Practice Owners Manual Series, Part 7 (1st Of 2) - Practice Management And General Structure

[00:00:00] Having your policies and procedures is having the smartest employee you could ever imagine that will never quit But you know everything about your company. There's nothing they don't know about your company So what you do what this does is you basically

[00:00:12] Remove yourself as the person that tells everybody what to do And you give it to this person called your policies and procedures or your job descriptions And now that is the decision-making process in the company

[00:00:24] And you have to be willing to be like i'm gonna be okay with what I have written down being the decision maker Welcome you've entered the physical therapy owners club podcast where your host

[00:00:39] Nathan Shields and other successful pt owners and leaders share their experience and insights on how to build successful pt businesses They'll share the stories of their paths to success and show you how you can also obtain greater freedom and more profits from your business

[00:00:54] That's what the pt owners club is all about greater freedom and more profits There's plenty of room for you as well. So come on in and join the club

[00:01:07] Hello everybody and welcome back to the next episode in our series of the quintessential bulletproof practice owners manual for success Hopefully you appreciated the previous episode took lots of notes did some homework

[00:01:21] Now get ready to do some more work on your business get out patent paper and let's go Hey everybody, welcome back to the private practice owners club and our next episode in the practice owners manual series If you've been listening this far chronologically week after week

[00:01:39] We're on I think this is number seven in our series of episodes And last time we talked about the pcc patient care coordinator person at the front desk This episode and in concurrence with the next episode so this is going to be a two-part series

[00:01:57] Here this one and the next one where we're going to talk about practice management. This one we're going to talk a little bit more about the fundamental practice organization and like the manuals that you want to create next time we'll talk about the management of

[00:02:13] The employees the team human resources related issues Oh, but this one's going to talk be a little bit more about how to structure organize And put some of our documents and important things together to make sure we're nicely organized and structured, right?

[00:02:27] So adam thanks for coming back again. Appreciate it, bro Yeah, man. Let's rock and roll Yeah, like you've said before on previous episodes. This is time to get out pen and paper Next page on the notebook. This is practice management today. We're going to be talking about

[00:02:42] Stuff like organizational board we're going to talk about policy and procedures We're going to talk about job descriptions some of that stuff that can be a little bit hairy, right? Because a lot of people are like, well, I don't know where to start

[00:02:56] And I definitely didn't know where to start when I had my practice But we're going to get into some of that stuff which can be some of the grind, right? Yeah, absolutely. Nobody has time to do this stuff

[00:03:07] The hard part about this is that this is where most people get stuck I totally agree This is the bulk of practice owners in our country, right? And it's just people who are busy too busy And not organized enough, right? They're not tightened up on

[00:03:23] On who does what when where why what the roles and responsibilities are of people on their team and checklists and sequences of how to get things done And it takes some brain work to actually like step out of the business and put this down on paper

[00:03:35] And deliver it in a way that's valuable for your team. So this is really important Yeah, one of the reasons why emith revisited the book Is so popular because it speaks exactly to this point that we're talking about today

[00:03:48] It is the small business owners problem issue conundrum in that they end up spinning their wheels covering all the different aspects of their company and then get burned out because They don't haven't taken the time to do the things that we're talking about today It's common

[00:04:06] And I think it's common because of that entrepreneurial mindset. We get the shiny object syndrome We got the next bright idea Like I need to work on this next bright idea. That's where all the money's going to be

[00:04:17] I don't have time to work on the the important stuff. That's my bread and butter But this is exactly where that starts. This is how you create the foundation of your company and it hurts me

[00:04:29] A little bit because so many owners want to grow and expand and get a new practice Prior to this point And I think this point is Completely essential before you open up that next clinic. It's super helpful

[00:04:44] Before you hire that next provider, right? Not necessarily but super helpful But if at any time you want to expand and grow This is fundamental that process Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of chiefs not enough indians. They're going to create their own culture

[00:05:00] That's not by intention. It's not what you create. It's what the group decides to create in spite of you And so this becomes a pain point for many many many owners, right? Creating this foundation. Yeah, man. I talk to owners all the time

[00:05:17] Many of you guys many of you listeners. I've talked to you on the phone or on zoom and I'd say 80 to 90 of you all want the same thing You want freedom you want time with your family

[00:05:29] You want to be present you want to go to your you want to have dinner with your family at night You don't want to be a slave to your business And unfortunately

[00:05:39] This is the only way to achieve that right you have to develop structure. You have to develop systems so When I started coaching you number of years ago You didn't have any of this stuff together. You know how to clinic with a partner

[00:05:55] He didn't have any of that stuff together and as I started coaching you I expressed the importance of this to you or at least I relayed that The importance of it to you at the time How did you eventually start getting some of this stuff done?

[00:06:09] Did you have to set aside? Did you have to block time? Did you have to force yourself? Did you have reminders or how did you do it? Yeah, I didn't really go full tilt into this until I had about two

[00:06:21] Maybe two and a half providers on my team I was actually able to Breathe a little bit and I would just block off like four hours a week

[00:06:29] A chunk of four hours and I would just sit in front of my computer and I just started printing off all the things I had ever written down And starting to try to get it. I have to put my hands on it right

[00:06:38] I put it in a way in a chronological order that made sense for me and then Kind of start brain dumping and then It's kind of like playing with play-doh in the beginning It's like it's just this ball of nothing

[00:06:50] But then over time it starts to actually take form and take shape and once it starts taking shape It turns into a tool that you can actually use Right

[00:06:58] So I think it just takes a little bit of trust and a willingness to just kind of jump in and start using your creative energy But I think the biggest challenge that I had as I sit back and reflect during that time is We are so used to

[00:07:12] Maybe not we but I was so used to Just kind of being able to envision what the result I wanted and then just doing it I would just do it right and so it'd be like idea do idea do

[00:07:26] And what I didn't realize is that there was actually a process a decision-making process algorithm if you will That was happening inside my brain That I Didn't really realize I was doing but I was just kind of doing it Right and it took me

[00:07:45] Some quiet time to be like, okay Why do I do that? Like okay first I turn the computer on Right And then I clicked the button

[00:07:56] And then once I see this then I do that and once I do that then I do this and then I had to kind of like Slow things down right and dissect my decision-making process throughout the company. How I do intake how I do hiring

[00:08:07] How I do all those things and it's a skill right and once you kind of get used to using that part of your brain It becomes you can access it a little quicker You just have to practice it right and we mentioned this in the last episode

[00:08:18] And I'm sure you're willing to share and so I'll say it again on this episode Some of the procrastination or the hesitancy and going moving forward on creating policy and procedures or boards and job Descriptions and this kind of stuff in my past had to do with

[00:08:32] I don't even know where to start. What does that look like? So using the template that you've recommended that you share reach out to you adam at ptoclub.com You're more than willing to share what a job description looks like and what are certain the important elements

[00:08:47] And I think for me at least as if I had that template and I maybe some idea of what some of the verbiage should be And how it's organized I can throw in my own language now and just get rolling and but my

[00:08:59] Obstacle is I can't envision what that looks like. So if I have a template that's done Then I can just replicate that and it works right and so it's become like you said a little bit easier for me to now create policy and procedure Like this last week

[00:09:15] I knew that we wanted to do conferences Going forward. We have this first one coming up in september 2024 In Clearwater if you don't know ppo club events.com so make sure you register

[00:09:28] But we plan on having annual conferences and I don't want to recreate this wheel every time So I sat down and like, okay now I have an idea of what some of the moving parts are And a semi

[00:09:43] Idea of what the timeframes are now I can go back and start building this process out so that come this time next year I can go back to this policy and just follow it, right? That's right

[00:09:53] That's the whole idea is it get to that point where you can create policy and procedure for your team And then once you do it And ideally if you have some other people around you and this is my next question for you

[00:10:04] If you have some other people around you that are skilled and professional and trustworthy and highly productive They can start creating some of these policies for you as well

[00:10:13] And have you been able to get to that point where some of the leaders in your team are creating policy? Yeah, of course, of course As you part of the journey that you go through or go down as an owner is is you're just figuring it out, right?

[00:10:27] Like you're just you don't have all the answers Especially in the beginning your job is to just kind of put your gloves on and start swinging And figure it out, right But in the beginning there's so much that you don't know that there's just massive amounts of overwhelm

[00:10:40] Right, but once you start to elevate your skill set and have more perspective on what you're doing with your role Then you can get to Like as you're tackling new things you're already like as you're doing it

[00:10:52] You're already thinking about like how do I train somebody else to do this? Right as opposed to doing it for 10 years and then figuring out how to train somebody You're doing it the first time you're doing it

[00:11:04] So that way you're only it's only going to land on your plate for maybe a quarter and then it's already gone You're already delegating it So once you get that good at it, then you can train other people like this is the sop on how we create sops

[00:11:16] What is the standard operating procedure right? Here's the policy and procedure Here's the template if you want how we create training how we create checklist how we create to do lists And they should have been exposed to this already, right? So it isn't foreign to them

[00:11:30] And a couple things you said you started writing down your thought processes We're willing to share with you a template of what that patient care coordinator job description looks like Did you get any inspiration from other books to in the creation of these things as well or other?

[00:11:47] Like I know traction has some good stuff in regards to organization board Right, I think I referenced it enough by somewhere around page 90 to 100 or something like that We actually hired somebody to do our employee handbook to just this pamphlet of pages that explained all the

[00:12:07] HR policies and it was well spent $2,000 to get this professional just do it for us and make it state specific to our state laws Was beautiful thing But was there anything else where you got some help and and how to organize and put this stuff together?

[00:12:22] I'd say traction is probably the best place to start and then Aside from that just coaching. I mean, I've worked with probably 10 or 15 coaches at this point So coaching is probably the biggest thing

[00:12:35] But yeah traction is a good place and then there's tons of stuff on youtube information I mean you can get it stuff anywhere how to put together policy procedure organizational board I like micah mcallowitz pumpkin plan And in my most recent clinic I worked with bcms

[00:12:53] And they're a compliance company but bcms provided all the like regulatory stuff Like the things that we had to have at a federal and a state level according to our state guidelines And so it was really nice to that they provided all of that

[00:13:07] So that I didn't have to put together the regulation part of it In terms of the documentation that had to be had and this is the practice act for our state and we follow these guidelines They had that all together and it was even online

[00:13:20] So I didn't have to print it out, but it was available and they updated it So there are resources like that as well that I'd recommend people have But it doesn't come back to how do we do things in our client? This is how we

[00:13:33] Answer the phone. This is what the job means for patient care coordinator. This is their kpi This is how we're going to review you that kind of stuff That's all stuff that we still had to come up with on our own

[00:13:45] Yep, I totally agree. So let's start a higher level On the organizing board. Well, there's different ways I've heard of it organizing board organizational board organization board Whatever it is, there's different ways to do it But it's your typical

[00:13:59] Tree pattern of the organization right with your board of directors at the top followed by the CEO President and then the different divisions And typically those divisions across the board This was our version could be varied a little bit might even be different a little bit from traction

[00:14:15] But we had like hr related stuff right finance Operations and sales Did yours very much from that? Yeah, I mean, I think our board right now is marketing recruiting operations finance And then we also have an administration as well. So it's recruiting marketing operations administration finance

[00:14:36] So there's five I'm the park Yeah, I got you and that's how I do it doesn't mean how you got to That's what works for me that works for your the way your brain works And that's right. That's right. I got you cool

[00:14:48] And when you say operations that operations is typically the biggest part right operations is where all the physical therapy actually happens Yeah, yeah It's in operations Operations usually includes quality assurance as well And so operations is the major portion that is the thing that keeps the business humming

[00:15:07] And the other things are helpful But that's typically how we laid it out as well And when you start off with this organizing board, it's important to have it just to have the titles in place and Initially as a young

[00:15:21] Owner you're going to have your name in all of those right so you're going to title Of each you're going to have board of directors ceo director of recruiting director of marketing director of operations You name it we call them vps vps of the different divisions

[00:15:37] And mine and will's name showed up five or six times across that organizing board Before we started moving people up into those seats, right? but that's it's good to have the visual because You can show this to your team and say This is what our organization looks like

[00:15:56] This is where you are And if it's a provider they're going to be somewhere down the line There's the director of operations Then there's probably clinic directors that report up to that director or vp whatever you call

[00:16:08] And then there's going to be providers underneath that clinic director and technicians and pta's All going to be in line going up vertically in that division And so you can take a pt or a technician and say this is where you are in the organization board right now

[00:16:22] And not only do these lines show lines of authority if you will but they also show lines of communication And so I think it's really important to show that kind of visual for people when you're talking about a work board and make it part of the onboarding process

[00:16:36] We had it in our clinics We had the organizing board posted in the break room of each of our clinics So they knew what the organization looked like who to talk to where the authority lines go and who's over what

[00:16:47] So they had a good idea of who's over what what their responsibilities are is whereas where I fit in the organization And it seemed like people just really liked having that visual That somehow it provided some kind of mental clarity

[00:17:00] Yeah, so the two places that I have seen This really be helpful for us and our company is like you mentioned one communication Communication becomes a lot more challenging as you get more people

[00:17:14] Right. So who goes to who for what? You know what I mean? Like that doesn't mean that I can't talk to other people along the board but like there are

[00:17:22] Conversations that are reserved for a specific person in the company and if they get out to too many people then that's when confusion starts to develop and That's not good, right?

[00:17:33] And so we've all had to learn those lessons of and challenges of communication. So communication is is huge and Is I would be willing to bet that's probably one of the biggest reasons why people get burned out because they have

[00:17:44] Have lack of control over the communication in their company And then the second thing is accountability, right? It doesn't necessarily directly highlight the accountability all the time, but who owns it

[00:17:59] Who owns it and this can be a very good starting point to help you get clear on who should own this part of the company Who should own this part of the process? Because if everybody owns it then nobody owns it, right? And so that's really

[00:18:13] Where I found the most help with or board communication and accountability Yeah, as we really built out our organization board and spent more time on it in those boxes We had a title

[00:18:25] And the name for that title that would change over time as people left the organization or moved up into the organization to take Those seats and then in that same box were what was their main product? So if it's a provider, it's your product is to

[00:18:42] Have happy patients that are referring their friends and family to you, right getting great results And then their kpi is how do we measure that product? Well, it's a number of patients seen Then it's also number of skilled units billed per visit

[00:18:56] Right. So we had a number of kpi specifically to that provider box All right, and that's exactly what you're talking about How do they know that they're performing in that role in the company? And what are we holding them accountable to on a quick easy visual?

[00:19:10] Yeah, you ever use google maps Yeah zoom all the way out And you just see the globe And you're like in space

[00:19:19] That's the org board, right? Now if you want to like that's why it's like, okay now i'm i've got my whole head is wrapped around the whole company At that point and then if you want to zoom in a little bit closer

[00:19:31] Let's say you want to go down to the country level like where there's some dividing lines between parts Now you're talking about what like specific job descriptions inside of each of these departments, right pts Front desk marketing people digital marketing people

[00:19:47] And so that's when you start getting into the job description Kind of zooming in more detail, right? Right exactly and on an org board. These are high level items that we're putting in there We're not putting a lot of description

[00:19:59] Right into these boxes that these are just the Most important parts regarding that position, right? Yep. Hey everybody. We finally did it Finally we're doing our first in person event the private practice owners club first ever in person conference

[00:20:18] September 20th and 21st in clear water beach, florida adam and i are super excited Really can't wait to finally meet you in person this entire time I've been preaching reach out step out network and I can now provide that to you

[00:20:30] Not just virtually or via podcast but in person We'll have speakers that speak on leadership and growth We'll answer questions to your current issues or provide you opportunity to network like might with like-minded individuals

[00:20:41] And obviously gain inspiration and energy from being in the room with the same people You'll be able to literally reach out step out and network all in one weekend September 20th and 21st at the Hyatt at clear water beach, florida

[00:20:53] I would really love to see you there in order to register go to ppo club events.com ppo club events.com and register to sign up for the event Also early bird registration ends july 31st

[00:21:07] So to get a discount on the registration fees make sure you sign up get your room between now and july 31st Otherwise prices will go up. So go to ppo club events.com

[00:21:19] Thank you to all of you who have listened for so many years. I would love to finally meet you in person I had an experience where I had a pta And at one point we had a coach that was coaching will and I as the owners

[00:21:47] But also we made her available to some of our leadership team to coach them separate from us And that was usually valuable But she took one of our pta's who was over that was doing some marketing but also working as a pta in the provider space

[00:22:01] And she brought her over to the org board and we had this and it was big We had like a six foot by four foot org board And she said we want to go in the company and she like started tearing up. She's like wait

[00:22:15] Are you serious? Like I could move somewhere higher up She's like if it was up to you, where would you want to go? She's like I want to go there And it was the vp of marketing and

[00:22:28] for her to have that visual and to have that space to Dream and respect and have the visual perspective Was huge Yeah, so now she knew what she was driving for and when we told her

[00:22:43] Yeah, that's a total possibility. She's like shut up. I never would have thought my million years you guys would let me do that We're like, yeah So that was a great experience that I had with the org board and it was really helpful for us and it's helpful

[00:22:53] I think for the young owners to like I said visualize where they're at what they're doing And know where we've talked about leadership development. Okay. Where are they go? What are you moving them up to? And not to discount the communication Lines that it puts in their space

[00:23:11] So if you're a provider, you don't go over and talk to the marketing person and tell them what to do You talk to your lines of authority go up to the clinic director Right, right And if you have some ideas you talk to the clinic director

[00:23:24] Maybe the clinic director will go talk to the director of marketing. Correct. There are some ideas, right? Mm-hmm. That's awesome The thing that comes to mind for me is just like what a great gift that you could give somebody like

[00:23:37] You put in all that work and you build that awesome opportunity for people. That's just that's when it gets fun, right? Right So we talked a little bit about job descriptions in the last episode So we might not have to get into it too much

[00:23:49] You're willing to offer a template for it But tell me a little bit about how you built out your job descriptions and what made it easier for you Or what was a challenge that you had regarding building those out? same

[00:24:02] Just i'm looking at a blank piece of paper. What do I start? And I think you can just google some basic job descriptions and you can start getting some perspective on how you could start

[00:24:11] And by the way, you can do it any way that you want and i'm not a job description expert And by the way, I mean, I would have to pull out a job description to give you the exact Details of everything that's on ours But in general

[00:24:25] Like you would want to start with the purpose of the position. What's the purpose? What's the product right? What are the key roles? What are the key responsibilities?

[00:24:35] And how do we measure success in the role? And if you do that and then maybe some basic requirements must pass You have a license you must yeah graduate from the leadership program and whatever it is right

[00:24:48] So if you have your purpose your product your key roles and responsibilities And your stats your stats on how you measure performance and then some requirements Right to be approved then that's a great place to start I'm a little bit older And so I want to say

[00:25:04] That I would assume that AI could do a lot of this for you now Yeah, come on now because even when you were doing it four years ago. I don't think AI was I didn't have wasn't a thing. Yeah, it was ubiquitous like it is now

[00:25:16] But now that there is AI you can put in the proper prompt and just say hey I'm a physical therapy clinic owner. I need a job description for a front desk person with a purpose product

[00:25:29] The kpis and requirements for the position and that will probably get you 60 to 70 of the way there Right and you could probably do that with any other position on the award board And then you can take that and just start

[00:25:45] Individualizing and customizing and making it your own right And ask for two or three different versions and then compare that with what adam shares with you And so creating a job description does not have to be that hard

[00:25:57] But I think one of the issues that I also come up against and we had to remind our leadership team was It's okay if it's not perfect right now We're going to roll this out and there are going to be problems with it

[00:26:08] And we're going to find out and we're going to take those opportunities to change it and modify it So when we bring it out to our team, we're like hey This is version 1.0, right? We expect there to be problems. We expect to answer all the questions

[00:26:21] 10,000 more versions and just saying This is a living breathing document This is how what we're going to start with and this is how we're going to train and this is what we're going to hold you accountable to Until we find modifications that we have to make

[00:26:33] So as long as we are clear with that that it doesn't have to be perfect Let's just get started on something and implement it right away. Yeah As I heard you talk I

[00:26:44] Had a really great framework or mindset around around why this is important that I wanted to share It took me a while To recognize or realize that you're not writing this stuff down on paper just so you can say like I'm cool

[00:26:57] I've got something written down on paper, right? Like this is a tool that you use And I don't know if you guys ever see the ads for train. You will I've never used train you all I know some people who do it supposedly is a great product but

[00:27:11] one of their ads is like Having your policies and procedures as having the smartest employee you could ever imagine that will never quit But you know everything about your company. There's nothing they don't know about your company So what you do what this does is you basically

[00:27:26] Remove yourself as the person that tells everybody what to do And you give it to this person called your policies and procedures or your job descriptions And now that is the decision-making process In the company and you have to be willing to be like

[00:27:40] I'm going to be okay with what I have written down Being the decision maker Right and so like if you're making wrong decisions, it's not oh, let me try harder next time. It's Let's fix the policy. Let's fix the document, right?

[00:27:55] And whenever you can let go of that decision-making authority and give it to your system Like give it to your pot then you can let it manage your employees. You can let it manage your team Yeah, the creator of train you all was actually in will and my

[00:28:07] Entrepreneurs organization eo. It's a national organization and a small business owners And he was in there and he actually worked with one of our mentors Scott fritz who I've had on the podcast in the past Because this was a common experience for all owners just building this out

[00:28:22] And he wanted to digitize it and make it easier. He eventually created train you all and they're killing it right now So the thing about it that was really powerful for us, especially towards the end prior to selling

[00:28:36] Was employees would come to us with questions as they do you knock on the door? Hey, you got a minute and they'd ask a question and if it was related to policy and procedure

[00:28:44] We would say what is the policy and procedures say? What does the employee handbook say? Did you already check that and they're like no That's the first place you go And if it doesn't have an answer talk to your supervisor

[00:28:57] And see what solutions you can come up with or what policy needs to be created So that we can create the policy so that the next time someone asks this question it gets answered

[00:29:06] Right so going back to you. It's the smartest most important employee that knows everything about your organization And then you can start directing people towards it to get their answers That's when it no longer becomes a book up on the shelf that's collecting dust

[00:29:19] That's when it becomes a living breathing document that can really guide your team and show them This is how we do things. This is how we maintain production. This is how we maintain our culture

[00:29:30] This is what we believe creates the best results for our patients and for our team members And so it should if we follow it it will give us the expected results that we want, you know, that sounds like to me Dinner with your family Sounds like some freedom

[00:29:48] Yeah, come on. Now like give me another solution Like this is the only thing you got Like if you want freedom, this is it Right here create more freedom you create more structure you create more Guides for your team stop answering so many questions

[00:30:04] And let the document answer your questions And the interesting thing is it's not a one and done process. We talked about going back to it But think about this Going from one clinic to two clinics

[00:30:15] You're gonna learn more policy and procedure such that you create an SOP for opening a clinic Yeah Right, so now when you're looking to open a clinic or your director of

[00:30:27] Operations or your director of marketing is like, hey, I think there's a great opportunity over here in this space Well, we're gonna have a checklist of does that location meet these criteria that we expect to have for a new location number one

[00:30:42] And if we do press the button and say go because it's met our checklist of expected data Then here let's open up the next policy And this is how we open a clinic Right

[00:30:53] So at that point guess what does the owner have to do all the heavy lifting? No, they can turn it over to somebody and say All right, this is how we open a clinic Especially if they're partnering

[00:31:06] And that partner is part of this new clinic. They're like, hey, bro Here's our policy and procedure for opening a clinic You're part of the leadership team and you're a partner in this thing

[00:31:15] This is what I've created follow this and we will be successful because we've done it before Super powerful, right? Yeah Awesome stuff. Yeah, so from here you should have like your piece of paper out. I think it's chapter 7.1 right 7a And at the top it's practice management

[00:31:35] organizational board and then you've got your diagram of what you're just a general idea of how you want to organize things in your company, right? And then section two is going to be job descriptions for all of the roles that are currently in your company pt pta

[00:31:50] ot ot a speech therapist text Marketing people front desk the front desk the back desk those are two different roles Right, what do they look like? And those are all underneath operations all underneath another tree underneath the tree digital marketing

[00:32:06] Assistance, right you can even I've seen people create job descriptions for anybody they outsource like their accountant Their billing team by just having kind of that. What's the expectation there?

[00:32:17] And at that point you've got an org board with all of the roles built out and then now you can build You can kind of zoom in a little bit closer, right and build the specific policies and procedures That help each person Deliver on their product

[00:32:33] Whatever that is, right? So policies are procedures on patient care on board and hiring intake process everything that you do and yeah, you do that and You're gonna have a lot of control in your company. Yeah, this eventually becomes as I talked about with the regulation stuff

[00:32:49] You want to get some of the compliance paperwork? You don't want to have to figure that out So I would recommend you finding an organization that can provide you some of the more regulatory stuff but that

[00:32:59] Combined with your org board combined with your employee handbook both combined with the policy and procedures Which include so we talk about job description But within the job description that's going to be links to policies and procedures

[00:33:11] How to answer the phone how to greet what the patient experience looks like when they come in the door We greet them. We say hi. We say hi missus or mister or however we decide to salute somebody

[00:33:21] This is what we're expecting during initial evaluation. This is how often we Oh think about billing collections. This is how often we meet these are the kpis that we're expected This is the agenda we follow in a billing collections team meeting

[00:33:34] So all those things become a playbook and all of those things put together become our policy and procedures manual And it could be volumes, right? There's probably a policy and procedure manual for each division And then there's definitely a policy and procedure manual for each position

[00:33:51] And there's policy and procedure manual for the ceo to maintain organization and oversight over each division So that's when you really start having a robust policy and procedures manual But it really starts with one point and if you tell me where you started

[00:34:06] But I would recommend starting on the operations division And if you wanted to start from the ground up and go from there and then branch out over the marketing and then over to

[00:34:15] Finance and recruiting. I don't know. Did you start any place in particular that seemed helpful to you? Yes And this is the golden nugget guys

[00:34:25] Start on the thing that's occupying the most of your time. What are you spending? What fire do you are you putting out every day? all the time And that's got you stressed out and that's impacting your ability like

[00:34:41] Okay, you're sitting there. You're working on something you don't want to work on and you're like man I really wish I was at home working Having dinner with my family What are you doing? Create a policy for that And then delegate it

[00:34:56] Right and then just policies are captured. They're not created Right, so like don't feel like I've made the mistake and I know we all have a feeling like oh like we've got to build all these manuals and Try to create all this stuff that

[00:35:10] Isn't even there yet, right? Just focus on the thing that's Occupying the most time right now and a lot of times if you just do that A lot of things almost take care of themselves So capture the policies Instead of creating them I love it

[00:35:27] We talked about the conference thing that was taking up a lot of my brain space the other day Before we had our meeting with the event planner and so I decided to put together the agenda for our meeting

[00:35:37] And just start breaking out. What do I need to know? What do I need to do in this meeting to feel like i'm on top of things? Right, oh, it was great too. You did a good job with that. What are the kpis?

[00:35:49] What is our product from this meeting? What are some of the things I want to make sure we address? Right and as I started building that out I had other

[00:35:57] Sparks of insight that I wanted to make sure I hit on there what I thought was going to be like a one-page thing And ended up becoming a three-page document But correct me if i'm wrong. I feel like it was pretty comprehensive Oh, it was great

[00:36:10] And it's the thing you've been working on Yeah So you're like you did it while you were working on you captured it Yeah, exactly super helpful gave me some clarity gave me answers to what that I needed at the moment

[00:36:23] So I love your advice start with a thing that's occupying your most time because if it's occupying your time There's some sort of chaos That's happening. That's not being controlled. So you've got to organize the chaos That's right Get the data and you can get it all structured

[00:36:41] Now the chaos becomes less and less and you go from this massive Of chaos in your business And as you implement structure and more structure and structure and you organize and you organize and you organize

[00:36:55] That's when it becomes really easy to start handing those things off to other people Delegating holding them accountable And that then becomes I mean, that's why mcdonalds has been the biggest fast food provider for decades figured out

[00:37:09] They figured out before everybody else. This is because of this not that we're trying to become mcdonalds for pt But there's a genius and a value And honestly, I will say this There is a huge value monetarily when someone comes to your company

[00:37:26] And sees a bunch of policy and procedure and a bunch of people following policy procedure and not a bunch of people following people Right, you know what I mean? Because if your company is people based On their decisions and the actions

[00:37:40] Then and you lose some of those people over time then all of a sudden chaos ensues But if your company is policy and procedure based structurally based Those people can that can be a revolving door and they just have to follow the policy procedure

[00:37:56] And that's where the value comes when you're trying to sell your company, right? If i'm The greatest provider in my clinic and i'm trying to sell And i'm hoping to leave or retire at some point. I have very little value as a company

[00:38:10] But if i'm the owner and i'm vacationing Nine out of the 12 months a year and the company continues to generate revenue and profit in spite of me That's a super valuable company that someone else can buy with very little effort and see that

[00:38:24] Same return, right? That's what they want. So that's where this shows up not just in the freedom that we're talking about but it Definitely shows up in the dollars and cents That's right that multiple right makes it much bigger the other thing that I wanted to mention is

[00:38:43] You start with I would say most practice owners aren't there They're probably like buried in too many things they're trying to do So start with the things that are On your plate now, but once you kind of get those figured out, right?

[00:38:59] Then it becomes less about what's on your plate right now and it becomes more about like What are you going to do in the next 30 days? Right? So it might be like i'm going to hire a pt in 30 days

[00:39:11] Let me pull out the onboarding process and make a 1 improvement on it and make sure that we're ready to go And then that way the pts come you get a little bit more proactive about it

[00:39:23] Right and then once you're able to kind of zoom out and get extremely proactive about it Then you're no longer making policies and procedures anymore exactly and this is where you've provided a ton of value for our coaching

[00:39:34] clients in the vault and yeah in the vault in our coaching Program, there's a vault of exactly like like a recruiting program You don't have to generate the policy and procedure for a recruiting program

[00:39:46] You've already thrown it in the vault right that's right an interesting number of our clients still don't reference it enough Even though it's there for free for them Good point. I mean listen, okay. You've got to step out of treatment

[00:39:59] It's like you've got to work on this stuff There are people in this world who are impressed by what you've helped me be able to do And I tell them all the time I'm not super smart like i'm just a regular dude. I'm a hard worker

[00:40:13] But one thing that I do do is I don't treat patients and i'm spending 40 hours a week trying to make my businesses better and like If you're treating patients 40 hours a week and you're in the business and i'm not after six months

[00:40:27] I mean it's gonna be I mean we're gonna be on different stratospheres. You know what I mean You just got to step out and you got to go into it and do a different type of work

[00:40:36] right, I literally saw this yesterday talking to a friend in my mastermind and He has a friend who started a clinic six months before him But he decided to get coaching and his friend has not and his friend has done nothing

[00:40:52] Stayed the same and just complains about it all the time while he has grown into two clinics And he hardly treats it all anymore and he's developing a leadership team now two years later Isn't it crazy completely different started at the same

[00:41:05] I mean the other guy had six months had started on him. Yeah, but hasn't invested in this company. That's right I mean You'd be amazed at how fast things can move if you just decide to work on the right things

[00:41:16] Right, exactly. Yeah. So we talked about org board job descriptions policies and procedures reach out to adam If you want a little bit of a template look into traction for some ideas as well pumpkin plan by mike mcowlwitz

[00:41:28] I think has some great ideas and then next time we're going to talk a little bit more about the human side of things. So hiring onboarding the employee experience and employee retention communication with them A big part of that is recruiting

[00:41:45] Just hold on that's going to be the next episode after that because it deserves a Episode unto itself and so wait for that one. It'll be coming sounds good, man. All right anything else you want to add adam

[00:41:57] No, sir. Hey if anybody needs any help shoot me a message You can check out the facebook group private practice owners club. You can email me adam at ptoclub.com Shoot me an email happy to chat with you anytime and support you in any way that I can

[00:42:10] Yeah, hopefully we can see a lot of people in person at the conference in september Show up Show up to the conference. Come on guys. We need you there All right. See you later, man. Hey, brother

[00:42:23] Thanks for joining us today in the physical therapy owners club the resource for stability and freedom in your pt practice Reach out and join the network today Subscribe to our podcast get links to social media and access all of our episodes with show notes at ptoclub.com