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This is the Grow Your Clinic podcast from Clinic Mastery. We help progressive health professionals to lead inspired teams, transform client experiences, and build clinics for good. Now, it's time to Grow Your Clinic.
JACK: Well, welcome back to another episode of Grow Your Clinic Podcast. Jack O'Brien, your host with me in the saddle, co-host Ben Lynch. How are you today, Ben?
BEN: Doing well! Thanks, Jack O’Brien, I know we talked about that in another episode. I've got a coffee here. This is PJ Masks that I'm drinking out of my son Tommy's cart, just enough for my espresso.
JACK: Perfect. Maybe ‘chino, in the morning, espresso by afternoon. I've got my blue espresso cup here today. For those watching on YouTube, you can join along in the coffee conversations. Now, I'm also drinking actually, Ben, from my new water bottle here from the brand Yeti. I know you're a brand man. And so the brand Yeti, I'm on the train.
Hey, enough of that, let's let's talk about recruitment. And so more broadly, the Grow Your Clinic book will be coming to a bookstore, Amazon store, audible library near you at some point in time in the coming months. And we want to unpack a few of the chapters and segments. So can you tell us about the ‘7 Degrees’ and how the books were written around that framework and which degree we're going to hone in on today.
BEN: So the seven degrees really represent seven functional areas of growing your clinic. They're the hats that people talk about, you know, wearing many different hats in business and going from different needs of my team, of my clients of the clinic. And so we've called it the 7 Degrees. In those 7 Degrees, we need to set up various systems for sustainability so that as we grow, there's consistency in what we do. And one of those degrees is team in particular, one of the key focuses as you grow is being able to bring on more of the right people to the team, be able to train them and then nurture them in their journey in their career. So the 7 Degrees, and kind of play on language for us as health professionals as well, we go to university to get a degree, multiple degrees, perhaps depending on the path that you chose, but we didn't get a business degree. And so these are kind of like almost micro-degrees, that you would go through understanding team.
So let's go through the 7 Degrees: we've got Personal Mastery, which is absolutely you’ve got to be the best version of yourself. The next is looking at Purpose, so making sure you're super clear on the values, your painted picture, as Cameron Harold would say, also that you've got your core purpose set up. We then go into Team, making sure you're leading inspired teams, attracting more of those ideal team members and nurturing them in their career. We then look at Systems, the backbone of consistency, consistency is all about brand — so super important, especially as you scale up. Then we go into Finance, we're gonna make sure you're growing profitably and sustainably and managing money becomes quite important as soon as you start a business and especially as you grow, complexity can creep in — so Finance. Then we have Brand which is a lot to do with marketing, and also your position within the market — so playing that longer guy, and how you attract more ideal clients, team members and partners in particular. And then degree seven is Client Experiences or Experiences where we look at creating raving fans, not just people who are satisfied, that's cool, that's absolutely what we need to do, but raving fans. So they're the 7 Degrees.
JACK: Nice. So if we can pick on Team then today, and there are three components that make up the Team degree, but specifically what we'll cover the rest in future episodes. Today, I want you to paint us a picture about attracting ideal team members. And so in the book, we unpack the ecosystem that clinics need to attract ideal team members. So what are some of the components that make up the ecosystem of team attraction?
BEN: With the ecosystem, another word you could use is your industry or your community as well, just so that people are familiar with the vocab we're using here. Your ecosystem lives and breathes — it is infinite. And so what we're looking to do is continue to have a presence and a profile within that ecosystem so that we attract people. We can look at it from the perspective of a couple of different stages. We often talk about, you know, team members, when they come to us, they have certain options or pathways when they're part of the team, you know, a clinical mentor, or they buy into a clinical, they started a satellite clinic, whatever the case may be, whatever their pathway is, the reality is people going through a pathway before they even get to us.
JACK: Sure.
BEN: So that's kind of the premise of the ecosystem — is going, “let's think about the pathway from first them even being aware of you all the way through to them joining the team and accepting the job.”
JACK: And I think it's important, I'm thinking about a lot of the clinic owner conversations that we have, and it's, you know, recruitment is a hot button topic at the moment. But you know, in all fairness, recruitment has been a hot button topic since time immemorial. I love that analogy of comparing recruiting to fishing versus hunting, it's just no longer good enough to be able to cast the line, dangle the bait and wait for the big whale to jump on. We've got to go hunting, we've got to go farming, we've got to go cultivating, in your words, the ecosystem, so that we are attracting ideal team members, not waiting for ideal team members. So what are some of the steps or parts of the process in that ecosystem of attraction that we'll be covering in the book that we're going to go in as can be considered?
BEN: Let's look at five stages. I think we've referenced this to various points in some of the content as part of our Facebook group, it's part of our YouTube channel, as part of this podcast as well. So five stages, it's never as cut and dry, it's more colorful and complex. But as a guide, five stages: Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Consideration, and Enrollment further five stages. So Awareness is about getting targets, essentially, we're targeting our ideal team members, we're showing up in front of them, we're creating a presence. So first, we've got to know who they are, our ideal members, know their wants, needs, frustrations, challenges, and where they are in their greatest concentration, so that we can show up in there. So you know them and they know you. Interest is then about creating leads. The principle here is about capturing connections and starting conversations. At the end of the day, now they're aware of you, now we start to build some interest by actually getting to know one another. And so essentially, think of it like building a database of people who could prospectively join the team later, alright? Then step three, Evaluation. This is where they are evaluating: What do they want? Or what don't they want? What do they need? Or what do they need?
So let's look at an example. If you're a new graduate, or you're about to graduate, you are starting to contemplate what do I want in my job, in my career? And I'm hearing all sorts of things from my lecturers or my tutors, my peers, perhaps through my own work, experience, etc. So I'm starting to actually evaluate, what are the key components of a role that I want? Just if you're, like, going to look at getting a new water bottle, like a Yeti, or a fridge or a washing machine, like you're actually starting to weigh up what are the maybe the features benefits the the components of the job?
JACK: Sure. So pause there. Why is it important for clinic owners to put themselves in the shoes of the new grad in your example?
BEN: I think we need to be seen as the preferred place to work.
JACK: Right. And I think when you resonate with people by understanding their needs, that speaks to empathy. We do it every day, in terms of seeing patients. The same is true, the principles are the same, we're just translating them across the team. So be their trusted advisor as the principal there for evaluation. Advise them, be their guidance for navigating those decisions.
JACK: Right. And so you're not necessarily going to be their choice, but you're helping them get to a choice that's hopefully you. Yeah, and we'll unpack that more in the book here that the stories and analogies and strategies for clinics. Okay, what about the rest of the ecosystem?
BEN: So we got Consideration and the objective here is about creating candidates. So this is much more around that let's-repost-the-job-ad or someone's actually just knocked on our door and said, “Hey, I'd love to work with you,” or they've sent you a DM and they're like, “Do you have a place available for me to work?” The principle here is ‘sell them a career, not a year.’ We've done some content on that before. But packaging up and future pacing where they could be, because it's at this point where they're contemplating a few options.
JACK: Sure.
BEN: And so rather than kind of going that transactional level of like, “I'm going to offer you something better, you know, in this current role, which is kind of pitched in a year, I'm going to future pace you for the years, or the career rather than just the single year.” So that's the more formal hiring process that people would be aware of where they've put up a job ad. They've got a list of applicants, they're going through the shortlist process, the interview process, etc.
JACK: You know, as you're unpacking, and I'm thinking about in the book, what you're saying there is that the fourth part of the ecosystem is historically the first part, but people miss the first three components, and so we'll be able to unpack what that looks like, completely look for us.
BEN: That probably just the extension there, Jack, when we did some research into the community, we identified kind of two areas that were needs of the community. Number one, they weren't getting enough applicants. It's kind of like this lack of applicants and/or there was a lack of quality applicants for the role. So what we're trying to do, with that work in the first three steps, is build it so we're getting more applicants and more of the right applicants. So that makes that hiring process.
The final step is Enrollment. And the objective is creating members or creating members of the team. The principle there is package personalized, and prompt welcomes. So another example, and why I say prompt, is that if you're hiring a new grad, and they don't graduate for three months, or two months, and then we're going to wait for their registration. Maybe they entertain the idea of going somewhere else, maybe something changes in their life, so we want to get a prompt welcome and integration into the team and there's a few different ways to do that, but also a personalized welcome for them into the team is super key. Now, I've spoken about new grads — there is an example. Not everyone's after new grads, if you're after someone more experienced, the same is true, personalized and prompt. Get them in the fabric of the team ASAP.
JACK: There'll be so much more context in the book but case in point, if I can just indulge, we have just this week confirmed in our clinic, as you know, one of the things that I'm super proud of Clinic Mastery is that we're all so much boots on the ground, we're in the trenches doing it, and so I put.. For those unfamiliar, I run my own clinic. I got a physio practice, three locations in the Hunter of New South Wales. And we just hired an exercise physiologist, they confirmed their acceptance of the position on Monday, we get them to fill in a form with some really interesting questions around this topic of enrollment and attracting team members. We enroll them by not just their tax file number and super details, but you know, “tell us about your most memorable birthday gift and what's your favorite bottle of wine, what's your Sunday morning coffee order?” And so today being Tuesday, less than 24 hours after they've accepted the role, we've ordered their favorite bottle of wine to be living as part of a welcome pack to their house because we're you know, we're we're in lockdown. So that prompt is so vital. That's personalized around semi savlon, which is a great Hunter Valley varietals up here in the wines. It’s such a key around personalized and prompt in attracting ideal team members and the book will be so much richer with content.
In the next episode, Ben, I'd love to get your take on the second component of ‘team.’ So we've talked about attracting team, then want to talk about how we mentor and nurture our team in the coming episodes. So that's been super insightful around the Team Degree for the Grow Your Clinic book, hey.
BEN: Awesome. I know that this is such an important thing for people growing their clinic that they need more of the right team members to join. So as much as you might have a pain point right now to fill a position, play the long game and set things up. It's a worthwhile thing to do.
JACK: And as always, folks, we want to keep it real. We want to be outcomes focused. And so the action from this episode would be to consider your attraction ecosystem for attracting ideal team members to your clinic. And what's the one subtle shift, subtle but meaningful progression you could make in your attraction ecosystem.
Ben Lynch, it's been real. Thank you for joining me for another episode.
BEN: Thank you.
JACK: Folks, as always, head over to clinicmastery.com/podcast — the notes links, you can get in touch you can do the Assess Your Clinic Scorecard. You can reach out if you need help, or you can just indulge yourself in a little bit of content. As always, thank you for joining us. I can't wait to bring you another episode. again really soon. Bye for now.
Thanks for tuning in to the Grow Your Clinic podcast. To find out more about past episodes or how we can help you, head to www.clinicmastery.com/podcast and please remember to rate and review us on your podcast player of choice. See you on the next episode!
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