It's OK To Be Selfish In Your Business

This podcast will help you to become more confident with your patients , more successful in your practice or business and a leader in pelvic health , and we're going to have some fun along the way . Join us as we rise together .

We're Jesse and Nicole Cozine , founders of Pelvic Sanity Physical Therapy and the creators of the Pelvic PT Huddle , and this is Pelvic PT Rising .

Talking today for those of you guys who are business owners or prospective business owners about the idea that it is okay to be selfish in your business , this is something I feel like we need a little reminder on , so we're going to dive into that Quick reminder .

If you haven't already , make sure you have put yourself up especially if you are a business owner on the practitioner map . That is going to be the place for people to find you , for other practitioners to refer to you , for patients to send stuff to you . It's a link back to your own website for your SEO , million things . It is completely free .

Make sure you are up there . Now , if you are hiring , you can also check out our hiring directory . That is the best place for people to be able to find a position . It's specific to Pelvic Health . It's way cheaper than doing something big and generic like Indeed 25 bucks a month , and once you're hiring , you're always hiring .

Get your stuff on there , keep it on there . You always want to make sure that people are finding you when they're looking for a position in your area .

It's fun because we're working with a new group of people in the rising mentorship , so proud of them and all the work that they're doing and seeing .

Some of this , I think , is a through line of some of the issues that we see , is that we're afraid to do this , afraid to be selfish , afraid to say what we really need , and you think that kind of comes from our clinical background .

We get into rehab and not being a physician because we want to spend time with people , we want to help people achieve their goals , we want we're people . People , which usually means for a lot of us we're people pleasers , we're recovering people pleasers .

And this especially becomes apparent when you're starting your own business , because when we're employees , a lot of this is taken on by the business and you kind of don't realize that they take a lot of this selfish sort of acts where we don't have to be put in that position because the business is already doing that if they're run well , and they don't put that

back on you and they protect you from that , so that when we move out into the business world now , we're getting pulled in a million different directions .

Now not only do we have patients that we're still dealing with , where we have this extra layer of customer service and we're afraid that if we don't meet their needs and they're going to leave , and that's bigger deal when we're a business owner .

But then we also have a bunch of other interactions , like with contractors and people that help us run our business , that we're also having to navigate these relationships and a lot of times we forget to put ourselves first and put our needs of the business first in all of these different types of interactions .

We're going to give you some examples and ways to combat this .

So one of the quintessential examples of this is your treating schedule and , nicole , you were guilty of this for a long time .

I'm sure a lot of you guys listening are going to be putting your hands up in the air or , if you're in the car , I don't know what you do to agree here , but you were treating at the times that your patients found convenient and not the times that you actually wanted to or that worked for your life .

We were going to have to deal with some sort of aftermath of that where I couldn't even remember one patient in particular . I was like , oh my gosh , well , she's going to freak out if we move her time . She's been coming 10 o'clock on Tuesdays for I don't even know how long and she's going to freak out Like she built her life around that .

And while that is true , it didn't mean that we shouldn't have done what we needed to do for the efficiency of my life and in our business . And we've both fell into that trap . I think kind of a lot Me , definitely more than you .

And I literally just stopped them right there . I said well , what do you want to do ? Did you get into this business to work afternoons , evenings and Fridays and Saturdays , or did you get ? Usually , the answer is no . I got into this because I wanted to control my hours . I wanted to be there with my family . I was like , well , great , so let's do that .

One of my favorite calls of all time . It was the first one on one call we had with somebody in one of our programs . She was like you know , one of the things I really want to do is not work on Fridays . I was like cool , when can we block Friday off on your schedule ? And we spent the time talking about well , can I do that ?

And what's going to happen ? It's like , absolutely , Set it , block it and your people will adjust . And what is the worst thing that happens . Somebody calls and says , hey , I can only come in on a Friday . I know a lot of people say that .

I say that kind of stuff all the time to people when I'm trying to set an appointment and then you say , sorry , we don't treat patients on Fridays , and they're like , oh well , actually I'm off and work all day Tuesday as well and I was like , yeah , so your boundary there is more important , and I think , with all of the things that we're going to talk

about , one of the things to remember is that , if things work out correctly , right , most businesses aren't profitable , fail all the things . If you're listening to this I'm hoping you're not most businesses then you're going to be running a successful business for years or decades .

So being selfish , setting things up so they actually work for you , is critical to your long term success . And your long term success means you're seeing more patients , it means you're able to hire , it means you're doing more in your community .

You're able to have this longer term vision of your practice when you can start to be selfish with some of these things . So schedule is a big one . So ask yourself now are you working the schedule that you want , or are you working the schedule you feel you have to , for your patients yes , and I know that that feels scary to change .

And then we can decide on how to make that change and make the commitment to yourself and then communicate that to your patients and I promise you your business is not going to go under just because you're working the hours that you want to work .

When you're talking to your CPA or your medical biller if you're working with insurance or whatever that is and they say this is what we do , and you basically feel like you just have to say yes to that . Everything's negotiable .

When you're talking with folks and if you're the business owner , I can't tell you the number of times where we're saying things like you know what ? Actually , I really like that package that you put together , but I'm gonna need this . I'm gonna need to have a monthly meeting to go over our numbers . I'm gonna need this report to be run and put it back .

Ask for what you actually want , like these relationships have to be . I know everybody talks about win-win relationships . That's what an ideal thing should be , but remember , the other option for a negotiation that's a positive for both sides is no deal , win-win or no deal .

So if somebody can't do the things that you want to do , then they're not the right person . We just had this with somebody who's cleaning the clinic . It's like , oh cool . They came out , they gave us a bid , they looked amazing at all the stuff and they said , great , we can come anytime from Monday through Friday . On these dates .

We said , well , we can't do that . We don't want the clinic to be . We're not closing the clinic to have the clinic cleaned . It needs to happen on a weekend . Can you do that ? And the answer was yes , and they absolutely did and they've been fantastic to work with and all those things .

But if we had just said yes or felt like we had to say yes to a bad deal for us a lot of times we see people getting roped into that kind of thing I'm doing stuff that isn't convenient for them . It doesn't really work for them because they didn't ever really push back and say actually I need you to come in on a Saturday , can you do that ?

Or do I need to find somebody else ? And if I need to find somebody else , that's not a bad thing , that's just as cool . This business relationship isn't going to work for both of us .

And if that's something as simple as him in a needy report that says these things and they say I absolutely can't or won't do that for you because of whatever their boundary is , then okay , then cool , then we just can't work together , no worries , but I'm gonna find someone else .

And so I feel like we equate quote , pushing back or asking for clarification or asking for a deliverable that works for us better as a negative . But really , if you take that , it's not negative , it's not positive , it just is . You're just simply asking for clarification on something and I think , step taking a step back

from that . You need to understand what you want out of that relationship . So if you need a report , then you need to ask for a report . If you need somebody to come at a certain time day or a certain day of the week , then that's what you need to go in thinking about .

And in the last podcast we talked about in a perfect world and in a perfect world for you , what would this look like ? And then then you go to the negotiating table or the talking table .

If you're a little scared of negotiation and you're just simply clarifying the terms of what you're doing , I'm gonna give you some money and you're gonna give me this deliverable in return , and it needs to do this . And if they can't do that , no worries , it's no big deal , we're gonna just gonna find someone that can .

And the other thing is that the belief that there is somebody else that will do those things is also very much on the table here and is part of the ability for you to say no and say no deal , because you can go find out someone who will work for you .

things .

Your people can't do it and I feel like earlier in our career , and especially maybe for you , nicole I think you might have dealt more with this than I did , but it would have been like oh shoot , well , they said that they have to have their own TA . Well , I will just have to break it to our staff . That sucks right .

We don't want to have any kind of conflict or any kind of difficult conversation and instead we said very politely but very firmly like , unless those TA's have a key to our building , it's not gonna happen , because the entire reason we did this was to allow our staff the ability to .

Now , if you want to bring your TA's down and pay them in addition to our people , that's fine . I could care less . Bring 12 TA's for the eight people who are there , that's amazing . But our people are going to do this . Or no deal , or you're not gonna host a course here and you can call your people who paid the money back and refund them .

That's totally fine . There's no emotion in that . But this has to be a win-win . Or it is a no deal , but it's not a bad deal for either side .

And at the point where that , then that would became their choice and they decided it wasn't worth paying their TA's to come , and our people did it and it worked out fantastic and they got paid and it ended up being a win-win , but no deal was very much on the table yeah , and I feel like when you have the no deal on the table , very quickly , we find out

what really is important and what the truth is behind all of the things .

And again , it didn't mean that I was being a bitch , I was being very polite and I wasn't being difficult , right , it was just that I was very clear in why we were doing this and if that wasn't on the table anymore , then we weren't doing it . Very simple .

So that's just one other examples of a time when this was really important to understand , like , and it's okay to be selfish in that way it was I was being selfish for my people , so we needed that right .

And then sometimes they're like you know collab and I'm like goodbye . And other times they're like , oh , they do have a idea what that needs to be . And then we're , then we're in the what is it ? What do I need out of this and what do they need out of it ? And is it gonna be when ?

You want to do this thing , and you were great about saying no , I'm on maternity leave , can I do that ? That's a great opportunity . I think it would be a great fit . I would love to do that , but it's not gonna happen right now . And then , sure enough , all the sudden you're back and people are reaching back out .

It's not that these opportunities go away or , if they do , none of them were life changing .

It's not like Oprah was calling and saying , nicole , the only time you can come on to my show is on seven days after clay was born but what that's not happening so be okay with saying no , or saying not now , or saying a little bit later , or saying in a different format or saying things like you know what , honestly , it's better for me if we do that .

However , I'm speaking at CSM in February and , to be perfectly honest with you , I don't want it to do it before that , because I know that I'm gonna be busy with that kind of stuff and I wanna make sure that I give it your full attention . So if I can do it after CSM or well , before CSM , then we can make that work right .

And it was like great , we switched the dates and here we are .

Where it comes to like space , people do this in business all the time where some other provider tells them that , hey , why don't you come into rent a room here for one day a week ? And all of a sudden somebody's driving all over God's green earth to these different places and we're like why are you doing that ?

Do you really even want to do something like that ? They're like , well , not really , but I didn't know how to say no .

But at the end of the day , like you can say no to something that's fallen into your lab , you can say no to something that's even a great , objectively great deal , because it doesn't work for you right now or it doesn't work for you , period , it's okay .

We even had this , nicole , when we were . We rent a couple of rooms at pelvic sanity one to a postpartum mental health therapist who specializes in that and then one to , like , a cranial sacral acupuncture person , who are both awesome , who are both , you know , kind of in our vein , and one of the things we were doing when we were renting them .

They were like well , you know , I think I'm probably gonna be in here about three days a week . I said , well , that's great , I'm not a landlord , I'm not here in the business of saying , well , how many hours did you use of the facility this month and what are we paying for ? That ?

It's like if you want a room from us , we're gonna price it very fairly . We're basically just gonna have you , like , take over that part of the rent , but in return , in those times as well , and more experienced doesn't help , I don't care how many days you're here , you're paying for the room .

I'm not renting this to six different people and trying to make money from it . So if you want to rent the room , you have to rent the entire room for the entire time , and if you don't want that , that's fine .

Now we know what happens so we can see this stuff , this issue , a mile away .

When people come in and they're like thinking about hiring , and then you know they have a perspective person and they talk to us and they're like , okay , well , I , I have this person and you know she said that she needs to work Tuesdays , thursdays and Fridays till 1230 or something .

We had people's schedules all over the place , or you know , my admin is in from 12 to two on these days and then she pops back in and does a little bit of stuff in the afternoons and evenings and it just varies with all of her kids stuff and and at the end of the day it is okay for you as the business owner and I hope this podcast is the permission

that you don't need but might want to hear to be a little bit selfish about that and say you know what my business needs someone who is around to answer the phone from eight to five . Is that something that you're interested in doing ? My business needs somebody who is physically here .

I know you would prefer to work from home , but that's just not going to work for the business . What are we going to do ? And again , that's it's not personal , it is looking for a win-win . But if it's not a win-win situation , then it's a no deal and that's okay , people will find the things that they need .

But sometimes , with the staffing you're going to have to have if you've already gotten somebody in used to this you might have to have hard conversations but decide what the business needs . So , public sanity we actually give our people a fair amount of leeway .

They can start anytime , from eight am , nine am or 10 am to be able to make things work for their families . We actually have people choose different versions of that all the time , but what people can't do is start at five , 15 am .

We've offered a great package so that we hope that that's a win-win , and if it's not , it's a no deal , right ? So that's okay . We do not offer telehealth at our clinic enough so that we can outfit somebody to work from home one day a week . That just isn't what happens and we're not going to create that just because someone asks us .

Now , if we end up doing something like that , then that's a whole different conversation . But that's because we will have decided that public sanity is going to offer this service and then we will be finding the right fit for that position , right ? But until then , here are the choices .

But talk to me about it how do you get from people pleasing and feeling like you're saying yes or feeling a little called out by the stuff we talked about in this podcast , to being the kind of person who calls back that con-ed company is like ? Well , unless you have keys to the building , it's not happening .

I don't want to be seen as , like , the difficult person . I actually have a really hard time when it's like I shouldn't have to be the asshole . You should be doing a better job at your job , and so don't make me come out there and like tell you that , right , I have a hard time with that kind of conflict .

So I think that that , overall , what's helped the most is to have a really clear vision of what you want and need in your own business and what you want for your

own life . If that is really solidified , then these conversations the emotion gets taken out of it and it's really simple and honestly . That comes a little bit from some of my referee training .

You guys know that I was an NCAA basketball referee at a relatively high level and if you take the emotion out of the rules , then it just becomes enforcing the rules ? Are you playing within the bounds of the court ? Are you acting a fool out of you know ? Then you deserve a technical foul . There is no emotion with any of that stuff , it just is .

And when I started to really take that emotion out of it and really like look into , get settled on what we need , then it really becomes a very nice conversation . That's just simply stating fact this is what we need . Can you provide that ?

I actually hope that you can , because we want to work with you and if not , bummer man darn , and the belief that then we can go out and find something else . So I feel like that , ultimately , is the biggest thing . That's helped me a lot .

And then also to the more that you realize that , the more that you're centered in what you want and what you need and it's not saying anything bad about the other person If they can't fulfill that , then if someone else gets nuts and gets angry at your decision to not work with them or to not hire them or whatever , then it just becomes so obvious that it's

like wow , that's your issue , that is your issue , not mine , and I don't feel compelled to like fix that for you , that's it .

you want the business to work for you , clarifying that makes a lot of these decisions a lot easier .

You can run your business like that , based on the answers , you have yours , and so it's very simple like that and , again , easier said than done . It's a work in progress always , especially when you add interpersonal stuff and personalities into it and stuff like that .

But at the end of the day , this podcast is your permission that you didn't need to be selfish in your business and think about what you need and what the business needs first and move on from there .

So if there's anything you want to make sure that we hit or talk about , let us know and , as always , we want to keep this conversation going and let's continue to rise .