What to Do When a Team Member Leaves: 30 Days Notice Guide

[00:00:00] What's up? Welcome back to The Aaron LeBauer Show. Some crazy happened to me. It's been about a month.

[00:00:06] Another crazy thing. Yeah, another crazy thing. Another crazy thing happened to me.

[00:00:11] And we're going to talk about it today. So 30 days ago, I'm sitting at a team meeting

[00:00:19] with Caitlin who maybe you guys have heard about. She's been on the show

[00:00:24] and she gave me her 30 days notice. And I was just like, it was one of those moments

[00:00:30] you've had that right. Where you're sitting there and the world passes you by and you're like,

[00:00:35] what just happened? Business is changing. It always does. So let me kind of set this up. So

[00:00:43] Caitlin, if you're not listening to me, you've never heard this show before. My name is Dr.

[00:00:48] Aaron LeBauer. I'm a physical therapist. I own a physical therapy, cash practice in Greensboro.

[00:00:52] And for the last 12 years, I've been coaching physical therapists to launch, grow and scale

[00:00:58] cash practices and coaching online coaching businesses and even hybrid clinics.

[00:01:04] So I've got two businesses. And in my clinic about a year ago, I think it was about a year

[00:01:12] just about a year ago, maybe a little less. Caitlin was our physical therapist

[00:01:19] and she's been with me for since 2019. Just shy of five years working together. We

[00:01:25] actually, I think I just looked signed our contract on February 19th, 2019. Caitlin is the

[00:01:34] physical therapist, but not just of PT. She was like the clinic manager and I'd given her an

[00:01:40] opportunity and position to not only get a raise, but get a raise that was a bonus. So

[00:01:47] we could do more about this. I've taught this kind of model to my Platinum mastermind,

[00:01:53] but it was okay. I think it's been more than a year that we developed it. So it's been a little

[00:01:59] over a year that we did this, but she was getting her salary and then any month the clinic was

[00:02:07] above, you know, 20, I think it was $20,000 revenue per month. She'd get a percentage of

[00:02:14] the gross revenue, which is pretty dope, which when we look at it and as we continue to grow,

[00:02:20] her salary can continue to grow. But the responsibilities that came with that were

[00:02:25] running marketing events and helping grow the business, helping manage the business,

[00:02:29] being responsible for leading team meetings, which helped me as well,

[00:02:36] being a main point of contact, managing the clinic email inbox and things like that.

[00:02:42] Well, so that's what's good. I'm like, sweet. I've got this locked down. I've got this

[00:02:48] problem. This challenge locked down and I'm going to be in my coaching business doing these other

[00:02:55] things. And we're sitting there December 3rd or something like that. And we did this,

[00:03:03] you know, we checked it. So what we would do is we would have an all team meeting on Tuesdays

[00:03:07] and every Thursday, Caitlin and I meet for mentoring. And since she joined us here in

[00:03:13] the clinic, that's kind of been our pace because the first couple years it was doing a lots of

[00:03:17] clinical mentoring because she was a new grad right out of school. We did a lot of clinical

[00:03:24] mentoring. And then in the last couple years we've done a lot of like business mentoring

[00:03:29] and running the clinic, running the practice, especially in the last year, we were doing

[00:03:34] that meeting and she was like, Aaron, I have something to tell you. I've accepted, I

[00:03:38] need to give you my 30 days notice. I've accepted another job and I was just like,

[00:03:42] I'm just like crushed. It was just inside. I was like, oh, this sucks. And then my brain

[00:03:47] immediately start went to, okay, what do I need to do now? So she told me and I asked her, you know,

[00:03:54] I was like, okay. And she said, you know, like they wanted me to start in two weeks, but I told

[00:03:58] him I couldn't do that. That wouldn't be fair. So it was just great. So she's like my last

[00:04:03] day is going to be January 5th, which is today. So I'm recording this on her last day. I

[00:04:08] didn't want to make this podcast episode right away. I wanted to make it like this isn't necessarily my

[00:04:13] therapy. I wanted to make this something educational for you guys and I figured right now,

[00:04:19] while this is fresh in my mind, the process that what I've gone through in the last 30 days,

[00:04:23] I want to share it. And so we're going to do that. Let me just go out and just shout out

[00:04:27] Caitlin. Number one, Caitlin's amazing. She's awesome. She's grown into being an

[00:04:31] amazing therapist. She's going to work for like a healthcare tech company. I'm not exactly sure

[00:04:39] which role I've asked her twice and I can't remember because the first time I asked her,

[00:04:43] I was so in shock. I was like, I don't know what she's doing. I just know she's not

[00:04:46] going to work for another clinic and she's not going treating patients. I can't remember

[00:04:51] the name of the company or anything like that. But she's going to do, I think,

[00:04:57] what is it like, something like development of some sort in some healthcare tech company.

[00:05:04] So and it's awesome. And she's been working really hard to help make sure this transition happens

[00:05:09] smoothly. And she's been amazing. I'm losing a friend and my therapist. She's my physical

[00:05:17] therapist that I see when I need somebody. I'm losing like a trusted employee. She's

[00:05:22] and she's been here just under five years. So she started March 1, 2019.

[00:05:31] By basically March 1, 2020, Caitlin had like a massive full schedule, you know? So I initially

[00:05:39] started with Derek, the first Cache PG resident who was here for a year then Tyler and I was

[00:05:43] like, you know what? I can't hire someone amazing and have him leave after a year. And so then

[00:05:47] I hired Caitlin and the promise when I hired Caitlin wasn't to go out and start her own business

[00:05:52] after a year. It was to stay here and grow in the position which she has. But she didn't hit that

[00:05:59] final marker where I was like, oh yeah, let's get this thing automated, you know, with Caitlin

[00:06:04] running it and crushing it. But I think after a year, I would guess that she realized that that

[00:06:09] was different type of work than she wanted or enjoyed. Also, I do know like she didn't

[00:06:16] go looking for another job. They came looking for her. So if there's a club for business owners who've

[00:06:23] had an employee head hunted away from them, I'm now in that club. But Caitlin and I really connected

[00:06:29] because we both had clinical rotations at Sports Medicine of Atlanta, Bob Duvall. We've learned

[00:06:34] a lot of really great things from Bob and some things that we know that neither of us

[00:06:39] want to do which is what you always do but Bob's given me some amazing opportunities to

[00:06:42] shout out to him. But that's one of the reasons that we connected and she moved down here to

[00:06:49] Greensboro. Thank you, Caitlin. If you're listening to this, I'm going to miss you a lot

[00:06:54] and appreciate everything you've done to help us and our patients here. So anyways,

[00:07:00] let me tell you guys what happened. So I'm sitting here going, okay,

[00:07:04] fuck shit. Okay, what am I going to do now? What's the plan? My immediate thought was

[00:07:10] I didn't ask for this. My immediate thought was I had a plan to do a bunch of other stuff over the

[00:07:16] winter break than fixing some shit in the clinic. And I was just like, all right. And we ended

[00:07:25] that meeting instead of an hour. We ended it after like 25 minutes because there wasn't much else

[00:07:28] to talk about because I was like, I need to go. She's like, if you know she's like, I don't

[00:07:32] have anything else and if you need to end the meeting quickly, I'm like yeah, I need to go

[00:07:38] for a walk. So here's what I did. I went for a walk. I've got this nice little like

[00:07:45] one half block loop outside the back door and it gets a lot of laps from me

[00:07:49] in the last few years. Because like, all right, I need to shift from

[00:07:54] one activity to another. Let's go for a walk. I need to go think clear my head.

[00:07:58] So I put in my AirPods, put on my music, I went for a walk halfway around.

[00:08:02] I sent a message to my buddy Ryan. I was like, yo, I need some, I need your ear.

[00:08:09] Like when do you have time to talk? And he was like, dude, I'm available.

[00:08:15] You know, I messaged another friend of mine and I might have messaged Alan and Greg Todd, but

[00:08:24] I don't think either one did I can't remember. I might have messaged Greg a little bit

[00:08:28] Alan a little bit later. But I messaged them and they weren't free and Ryan's like, yo,

[00:08:32] I'm free. I was like, sweet. I need to talk this through with you. So

[00:08:38] I chatted with Ryan and we went through this and Ryan is a

[00:08:43] owns a seven figure personal training gym up in like upstate New York and one of these towns

[00:08:49] that I think it was Yurika, which is like it's not like a major town and he crushes it there

[00:08:56] and he's been trying to sell his gym or he's had a couple offers and opportunities to do it and

[00:09:01] work. And he was just like, do you really need the clinic? I was like, that's a good question.

[00:09:09] It wasn't the first time he said that to me or other people have said that to me.

[00:09:14] And we chatted and I left that conversation feeling pretty good. I had like, you know,

[00:09:20] I had like, okay, here's here's X Y and Z and I'll run through like some of these benefits of

[00:09:25] like, do I really need the clinic? But what I came away with was and Ryan gave me was, you know,

[00:09:31] find out, figure out what's your desired like end state. Like where do you want? What does Aaron

[00:09:34] want? Because he's like, you know, you've had a lot of things happen in the last years. And as

[00:09:38] you guys know, in the last years we've had COVID, you know, I had my wife who was my

[00:09:44] business partner also divorced and left the business. So the business looks radically different

[00:09:51] now than it did, you know, March 1 2020. You know, March 1 2020 we had a massage therapist,

[00:09:59] admin, we had a PT, we had I was I was hiring another massage therapist and something else.

[00:10:08] And I had someone working here like two people working here in the coaching business. And

[00:10:14] I want to say there was something else if it looks radically different.

[00:10:17] You know, 31 days ago, we had two PTs one of them focused on physical therapy and the other

[00:10:23] focused on Chris has been doing like medical fitness for a better word. You know, there's

[00:10:30] not a great word for it. You know, Ryan was like, okay, where do you want to be? What

[00:10:33] does Aaron want to be? Match the options that you have to what you want to create. And he

[00:10:37] said, do what's best for Aaron? Now what's best for other people? Because if you're always

[00:10:42] doing what's best for other people, then you're not going to get out of it what you

[00:10:45] want. You're not going to enjoy it. It's not going to serve you. Because really that conversation

[00:10:49] came down to, well, is this the opportunity? Is this a sign for me to close the clinic?

[00:10:56] Or is this a sign to keep going? Okay. And I started going over, okay, here's all the

[00:11:05] benefits. Here's all the things that would make it easy to close. Here's all the reasons to

[00:11:12] not close. And also that night, so let's see, I'll go through, let me go through those and

[00:11:20] then I'll tell you what happened next. I'll try to do this in order. So I was like, okay,

[00:11:25] here's the benefits of closing the clinic. I probably add another easily add $20,000

[00:11:30] in my bank account. And that's just like, and let's see, 150 hours of meetings

[00:11:41] plus all the other time that I think about it. So probably hundreds of hours of time.

[00:11:46] It would decrease my stress about running and managing the clinic and managing other people.

[00:11:54] I wouldn't have to have any stress about payroll and paying people out.

[00:11:58] It would, like I said, it'd give me another five hours a week. Maybe, maybe more,

[00:12:03] maybe 10 hours a week. It would do a lot of those things. Okay. So I get some time back.

[00:12:08] I don't really get money back. I just get less money out.

[00:12:17] I wouldn't have to stress about always patients objecting to us because

[00:12:22] some days that gets a little old. I mean, I know you probably feel the same way. Some

[00:12:26] days I get a little old people go, I just don't want to pay. I'm like, damn it.

[00:12:30] I've been running this business here for 20 years. Like,

[00:12:35] you know, like it's the same story over and over again. I'd have more time and energy

[00:12:40] to focus on my coaching business, which honestly, which wasn't the plan but is

[00:12:45] generates more revenue for me in the same amount of time. Right. Benefits of keeping the

[00:12:52] clinic. I mean, I think there's some really good benefits of keeping it. I get to help people in

[00:12:58] Greensboro my way. I mean, I was the, was it the first cash practice here? I think maybe there was,

[00:13:06] I think Lorraine was doing a couple days a week of PT like right when,

[00:13:11] right as I was getting out at PT school. Okay. I got bragging rights. I got a clinic.

[00:13:15] I don't know if it matters to you or not. I mean, there's a lot of business coaches out

[00:13:18] there that don't own clinics anymore because guess what they get to help people and they've

[00:13:21] owned clinics for a lot of years. You know, some people will say, Aaron, I came to work with you

[00:13:26] because you actually own a clinic. I'm like, okay, great. Well, whether I actually own a clinic now

[00:13:31] or owned one for 20 years. I mean, I'm not sure about you, but I don't think that really matters.

[00:13:39] But there's bragging rights to say, yeah, I get to practice this in my thing and,

[00:13:43] you know, practice these strategies in my own business. I mean, there's a lot about my business

[00:13:48] that we fail on and lose money on that my clients make more money on because I try these

[00:13:52] things first in my business and then perfect it. And we give it to our clients and the clients go

[00:13:57] and crush it. I mean, I was just talking yesterday about how it took me five years

[00:14:04] to do what Derek who I just mentioned to you, Derek Nielsen was my first cash PD resident.

[00:14:09] He did this clinical and business residency. He essentially paid me about $150,000 for the year

[00:14:15] to learn how to grow a business and be a better clinician because he was making $200,000

[00:14:24] over $200,000 a year in his own business. After about a year or two working with me,

[00:14:34] I mean, he made $15,000 in his eighth month. I think he made $10,000 in his first eight weeks.

[00:14:41] And it took me five years to make $15,000 in a month. I have these like clinic that I can practice

[00:14:48] this stuff in and help my clients even faster. There is a potential revenue upside of keeping

[00:14:54] the clinic where the clinic grows and it brings in more revenue. So that's great. And Chris,

[00:15:02] who's my other employee has a job. Like just because one person decides to leave,

[00:15:07] does it mean the other person needs to lose their job? No. So here's I started thinking,

[00:15:14] okay, here's the benefit. Okay, Caitlin leaving. I mean, what's that going to save me? It's

[00:15:20] going to save me her salary plus benefits, which is probably cost me over $100,000.

[00:15:28] Because if like her salary is say $85,000, there's I don't know the exact number,

[00:15:33] but there's easily $20,000 worth of taxes and fees and IRA match and benefits and all that stuff

[00:15:40] that I pay per year. So it's probably $120,000 that it's going to save me. Chris has a slam

[00:15:48] schedule and a long-term six figure upside because I'm an offer and I don't know if I

[00:15:55] mentioned this, but I'm going to turn around and see if Chris wants this role. And the clinic

[00:16:00] still runs and this thing that I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into, especially in 2020,

[00:16:06] is still here. I'm choosing so I have to choose to keep the clinic or not close it based on what's

[00:16:12] best for Aaron. That's really what I have to do. So those are kind of like those are just

[00:16:18] bullet points. I mean, I just was on my phone making these lists. Okay. So that was that

[00:16:23] afternoon I talked to Ryan. I think I had a couple coaching calls. I had a couple of things

[00:16:27] to do and I was just like, fuck shit. I was like, okay, after work, I went out with my friend Greg,

[00:16:33] not Greg Todd who you guys all know about him, but Greg Pington, who's the got a long zizi top

[00:16:39] beard motorcycle guy. He owns one of the motorcycle dealerships here. Greg's become

[00:16:45] an even closer friend over the last year and he's great. He's awesome. He's always

[00:16:50] reaching out to me, always including me in things. It's spent Christmas day with him. We

[00:16:55] went on a ride, whatever. Greg's awesome. Greg owns a business too. I've known him for 18 or 19

[00:17:01] years and we met at Havana Fills here. We had a cigar, got an old fashioned and we were chatting

[00:17:10] and I was telling about it and he was just like, oh, you know what? It was the same day. I'm

[00:17:16] remembering this. It was the same day as the Christmas party at Havana Fills. His wife was

[00:17:22] there and a whole bunch of people there and I was like, dude, I got to tell you what happened.

[00:17:25] But it was nuts. There was so much going on that day and I think I had a date right in the

[00:17:31] middle of the Christmas party but it was only two blocks away and that was busted. But anyways,

[00:17:37] it was just like this crazy day and I'm just like, Greg, dude, check this out. He's like,

[00:17:42] Aaron, I was like, dude, I'm gonna close the clinic. Here's all the reasons why I

[00:17:46] should close the clinic. He's like, yeah, here's the reasons why you should keep it.

[00:17:50] He's like, roll in there tomorrow and just tell Chris, this is your time. This is the opportunity.

[00:17:58] I believe in you and this is it. And Greg's like, Aaron, you're an entrepreneur. You fix

[00:18:06] shit. You grow businesses. I was like, yeah, you're right. I mean, he is right. Literally,

[00:18:11] this is like four or five hours after the conversation with Kate and after a few other

[00:18:15] phone calls that I had and some other things I was doing. Okay, so whenever I had my drink

[00:18:22] in my cigar, a couple drinks and then I think we went out for dinner later and chatted more about it

[00:18:30] but didn't focus the whole evening on it. I just sat through it, woke up the next morning.

[00:18:34] I was like, I know what I need to do. I know what I need to do. So I messaged Chris and I

[00:18:40] was just like, hey dude, do you have time this morning at 9am to chat? He's like, yep.

[00:18:45] And so we sat down and chatted and I'd asked Caitlin when she told me, I was like,

[00:18:53] have you told Chris? She's like, I haven't told Chris. I didn't know if you want me to tell him

[00:18:58] you were going to tell him. I was like, look, I'll tell him. That's my job and responsibility.

[00:19:04] It's interesting. I had asked her, I was like, I asked Caitlin, well, what did they offer you

[00:19:08] for compensation? Do I not get an opportunity to counter offer? And she was like, no, I don't

[00:19:12] feel comfortable offering it. And I was like, oh, they offered her a lot of money. But she did tell

[00:19:16] me that when I asked her the second time, because when my head was clear, she was like, yeah, I didn't,

[00:19:21] you know, they came looking for me. I don't know how they found her. They must have found her

[00:19:25] and they found her through social media or somewhere else. But I created someone who

[00:19:30] like is going to ascend in her career really quickly. So I'm really stoked for her.

[00:19:36] So before I get to this conversation with Chris, let me just share with you like my state of mind was,

[00:19:43] you know, the world, I don't think God throws things at me. That's not the way that I believe.

[00:19:50] But I was just like, okay, the world like something like just drop this piece of

[00:19:58] like this puzzle piece, this massive puzzle piece just dropped from heaven in my lap.

[00:20:03] Like, I don't usually think like the way that I believe in practice and religion.

[00:20:08] I'm not, I don't think that God has ordained my path. Like I get to choose my path. I make

[00:20:13] my own choices. But what I just saw was that it was almost like watching and I was in an episode

[00:20:20] of Lost where I've got this thing and all of a sudden this puzzle piece goes bonk and it's so

[00:20:26] big it didn't smash me. This puzzle piece was so big, it didn't hit me on the head.

[00:20:33] It just fell right around me. And I was like, okay, this is it. Like I can put so Chris,

[00:20:41] I hired Chris two years ago. And because I couldn't hire a massage therapist in 2021,

[00:20:48] 2022, I couldn't know massage therapist was applying for our job. Like I is the best down

[00:20:53] cell from PT. I've been doing it for a while, people are asking us for it all the time.

[00:20:58] Like I couldn't do it. So I went to hire a personal trainer to do strength and conditioning here

[00:21:02] and Chris Dr. Chris who was a year ahead of me at Elon applied for the job. He got the job.

[00:21:09] And I was like, ah, so the last four months, Chris hasn't been as busy as I would like.

[00:21:17] Like, Caitlin's been busy. And I'm like, okay, what do I need to do to get Chris busier? So I was

[00:21:23] like, all right, Chris has these extra time. He's an amazing person, amazing personality.

[00:21:27] I need to get him doing some more things interacting with people and generating more revenue.

[00:21:31] Because Chris is not the admin king. That's not Chris's, that's not Chris seat on the bus.

[00:21:38] So I had Chris working doing some work for my coaching business doing calls and doing

[00:21:42] some DMs on Instagram and Facebook and just helping me reach out to other people and generate calls

[00:21:48] to generate new clients. And I pretty much in December, like after Thanksgiving, I'm like,

[00:21:54] sweet, Chris is good. He's doing these calls. He'll do a triage call, like a new patient

[00:21:59] strategy call, do that. And then he would if the person qualified, he'd pass them over to Jess,

[00:22:04] who's one of our mastermind members and owns her own business. And she does some of the

[00:22:08] sales and enrollment for the coaching group in my coaching business, which is awesome. And I'm

[00:22:14] like, sweet, this is working. This is great. And then I'm like, Oh, nope, that piece was the wrong

[00:22:21] pit. Like that was when the wrong move, it was just there's a bigger move coming. Caitlyn still

[00:22:26] wasn't seeing the 30 something people a week that she was seeing pre pandemic. So there's room

[00:22:32] on her schedule for more people. And there's room on Chris's schedule for more people.

[00:22:36] My idea is get these guys in and grow this thing. And we're growing, but not as like not

[00:22:42] lightning fast, because also I'm not spending the 2030 hours in my own clinic every week,

[00:22:47] running it, I'm letting other people run it. And I'm spending that time in the coaching

[00:22:52] business, because that's more leverage for me. So it's not growing as fast as I'd like,

[00:22:57] but it's growing. But I still need Chris doing more so I can keep him around and keep

[00:23:01] him happy and keep him making more money, because I want to keep this guy around.

[00:23:05] And this puzzle piece falls from the sky. And it's basically saying, Aaron,

[00:23:09] you got Chris in the wrong place. Let me show you where he belongs.

[00:23:14] Right? This is where Chris and I'm like, like it didn't crush me. I was like, okay,

[00:23:19] I'm gonna put Chris in this position and pretty much immediately he's going to have a slam

[00:23:22] schedule next week. Chris doesn't have a slam schedule because guess what? He's going

[00:23:25] out of town for Con Ed. I'll tell you about him in a second, but he's going to have a slam

[00:23:31] schedule. So I got to get Chris, so this creates problems like this is a shuffling problems type of

[00:23:38] thing. But I'm sitting here looking at this as an opportunity. It was like, look, I'm going to save on

[00:23:45] payroll from Caitlin. If I go and look and you know, I have Caitlin on salary and if I

[00:23:52] looked and we all looked and saw what I'm paying her per visit, you'd be like, oh, that's

[00:23:58] a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. And if I was paying her per visit is too much. It's too much for what she

[00:24:03] gave me now. At the same time, Chris and I have a different agreement and a different compensation

[00:24:10] package. And I'm going to move people over to Chris and Chris is going to make more money.

[00:24:16] And I'm going to make more money. And I think we're both going to be happy. And then this

[00:24:22] gives me room to give Chris even more opportunities in the clinic for growth and higher compensation

[00:24:27] packages, et cetera. So I could look at this as I made mistakes along the way. But were these

[00:24:33] mistakes or were these just learning opportunities to say, hey, here's this better compensation

[00:24:38] model? Or you know, because really it, you know, I can't retract it, but I hired Caitlin for a

[00:24:44] certain job and of seeing 30 something patient 34 patients a week at a salary. And this is your

[00:24:52] role. And then COVID hit and then Andre left and other things happened. And it was like, okay,

[00:24:57] I'm still paying her for this, but the role is different. Right? I'm not paying her per patient.

[00:25:06] Chris has a compensation model where he gets an hourly plus a per patient. I may even change that

[00:25:12] coming up, but I'm only and I've changed it with Chris once before. And I'm only going to

[00:25:17] change it if it gives him a bigger upside, but it gives me a bigger upside, but it incentivizes

[00:25:24] how he works and Chris has different incentives than Caitlin. And that's what you need to learn

[00:25:29] like from your for your employees. Like you may have two different compensation models based on

[00:25:33] or three based on their personality and what, how they thrive. I could have looked at this

[00:25:39] like I'm getting smashed. And this is the reason this is the final straw to close my clinic

[00:25:44] COVID my ex-wife left my number one, like my main employee is leaving. All right. And I'm not

[00:25:52] treating patients and I haven't since 2019. And you know, I can step in and see all the patients,

[00:26:01] but that steps me backwards. So here's this puzzle piece. I'm like, all right, let's put it

[00:26:06] together. Right? Maybe it wasn't like a one puzzle piece, maybe it was a box with, you

[00:26:11] know, a hundred puzzle pieces that I had to put together. So I'm going to walk you through right

[00:26:15] now the puzzle piece, the logistics of what I did to transition all our patients to Chris,

[00:26:21] transition Caitlin out, Chris in and keep this thing running. And it's going to be even leaner

[00:26:29] than it was before. And it's going to generate more revenue and help as many, if not more

[00:26:35] people when a crisis happens, you have the opportunity to look at it as if something's

[00:26:40] happening to you or something's happening for you. And I've been through so many of these

[00:26:44] things lately, I just realized it took me a few hours and a few conversations with friends

[00:26:50] to figure out, okay, here's how it, here's what happened for me. I made my priority list

[00:26:54] and after two weeks, I was sitting here still a little bit stuck. I was like, all right.

[00:26:59] So I know what to do. Okay, I know what Chris needs. I know what Caitlin needs.

[00:27:06] And I know kind of like, what's this transition plan? I was like, okay, I've got this. I've just

[00:27:11] lost someone doing triages like our, our, our strategy calls. And I have to do those now. I've,

[00:27:20] I've got this other project and webinar plan and other things. So what I did is I reached

[00:27:23] out to my business coach. I was like, yo, I was like, you know, talky and his crew,

[00:27:30] like, so I'm in boardroom and talky's my coach. But Chris Dufay, I don't, you may or may not,

[00:27:36] Chris, Chris has been one of talkies clients for a long time and now he's on his coaching team and

[00:27:40] Chris exited like an eight figure business about a year ago, like an eight figure online

[00:27:45] fitness coaching business. I mean, the guy is like awesome. And he's fit and, you know,

[00:27:51] healthy and, you know, has a lot of similar interests to me and what I've met him like,

[00:27:55] we get along other than he's got an Australian accent, but the dude is great. And I was like,

[00:27:59] I was like, Chris, can we hop on a call so I can go through my strategy? These like what's

[00:28:04] happening is like a lot of shits happening and I need help prioritizing. And I got off this call

[00:28:10] and he's like, Aaron, do you know what you need to do? I was like, yep, I'm clear. And he really

[00:28:13] helped me just knock out a couple things really quickly. So if I didn't have that,

[00:28:18] if I didn't have a coach to reach out to it, like I could have hopped on one of the calls

[00:28:21] with talky. But what happened, what's happening right now is with the time difference in

[00:28:25] Australia and the US, those calls are Tuesday afternoons right when I pick up my kids and I

[00:28:29] can't get on them. I just, I can't. I was like, I need to, I need to get on a call

[00:28:33] because I can't make the regularly scheduled calls. Do you have some time? And he's like,

[00:28:37] sure. And they're getting ready to go on like their summer break in Australia. He's like,

[00:28:41] yeah, let's do it tomorrow. Did it. And I was like, boom, I got my marching orders.

[00:28:45] I know exactly what I need to do. Okay. So number one, if this is one of those

[00:28:51] things where you might feel like you've got it all, you might feel like you've got it all under

[00:28:56] control and you know what you need to do. And you don't need a coach and you don't need help.

[00:29:00] And then all of a sudden some shit like this happens, like you need to make sure that you've

[00:29:04] got a network of peers and someone who's been there before and done it who can coach you

[00:29:10] through this process. Even Alan Ling is one of my best friends. Like he's been there before

[00:29:16] and Alan can help me, but his role in my life isn't the same as my business coach.

[00:29:21] His role in my life is to protect Aaron. My business coach is also to help Aaron do

[00:29:26] what's best and give me the strategies. So there's lots of different things. And then Ryan's role

[00:29:32] is like a friend and colleague and Greg is more of a friend, but also a colleague. And it's

[00:29:39] they all have good inputs at the end of the day to really figure out what do I need to do?

[00:29:45] What are the strategies you need to focus on? Where do I need to spend my time?

[00:29:49] That's what my business coach helps me with. So I get off that call and like, all right, great.

[00:29:54] This is what we're going to do. But I already knew what I was going to do before that call.

[00:29:58] That call came in about two weeks ago after two weeks of this. So let me tell you there's a

[00:30:03] couple logistics about transitioning all of our patients to Chris. So Chris,

[00:30:10] so I sit down with Chris, I give him the opportunity. I'm like here it is. And it

[00:30:13] took him 10 minutes to go, oh, like to process that Caitlin was leaving. And what was that going

[00:30:20] to mean for him and for me? I mean, it just took him a minute. Chris's role has been

[00:30:25] answering some phones, booking people in on Caitlin, doing state of readiness checks,

[00:30:30] which is the total body diagnostic version for his service, and rolling people into his

[00:30:36] service, which is a once or twice a week program for six to 12 months.

[00:30:42] Okay, so what do I got to do? Aaron, you know, I'm going to talk to Chris and see what happens.

[00:30:51] So my whole thing is, all right, I'm not going to choose to close the clinic.

[00:30:55] Let me go see what Chris wants. And I sat down with Chris. I'm like, hey, here's this

[00:31:01] opportunity. It's sitting right here. I'd love for you to take it. Do you want it?

[00:31:06] And he was like, it took him a while. He's like, yeah, I want it. I was like, dude,

[00:31:09] I need you to go think about this, talk about with your wife. Like this becomes your clinic.

[00:31:15] And I was like, and down the road for years down the road as we grow this, there's equity.

[00:31:19] I'm going to give you an equity opportunity as well. And he was like, okay. And he went

[00:31:24] in like, I was like, okay, at the end of the meeting, you know, he's like, yeah,

[00:31:27] I was like, go talk it over with her and let me know and just text me the word. I'm in

[00:31:31] and we're going to rock and roll on Monday. Because I think this was a Friday when we had this meeting.

[00:31:37] So I'd chat with him. And but Chris was like, yeah, you know, Aaron, when I came to work for you

[00:31:44] in, was it 2021? He was like, you know, he had been, he was, he was the first hired at

[00:31:49] his last PT, you know, orthopedic physician owned PT mill. He was the last fired for

[00:31:55] last hired first fired when COVID came through. And he didn't want to go back. And the reason

[00:32:01] he came to work for me to make less than he was making in this clinic is because he said,

[00:32:05] the juice isn't worth the squeeze. And he said to me when I'm chatting with him, he's like,

[00:32:10] I knew when I was sitting down with you outside during COVID and we're sitting 10 feet apart.

[00:32:15] He was like, I knew that I was here for a reason. You know, I knew there was a reason

[00:32:19] that I stuck with you and did it. And he's like, I really believe in the mission. I mean,

[00:32:24] Chris is the guy he wears an Aaron LeBauer or a LeBauer PT shirt or sweatshirt and hat every day

[00:32:30] here at work. Every day, I was like, dude, you need more? He's like, yeah,

[00:32:35] every day. I mean, he is on brand. He is such a great dude. He's great at connecting with

[00:32:41] people. Like, I want to keep Chris around anyways. And I'm like, here's this opportunity. He's

[00:32:46] like, yeah, you know, I just knew like there was a reason that I was coming over here.

[00:32:52] He's like, two years ago when we were sitting outside, he's like, I didn't know it. But now I do.

[00:32:56] Chris was like, yeah, I'm all in. Like, let's do this. I mean, there's some things that

[00:33:00] like I know are going to take him a while to get because he's been doing different stuff,

[00:33:04] like especially around like operations, you know, but he'll get it. And he's getting it.

[00:33:10] I mean, we've had 30 days. Caitlin gave us four weeks to get him trained

[00:33:15] because he wasn't doing a lot of these things before. And there's a lot of things

[00:33:17] that I'm going to have to step in and do for a while. But Chris said, yes.

[00:33:22] I was like, all right, let's do it. So guess what I did? I was like,

[00:33:26] I'm going to need another admin person. Like we've been floating without an admin person because

[00:33:31] fired her or let her go. And Chris had just been starting. I was like, let's have Chris

[00:33:35] take up some of that slack, not all of it. And Chris and Kate took up that slack. And

[00:33:40] we've I've just been like, all right, we're going to wait till we get to this,

[00:33:43] you know, level of busy before we go and hire another admin. And there was a certain point

[00:33:48] where I was trying to hire an admin about a year ago, but just didn't, you know, someone here locally,

[00:33:52] but just didn't really come through. I ended up getting more virtual virtual people on. And

[00:33:59] I was like, I don't want another person in my life here. But he said yes. And I went over

[00:34:03] to Indeed opened up my profile and turned on my admin hiring funnel. Like it's already up.

[00:34:09] Like I didn't have to do anything. I just updated a few little things and turned it on.

[00:34:12] And I've got some candidates haven't had everyone, anyone go through the full funnel and submit their

[00:34:18] video yet. But I'm also not paying for it. When you do Indeed for free, they give you a big influx

[00:34:25] of people. But it was also right before Christmas. And you know, I was like, you know,

[00:34:31] I'm just going to turn on and see if like another unicorn lands in my lap.

[00:34:37] Unicorn hasn't landed in my lap yet. And I've got a lot of other things to do. So

[00:34:40] made Chris the offer. Okay, so here's how we did it. I had to prioritize moving all of Dr.

[00:34:47] Caitlin's patients to Dr. Chris. So how does that happen? It happens immediately. Chris says,

[00:34:53] yes, on Monday, Tuesday's meeting, team meeting, we talk about this. Okay, this is what we're

[00:34:58] doing is everyone, all new people come to see Chris. Everyone on Caitlin's schedule who's

[00:35:05] going to finish their plan of care before January 5th. It does she can as like you can say goodbye

[00:35:11] to them, but they don't need to be seen. They don't need to be moved to Chris's schedule.

[00:35:15] But anyone who's got a plan of care that is going to extend beyond that needs to start

[00:35:19] to be transitioned to Dr. Chris's schedule. And it's just how you would transition people

[00:35:24] from your schedule to theirs. You need to edify people and be like, Hey, this is Jones,

[00:35:28] based on where you are in your treatment, I'm going to have you start seeing Dr. Chris.

[00:35:33] And then, you know, and Kate can be like, if they ask why, like he's the best person and she can

[00:35:39] really get and in January, you know, I'm leaving and moving on to a different, you know, role in

[00:35:43] a different company. Like I told her she could say that. But the main and the very first thing

[00:35:48] you want to do is just let people know like this is this is where you're going. This is

[00:35:51] what you're doing. That's what a doctor does. We started that process. Okay, we started the

[00:35:57] process of making sure Chris was comfortable selling physical therapy and not just the

[00:36:01] training because the packages programs and pricing is different because physical therapy,

[00:36:07] we're incentivizing the plan of care with what Chris was doing. We're incentivizing frequency

[00:36:12] because his is more of a wellness service more like, you know, just like fitness training.

[00:36:17] So it's slightly different, a couple different questions and a different offer.

[00:36:22] And make sure he's comfortable with that. Chris hasn't been the two years he's been

[00:36:26] working with us. He hasn't been doing any manual therapy or hands on care. I mean,

[00:36:31] so I'm sure maybe he's been working on some friends, but not really. And so we had to

[00:36:35] start getting him comfortable doing that. I mean, it's like riding a bike, like Chris has

[00:36:39] been a PT longer than me. He's been trained and all this stuff, but it's been two years working

[00:36:44] with us and a year before he came to work with us that he wasn't treating patients.

[00:36:49] So he had three years where he wasn't doing any like hands-on manual therapy.

[00:36:53] He's actually just, he's just been doing more exercise therapy and exercise training and,

[00:36:58] you know, not just corrective exercise. Like he's also learned how to, you know,

[00:37:02] program people's fitness over the last two years. And so we had to get him doing that.

[00:37:08] So he's sitting in on co-treatments with Caitlin when he doesn't have a patient.

[00:37:13] He's doing the evals and she's monitoring them and etc. Okay. Chris needs to know

[00:37:18] everything about running this clinic, like not just getting patients to book,

[00:37:26] which he was good at, but taking payments because he could do payments for his,

[00:37:31] but he needs to do payments for the PT stuff. He needs to do super bills because he wasn't doing

[00:37:35] super bills for his service. Caitlin was doing that. He needs to learn, you know, like

[00:37:41] he needs to learn and be trained on those essentials of running this business by himself.

[00:37:47] There's a lot of things that we're missing because we don't have an extra admin person in it.

[00:37:52] You know, like these extra things we added, like our new patient booklet in 2020, like that's,

[00:37:59] that's just not going to happen. I mean, it even got dropped recent, you know, in the last year or

[00:38:02] two because when Amber left, we don't have someone doing it and Caitlin was like,

[00:38:06] it just takes me too long to do it. And I've got too much to do between a new

[00:38:09] patient and the follow-up visit. I'm like, I totally get it.

[00:38:14] But I turned on the Indeed hiring and we set up this process for Caitlin to train Chris

[00:38:18] in these essential pieces that he hadn't been trained in yet so he can run it.

[00:38:24] Chris and I met. I set up two times for us to meet to talk about this, like to talk about

[00:38:28] the opportunity and talk about the logistics and just make sure that we were on the same page.

[00:38:33] Chris wasn't doing, never got trained in dry needling because it wasn't something that

[00:38:38] he did pre-pandemic. And but it's something that I do and Caitlin does and, you know,

[00:38:44] we don't promote dry needling. I'm not, I'm not promoting MFR, but I need these guys trained in it

[00:38:50] so that when someone says, oh, but Dr. Kate did dry needling, I can't come to see you because you

[00:38:54] don't, that's not the excuse. So we looked at that and Chris is going to a myopane course next

[00:39:01] week. That's why next week he's not slammed. It's because he's, he doesn't work on Mondays

[00:39:06] because he homeschools his kid on Mondays and he works Tuesday through Friday and he'll be

[00:39:10] here next Tuesday and Wednesday and have two full days and he's going to go do Atlanta, do a course

[00:39:16] and he'll be back and he'll be doing some dry needling, which is great. And then I'm going to

[00:39:20] train him on some MFR because he didn't need to do a course to learn that yet because, you know,

[00:39:27] you need to go to a course to really do the dry needling part, but you don't need a course

[00:39:30] to go do soft tissue if you have someone like Aaron LeBauer here who's been doing it for 25

[00:39:36] years. I can train, Caitlin's trained him on, you know, and worked with him on that. Like,

[00:39:42] I wouldn't say training like help refresh, like teach him like the techniques that I've taught

[00:39:46] Kate, like the MFR techniques that Chris never learned. And I'm going to work with him on it,

[00:39:51] but I didn't need to work with him on that while Caitlin was still here. I need Caitlin to

[00:39:56] transmit all of her information to Chris while she's still here. And Caitlin has updated all

[00:40:02] of our SOPs and update our training documents. As she's going out, she's put together a list of all

[00:40:08] the marketing contacts and emailed it to me. Is this some of these other things that she's got

[00:40:13] emailed to me just to make sure that I know where it is? Because a lot of this was there,

[00:40:17] it was just like, I don't know where my eyes aren't on it because I haven't been on it in

[00:40:21] three years. So it was like this priority list, like, I don't need to train Chris and

[00:40:28] Emma far because I've got all the time to do that. What I need is Caitlin to train him in

[00:40:32] the things that she's doing with people that she's doing instead of me or admin so that when she leaves,

[00:40:39] Chris can run it and the number one question I've asked them the last few times we've met is,

[00:40:43] okay, what's going to break? Where are we going to miss? And at this point, when I just

[00:40:48] asked, I was like, okay, nothing's going to break. You know, it just, you know, we're

[00:40:53] going to pick up the pieces even Chris was like, all right, I'm at the point where I just

[00:40:56] need the reps and just go in and make the mistakes. I'm like, cool, go make the mistakes.

[00:41:00] Because when Chris makes mistakes, he's going to learn from him. If I try to prevent all the

[00:41:05] mistakes as the owner or the leader, he's not going to learn. He's going to just keep making

[00:41:10] mistakes because I haven't given him the opportunity to learn from mistakes. And that's

[00:41:15] where our job as leaders is not to be perfect and not to do everything for everyone and expect

[00:41:20] everyone to do it the way we are. We need to expect that they're going to make mistakes

[00:41:25] and make the system better. So Chris has an opportunity to make it better and to make that

[00:41:30] building his, you know, to grow his caseload so that he can grow it and we can maybe,

[00:41:38] maybe our next move now is bring on a massage therapist. Maybe this experiment with a physical

[00:41:43] therapist doing personal training or medical fitness wasn't right for us. I mean, I don't

[00:41:49] know that it was right for us. It might be right for some of you like if you're

[00:41:54] listening like many of my clients were personal trainers before you became a PT and that might

[00:41:58] be right for you. And all along, like this was a step down service. So it was a different

[00:42:03] price point. It was a lower price point than PT because what massage did was give us

[00:42:10] a lower price point, but I've been a massage therapist for 25 years and I can't remember

[00:42:16] since 1999. So yeah, 25 years. Yeah, 25 years. Holy shit. People are asking for massage from us

[00:42:26] all the time. If you've been a personal trainer for three to two to three years,

[00:42:31] you know, while you're in PT school people are going to be asking for that service.

[00:42:34] But there's been a point at which in the last year doing this with Chris, I was like,

[00:42:39] people would be like, no, I don't want to see Chris, but I'll come see Caitlin and pay more.

[00:42:42] I was like, shit, we should just charge the same for both of them. So that other that next step is

[00:42:48] now that Chris is the only one treating patients, no matter what service he's providing, it's at the

[00:42:52] physical therapy rate. So we're not going to get that many more people coming in multiple times

[00:42:57] a week, like two to three times a week to train with him. But that's okay. Maybe we will.

[00:43:05] And we're not going to get the people going, well, why would I see Dr. Chris for this and

[00:43:09] not see Kate for that? Like I never was able to, I think we were able to solve that problem,

[00:43:14] but it didn't fully click in my business. It might click in yours.

[00:43:20] But if I had a personal trainer doing it, I have it at a much lower rate or more

[00:43:23] competitive rate to what personal training was, but patients would view what Chris was

[00:43:27] doing as personal training. They were like, why would I pay that much for personal training?

[00:43:29] Like he's not doing personal training. He's doing like this, you know,

[00:43:34] peak performance training, medical fitness, you know, there's not a good name for it and

[00:43:38] the consumers don't understand the difference. It was like right in the middle of the gap between

[00:43:42] training and PT and they don't understand that gap. There's just got, I think almost there's

[00:43:47] got to be like a gap, maybe not, I could be wrong. But we're also no longer doing that.

[00:43:53] Like all of Chris's treatments, all new patients, even if new people come on and only do the

[00:43:57] fitness piece, it's the same rate that we've been charging for PT. And what we're going

[00:44:02] to do is he's got a handful of people who've got these long-term things and we're not

[00:44:07] going to raise the rates on them or at least not right away. Like we're going to like, they get

[00:44:11] grandfathered in if they've got these like ongoing plans or wellness warrior, people get

[00:44:17] cycled off, new people will get cycled in and at some point we'll look, and this is a

[00:44:22] month or two down the road, we'll look at Chris's schedule and go, okay, do we need to

[00:44:26] raise the prices on these people or do we leave them? Like, and if we leave them that, like,

[00:44:31] I'd rather have some money than no money. I'd rather have Chris some busy than no busy.

[00:44:36] And so like, I'm not in a rush to like raise those rates and a lot of people I talk to,

[00:44:40] I'm like, we need to update your rates and pricing. They freak out because they think

[00:44:44] they're, I have to tell you to raise your rates on everyone. And I never tell my clients

[00:44:47] to just raise your rates on everyone because if we're raising them enough,

[00:44:51] what we need to do is bring new people into the new rate, cycle out old people at the old

[00:44:55] rate. And then if you have people that are just coming to you forever and you're so busy

[00:44:59] that you're resentful at treating them at that lower rate, then we do need to raise the

[00:45:03] rates. And there's a formula that we use to do that. So that's the basics. I actually got to

[00:45:10] bounce, I could talk more about this. I got to bounce because I got to get on some calls.

[00:45:14] But let me just review employee gave me 30 days notice. Great. I had two weeks notice.

[00:45:21] It might have looked a little different. I might have been doing some more of the

[00:45:24] treatments and training myself. I already had a hiring funnel and system setup. So all I

[00:45:30] had to do is turn it on. I could have turned it on for a PT right away, but I turned it on

[00:45:34] for an admin because I was like, I've got the PT coverage. I prioritize moving people

[00:45:41] and the things that the employee who is leaving was only could do and

[00:45:48] D priority, like lowered the priority of the things that I can convey and do

[00:45:53] because I can teach Chris MFR. I don't need to teach him MFR right now. MFR wasn't the

[00:45:58] critical piece to making this work because Chris can treat patients however he wants.

[00:46:03] He didn't have to do MFR and dry needling to get him a result. It's just getting him on the same page

[00:46:08] is how I treat patients was the important thing and it can look a little different.

[00:46:14] The priorities are making sure that when Caitlin leaves, Chris can run the whole

[00:46:17] thing by himself. And so getting those pieces in play and then it's going to be,

[00:46:22] okay, Caitlin's last day is today and I've got a list of things that I need to do

[00:46:26] as she leaves with health insurance and with notifying disability and a couple other things.

[00:46:34] I'm not notifying all our clients that she's leaving. I just got this list of things. What was it?

[00:46:42] I got to get her keys. I got to get the computer. I got to get patients transferred to Chris.

[00:46:48] I got it all eventually deactivate her intake queue and Google accounts. She won't have access

[00:46:55] to those after today. I mean, she didn't need access to them. She's not going to be an employee

[00:47:01] after today. So she shouldn't have access to the HIPAA stuff but she may need some access

[00:47:07] to help if she's still transitioning people. Like I'm not going to like at three o'clock just

[00:47:11] cut her off. That'll be a next week thing. If she was leaving under different circumstances,

[00:47:17] like that would be a now thing. Chris needs access to some of these things,

[00:47:23] super bills. He needs a little bit more training. Maybe at some point, like Caitlin's been

[00:47:28] looking at my emails and helping me manage my email inbox. I'm not sure that Chris will do

[00:47:32] that. That'll probably be the admin that we hired. So that's kind of the thing. And then the last

[00:47:38] thing is to say is when something like this happens, look at it objectively and see why is

[00:47:45] it happening for you and not just to you and how do you make the best out of it? And

[00:47:49] create a list of here's this option, here's that option and do what's right for you.

[00:47:54] And what's right for me is keeping this clinic open. That's at least what's right for the patients

[00:47:59] here because last week, this is the last thing I'm going to share and I got a bounce. I had a

[00:48:02] patient come in the door because it was right at the end of one of our meetings,

[00:48:08] our team meetings. And she was like, I'd never met her. Caitlin was like, hey,

[00:48:12] make sure have you met Dr. LaBauer yet? And she's like, oh, thank you so much for

[00:48:15] creating this place. This is working here with Dr. Caitlin and Chris has helped me so much.

[00:48:21] Thank you so much for creating this place. This is a very special place. And I was just like, wow.

[00:48:27] That's why I'm keeping it. Thank you very much. Happy New Year. I'll see you on the next show.

[00:48:45] you