How Sales Creates Movement Inside Your Business With Jerry Durham

[00:00:00] They rescheduled twice, have a conversation with them. Why are they rescheduling their slots all the time? So I was like, I get caught up in the reschedule. I'm like, this isn't acceptable. And by the way, that's on you. So have a conversation. Hey, Adam, you committed to this plan of care. Hey, Adam, I want to make sure you're getting the best time. Hey, Adam, what's up? And we find out like your kid's on a different school schedule. And I'm like, cool, Adam. Cool. I want you to prioritize, right? And this is how I'm going to say it. I want you to prioritize your kid. With that said,

[00:00:27] let's find a better slot. So then once you know your kid's taken care of and you're not double booked to these places, when can you make this a priority? And then boom, the cancel slash reschedule calls stop. 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

[00:00:52] to scaling to 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

[00:01:14] win the game of private practice. Hello, and welcome to the Private Practice Owners Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Robin. And today we're going to talk about sales. And let me tell you why this is exciting to me, because today I get to meet and hang out with a guy that I looked up to, still look up to, but like was super inspirational for me as even as a PT student. And I'm sure you got, you've seen this guy

[00:01:43] around all over social media. His name's Jerry Durham. He's the founder of The Client Experience, former practice owner in the Philly area. And the guy is just like making up splash in the industry. And I just wanted to like bring him on and talk about sales. Jerry, what's up? I appreciate the invite. And of course it was funny. I clicked on it so fast. I forgot I scheduled and then scheduled two when I went back. Right. So that's how excited I was to be on here. Adam had me on

[00:02:09] here twice and that's why I wanted to make sure I was scheduled. So what's up, man? I think, I'll tell you what, this conversation, I'm going to say I've been having this conversation around sales for about, I'm going to say, I'm going to low ball it and say 15 years. And it's finally gaining traction. I mean, literally like the last year. Right. And you know, it's nice to talk to people who've been in it a little shorter, but doing work and it's like, yeah, sales. And I'm like, cool. All I want to know is everybody's talking about it and that's it. I don't want to own

[00:02:37] sales, dude. It's not something I want to own because everybody should be doing it. Right. So yet what I found was early on is that if we brought a, I just released a podcast this week, whenever anybody listens to it, if you go to, go to my podcast page, look for the, um, even when this releases, look for the, uh, episode with a Biagio Matza, right? There are other PTs out there doing sales work. Right. And we connected and we just did like almost two, two and a half hours.

[00:03:07] I did a two part podcast with him and he puts out there and he did a very good job describing this. And I want to give him a shout out because he talks about cells and physical therapy are basically the same thing. And he breaks it down. I can't break it down like he did. And I'm not just trying to get you back to my podcast, but the idea is he's like, look, we're all in this. We're all in the sales profession. And he broke, he breaks it down into five steps. So, and the sooner we realize that

[00:03:33] the sooner we start to take a bigger view of the business and get out of our provider hats and get out of our provider egos. Talked a lot about that this past week. And then we just start to embrace all the things we need to embrace to be successful doing what we do, because let's face it, we are all doing a great thing. We are providing services to people in our community that need our help.

[00:03:58] You can't argue with it. We're not selling fricking Bitcoin here. We're not selling magic potion, man. We're selling something that people need and can benefit. And we all know it can benefit society as a whole. So the sooner we embrace it, cells is a big part of this. And how does it fit here? The more successful we will all be because the profession will thrive too. So there's my philosophical version of what's going on and how I look at cells in physical therapy.

[00:04:27] So Nathan and I, we went to New York last week. I saw that. Yeah, it was cool, man. Our first time there, just blown a load. I'm going back. Dude, I love it. Yeah. It was awesome. That city will eat me alive. We had about 12 practice owners there and we talked about sales a little bit. We talked about finance and I asked them, I said, how many of you have ever had any kind of sales training at all? Not a single hand.

[00:04:53] Yeah, not one. Well, and I'm going to say this, I didn't do any official sales training until about three or four years ago, right? I read every sales book. I started, you know, and I knew sales people. So I'm going to say official training, not till about three years ago. And there was this whole journey of figuring out what training did I want and what you learn and what I learned over time and what I kind of like coming in blind going, okay, I just kept buying sales books. And there's a group, there's a handful of really solid sales people out there, right? That we all see. And

[00:05:23] when you go into this sales literature, there's about six, seven people. And I read all their stuff. And what was cool was I didn't really know what I was looking for, but what I was trying to do was draw the commonality. I'm like, all these people are successful. They're talking about something different. So I tried to go a level down and go, what are they all doing the same? And then that's what I took out and started building this foundation and then decided, okay, I want to put this process

[00:05:48] on top of that foundation. And that's when I did the sales training. Reading, but dude, I bet if you would ask those same owners, how many of you read a sales book, I would assume at least a couple hands would have went up, right? Yeah. I would think so. I would hope so. Yeah. Right. So that's the cool thing about today. I don't know if I said this to you before we hit record or after, but more people are going, yeah, sales. Yeah. And I'm like, cool. That's a win right now, man. That's a win, right?

[00:06:14] Yeah. Yeah. To me, I still like, I get sold on sales more every year. Right. More and more. And like whenever I, I've got a couple of buddies of mine who own practices who were doing, I'm just like blown away at what they're doing. And I'm trying to figure out like, what, like these guys just have this swagger about them and I'm trying to figure it out. And I'm like, and it hit me and I'm like,

[00:06:38] they know how to sell. They're just great at articulating how they serve people, you know? And it just, it all came together. And once I, for me, once I embraced sales, I started recognizing that everything changed for me. Like patient experience went through the roof, employee experience went through the roof and employee retention, the way I was communicating to physicians and referral

[00:07:05] partners went through the roof. But even like the way I was leading my family changed, you know what I mean? Like everything changed. Yeah. And I started identifying like, wow, sales is really the thing that actually creates movement in the organization. Yeah. It's the tool of creating transaction, like a change or decision, right? You got it. I totally agree with that. Yeah. And without it, we kind of just, we're not really moving. Like there's no, there's no moving and shaking going on.

[00:07:32] You nailed it, dude. People need to hear what you just said on that without sales, there's a little to no movement in your business flow. Let's call it the flow of your business. And it took me forever to learn that. So this here, I'm going to throw this out because I'm going to prove your point. So take what Adam just said, right? What do we all do right off the bat? Do we go spend all that money on marketing? On marketing. I know.

[00:07:56] And I tell everybody, take a deep breath because, and here's my challenge to everybody to prove your point, dude, figure out your sales process first. I agree. You build out that sales process and understand where it fits in this. Your marketing will become insanely more valuable, right? Way better. And you'll get a bigger ROI. So all I'm saying is don't spend $10,000 a month until you get your sales process together. Then go spend. I'm not telling you spend more or less on marketing.

[00:08:26] I'm saying build out the sales process. I think I just did a short the other day that I posted. It was like in order, if you want the best marketing program has a, oh, has an awesome sales process built in right behind it. And I always tell people, right? Because I, so here we go. And let me give real life examples, Adam. And some of your, what I love is some of your people are going to hear this and go, that's me. And this is what I want them to do. Pause before you want to blame your marketing

[00:08:53] and prove it to yourself. Well, we just did. So here's the deal. And I get this all the time, right? People call me, uh, Jerry, you know, spending all this money on Facebook ads with so and so, and they suck. And I'm like, okay, they may. Can I ask you a couple of questions? I'm like, tell me what's been going on. Uh, we did this whole program and we didn't get any new patients out of it. And I'm like, what? I said, that's not the goal of marketing. The goal of marketing is to get

[00:09:20] you quality leads that then your sales is over and turns into new patients. Right. And so I said, so I'm just going to challenge you on this is maybe your marketing doesn't suck in because the best thing, this is one of my favorite analogies ever that I, and I got a couple of YouTube videos on this. It's marketing and sales. I said, they're two separate people sharing an apartment and they never leave the apartment. That's how close together they work. Right. I mean,

[00:09:47] they're working so close, but they're two separate people and everybody says marketing and sales. And they say it's so fast. They create like, they kind of make it one thing, but it's not right. One thing. And I'm like, no, no, no. And I'm going to challenge people. And I went, I was going through this today in my head. I'm like, your salespeople should not be doing your marketing and your marketing people should not be doing yourselves yet. They should work so close together. Right. No, they don't meet once a week or once a month. They are meeting every day. I want them communicating

[00:10:17] every day. At the end of the day, I want the sales team to send a feedback form to a lead tracker feedback to the marketing team. Today we had 30 leads. 10 came from this source. 10 came from this source. Five came from this source. Five came to this source. I want the marketing team to see that feedback every fricking day, dude. And so then your dollar, your $1 you spend on marketing, your team is already halfway through the month going, okay, we're right. Because you got a plan

[00:10:45] together. You got a quarterly plan. And I'm not saying you do this monthly because you've got a quarterly plan, but your marketing team should know about halfway through the month, where the marketing spend is going to be next month. Where are we going to get this ROI? Based on the feedback from the sales team. You got it. Based on the feedback from the sales team on the lead tracker. And by the way, I'll give you my lead tracker. You can share it with your people. It has a place, dude. It is. People are going to look at it and go, is this what he shared with you? And you're going to go,

[00:11:11] yeah. Everybody overcomplicate this. They overcomplicate this. It sells tool. They turn it into a marketing sales. I'm like, it is a sales tool. Don't make it anything else. I'll share it with you. And one of the lines is, by the way, it'll work with any clinic. It doesn't matter payer model. None of this matters payer model, by the way, probably should have said that from the beginning, but right. If I give feedback to the team, they know where to spend that dollar so we can get a bigger ROI. Let me give you another example of this. And I learned

[00:11:40] this the hard way. So anything I share with you all, I effed it up longer than you've probably been alive in my own business till I finally figured it out. So if you're not tracking leads, right? You really, you're flying blind on the marketing. So I love this example again, this Facebook thing, right? Oh, we didn't get any new patients. Well, you track leads. Yeah. How many Facebook leads did you get from it? You know? Oh, 30. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You struck out 30 times. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, whoa, that Facebook ad did a nice job, dude.

[00:12:10] You know, let's talk about quality of leads. Let's talk about that. But only we can only talk about quality of leads in your conversion rate. If your sales process is dialed in that you're delivering it. Correct. One percent of the time. So the importance of this middle face, let's double back. You saying the business does not move without a sales process. This is the prime example that, oh, we're spending money on Facebook leads. We're out in the community, right? We're

[00:12:38] doing this, we're doing that. And man, we just don't have enough new patients. We got to double down on marketing. No, we got to fire these marketing people, get new marketing people. And I'm like, it's so silly though, but it's like, it's the same. Well, and I did it forever. I did too. I did too. So here, check this out. This happened this week. I love we're on today because this literally happened this week. I mean, my head now, like you said, right? Everything is about

[00:13:04] sales anymore. I'm always tracking. How am I being sold? And the best thing I love listening to sales guys when they know, right? They walk in, I was watching this great YouTube the other day, great sales guy. And he was like, I'm just getting sold and I'm buying it and I'm buying it and I'm going forward with it. And I know I'm being sold. And it's like, oh my God, I'm buying this product. Right. And that's what you do. I was sitting, one of my favorite restaurants in Philly had a fire two years ago. It's a Mexican restaurant. They reopened this week. And so my wife, my wife's

[00:13:33] working downstairs. I'm working upstairs. I look at my phone. She sent me an Instagram message and it's tequila as it's called really nice Mexican restaurant. I mean, really good food, been around forever. And it's tequila is back open tonight. And so she sends me a note. What time are you done? I'm like five. She goes, so am I. I'm like, all right, I'll get changed in between my calls. So we go down, we sit at the bar. And the cool thing was tequilas. They have all this tequila and over here,

[00:13:59] they had all kinds of liquor. And my wife and I got in a conversation about her work. And I was talking about a phone call I'd had earlier in the day. And I kept telling this guy, I'm not a marketing guy. If you're looking for marketing, branding, I'm like, I'm not your guy. I can help you. And I said the same thing. Once your marketing works, right? I can help build out the sales process. I can help build out the pathways. I can do all this with you, but I'm not a marketing guy. So I'd had that conversation earlier. My wife and I are sitting there and I went,

[00:14:28] you know, the cool thing about being a sales guy, of course I'm a sales guy. So I said, the cool thing about being a sales guy is I said, if I was in marketing, there was a bottle of Aperol. If I was in marketing, I'd have to build a whole marketing program around that Aperol. And then I have to get really good at selling that. And then I go, and then that bottle of tequila, I'd have to build a whole nother marketing program around that. And I kept going around. I said, you know, it's cool in sales. I can back up and go, I can sell all this. Yeah.

[00:14:56] With the same process, by the way. Yeah. You bring me the marketing, you bring me your target, you bring me your customers. I can sell all of this to anybody on any given day. If I know who your leads are, where they're again, marketing, sales, marketing, sales. But what's cool is the sales guy can sell any of that shit. And that whole thing. And I went through it. Nobody can sell as well as me. I'm like, are you sitting down? Take a deep breath. I got a million people that can sell better than you

[00:15:22] and grow your business way more quickly and way more efficiently if you'll give that up. And it's the last thing we all give up answering the phone. Right. And the day we, the day we give up answering the phone for leads is the day we're all like, I'm going to die. Right. It's like, we suck the oxygen out of everybody. And I'm going to tell you right now, dude, I created a company, a virtual front desk sales company. And I got 22 year olds who are doing a fine job selling both in network, out of network, all of it, dude.

[00:15:51] They're professionals, I bet. You know what I mean? Like they know what they're doing. They've been on the phone. They know the process. They know the foundations of it. And by the way, before you ask, because everybody's thinking this, the majority do not come from healthcare. Well, what do you think? Why do we get this wrong? You think? And I guess it really just depends on, maybe it's not right or wrong, but like in your mind, like, why do you think the owners get this idea of like marketing's my answer? More new patients is my answer. Why do we get this wrong?

[00:16:20] Yeah. Here's my take on it. I think it's simple, Adam. I really do. I think it's about the foundations of a business, right? I think this thing, I post it all the time still. Marketing, sales, retention, referral, repeat. Right. And you have to, it's almost so simple when you look at it, you're like, oh yeah, that's good. But you blow it off. And I'm like, no, no, no. It's this. Read it. Yeah. And learn it and burn it in your brain because this is what everything is.

[00:16:48] And let me give you an example of this. And again, I had a business for 18 years before I realized this, right? A drop-off. Here, let's do this. A drop-off mid course of care. I spent years just yelling straight at my provider, straight at my providers. It's your fault. It's your fault. You got to get your drop-off sound. Get your drop-off sound. As soon as I learned that flow and I learned about the connectedness of marketing to sales, to retention, to referral, I realized we had

[00:17:14] a drop-off, which I then, instead of going, hey, Adam, you got to fix that. I went, huh? I wonder if the process was followed. Right. The process of started where? Your marketing. And the bet. So I go straight to the sales sheet because I can look at the sales sheet to see who's the salesperson who took the call. I can also look at the source, right? So I go straight to the sales sheet to figure out what marketing, where they come from, right? How'd they find out about us?

[00:17:39] Hmm. Came from a provider we treat, right? We see a lot. So I go straight up and I go, was the sales process followed? That's a yes or no. And if it wasn't, we're dead in the water. We're done. There's no yelling at anybody downstream, right? Right. Yeah. So that was the impact on my business, Adam, of that diagram. And the day I did that, it gave me the freedom to quit being a firefighter. I heard another entrepreneur use that, right?

[00:18:07] So I like this idea. I say this all the time. Hey, Jerry, Adam calls me. I'm just going to use you because you're here. Hey, Jerry, I need your help managing my cancels. This is another call I get. And I go, cool, Adam, you know, I can help you manage cancels, but would you rather manage them or prevent them? Because preventing the cancels happens further upstream. Managing, I teach you how to reschedule, right? And we take a little too much pride in our reschedules, my friend,

[00:18:35] because if the phone rings and I make my clients, dude, there is no gray with cancels. If the phone rings and Adam says, I need to cancel, even if he reschedules this week, it gets categorized as a cancel that reschedule. It is still a cancel and goes down in the cancel category because we lost that slot, right? My goal is you get into a slot. And by the way, I budget in cancel, right? Five to

[00:19:00] eight percent. Right. And so the thing is, I want my sales process should be moving you along the process. And part of the sales conversation is selling the plan of care, getting agreement upon the plan of care. And then execution of that plan of care means we've had a heart to heart, Adam, and you're in the slots and you're in the days when you can make it. And by the way, right, that's some of the hardest things I had my providers do. I'm like, they rescheduled twice, have a conversation with them. Why are they rescheduling their slots all the time?

[00:19:27] So I was like, I get caught up in the reschedule. I'm like, this isn't acceptable. And by the way, that's on you. So have a conversation. Hey, Adam, you committed to this plan of care. Hey, Adam, I want to make sure you're getting the best time. Hey, Adam, what's up? And we find out like your kids on a different school schedule. And I'm like, cool, Adam, cool. I want you to priority, right? And this is how I'm going to say it. I want you to prioritize your kid. With that said, let's find a better slot. So then once you know your kid's taken care of and you're not double

[00:19:54] booked to these places, when can you make this a priority? And then boom, the cancel slash reschedule calls stop. Stop. Yes. Right. So, and that was part of the sales process. So I'm going back again that, right, do you want to manage a cancel or do you want to prevent it? Well, we prevented it upstream, right? By the way we sold it. Adam did sell it properly. And now Adam is taking ownership of this and going, man, you've rescheduled twice. What are we going to do?

[00:20:21] And I love this Harry Potter line, mischief managed, right? I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, but I love that phrase, mischief managed. We're done. I think this is a Harry Potter mode I got for you. Oh, dude, there you go. Right. Mischief managed. And so the cancel call is gone. Jerry, who used to reschedule at least once a week on Adam's schedule. Now one call is gone, but now everybody's doing it. So now we got five, 10, 15, 20 calls a week are gone.

[00:20:47] And I call that the downstream chaos. The sales process cleans up and prevents and eliminates downstream chaos. If the phone rings, that is chaos. So I have some of my clients tracking cancel calls. That's all I want to know. How many cancel calls this week? I don't even give a the result. So like what I'm hearing, would you just, um, I think I jumped ahead a little bit there, but no, but what you just made me think about is like, there's really two sales conversations.

[00:21:14] Maybe there's more. Oh, great. Yes. You are correct. But like there's the initial eval, but then there's the get them scheduled. Like that's an enrollment conference. You got it, dude. Yeah. Thanks for asking that. You were saying something earlier and I wanted to bring this up. So here's the other huge tipping point. So tipping point number one was going, oh my God, this is a business. It's a marketing and it sells its retention. Now, did I know what to do with it? Absolutely not. But there was a big, I call it the two by four upside the head.

[00:21:42] Nothing less than getting bashed upside the head going. What have you been doing? One of the other big tipping points in this journey was going, whoa, we have three sales phases. And this is to answer your question. We have three sales phases. All of our clients go through it. And I don't care your payment model. Sales phase number one, pre-arrival process, front desk, right? Front desk sales, which can be, by the way, that sales process can be weeks. I talked to you today, Adam, you're not scheduled till seven days out, 10 days out.

[00:22:10] Sure. You better have a process to keep in touch with Adam and make sure he's right. So that process could be 24 hours. That could be weeks. Sales process number two is the shortest one of all. It's a vow. It's a green on plan and care. So when that person walks in, when their provider and or a person greets them to take them back to the room for the evaluation or to take them back to the

[00:22:35] gym for the evaluation, that's when the second sell cycle starts. And the objective of that is, yes, what you just asked and agreed upon plan and care. Hey there, practice owners. Are you ready to elevate your practice to new heights? Join us at the Elevate and Expand, a scaling conference from October 2nd to 4th at the beautiful

[00:23:01] Hilton, Hilton, Sandestin Beach, golf resort and spa in Miramar Beach, Florida. Learn how to scale your income, time freedom and impact in today's economy. Pre-register now to enjoy your early access, exclusive updates, discounts and special bonuses. Don't miss this chance to transform your practice and your life. Go to the show notes now to find the pre-registration link.

[00:23:28] Mark your calendars for October 2nd to 4th and get ready to scale this year. Phase three of the sales process is the completed course of care. So everything, right? That's cool. Yeah. Good question, man. Yeah. And if you look at that, it makes it easier. I'm going to tell you what, it makes it easier to create a sales process that's connected. So the goal of sales process of

[00:23:54] phase number one is to set the provider up for success. So reverse engineer, how do you create success for the provider during sales phase number two? You know, there's like three or four or five things we have to do. So guess what we do in sales phase number one? We bake that all in to make she set up for that. It's simple. If it was hard, I wouldn't be here, my friends. Yeah. And I'm sure you're going to say it's all the above, but like- Maybe not.

[00:24:19] It sounds like there's really two main components that are sticking out in my head. One is actually like the language that we use to communicate during these touch points, which is, you know, we want to create an emotional buy-in, however your process is. But then there's the tracking piece, right? Correct. There's the metric piece, right? And so like, where do you see in your mind, like when you're going into a practice, where do you, I'm assuming like, do you start with the metrics or do you start with the language? Like where do you go first?

[00:24:49] Yeah. Great question. And by the way, that's what I was working on. It's my outline for how I engage clients to want to do this work. That's what I was doing. I was sending them the outline of just this, Adam. So by the way, let's do this, my friends. Let's make this really simple. It's a PT eval, my friend, the process, right? We have to have a current state. I can't make goals. You tell me, so you're on my schedule, Adam, right? I'm a PT, I'm a provider. You're on my schedule and you tell

[00:25:16] the front desk team, you want to return to the gym to deadlift five days a week, pain-free, low back pain. Okay. And this is at the pre-arrival. Yeah. So, right. So I had this, I walk in the room as a PT, Jerry, the PT walks in with Adam. In order to set up a plan, a journey back to the gym, pain-free to deadlift, I have to do what? Measure your current state today. So I say, hey, Adam, today, this is our goal. So I measure the current state. So when I go into a business, now I'm going to answer your question

[00:25:46] because the question is, I manage it like a PT eval. I got to go in and we got to figure out your current state. So everything we just talked about, we're going to sit down. And so I invite the owners and then I say, anybody else involved in the pre-arrival process? I want a clinic manager there. I want at least one front desk person there. Because by the way, if all those people aren't there, the owner ain't going to tell you the whole process. They don't know what's going on. And the front desk will know. And dude, I've been on calls where the owner's like,

[00:26:15] and then we do this and you see the front desk person. No, we don't. And I'm like, guess what the right answer is? That's when it's time to exit the exit. So I sit down with them and we go through, where do all your leads come from? I want to know every source. Web form, word of mouth, community events, doctor referrals. We do Facebook ads. We do blah, blah, blah. I want it all. Okay, cool. Now who follows up with each of these, right?

[00:26:45] Where's it go? What happens next, right? And I make them go through every step. Okay. So for these leads, so where are they getting managed? They go through an email. So you guys get an email and you do an outbound call. Cool. That's all I want. So right now, because the early next, right? It's kind of like range of motion, but then we get right. Then we go deeper and deeper, right? Once we see, well, free and clear. Okay. I'll do some overpressure, but if it's limited, now we go looking at all kinds of stuff, right? So first level is just to get that. So then I go, okay, you get on the

[00:27:14] phone. Then what, what happens when you hang up email, phone call, text? What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? Okay. After that. Okay. What do you do next? Okay. You collected their insurance information. Where's that go? What's the promise, right? Okay. When are you going to get them this information? Right. So we break it down, man. I make them give me every fricking step from, I call it the person raising their hand. So that's the phone rings. They fill out the web form. They click on your Facebook ad. That's someone raising their hand saying, Hey, I'm interested in you.

[00:27:44] So we do the whole breakdown. That's the current state. And so I don't go really into the conversation yet. I go into the tactical part of it. I want to see every step. Yeah. You want to see the, you want to zoom out and see the model, like how it's all. And once we have that, my goal is to go, Hmm, what do you want it to look like, Adam? So that's what I do. Everybody's like, Oh yeah, just come in and tell me. I'm like, eh, eh, eh, eh, hold up. You got to tell me what you want. What kind of experience you want to

[00:28:10] create for these people. Right. And the big one, dude, the big one, I always catch people on. When do you want to give them their cost? And everybody's like, Oh, I don't know. And I'm like, when's the last time you bought something without knowing what the effing cost was before you brought it to the register. I'm like, when do you want to give them their cost? And some people are like, well, we give them their costs when they arrive. And I'm like, does it work? You know? So I'm going to make you really hold you accountable to your current process because by the way, if you tell

[00:28:36] me it works, why would I change it? I would keep it there. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. Cause each market's going to be a little different. The active process. Right. So I don't want to mess with it. Now you may go, well, we give it to people when they arrive and I think it works. And I'm like, well, why do you think it wouldn't? You know? So then that's all of a sudden, by the way, that's why the front desk has to be in the room. So the front desk goes, no, you know, we have, we have two or three people that walk out a week. And then the owner goes, we do.

[00:29:01] Right. So that's where you go. Oh, okay. And I put a big fricking circle around that. Right. Okay. So, okay, cool. We know this, right. We know this is a leakage point, a leaky bucket. Right. Cause that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the leak. Yeah. You, you start from scratch, man. You're on the bottom. Yeah. And so really dude. And so we go there and that's why I won't just do the call with the owners. I'm like, you got to bring one person on this tape managing this stuff, dude. And so that's what I do.

[00:29:30] Then we start sinking in and then we have to agree upon what the new process looks like. And then I start training the front desk on the conversation. Golly, that's awesome. That's pretty cool, man. I like it. And I can see how, for me, I see how even me and my clinics, like I could benefit from that, from that type of work. And my sales process is pretty good, but I can say for me, like whenever

[00:29:56] I really took ownership of the patient experience and I was like, I'm going to go through every single touch point and I'm going to be accountable for every single piece of communication that goes through. And I want to know, I want to be able to feel what the patient feels. Right. And I want to understand how they will respond emotionally to all of these communication channels that created,

[00:30:20] like that was worth more than ever any Facebook ad I ever ran. Like patients just multiplied, you know what I mean? Like new patients just multiplied and also providers. And my team felt empowered, dude, like a hundred percent, dude, this can not be under the culture just thrive. This is why, dude, I'm going hard. The culture. I'm like, look, this burnout stuff. I get it. It's

[00:30:46] multifactorial yet. We can't do all this downstream stuff until we set up a process that sets everybody. You've got to create success here. We can't have pizza parties and do all this. If you're just putting people in a churn and burn atmosphere. Yeah. And by the way, that means patients and providers, right? So, and you can't separate, right? And I, I butt heads with some people on this because I say the focus on day one has to be that person you serve. So you can bring the right people in to

[00:31:13] serve them. So I say, everybody's like, Oh, employees first, employees first. I'm like, you got to bear with me on this. It becomes a virtuous cycle where you can't separate a happy patient makes happy providers who make happy patients who make happy providers who make happy patients. I go after the flywheel gets spinning. No, you can't separate it. It's not one or the other, right? Yet early on, you got to go a step at a time. And I'm going to hire all these people. I'm

[00:31:38] like, you don't hire people without knowing who you're going to serve in what manner. So you can't say it was, it was employees first. Right? So I know it sounds like I'm getting a little nitpicky and in the weeds, but I'm like, you got to know who you're serving. Let's face it, my friend, if you're treating athletes, a bunch of athletes, let's just say CrossFitters, you're not going to hire the same staff as if you're treating female pelvic health all day. I mean, it's that simple. Oh, well, that's a different example. I'm like, no, it's not. So who,

[00:32:07] how are you going to be employee focused until you know who you're serving? So it does start with the person you're serving in the patient. And then by the way, you're better. So I keep going, if I hire Adam and I go, Hey, I need you to come in and serve all these people. I have no idea who you're going to serve, but I got this great process for you. Adam's going to go, Hey, thanks, Jerry. That was fun. Not sure who's going to show up. Yeah. And you're going to leave and go, yeah, thanks, Jerry. Appreciate the conversation. I'll call you. Don't call me. Right. I'm like, so if I can sit down, so let's

[00:32:35] bring it up further. Right. If I can sit down with Adam and I go, Hey Adam, by the way, I want you to take a look at this. This is a patient's journey. What's the name of your business, Adam? Southern physical therapy. Hey Adam, I want you to take a look at this before we start the interview, Adam, you know, you do your introductions and everything. And Adam's looking for a new job. He's a PT, PT assistant. He's looking for a job. And we do our introductions. I say, Hey Adam, here's the first thing I want to do before we start talking. I want you to see what a patient's

[00:33:03] journey looks like here at Southern physical therapy. And so what I want you to understand from this is we understand every touch point our potential patients make because pre-arrival is potential paying customers make with our company all the way through. And by the way, please note an end of course of care is not a discharge. We call it a completed course of care because we value our clients. We value keeping them healthy. And actually what you're looking at,

[00:33:29] Adam is a circle. I say, take a look at that, Adam. And then I go, please note a couple of things here is a, it's a circle B please note the red color. That's the front desk team. Look at how many touch points and look at how valuable they are in setting you up for success here at Southern physical therapy. And already you're going, this is different. You're not saying it out loud, but you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm listening. Right, dude. Right. I'm like, this is a fricking

[00:33:55] interview. It's the product. Dude, it is the product. I'd tell that to owner. I call it. Yeah. It's really the first product that you sell to your employees or that you sell to any person that you're recruiting. And by the way, let's do this, Adam. You're walking the door because you applied for a front desk job at Southern physical therapy. I do the same stinking thing for sure. And I go,

[00:34:20] Hey, Adam, and please, Adam, note your role is the red. Look how important your role is to patient success. When patients are successful here, it's because you started their journey here. You started them on a journey, on a path to better health, to better wellness, to all of that. By the way, I say that's going to do two things. That's going to get people really excited. And it's going to freak other people out. Both are awesome. Right. And I'm like, so Adam, I think you can see this isn't

[00:34:49] your typical healthcare office front desk job. So I wanted you to understand this first, as we move forward in this conversation, that we understand your role in patient success. You're saying this to a front desk team member. Do you think they've ever been told that anywhere in their life and working in healthcare? Yeah. What I feel when you tell me that, like if I could put myself in the front desk shoes, I feel like I'm very curious and I want to know more. Like I'm like, I'm hungry for that. Like, that's why I love we do it at the beginning. Right. And now your questions get

[00:35:18] better. Right. Instead of like, it becomes less like, well, I don't want to do that. It's like, oh, well, tell me how I can get more involved in that. Like I'm more curious. At least that's what an A player would think. Right. I think so, Adam. And I think that would take anybody sitting across from you and their brain would just start to fire differently in an interview and go, right. Because I always say, I used to sit through an interview listening for the answers that you wanted to hear. And then that, oh yeah, Adam. Yeah. I love A, B, C, and D. And it's because you

[00:35:46] told me it's what's important to you. Right. And I'm like, right. The regular BS. But now you're going, wow, this is different. Hey, Jerry. So what I would love is the first thing with you start to go, wait a minute, can I ask a question first? And I'm like, absolutely. Absolutely. Ask away. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, please. Yeah. So what's my accountability here? Ah, great question, Adam. And then we can go into it, man. And it's like, no BS. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I remember when I built this out and man, one day I'm going to hire you

[00:36:15] to come do this for my clinics. But when I built this out for myself, I remember looking up one day and realizing like, wow, everyone is doing what they're supposed to do. You know what I mean? Look at what's happening, you know? And then, you know what? Like, I didn't have to worry about marketing. I didn't have to worry about money anymore. My providers were not looking around. They were more like, they were rowing the boat. They were rowing the,

[00:36:41] they were like, everybody was very direction focused and like performance went through the roof. So it was a, it was a culture builder for us when we did that. And that started that my journey with that started with literally, I remember this day. So we go out and network. I want to share a little bit, just a little bit of my story. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you told me the story one time, but yeah. So I had multiple sites with about 20 employees and we went out and network. Yeah.

[00:37:06] And I remember my partner and I going, okay, we got two choices. Shut the door, go out and network. And we both looked at each other. What do you want to do? Let's go out and network. What do you want to do? Let's go out and network. Cool. Let's make a run at it. And I remember my next thought was, hmm, I didn't know what this meant, but literally it was the first thing that popped into my mind. I went, hmm, we have to start answering the phone differently now. Yeah. We have to care a little more now. That's how this journey started. And I don't claim it came from anything. There was no thought

[00:37:36] after it, Adam. It was just, yeah, for sure. I didn't even know what it meant. I just said, we have to start answering the phone different. So, right. So my journey is somewhere in there, probably within like a year, right. Maybe less than a year. I had hired some salespeople to take over the front end and they both failed. It was all on me. They didn't fail. I set them up for failure. Why do you think so? I didn't know the processes. I didn't know. You are correct, dude. Yeah. You weren't a student. You weren't enough of a student yet.

[00:38:06] So, so finally after the second one, I'm like, oh, it's me. It's not you. Right. And so I went, I went to my partner and went, look, we're going to keep burning through people. I've got to understand this process. I am going to answer all the new patient incoming calls for three months. I did it for a year because I fricking loved it. Needless to say, I learned so much and dude, I learned so much about people, about communication, about expectations, about,

[00:38:35] I cannot even tell you how much I learned on the front end. And it was so fun. And I've got all kinds of stories about it. And yes, I had some freedom as the owner, but I answered the phone as Jerry, the front desk guy. I'm going to tell you, I never, I'm going to say I never. So there were probably sometimes, but I never presented myself as Jerry, the owner. And here's the other thing I learned very quickly. I never presented myself as Jerry, the physical therapist. I was

[00:39:01] just Jerry, the front desk guy. And that way I was having a real conversation that I needed. That was a conversation. So if I'd have been doing it as the owner, I couldn't have built out the process. Right. If I was doing it as a PT, I'm like, no, that's a free screen. Right. I would have been answering every phone is like a free screen. Right. And I'm like, that's not part of the sales process. So part of what I was doing in, I'll give you one example, huge tipping point, huge tipping point in this. One day I just got flat out frustrated. Hi, my name's Adam. I was looking

[00:39:31] to get scheduled physical therapy. You take my insurance. And this had been building over time. I'd heard it so often because I was hanging up the phone all the time going, why do people do that? Why do they dial physical therapy office and ask if I take their insurance? So one day I went, well, hello, Adam, in case you missed it. Thank you. My name is Jerry. Thank you for calling us here at San Francisco Sport and Spine Physical Therapy. Hey, Adam, I am more than happy to answer your question. If you wouldn't mind answering one question for me first. And of course you said yes,

[00:39:58] right? And Adam went, sure. And I went, why did you search for a physical? What drove you? I love that question. Yeah. Why did you search for our number, dial our number? And then when I answered the phone, because you obviously have a problem that you're hoping I can help you with, but you led with do you, do you take my insurance? Dude, that probably one of the top three biggest things I ever did in

[00:40:23] this journey that gave me that opened my mind to really create dude after that, right? That's when I really fricking dude. There were like three of those examples during that journey where it did just then, right. It was like every fricking gate on the dam opened up after that. Right. I was like, Oh, yeah. What you do is you get them back into solution mode, you know, or maybe, maybe it's not

[00:40:48] solution mode, but like you get them back to remembering why they're here. And so much of, and here's a takeaway. I want everybody, hopefully you can use other stuff I've said here, but here's a takeaway I want to give to anybody listening to this, Adam, is you have to remember that everybody who calls your office has had an experience with a healthcare. And at that moment in time, well,

[00:41:12] well, have you been here before? No. And we pretend like they have zero experience with healthcare. And I'm like, no, they're bringing their experience from every other single interaction with a healthcare office. That was one of the big things that I remember that I was able to go. Everybody is calling us with an experience and an expectation based on a past experience. And so I have to take whatever

[00:41:38] they say at the beginning of as right. They're bringing that with us here. Let me give you another example of this. This was big too. So when I finally figured that out and I finally started to go, so Adam, you know, my goal is to learn a little bit more about you and find out really what you need from us. So I can get you scheduled with the right person. Would that work for you? So you framed it up. And so that's a yes or no, right? Correct. I was, and remember I was doing this like 15 years ago, my friends, when co-pays were still

[00:42:05] like 25 bucks a pop, right? And there were no out of network. So I like to say I went out of network before it was cool. I'm just going to leave it at that. And so I was having conversations, right? I might as well, right? Half the time, if you said out of network, you might as well said on the phone because it had the same impact, dude. And so all of a sudden I'd get people on the phone, Adam, this was huge too. And people would start to get really upset with me.

[00:42:31] Why are you asking me these questions? I just want to get scheduled. And right. Everybody wants to take that personal. And I get that a lot still to this day. And we all take it personal. And I did for months. And then one day I finally went, wait a minute. It's not personal. They've never been asked to share their story. Right. They get asked to share their first name, last name, date of birth. The last four. Right. That's it. And I went, oh my God, they're picking up the phone. So I finally,

[00:42:58] again, I started telling people, oh, Adam, I apologize. I should have made this more clear at the beginning. My goal on this phone call is to make sure I understand what you need from us, because I understand you have a little back pain and yes, we help a lot of, you got all that dead error because they just got whacked upside the head. And so I learned that people were getting upset because they thought they were going to be on and off the phone in three minutes.

[00:43:23] So that was another big one that helped me create this, what you said, setting the condition, right? The context setting, all of it, which really made me dial in and solidify the opening of this. Right. And I guarantee you, I tell people that conversation is you can lose it way more quickly than you can gain it. And the first 30 seconds to 45 seconds is huge in this, right? Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to share that. Right. So that all comes from, and then I did it for a year

[00:43:52] because I loved it. Right. And never left it really just stayed with the front desk, finally hired someone, but I stayed with the front desk. Then I worked the front desk. I want to see what happened when people were showing up. I was Jerry, the front desk guy. I can imagine like being a PT and especially the owner, but being in that position and your focus, well, maybe my focus would be like, how do I help this patient? Yeah, dude. Oh, right.

[00:44:18] How do I take this patient and help them feel so heard and then just deliver them on a silver platter to the PT where it's like batters up? You know what I mean? That's why I couldn't be the PT. If I allowed myself to go, oh, Adam, you know, actually I'm a PT. I can answer that for you. Then I took away the platter, dude. Right. Pulled the platter. I pulled the rug out from underneath the provider. We do this all the freaking time.

[00:44:48] I do secret callers all the time. Your front desk is stealing the authority from your providers. And then you're pissed off because your providers aren't delivering. I'm like, your team just, and by the way, it's not the front desk team's fault. It's you didn't train them. So I'll say this a million times. Yeah. I mean, that's the, that's the whole beauty. It's like you being the owner and having that perspective. I can see how like you have a very deep understanding of how this is all connected.

[00:45:15] And you know, that's what was fun, Adam, you make another great point. By the time I'd gone and answered the phone, I had done every single role in my business. I'd been a provider. I'd been a clinic director. I'd been worked in billing and I dealt with benefits. I was an owner. I'd done every role. And I'm still, to this day, I still claim that there's only a handful of us who have literally done every single role. And I'm not just talking about when you started. Yeah. And I'm like,

[00:45:42] no, we had four offices. I was scheduling for four offices. I would float around work front desk. I was scheduling new patients. Then afterwards, right? I kept wanting to do other parts and going, wait, why do we have people going to collections? If we think we've created this perfect process, why do we have people going to collections? So then I worked on the collection side just for about a month, making all the phone calls, following up and doing really what I wanted to do was get in and

[00:46:06] look, where did we drop the ball in the process? Sure. So me being in every role, then when I got up to the front desk afterwards, man, dude, it was like, I get it. I understand every touch. This is why I preach. Anybody go back and listen to my stuff. I preach first thing. You must understand the patient's journey in your business. You can then start to build out, right? Then you say, what kind of experience do you want to create? Then you build the systems and processes based on what marketing

[00:46:32] sells and retention. It's that simple. Now, mind you, like 18 years, figure that out. Yeah. Run some ads to that. I think you'll get a really great ROI. Man, I think that is incredible, dude. I really appreciate it. I love your passion and energy, man. I just think the communication part, the words, right? I did a, if anybody knows Mark Karjela, I think I'm still saying his name wrong. I interviewed him today. We go way back. He's a great clinician

[00:47:00] who's always, every time I listen to him, I'm like, sounds like stuff I'm saying. So I love to connect with him because he owns that clinical space, but knows the value of the team. So I always love to connect and go, Mark, what have you been doing? What have you learned? Because when you take someone like Mark and then you take someone like me and you create something with it, you're going to be successful, right? Because what we really end up talking about so much is just the words for an hour,

[00:47:25] dude. How are we communicating, right? And I've been so freaking purposeful. Like when I train people, I'm like, you could say it that way. And I'm always challenging people, right? What is the, I see, you know, oh, tell me your story. Hey, Adam, thanks for calling. Yeah. Would you mind sharing your story? And I'm like, can we be honest, Jerry? You don't want Adam's story at this point. What do you want from him? Well, this is what I need. And I go, cool. Yeah. Why are you asking that question?

[00:47:51] Yeah. Right. So I say, what's a better, I call it the better question. And they go, oh yeah. And they go, how about this? And I went, you nailed it, man. That's a great way. Let's try that. Right. What's the, understand the purpose of the questions you're asking. Got it, dude. So ever anybody, and it always sounds awkward. I did some secret callers this week again. Oh, so you know, well, oh, you said you had a little back pain after they asked me to repeat my name twice. Oh, you said you had the low back pain. Yeah. So what's going on? Is anything

[00:48:17] giving you trouble? At that point, you're like, you're in a conversation. They say that I'm like, it's so out of place. And so what's your gut? No, it's just low back pain. I'm like, eating. Why am I going to open up and share with you? And it's not, I'm talking down, but I just like, right. It's kind of that you give what you get type thing. Right. Totally, man. By the way, you don't have to be over the top on this and you don't have to know their dog's name on the first phone call. Okay. Please. They called you to solve a problem.

[00:48:43] So let's make sure first Adam knows that he called the right place. I got an expert here, write this down, everybody. Make sure Adam knows he called the right place. And it's not about as low back pain is what are you having difficulty with today? What led you to call me today, Adam, that you need help with because of this low back pain problem be solved. Yeah. And then I need to know after that, here, here it is. Here's the five-step process. And then after that, I need to know Adam's expectations is a really broad term, but has Adam had, we can't

[00:49:12] schedule Adam for physical therapy because Adam now has an idea what physical therapy is in his mind. And if we allow him to schedule for that without defining it, we haven't set our provider up for success. So Adam, have you had physical therapy for this low back pain? If he says, yes, I go down, what helped you? What didn't, right? If he says, no, I say, well, what do you think might help you? Right. That I'm going to give to the provider. Then I move on and make sure Adam knows, Adam, you know, you shared, you want to get back to the gym. I'm just the expert here for you at Southern

[00:49:41] Physical Therapy. His name is Dr. Or her name is Dr. Jane Doe, physical therapist. She works with our athletes, getting people back to deadlifting in the gym, sell the expert, and then make sure Adam knows what's going to happen on that first visit. So Adam, right. So I got them scheduled. So Adam, let me tell you what's going to happen during that hour on Thursday at 10 o'clock with your expert, Dr. Jane Doe. And I go high level, take a deep dive. She didn't be able to tell you why you're having that back pain. She's actually going to start you on some exercises based on those

[00:50:10] findings. And then she's going to sit down and take you through your journey back to the gym pain-free. We call that a plan of care here, Adam. So watch this. So Adam, does that sound like a solution? Yeah. You want to do it? You want to try that? Right. That's the golden key. By the way, it's taken me like eight years to get to that question right there, dude. That is a goldmine. Don't say what questions you have in me. Don't ever say, will that work for you? Adam does what I just

[00:50:37] described to you sound like the solution you were looking for? And by the way, be keyed into the answer. Well, yeah. And I'm like, nope. Wait a minute. You sound a little confused. What part of it? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Adam, it sounds like you might have some questions about what I just shared. Can we go through that again? Because by the way, it's that answer right there that tells you if there's going to be an objection. Objection. Correct. Yes. Right. So will that solution work for you? And Adam says, oh, absolutely. I'm glad I called you

[00:51:05] guys. And you're like, gotcha. So Adam, and then here's the next question. Great, Adam. I'm so excited because Dr. Jane Doe is the right fit for you. So Adam, by the way, I'm going to challenge you all in network, out of network, cash pay, bartering for chickens. I don't know, selling whatever drugs you want for PT. The next question is, so Adam, how do you want to pay for this? And if you're working

[00:51:30] in a network clinic, get uncomfortable with asking that there's going to be dead air and Adam's going to go, you take insurance, don't you? And you're going to go, absolutely. I just wanted to double check if you, yeah, how you want to pay for that. Do you have your insurance card, Adam? You've got to tell him every step of the way that you guys are different. And you asked him how he wanted to pay for it, not his insurance. Right? How would you take him through all that and then just go, so do you have insurance? Why would you do that? And by the way, if you just sold all that value, how do you know

[00:51:58] Adam wouldn't pay you for it? Right. You have insurance. I love it, man. So that's it, dude. I want everybody to roll that back, create that sell script to go through that. Man, uh, I could talk for another hour. No, dude, I only, I could only do eight. So you're going to send me the five step process, the five step process. I'm going to drop that in the show note and I'll send the lead tracker, dude. I'll send both of those. So you can share that with your people. I'll share it with the people. I'll share it with the listeners. So check out the show notes for those two links.

[00:52:28] Jerry, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that? Yeah. So I want to share, if you want to get in touch with me, Jerry at Jerry Durham, PT.com, right? Is my email. Jerry at Jerry Durham, D-U-R-H-A-M, put a PT on.com. I'll tell you what else you can do. And I think is a better idea. Instagram. I'm Jerry Durham, PT Facebook. I'm Jerry Durham, PT YouTube. I'm Jerry Durham, PT. And by the way,

[00:52:54] go on the YouTube, all this stuff is on there for free. No email, no paywalls, no nothing. It's all on there for free. So those three places, dude, you can reach out to me. Oh, LinkedIn. LinkedIn's my favorite place these days. I think it's Jerry Durham for sure. There might be PT on the end of it. I've been hanging out on LinkedIn a lot. There's so much good stuff there. And I've been sharing a lot of stuff there. You can message me there. I, I treat all of the messaging on all those platforms,

[00:53:23] like my text. So if you want to get in touch with me, do that. You can email me say, Hey, you heard me on the call. I will get on a call. I'm going to say this out loud and I don't care. I will get on a call at least once with anybody. Sure. I never say no the first time around. Sounds good, man. Dude, let's let them chew on that a little bit. And then we'll schedule a follow-up later in the year and we'll do this again. Dude, I love it. And maybe what we could do, you know, we should do is go into the provider, go into sales phase two. Let's do it. I love it.

[00:53:51] Yeah. Because, because I just gave you the intake script. I want, what I want everybody to hear is how do you then take that info? Because here's the kicker. So we can leave everybody hanging. I guarantee you just that will change your business. The ROI, that is the biggest. Now, if you tag that with sales phase number two at the provider, the ROI increases. You cannot get the same ROI out of the provider room that you can get out of the front desk.

[00:54:17] Because why? Well, one thing is the zero behind the salary, but the ROI, the value of what you did the step before can never be recreated. Correct. All right, man, I got to run. I love it, dude. Thank you. Later, brother. Bye. 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 more

[00:54:45] 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.