the Private Practice Owners Club. Your hosts and coaches, Nathan Shields scaled his practice and exited for millions, while Adam Robin went from working 60 hours a week in one clinic to scaling to

[00:00:28] multiple clinics while working less than four hours per week remotely. This podcast is meant to share with you exactly how they did it and how you can build a business that supports the lifestyle that you truly desire. And don't forget to join the Private Practice Owners Club community on Facebook, where we are obsessed with providing even more resources that help owners just like you win the

[00:00:50] game of private practice. Hello, and welcome to the Private Practice Owners Club podcast. Nathan Shields here with my buddy and partner, Adam Robin. How are you doing, man? Adam Robin Ready to go, man. Adam Yeah. Excited? Adam Yeah. Hey, January is coming on. It's gone. Adam It's gone. I think, is this the first episode that we put out in 2025? This is at least the first time we've done a recording in 2025. Adam Yeah, you and I.

[00:01:18] Adam Yeah, we put out a few others, but this is the first time you and I have gotten together. And it's appropriate based on the topic that we're going to look back on what you learned. Nathan Shields So you're still owning physical therapy practices. I sold mine a few years ago, not learning as I go because I'm not a PT owner at this time, but you're still in it. You're in the thick of it. And today we want to highlight the

[00:01:41] three things that you learned from 2024. Even though you've grown a lot, you opened your third clinic in Adam Yeah. Adam That was like February or March, 2024. So huge growth gains in 2024, getting that ramped up. You've had leadership on board. You're in a developing clinic, but you're not in no sense in the new stages, right? Adam No, no. The clinic's doing great.

[00:02:09] Adam That just means that you've got things to learn at a different level. Always learning, right? Adam Always learning. Always learning. Adam Yep. I'll say it three times. Adam The challenges are just totally different. I mean, whether it's trying to get out of patient care so you can get this singular clinic up and going and hire on your first one or two providers that presents its own level of challenges. But you might think that things get a little bit easier as you get to two, three clinics or more,

[00:02:37] but it's just different challenges, even though you're out of patient care, right? Adam Yeah. So I like that you said that because I talked to a lot of owners and they're all working hard, right? And they feel one of the lies I think that we tell ourself is that like, oh, if I step out of treatment, I'm going to, that means I'm not working hard anymore. I don't know how else to move the needle. And sometimes I have to remind them that it's known we're still going to work hard. Like we're still going to work. It's just, we're going to channel that same intensity into

[00:03:06] a different direction so that you can climb a new mountain, right? You're already kind of on the top of the mountain you're currently at. Congratulations. There's a whole nother peak that we have to keep going on. Right? So yeah, it's a lot of challenge. It's a lot of, it's a journey, man. Just when you think you've put in enough work, you realize, wow, there's so much more work to do. And you're like, it's kind of like a bummer, but also exciting. So it's like, it just never stops. You just keep growing and evolving. And the more you learn, the more you get to

[00:03:33] pass down to others too. So that's, that's always fun. Super fulfilling at that point. Yeah. Cause I even remember, and we're not getting into the topics of what you learned in this last year, but I remember, remember distinctly, and you had to go through the experience, unfortunately, opening up that third clinic and you were cash flowing that clinic and you're like, man, this is, I don't want to ever do this again. That's an experience that you had to go through in order to learn, right? Yeah. Three times again, do it a different way next time.

[00:04:03] Yeah, for sure. I mean, it costs money to grow. It costs a lot of money to grow. I'm being called to that book, scaling up by Bernhardt. She talks a lot about like that component of making sure you've got this scalable financial system in place when, as you're growing. And I was like, Oh yeah, probably should have double checked on that deal before I opened the third clinic. I hearken back to that book all the time. And I think it's within the first few chapters. I don't think I completed the entire book because it's got a little heft to it. He used portions

[00:04:32] of it to significantly improve the culture in our clinics. But the first part I remember distinctly talking about those growth stages for small businesses in general, zero to 1 million is a growth stage. Then you grow again from 1 million to 4 million. There's a note in gross revenues I'm talking about is another growth stage. And I think it's 4 million to 10 million is another growth stage. And in between those benchmarks, one, four and $10 million in revenues,

[00:05:00] you're not necessarily making significantly greater profit margins, but you're working harder and fusing with cash to get to the next level. And it's cool to see that just play out. As I've talked to other owners, younger owners, more established owners, owners that have 20 clinics and 40 clinics, those numbers kind of stay true, man. It's really interesting to see. So not that that's a part of our conversation today, but it's good information.

[00:05:27] Great information. Keep your finances in check. Probably a good idea. Make sure your finances are scalable. Yeah, for sure. Keep that line of credit open. Make sure you have a good relationship with your banker so you can pull out the business loan when you need it. Understand the SBA process. If you're going to go down that route, just know how to get to money, know how to use capital. Okay. So talk to us about 2024. Where do you want to start? What did you and your team learn in the past year?

[00:05:52] Yeah. So I've been thinking about this through the lens of not just in my clinics, but what I'm observing in other practices as well. Oh, so not just what you experienced, but also because you're coaching a number of clients. Correct. But it's like the same pattern. It's very similar patterns. Totally. Very similar patterns. They're just kind of masked a little differently. And so I don't know how I'm going to come. I'm going to just kind of kind of talk through this,

[00:06:16] but the biggest challenge, even, I mean, how many episodes have we done? How many episodes you got posted? I've posted over 250, almost 300. Okay. Enough. Right. So there is never a shortage of conversations that we have around this idea of stepping out of patient care. And what we're really talking about there is the art of delegating,

[00:06:40] the art of prioritizing your time over revenue generating, direct revenue generating activity, which is a hard thing to do. And the first hard thing to get rid of it just happens to be patient care. But that same monster shows up again and again and again and again. It just turns into something a little different. So probably the most transformative book I've read in a long time

[00:07:04] was Dan Martel's book, Buy Back Your Time. I read that early in 2024 and it just solidified this idea of you will grow your business. You will have everything you want if you prioritize your time, everything you want. And what I have kind of recognized is most people want very similar things. They want to make money. They want to make some money, right? They want to create

[00:07:31] transformative impact in the lives of others via their patients, their team, their community, their family. And they want to be really present with the people that they love the most. They want to travel. They want to learn new skills and go to the kids' soccer games and be a part of their life at a high level. All of that is found through your ability to manage your time well, right? It's through your ability to recognize when it's time for you to let go of things.

[00:07:57] And whenever there are these things that you get good at, like treating patients, right? That seem like a no-brainer. Like I'm obviously the best person in my company to do this, so I should just continue to do this forever. And we get stuck in that habit and then six months goes by and 12 months goes by and we don't realize like, wow, we're still living the same life as we were last year and my risks have just grown, right? Everything's gotten more expensive and I'm still doing the same thing. So I'm kind of like not doing a good deal, right? This is not a good deal. So stepping out

[00:08:27] of patient care and recognizing that there are greater opportunities for you when you spend time on new things that you can evolve and grow into is the biggest lesson that I had to relearn again this year and the one that I hope that practice owners would learn too. Well, same challenges exist again. Like you said, there's just a different mask on it. One challenge is to get out of patient care, but maybe you are the best, I don't know, at paying the bills.

[00:08:54] I don't know, something stupid like that. And you want to control that when it's probably not worth your time to be doing that. I know one of my friends, he like that takes energy from him, like managing all the accounts and when to pay the bills. And he said, I don't want to do it anymore. So he found a bookkeeper, find a bookkeeper, get all that crap together. And then they tell you, hey, this is due, here's the link, go pay it. And so he takes all that brain work off of his plate.

[00:09:22] But that's just another part of delegating, buying back your time, like Dan Martell calls it. It goes back to those who prioritize money over time will have less of both, but those who prioritize time over money will have an abundance of each. And so as you focus on time saving and making your time essentially sacred and appropriately working on those things that are most important in your company,

[00:09:50] that's when you start seeing changes in the organization. You start recognizing that I need to delegate this so I can focus over here where my company needs me. Right. So I can fill my calendar with these things that I can grow into, right? Whatever. And whatever that skill is, I mean, maybe it's, I got to get tightened up on my finances, right? Maybe I got to spend more time in the financial department, right? Or I got to learn how to market or I got to learn how to lead or I got to learn how to whatever it is, right? Or I've got to work or I've got to work out.

[00:10:20] Yeah. I got to take care of myself. That was funny thing about one of our clients, Christy, when she first came on with me, she's like, I've had a new baby. I've been able to work out for months. I'm just in it every day. And within six months, it was less than six months, we'd found a way that she could start working out again. And she had so much more energy and she was more optimistic about what things that she can get done. And she had a different perspective as she came at work. It just provided a whole

[00:10:46] different light to her life because she had the time to work out. Yeah. I would argue that this is the most important skillset that you can learn as a CEO is to recognize, to be more aware of where you're spending your time and attention. And it pops up again, whenever you're starting to build more leaders in your, on your team, because if you're at a place where you've got two, three, four, five clinics, whatever it is,

[00:11:12] congratulations. Well, you've gone through this transition of learning how to prioritize your time and battling that demon of learning how to let go and delegate effectively. Well, now your leaders are going through that same journey, right? And so like, where is their time being spent? Are they prioritizing their time so that they can grow into new things for your company? And so like, there's layers to it. So if you can't master that thing, you're never going to be

[00:11:38] able to treat, help others master it. Right. I think that's inevitable that your leaders are going to come up against that. I think that's a natural thing. And I know we experienced it and I'm sure you've experienced it where one of your directors, maybe as a clinic director, maybe it was a director of operations or marketing doesn't matter, but one of your leaders or future leaders comes up and was like, I'm overwhelmed doing this, that, that, that, that, that. And we would kind of do an audit. Will was really good at sitting down and doing an audit with these leaders and be

[00:12:08] like, so what are you working on? Well, I'm doing this, that, and the other thing. And he's like, you know, that one thing that you're working on right there, that's taking up five hours a week. I don't care if that doesn't get done until the end of the year. They're like, Oh, I thought you wanted that done like next week. And he's like, no, I'd much rather you focus over here and having those conversations. Right. And helping or saying, I don't want you working on that thing at all. Who underneath you, which one of your reports can do one of this for you? Yeah. I don't, I'm not so sure that that aligns with your goals this year,

[00:12:37] or with our goals this year. Right. Like, yeah. Do you remember our priorities? Right. Like maybe there's a, maybe there's somebody else on the team that can grow into that so that you could step into the, into the big thing. Right. Exactly. So, and I'm assuming you had some of those conversations as well. I never am not doing that every day, every day. Right. Like we're always looking at like, okay, okay. Let's remind ourselves, what's the priority again? Okay. I've got eight hours today. How much of this energy needs to be

[00:13:04] placed towards X, Y, Z, like be more objective about where you're spending your time, you know, and it'll transform your life. Right. So it's not like I used to make the mistake in thinking that, Oh, whenever I feel good, I'll do the thing. Whenever I feel good, then I'll step out of treatment or whenever I feel safe and secure on my finances, then I'll step out of treatment. It's literally the complete opposite. It's whenever you do the thing, then you will get,

[00:13:30] you feel good. Right. So it's like, it's literally the exact thing. And so you have to be the designer of your schedule, not the victim of your schedule. And so it's coming back to patient care. You guys are treating way too many patients. You're spending your time doing, I almost cussed, but like things that just don't deserve your time and attention any longer. Like we need to find ways to get those things off your plate. And quite frankly, I'm tired of the excuse of like, yeah, but patients just want to see me. And like, I'm the only one that can do it. Or like all those

[00:13:58] limiting beliefs, like we've got to move past this. Like you guys have been listening to Nathan. You've watched me go through his program and literally transform and expand following these principles. Just trust the process. You know what I mean? Just do the thing and like your life will change. I remember having a candid conversation with one of the owners. She has a flourishing couple of clinics and she's still treating probably 25 hours a week. And was telling me how these patients have

[00:14:26] to see her. Right. And I'm like, so why is it that they have to see you? Why can't you really? She's like, Nathan, I can run circles around my, my providers. I've got skills that are better than theirs. I can, they're doing maybe 80% of what I can do. And I just get better results. I said, how do you think your team would feel if you told them that? Hmm. I mean, if you told them the God's honest truth about how you feel about your providers,

[00:14:55] like you just told me, how would that go over? Right. And whose fault is it that they're not as good as you? That's the real question. Right. That's the real question. Are you taking ownership of that? So you're saying I'm better than you, but if you do nothing about it, then they will never be as good as you, frankly. Literally that is the, it's like, what problem do you want to solve? And

[00:15:21] here's the perfect example, right? Here's a perfect example. Like this person has a full schedule of low of activity that it's no longer challenging her or him to grow and expand into a different version of herself, which is the only thing that helps your business grow. Right. So like there's this other really great opportunity that she can grow in. And it's, and it's called like empowering my team, and help in training them and elevating them to a higher level so that they can do things similar

[00:15:49] to me, which is a new skillset, which will require time and attention and focus and structure and clarity and vision. True leadership. Right. And so you can't get there unless you let go of the thing first so that you can step into it. And if you focus on that, if you just decide, like, I'm going to make this problem, my priority instead of my team, like my, my, the stress I'm dealing with and the lack of sleep on there, like that's one problem. Or you can make the problem. Like I'm going to focus on building

[00:16:16] my team, make that the priority. Then you can grow into that. Right. It's a perfect example. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I feel like I've beaten it enough over the years, but I think I need to just say it more often. I don't think we'll ever stop. Right. Patient care is just one thing. Yeah. Right. But it comes back to, like I said, like there's levels, like helping your team realize when it's time to start stepping out of treatment or delegate, delegating marketing, delegating, recruiting, delegating policy and procedure management, onboarding, hiring, like all of

[00:16:45] those things are hard to let go of. And it's, if you're, you need to be the first person to recognize when it's time to let go. If you're the last person, then that's the problem. That's why your company's not growing. Do you think part of it? And I, I worry that we're beating this subject a little bit too much, but it goes, maybe there's an overarching issue. And I wonder if that is people don't know how to offload that responsibility or that delegation or that coaching. So instead of

[00:17:11] facing the problem and saying, okay, I know that's the path I need to go down. I know I need to train them, teach them, show them the vision, uh, maybe role play and hold them accountable to KPIs, but I've never, no one's ever done it with me appropriately. So I'm not sure exactly how to do it to them because I'm not sure. I'm just a little bit naive to that. Maybe it's just easier to keep the status goal going. Right. Do you find that you, as you're working with clients that you have to kind of coach

[00:17:39] them into how they work out of one role into another? Yeah. So yes. And there's a few things, right? So like, it's going to be hard to step out of something unless you can create a bigger vision for yourself, right? If you can't see where you're going about what you're going to go into, or you don't even have to be totally clear. You just have to be, you have to have an idea of what might be possible if you had some time. And that's where the coach is, is helpful. Somebody

[00:18:06] who's already been there, who could be like, who can describe what it's like over there. Who's like, yeah, actually the room looks like this. And this is kind of like this. Like, can you see it? And if you can help paint that vision for that owner and they can start to see it and buy into that possibility for themselves, that can be the thing to give them clarity and encouragement to step into it. Especially if you can give them a framework and tools, right? And then it's like, okay, now we're here. Let's, let's pour into your team. Let me share, tell you how that works.

[00:18:32] Yeah. And sometimes it's as simple as just saying, well, what kind of exercises would you need if you were, would you need, if you, if you wanted to coach your providers to be better providers, so you could offload these patients off of your schedule and do more things. Well, imagine you were one of those providers, what would you need? What kind of instruction? And just giving them that space now to be a little bit more creative. And I think nine times out of 10, if they just thought about it, about what they would personally want, if they were being coached to take on patients and do better,

[00:19:01] like you'd be able to come up with that structure. I think wouldn't need a lot of coaching, like step one, do this, that to do that. You could come up with it yourself. If you just allowed yourself to sit in that space and say, what would I need? Or what would I imagine that being? How could I get to that best possible scenario? What would need to be in place? And then I think it would come and kind of come together. Yeah. I would take some cognitive centers of your brain that you haven't used in a

[00:19:27] while, right? You have to kind of tap into some creativity and be okay with the first iteration, not being perfect. Yeah, of course. Mess it up a little bit. Yeah. Let's just, let's try something. Let's try a few things, see how it goes and we'll work on it as we go. So we talked a lot about that. What was the second thing that you learned this last year? So the second thing is, is this idea of not having a sales framework or a sales process deployed in type inside the company.

[00:19:57] And what do you mean by sales? So the framework that is used to, I'm going to try to talk as clearly as I can around this, but like there will be a framework of having enrollment conversations in various parts of your company. Whether you're having an initial phone call, you're enrolling that person to schedule an appointment and to show up. Whether you are hiring somebody, you are enrolling that person to join your team. You're encouraging them. You're influencing them to join the team.

[00:20:23] Whether you're talking to a referral partner, you're enrolling them in the idea of doing business with you, right? Or you're enrolling a patient to refer their friend and family member, right? So there's a lack of sales. There's a lack of language that you're using to create these enrollment conversations to position your company in a place where you can serve more people. Yeah. An evil word in the physical therapy world, sales. We don't want to be too salesman-y. I don't

[00:20:49] want to be like the car salesman trying to sell something. Well, it's all about your level of reference and perspective. Like you're selling a plant care after you do the initial evaluation. Now let's get really good at it to make sure that those people actually show up for the entire plan of care and don't drop out, right? So if you guys are in the Facebook group, you might've saw a post that I posted not too long ago, depending on when you're listening to it. Like what's the difference between marketing and sales? And I don't even know what the correct

[00:21:15] answer is or even if there is, but what you'll see is that most owners are quick to raise their hand and say like, Hey, I need more new patients. I need to learn more marketing. More marketing is going to solve all my problems. If I do, if you just get more patients through my door, that'll solve all the problems. That'll solve all my problems. And I'm like, it couldn't be more false in my opinion. It couldn't be more false. I know there's people

[00:21:42] who are not going to like that. And we're just going to have to agree to disagree. But like there are people know what physical therapy is for the most part. Most people know what physical therapy is. Physicians know what physical therapy does. They don't know all of the sophisticated high level things that we do or what we're fully capable of, but they know the word physical therapy. The awareness is there. You've got 1500 to 2000 people in your cell phone right now who, if you call them and ask them what physical therapy is, they would have some understanding

[00:22:10] of what that might be. And that's what marketing is. Marketing is really about this idea of building awareness around who you are and what you do. You don't have a marketing problem. You have a sales problem, which is how do I influence them and help them see that my, what I do is a solution to their problem. Like how do I help them choose me? Yeah. It's a valuable product worthy of exchange. Exactly. How do I convince them that in an ethical way, in a way that serves them, that

[00:22:39] their time, money, and energy is worth spending with me because I can help them with their problem. That is a sales conversation. So you could literally pick up the phone and start dialing and start enrolling people into your clinic. And you could probably, if you're good at sales, you can probably pick up 10 or 15 new patients today if you were good at it. Right? So you don't have a marketing problem. You have a lack of understanding of how to promote and position your business as a solution to problems. And that is the key because we want to hide behind a Facebook post and we want to hide behind a Facebook

[00:23:09] ad and call ourselves like, Oh, well we're not promoting. That's just my Facebook post, but we lack the skills or the desire to like get out and be bold and like promote our business to people, which I think was the real problem. So if you have more sales in your business, you'll never have a new patient problem. Your patients will be retained. You'll be able to enroll people into your organization and you won't have a problem growing your company. Hey, practice owner, no one else can build your

[00:23:38] dream practice. It's all on you. One of my favorite quotes is you can't outsource being a CEO, but you can create space to get clear on your vision and focus on your mindset, your skillset, and your ability to execute. Our coaching programs help you build not just a profitable business, but a life that you love and one that aligns with what matters most. So if your business feels heavy, it's time to

[00:24:05] shift. Check out the show notes and click the link titled coaching to learn how we help owners just like you. Let's get committed to what you really want. I think you can look at almost every step of the patient life cycle and consider a portion of that could be sales related, right? So if that person's making the first call into your clinic, well, go back from the prescription pads that you might share

[00:24:34] with the doctors or the website is specifically making sure it's geared towards sales and not just what you do, but why you're worthy of them coming in. But specifically that first call, man, your person at the front desk, they need to be able to convert. They got to be able to convert. Hey, that phone call that's just like, Hey, do you take my insurance? It better not be a yes or no. And here are the hours. Oh, I need more leads. What's that? I need more leads. I need more marketing.

[00:25:03] Yeah. That's where the salesperson of that front desk kicks in, right? They need to be able to say, well, tell me more about what you're dealing with. Like, how can we help you? Right. And this is, I've got a provider here that has specific treatments and has great, gets great results with X, Y, Z problem. Like how long you've been dealing with it. Aren't you sick of having to deal with it on your own and trying different things and not getting better? I mean, they should be kicking

[00:25:30] in the sales gears on those phone calls, right? The providers need to be kicking in the sales gears when it comes to selling the plan of care. Listen, this isn't how often you need to come in in order to get results. Oh, I can't afford it. Okay. Well, I don't know how you go into it from there. Come back when you can. Or do you just say, well, what is it worth to you to get? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Understand. Tell me more about your financial situation. What types of

[00:25:57] outcomes are you, are you looking to invest in right now? Let's start talking about the outcome. Cause I'm telling you, you need to come in three times a week for four weeks, coming in one time a week for four weeks, isn't going to get you there. And you're probably going to continue to have problems. And unfortunately you might even say physical therapy didn't help me when I'm telling you, you need to come in at this prescription level. And so sales can be seen there. Sales can be seen in the collections process. Like, Hey, we want to do what's right

[00:26:25] for you guys. Let us know how we can help you out. Are there payment plans we can figure out? All that kind of stuff. But there's a, there's a sales part to all of the processes along the patient life cycle. Yeah, totally. I can tell you for me personally, like things transformed for me, literally transformed for me. Once I started really deciding that I wanted to be better at sales and I started put installing that type of thing in my company, right? Like training my providers on

[00:26:51] what sales is, what it means. We're not like the sales company with all those answers, but we're better than most. You know what I mean? Like we're better. Tell us what you're doing in 2024 to make your providers, your team of better sales people. So it really, it's the same thing that we've done in 2023, which is installing that into the onboarding framework. Right? So like there is so much that we can

[00:27:15] go into that, but their sales is really the art of language, right? You're using language to help people make decisions. And so if you're not equipped with the right language that you need, that you're never going to be able to influence behavior. And so that language is found in the initial phone call and the initial evaluation and the check-in process and the discharge and the past patient phone call and the interview process. It's all an exchange of language. So there is

[00:27:43] scripting and language frameworks that your team needs to be equipped with and trained on so that they can find the words and find the inspiration to create movement in the company. So they have to be, number one, they have to understand what the patient life cycle is and where they, just like the org board, right? They understand where the org board is and they understand, I know exactly where I fit in this org board. I know my role. I know my product. They must understand the life cycle of the

[00:28:09] patient, where I fit, how I deploy effective strategies inside of it, how I create value inside of it, the language that I use to help people make decisions. They have to understand the patient life cycle and then they have to be equipped with the language to add value. And then you have to role-play that stuff, right? That's what I was going to say. So you obviously came up with scripts or at least a template of what those conversations need to look like in order to sell end product and you've been training them on it. Is that about right?

[00:28:39] Totally. So all new providers, we train, I can't remember if it's before the 90 day mark on their, when we hire people or right after, but we train them on our sales framework, the language that we use, we call it the Southern way, a profitable provider program. That's what it's called. And it's our sales cycle and everybody's equipped with it. They have the language, they have the scripts, then we start role-playing with them. And during those role-playing processes or training sessions, they are, we're going to start asking them to use the tools. Like, how are you going

[00:29:09] to help your patients see clearly the decisions that they're making? Right? It's an important piece. And then we retrain everybody every year. So every year, Q1, we go through this entire process. Is that like a team meetings or something? Yeah, we'll block off. I can't remember how many steps it's maybe it's like six or eight steps to the sales framework. So we block off six weeks and then we actually have one person on our team who's in charge of this whole program, who deploys that into the company.

[00:29:37] Yeah. Like one hour during lunch, one day a week kind of thing. Right. So like, if you've got, if you're the owner and you have, you're this owner that is running circles around their team, you have, without necessarily recognizing it yet, you have lots of skill sets and strategies and influencing behavior that you are using to create great outcomes for

[00:30:03] your patients. So now it's time for you to bottle that up and package it and give that to your team so that they can elevate their skill set. Right? So what we want to do is go from one person doing all the work to 30 people doing a little bit of the work. Right? So now you have 30 people all pointing in the right direction who understand the assignment. You can try it out, market me if you want, but you're going to lose every time you're going to lose, you know, like it's just hard to beat

[00:30:28] when you have everybody that clear. And you share some of that framework, those scripts with our clients, right? The coaching clients and the CEO accelerator. Absolutely. All clients that are in our CEO accelerator, they get our clinical sales mastery protocol and it's all outlined. It comes, it's the exact process that I use in my clinic, the video trainings, the scripts, how to install it. And we give you access to that so you can share that with your teams too. You know, I'll tell you the power of this one in particular, like a case that if you will,

[00:30:56] before we move on to number three, that what you learned, but I had a podcast, it was a few years ago and they set aside a half hour every week to role play asking patients for referrals. I mean, you might think that's excessive, like, okay, 30 minutes every week, everybody on the team sets aside, this is like, take your lunch for an hour. Then we have another, another half hour. We're working on

[00:31:21] this, getting a referral. And he essentially has what I think he realized 10% of his new patients are physician referrals, some crazy number. And I'm not exaggerating. He's like, I think our patient, our physician referral number that we relied on for new patients was like in the 10 to 15% range. So guess what? When COVID came around, hardly bothered him at all. All those physicians offices that were closed or scaled back or anything. They kept coming. Oh yeah.

[00:31:50] You got 30 salesmen on your team. It's like, how are you going to beat them? Right. And he's like, we just crush. I mean, our, my team knows how to get a referral and sell our product. Totally. It's such a powerful thing. And I do want to hit on one more thing before we move on. Cause I know that you're not a fan of sales, right? I know it's not your natural thing that you enjoy doing. It's a weak spot. Right. And so we all have weak spots, right? So, but we all are familiar with that uncomfortable

[00:32:16] feeling whenever you have to kind of overcome an objection or challenge a patient or somebody on the way that they're right. There's that uncomfortableness of like nowhere to go from here. Right. I don't know where to go from here. I just, can you just listen to what I say? Like, I don't know. I'm not equipped with the language that I need. Can you just say yes. Yes. Can you just say yes and say both of us right now. Right. And that can come like if somebody's trying to cancel their appointment or if they don't

[00:32:41] want to show up for their, whatever. Right. When you decide that you no longer want to deal with that uncomfortable emotion anymore, you will learn sales. You will learn the scripts and you will never experiencing that experience that again. And you will just be super empowered and excited about it. And it won't be this foreign weird thing. And like, you'll win way more often. You know what I mean? So I need to go through your training process. Come on, let's do it. All right. What's number three?

[00:33:08] Number three. So here is what I have learned last year that there are really owners, including myself. We're all looking for this outsourced solution to solve all of our problems. Marketing is a prime example. We think that if I just hire an agency to do some Facebook ads, I just outsource that situation. I never have to deal with sales instead of deciding to learn sales and do the

[00:33:37] thing. Right. So we're always inadvertently seeking an outsourced solution. We're trying to throw money at our problems. Right. But things will not move into your business until you elevate. You as the owner will elevate your mindset, your skill set and your ability to execute. When you elevate your mindset, skill set and execution, your company will grow. That's it. Nobody's coming to save you for that. Okay. Owners usually get better at the mindset. They can read the books. They can learn the

[00:34:03] language. Mindset will improve. Skill set will improve. But where I see owners getting stuck is this ability of execution, especially executing through their team. Right. So like as an example, you just hit on it. Again, I'm going to use this owner who had all the mindset and skill set, but didn't know how to drive execution through her team or his team. So it's this idea of, I know how to do all the hard stuff, but I don't have anybody on my team who knows how to do all that hard stuff. And I don't know how to equip them with the tools

[00:34:32] and resources and strategies that they need to do some of the hard stuff. So a lack of leadership, you can develop yourself as a leader, but you're having a hard time developing other leaders. So that is the big bottleneck that I'm seeing practice owners and business owners in general bump into over and over and over. And they're not, they're not having, they're having a hard time getting through that hump. That seems to be one of the more popular topics on the podcast that I've done. And when I've gone to PPS, some of the more popular

[00:34:59] presentations or breakout sessions are those around the leadership development, because I think as owners, we have a certain level of leadership, whether that's simply because we stepped out into that role without significant training, simply by opening the practice, right? Or we have some experience with leadership in the past, whether it's in youth groups or through college or high

[00:35:25] school, you know, maybe we're president of so-and-so club, or maybe we're in student council. So we have some level of leadership and then we might have some natural qualities about us, but no one is a naturally born leader that hasn't gone through the rough stuff to become a really good leader, right? So what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to then turn around and develop other leaders, because that's not something that you've been trained to do. That's what I like to tell people is like,

[00:35:53] well, what got you to where you are? What influenced some of your decisions? What's been an, what are influential people, podcasts, books, you name it. And how can you, and maybe if you just expose your team to some of those same things, they'll start taking on some of the same leadership characteristics that you have and start leading your company the same way you do, which is ultimately what you want. You want your influence to be spread through the company, to go back to where we

[00:36:21] started the podcast. No longer is your influence one-on-one with a patient, me affecting one life as a provider to a patient, but rather now I'm affecting thousands of lives through multiple providers, right? And that's where your influence and power in your leadership really grows. And so building out that kind of leadership development program can also come if you give that, if you just open up your mind a little bit and to say, well, what influenced me?

[00:36:51] What are some of the things that have been influential in my growth and development to this point? And if you don't have those things, then that's probably where you need a coach and, or you need to start reading some books and listening to podcasts. But if you do have some of those things, maybe you can just say, Hey, here's a library of books that you can read. Let's sit down every so often and tell me about a problem that came up and how you would solve it. And then I'll share with you how I would solve it. And maybe we can brainstorm on how to better solve it together

[00:37:19] and give them the space to think like a leader and give your feedback based on your experience. So I think there's a huge desire for owners to have some instruction on leadership development. And you can get part of the way there, but building that out is what's really going to drive your growth from a one to two clinic operation to three, four, five, 10 clinic operation. It's just

[00:37:45] really getting clear on this leadership development program. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm a mindset guy. I love working with owners who've kind of got the operations figured out, but they're, they're all in on the leadership. Like that's my, Oh, I love working with those people. It's my favorite thing to talk about, but the challenge that I've recognized, and I'm not saying this is as a blanket statement. It's just kind of been what I've seen is level one of leadership is leading yourself, transforming

[00:38:11] yourself into a leader. And that is like level one, but then level two is like, how do I build other leaders? And then level three is how do I help others build other leaders? Right? So there's levels of leadership. And I think most people, especially PTs and OTs and speech therapists, like they're really smart and capable human humans. And like, they, like you said, like they're doing hard things

[00:38:35] and they're elevating their leadership skills. But I think what stops most people is, is kind of what you hinted on is I think that they don't fully recognize that they have much to offer other people. Right? Like why would Nathan ever want to listen to me? I'm just a regular old speech therapist. Like why were they, and it's not until you help them recognize this like, yeah, but look how far you've come. You've read all these books and you've done all these hard things and that's inspiring.

[00:39:03] You have a lot to offer people, right? So there's this framework of like, you've got to recognize that you've got something of value that some people at least would find valuable. You got to believe in yourself. So that's the first thing that we have to help them recognize. The second thing is, this is an industry thing, but we are very hesitant to allow other people to be uncomfortable. We don't want people to be uncomfortable. And unfortunately there's no path to leadership

[00:39:30] without doing hard things and help and letting other people become uncomfortable. The problem is most owners have gone through traumatic experiences and really, really hard things, right? Like just like working 80 hours a week, like just like killing themselves for years. And they just don't want that for their team. But unfortunately there's no path to leadership without hard things. And so what we want to do is create a controlled environment where it's like,

[00:39:54] it's hard, but not too fricking hard. And once we give our team permission to struggle a little, but then also win, then you can start to see your team growing as leaders as well. Yeah. There's a huge opportunity there for us to really increase our effect and really get a lot fulfillment as you see other people grow into leadership. And you experienced it more recently than me. But once I really got clear that the leadership team that I had in place,

[00:40:24] can you cumulatively was significantly better than what I could do by myself? Totally. And the team, like the rest of the team that reported up to them was happier because they didn't rely on me, the singular person to answer all the questions. Right. But now they had a trained leadership team that they could go to. And I think that gives, frankly, I think that gives the team much more

[00:40:52] respect for those people who they know have worked up through the system to become leaders. And now they can say, here's a peer who is now a leader. Who's done a lot of cool things. Done a lot of cool things. Has been, has learned a lot from Nathan and Will. And now they're telling me something. Wait, I thought Nathan and Will were telling me that, but now you're telling me that too. Maybe there's something behind it.

[00:41:18] It's that idea that when it comes from a leader, from the owners, they might take it with a grain of salt. But when it comes from a peer who's saying the same thing, then they think, oh, you're serious. Yeah. There's a culture. There's a real culture here now. We've got a second and a third witness of what we need to do. Maybe there's some truth behind it. So a lot of power and a great opportunity there as you develop your leadership team. Yeah, for sure. It takes some intentionality to recognize like some of your limiting beliefs

[00:41:44] and to step into that place of boldness. But if you do, you can help transform people's lives. Definitely, man. Well, we've taken a lot of time today. We did. It was fun. Well, the good thing I think we need to really share here as we're talking about leadership development is we have developed a program, the Aligned Leader Program, in which owners can offer some leadership development training to their leaders.

[00:42:09] Like a lot of what we've done the past few years is coaching our owners one-on-one, right? We have the one-on-one visits. We have group calls. We have a dedicated Slack channel. You have the Vault, which is a resource that owners can use full of templates and tools, et cetera, videos. And that's where the sales program that you alluded to in your problem number too is that is fully accessible to those clients. But at this point now in 2025, we're offering the

[00:42:37] Aligned Leader Program so that it's not all on the owners to do all the leadership development. We have some of that structure in place. You've put a Vault together specifically for resource and tools that leaders can use either as potential leaders or current leaders to go through and learn some things like time management strategies, right? The sales process and how to hold somebody accountable. All these things are in that Vault for clinic leaders. And they will also be available

[00:43:07] to have group calls with you. And we can start developing some of those leadership or some of those leaders and potential leaders to support those owners that have those out there. Because we recognize that as these owners are going through, this is a tough stage to develop that leadership team. It can be tough. And to have some support is something that we are able to provide now to our clients.

[00:43:30] My vision is to help you transition your team from tadpoles to sharks. That's the analogy that I've been using, right? We want to help you. Listen, you're ambitious. You're hungry. You want to grow. You want to make an impact in your life and in other people's lives. We want to help you build a team who can match that ambition. Who's hungry with you. Who wants to get on board with you. Who wants to do some heavy lifting. Who wants to work hard. Who's open to sacrificing to grow in your company. We want to help you develop the culture of those types of people so that they can do some of the

[00:43:59] heavy lifting for you. Oh, so nice when you have that, when you have that team. Like I've met your leaders and they are equally invested. They're amazing. They're incredible. They inspire me. Right. And it's not hard to say they care about as much as you do about that. For sure. And Catherine might care about it more than he's doing awesome, man. It's cool when you have that kind of support underneath you. So anyways, thanks for your time today, dude. If people wanted to get

[00:44:29] in touch with you and ask about the aligned leader program, how do they do that? Shoot me an email, adam at ppoclub.com. Join the Facebook group. Find me Dr. Adam Robin. You can shoot me a DM. That's probably the best two ways. Yeah. Awesome. And then we'll catch you around on the flip side. Sounds good, brother. See you, man. Thanks for listening to the Private Practice Owners Club. If you enjoyed this episode, would you mind doing us a huge favor and leaving a review? This helps us get the podcast out to

[00:44:57] more clinic owners to help them create greater freedom and profits so they can own their future. And visit our website, ppoclub.com to find more resources and connect with us. Thank you. Thank you.