EPISODE 3
CHRIS HUGHES 00:02
Welcome to How to Build a Profitable nutrition business. If you love nutrition and you love helping people and you want to be in the game long enough to keep doing that, then this is the podcast for you. Let's get into it. Welcome to How to Build a Profitable nutrition business. today. We are really fortunate to have an amazing guest by the name of Paul right. So Paul's a physiotherapist and former owner of multiple allied health clinics across Australia, of which he rarely visited Would you believe could you imagine that as a business owner he's the author of the Amazon bestseller how to run a one minute practice. He's the founder of practice ology health business Freedom program, and he's helped 1000s of allied health professionals from a staggering 57 countries across the world, earn money, work less and enjoy their lives. Well what a resume Paul, thank you so much for joining us today. I
PAUL WRIGHT 00:53
can't wait to hear what I'm gonna say.
CHRIS HUGHES 00:57
But what a what a journey Can you can you run me through your career because you weren't always a physiotherapist. You were a PE teacher, I believe? Well,
PAUL WRIGHT 01:04
for not very long. I was I grew up in a small country town place called Campbell out Northwest New South Wales, Australia. And there wasn't there wasn't a physio in sight because there wasn't there wasn't there was a couple of doctors and maybe a dentist. But there was no I didn't know what a physio was. So I ended up finishing high school and what does a sporty sort of kid do because you're always sporty in the bush. I decided to be a PE teacher. So that'll that'll do so I ended up I applied to Newcastle Uni when Newcastle College in those days and did to my started my phys ed course. And there's always sliding doors moments, Chris, when you think about your life, I finished us finished my third year of Phys Ed and I just came across I found a physio at a party. I don't know I didn't know what a physio was. And she told me about this physio geek she was a fourth year student in Sydney and I said wow, this physio what's that about? Injuries anatomy physiology rehab, and I was sort of into that space and I thought well that's pretty cool. So I applied to Sydney Uni or Cumberland College in those days to be a physio to study the physio course as a mature aged student, and the sliding doors you get those you get that I get the letter back and the letter said I'd been accepted as a mature aged student to Cumberland College and I'm sitting there on Newcastle Beach, Sun's down and I'm feeling really really really sweet. Do I really want to go to Sydney to want to go for another four years of uni ended up decided to do it and did for for the Hardy he usable life at Sydney Uni Chris couple in college like tough, tough going for it wasn't an academically smart guy but just had to work hard. And we had some of the some of the phys ed courses we did no disrespect to Newcastle college advanced education but we had days that it phys ed might we had the morning subject was cricket in the afternoon was tennis. So to go to go to Cumberland college and get serious for four years that was a real eye opener.
CHRIS HUGHES 02:51
I resonate with that a little because I my background was electrician and so I decided to be a dietitian later in life in my sort of mid 20s going back and doing chemistry and biology which I loved it but it was like your head down, bum up.
PAUL WRIGHT 03:07
What was it what was what was interesting, Newcastle wasn't right. I had a great time at Newcastle College. We had Tiger parties it was party from start to finish. I turned up first day at Cumberland College and the library was full and there was no party going on. They were there redo it and I thought okay, this is this is an odd thing Where's where's the tiger party? Where's where's this happening and just wasn't going on? This was it was a hard four years but I did that graduated tick the box started a year in the public health at in eastern suburbs. And pretty quickly, Chris, I think I had an entrepreneurial streak. I think I wanted to add my own practice. And I was gonna ask you that looking back on it. That might have been why I wanted not to be a PE teacher I could I think I would have been good at it. I would have liked it. But I would have been working for someone else for the rest of my life. And I don't think I'm a great employee might have been why I decided to do physios I think I knew I could run a business as a physio possibly. So any signs of that as a kid Paul, like were you as an entrepreneur? No. Didn't didn't have a thought about the business. I remember saying to a guy on a worksite once I was working for five bucks an hour with my dad as he was an electrician interesting enough. I was helping him at five bucks now and I thought I had five bucks an hour and 4040 but 40 hours a week you know that's doing a buck so I could do that. Never thought about owning the business. No, no idea. And it's funny enough. Looking back on it when you think about I don't think I didn't really look at the options of owning a physio business and there's we'll talk about some of the mistakes we make later on but I just fell in love with the idea of being a physio I didn't really think is there a market for that is there is there Can I run a business doing I didn't really know at that time. I just wanted I just wanted to be a physio which is great,
CHRIS HUGHES 04:49
stupid most to run a business but even most health professionals don't get into to their profession to make money and this is this is why podcasts like this is so important is because We're traditionally not great at thinking about that money side, but we're there to help people. That's our, that's our sort of inner drive. And so, so many nutrition businesses tend to fall over within a certain period of time because they don't have that, that, you know, financial knowledge or nows to actually make a go of it. And
PAUL WRIGHT 05:17
it's okay to say you're not interested in money, we get this a lot in our practice ology clients, it's okay to say I'm not in it for the money. And that's true. But when you've got kids family responsibilities, mortgage, you got your mate selling, you got your mates selling their businesses for multi millions of dollars, which I had, and I'm thinking on my business isn't worth that what what's going on here, then you start to question your choices. But but that stage, it's sometimes too late. So don't don't go in, you go in with some some element of financial competence to make a good decision about your career path if, but with that being met, if you want to work as a charity, and that's great. And if you want to work as an employee, that's great. But just understand the limitations of that you can understand the model. Well,
CHRIS HUGHES 05:56
the lightbulb moment, if you like, for me, it was my wife, who's business background, and she was like, you actually can't provide service you want to provide, if you're giving it away, you've got to be profitable, so that you can give more away and that, you know, like took a while to sink in a little bit slow, but eventually we got there, you know, so there's,
PAUL WRIGHT 06:16
there's an expression and, Chris, you're like, if they don't pay, they don't pay attention.
CHRIS HUGHES 06:20
Yes, yes. So trust really is
PAUL WRIGHT 06:23
Yeah, and especially in dieticians, and nutrition. You can go online and get a lot of stuff for free. You can go this there's there's a dietitian services and nutritional services available in public health. You know, is there a is there a market for this, but we talked about in some way presentations, we've got, we've got lots of clients that get caught up in charging appropriate fees for their service, because they think, Well, I can get it somewhere else for nothing. Why I can get like physio in the UK, for example, they can go national health. Yeah. And there's this physio available in Australia, that public health, there's nutrition available as well, but they say it's free? Well, I'd argue heavily, it's not free you, you're not choosing your provider, you're not choosing the qualifications, you're not choosing the frequency of console, because that's determined by the number of hours that therapist in the public system is available, you're getting under service, like nothing else, it's not free. There's a lot of costs involved in that that just aren't just the tangible costs, right? I
CHRIS HUGHES 07:17
100% agree with that. And we like I come from the hospital system. That was where I sort of started off. And you sort of get stuck in that mindset of trying to replicate what the hospitals doing. But it's atrocious in the public's in the private system. Because exactly what you say you're under servicing your clients, you just you need to be seeing your clients and that was something I struggled with as well. And, you know, when I set up, I look back on it and I'm embarrassed like you, I'd see someone and so you just come back in a month because that was kind of what we did at the hospital because we couldn't handle it like and then that wouldn't come back or they hadn't got the results and you know, again, eventually got to where I needed to go but obviously to get there.
PAUL WRIGHT 07:54
Well I get it. My classic one of my favorite stories I talk about is that my when I graduated from Sydney Uni as a physio one of my first jobs was in private in private practice was at a physio clinic in Chatswood in Sydney and and I got this this young kid came in at an anterior cruciate reconstruction and I and I thought I knew all about it. So I thought I was great. Like I did every test under the sun. I gave him 1000 exercises. I spent a lot of time with him and I sent him off Chris and my innovative rebooking strategy was just like you said, I said, You got plenty to do there. Give me a call in a month or so. And let me know where you're going. That was my that was my rebooking strategy, the owner of the practice heard of my innovation and hauled me to the office and just tore strips off he said yeah, this kid needs mobilization manual therapy, soft tissue release he's gonna be an interesting enough when you think about our baggage, the baggage that we carry as professionals all I could hear while she was tearing strips off me was you're only interested in the money Yes, that's all that's all I could hear we I talked about in my presentations, I think called the Cumberland curse. So we all went to Campbell in college, so that's my curse. My curse came from Campbell of college to think about the money all the time. That was the curse that I got from and that's a public hospital curse. Yeah, this kid and looking back on it now. She was so right. And I was just under serving this this kid like nothing else. I don't know if he ever got the bed because he probably went somewhere else after that diabolical rebooking strategy. But that's, but I did it. And, and I've gotten better at now. And we work really hard with our clients to get their heads right. Because they carry this they carry this baggage Chris, they carry this idea that money and I we do a lot of work on it. Because it's a real, it's a real pain for a lot of health professionals. Right. So
CHRIS HUGHES 09:31
important. And that baggage is talking about I actually struggled with when we had staff, we had a team of 18 and telling them then like I wanted them to know, I'm not like yes, the business profit. I'm obviously focused on because I've got people to employ and mouths to feed and everything else, but it was it was communicating that message that you're talking about, about getting the best outcome for the client, but doing it so they're not thinking oh, he's just in it for the money. Like I'll
PAUL WRIGHT 09:58
tell you the tip on that Chris is We don't with our clients, they will listen that our clients teams will listen to us as the as the paid experts that are coming to help the business because they won't listen to the owner. There's this thing called a profit effect that you never profit in your hometown. You could go away and be the world's best dietician. But you come back to the family and you're Chris. Yeah, you're never a prophet in your hometown. So and your team see you they really are only other struggles. So what we do without our clients, we do a lot of the training for our clients and the teams are 10. So we can talk about under servicing, we can talk about rebooking, we can talk about cancellation reduction because it's coming from the paid external expert brewing but but but the owners can't do it because they don't listen to you because they've got their own the owners they got their own Cumberland curse and their teams got it as well. Yeah, it's a nightmare. But that's the way I ran it. We we do we get paid some I've been paid to go into into practice as like I get paid once to go to Quebec fantastic trip. And there's a big corporate group over there Franchise Group. I think that 100 practices, and I'm the paid speaker at this corporate event for these franchise groups and all the therapists from the all the clinics are in the room and there's like hundreds of them. And I'm talking about the front of that. rebooking rate cancellation rate prices and everything. And I walked offstage and one of the franchise owners, Paul, he said that was fantastic. He said, But you said it's exactly what I've been saying to him for the last five years. Because you said it with an Australian accent. They listened.
CHRIS HUGHES 11:24
Yes, yeah.
PAUL WRIGHT 11:27
The external and someone that's done it in hundreds of different practices. Yeah. So so the moral is story. Don't try and do all the training yourself. Look at look at how you can outsource some of the training because they'll they'll listen to someone that says we've done this in 260 practices, and it works every time. Yeah, compared to you saying, I'm going to try this. Oh, that's, it's really difficult to do as an owner. Yes.
CHRIS HUGHES 11:50
Well, we've sold our practice, otherwise, I would be engaging you immediately.
PAUL WRIGHT 11:55
Yeah. Well, but there's the other thing is, if it's not you think about it's okay, when you want to sell a business. But what's it worth US soldiers, but owners don't think about that until I come to sell it. And I think I'll get this ready to sell what's it worth? Well, if it's just you doing all the patients? That's right, it's not really worth anything. Exactly. Anyway, so. So back to original story. I opened my I worked for that lady for a little while until she sacked me, because I worked at I was chronically unemployable, because because I just didn't learn well, I didn't I see something and think, gee, that's better. He did that. Even though I didn't know there's got to be a better way to that. So So I was never really going to be a great employee. So as a result, I started my own practice pretty quickly. I was lucky, the E Myth was in my library very early by Michael Gerber. And it just was like, it was like a light bulb man. And I thought laying on the Emeth is all about those that haven't read it. It's about how to run your business, how to get other people to run your business really do the technical work in your business. So it's like, the worst thing I could do as a physio is do the physio work in my practice, I needed to get other people doing that. So I could focus on the business, on the marketing on the recruitment. And that was the whole idea of the AME. And as a result of that, I ended up opening six practices. Five in Sydney, one in Newcastle employed great people had great systems, I was able not to go to the practices very much stop treating very early. Yeah. So I could focus on the
CHRIS HUGHES 13:15
business over one period of time, like how quickly did you grow to that
PAUL WRIGHT 13:19
pool, probably three or four years, I went from one to four, or one to one to four, and then to six a reasonably quickly. And then and then the opportunity came to sell them and like any good business, everything's always for sale, and the right buyer came along. And I was already starting the business mentoring business, Chris. So I started some programs, I'd started some helping other health business owners do what I was doing so that this was another opportunity. And the other thing had pointed out to me Chris, one of the attractions for what I started doing was I've never liked having a ceiling on anything. I don't I don't like limitations, probably like most entrepreneurs. So which is why I probably left with six clinics, because I if I had one clinic, I had so many rooms and I get so many billable hours, I had a ceiling of revenue. So I thought well, I'll get another clinic, then I expanded my ceiling of revenue, increase my costs, but I bet I could revenue generate more. Yeah. And that followed until six. But even then in which six clinics a certain number of rooms, certain number of therapists, there was a sealant. I didn't like that either. So part of my interest pot I'm interested in doing what I did was I could I could have a million members that are software, one minute practice, I could I could have lots of people in our coaching program so I can have lots of members of our products, so buys our product. So I didn't have a ceiling of income scalable, but that was just that was my but then I started so as a result, I sold them started doing this. And I've been doing this for the last helping help business owners the last 15 years I think yeah, yes,
CHRIS HUGHES 14:42
we were well, I had the fortune of hearing you present at a conference a number of years ago and it blew my mind. It was just that that thinking I remember you. One of the things you talked about was basically there's a number of key points that I still remember and one of them was that whole client Journey and you know, knowing how many point appointments they need for, you know, like they come in with X condition, you're going to need X amount of appointments, and I actually went to the physio the other day, and the physio said, you've got, you're going to need six appointments up until this point and I remember thinking, I wonder if he's been part of Australia.
PAUL WRIGHT 15:20
But it's true because because what was my initial rebooking with that kid? Like? What was that about? I give me a call when you're feeling when you need your next semester of exercise.
CHRIS HUGHES 15:29
Yes. The other thing that resonated with me just quickly, Paul was the always employing you always had someone like he always had a job ad out. And it was about trying to build that team. And that that was something that I took on that really helped our business like we, we didn't always have an ad out. But we always had people that were sending resumes, and I kept that dialogue open with them. And then that was quite a good recruitment strategy strategy, because when when we needed to build a team, then we had that option, we
PAUL WRIGHT 15:58
do a whole whole sections on recruitment. It's such a hot part of business, because but even comes back to our first The first thing is that like the act, the action plan that did conversion conversation, crucify come into a dietician. And hopefully, they're saying something like, You need to be on our X, Y, Zed weight loss program, and edit in tail, this is what it entails. And it's weekly sessions for six weeks. So there's some sort of plan, it's not just, here's your meal plan, go away and live in a go. Like, that's just that's poor. But if the problem you've got made is, if you don't have a good recruitment system, you have real trouble enforcing your systems, let's say you want you'd say you sign your business, Chris, I want everyone to get a written plan. So they every patient that comes into our practice, they get a written report. And then the plan is you're now you're on our weight loss program, it's you need to see us once a week for the next six weeks, that's the plan. But but if you've got therapists that come into the saw, I don't like structure like that, I'll just give me a call in a few weeks, they will do their own thing, because they're worried about money or their financial baggage or whatever they've got, it's real hard. If you have a low labor environment, it's hard for you to call that therapist in and say, Hey, listen, Brian, this is how we do it at XYZ nutrition. If you don't do this, you're out the door. Man, you have trouble with that conversation if you don't have more labor available to you. So one of the real problems we have is we if we don't have a recruitment system, we have to put up with the people we've got even if they're incompetent.
CHRIS HUGHES 17:20
Yes, yeah. And what our practices are regional as well. So it was a little bit off Route people, you've got
PAUL WRIGHT 17:26
to be all over it, you've worked on hold, we've not hold presenters what to do that lecture once I did 46 ways 36 ways to get therapists into your practice as a recruitment session. And I said in that I said that presentation, you know, go back old guys, like me will say in the good old days, I could put in an ad for a physio in the Saturday Herald in Sydney for 50 bucks and get 20 applicants. So that was great. But nowadays, it's it's gonna cost a lot more than that. And I can't just do one way, like the thing I say it 20 years ago, and even less than that, there was one way to get 20 applicants now, mate, there's 20 ways to get one applicant. Yeah. You've got to be in everything. You've got to we talk about the oars in the water strategy, you've got to have all your recruitment oars in the water, because you never know which one of them is going to pull you a lead. And that's why you'd always be recruiting because otherwise you get you would have had it you get the text message from Brian on a on a Sunday afternoon as I made a new debit chatroom Monday morning about my about my wage structure, or whatever. And they'll sit you down and say, Well, if I don't get this, I'm leaving. Or someone offered me this. Can you match it like if you don't have options and other people and I could talk at length because because I love the topic, I'll give you this snippet that because it's important for you guys, when I had my practices, I was always recruiting and someone would say someone would contact me about an ad or about a lead or something that I'd that I'd put out there to get a lead. And I'd say Look, before you come in for an interview, I want you to go to our st Leonard's practice, and here's the address just got to the front desk. So you're here to have a look around and let everyone know that you're just Paul said you might be starting here, just go and check it out. And it was this was this was inside of a gym called unlimited fitness, which then became Fitness First in those days and it was brief. But it had a 40 meter indoor pool $3 billion dollars worth of rehab equipment. It was just spectacular. So here's my BD Brian. I'm saying okay, you want to work a good activity, I'll send you to one of our locations and just have a look around. So they would turn up at this multimillion dollar facility in our practice was inside there and they'd be blown away. So, so part of it, they'd say, Well, I want to work there. But they were up there was another part of my strategy. The other strategy was I wanted the current therapist to know that people were always coming through looking around. That's genius. I didn't know that at the time was that genius but it was actually pretty good. So they'd say Well, I'm I've spoken to Paul, he said to come up look around because I might be starting work and the physio I've got on Brian, hang on Peter. How are you? I'm Mary. Hey, going so they get to meet him on that walk around. What's your deal? I've just graduated I'm just looking around so all of my team knew they were up and so they weren't going to pull the oil pull if I don't do this I'm leaving trig, because I knew I can't match that see later. So it wasn't a big deal for me. But the other thing it did by the time that person came for the interview, I was in charge, I was deciding whether they should work for me or not. That's because they wanted to make this fantastic. When do I start? A lot of them started without even asking you about money. I didn't ask the wage, they just
CHRIS HUGHES 20:21
want out of a culture, I want to be part of that part of
PAUL WRIGHT 20:23
that environment. Not all of them are as good as that. But a senator the best one. Pretty good. But that was the best one. So that's, but that's how you got to approach everything. That's the system careers. That's a recruitment system. That's, that leads to retention of your systems that can then help you run a great business. That's, that's how it works.
CHRIS HUGHES 20:44
So just on that just quickly, Paul, what about the flip side of that of the retention? Because I know for us, the cost of losing staff was was quite, we'd be looking at six months before one of our new grads would start making a profit in terms of retention and everything you know, so it's like, what strategies would you suggest in terms of client retention and stuff? Like
PAUL WRIGHT 21:03
capital is willingness to pay, there is client retention and staff retention? I'm concerned, if I was working with your business, I'd be concerned that it took the new therapist six months to get profitable. So that would be a concern for me, I would be I would be focusing initially, if I was working with your practice, for example, what training are you doing for these new therapists to get them profitable quickly? So I, I'd want that to be the forefront because it shouldn't take six months that, really, so I'd be looking at what? And there's then you go back a stage. This is from Gerber and that's right. Successful businesses leverage ordinary people with great systems. Yes, yeah, that's, that's a terrible sort of thing to say, because you people aren't ordinary, that people are great, they're not going to come in with great skills already, that they've got to be massaged and trained us, but you're going to do it as quickly as possible. So So you leverage. So the idea of leveraging ordinary people with great systems is you you want to get that person, that new therapist, and you want to find out what they know. And then you've got to make sure your practice is set up to help them succeed quickly. Yes. And that's the conversations. Chris, that's the when you have someone like this, what do you say? How do you what how do you rebook them? How do you how do you reduce the cancellations? What's the program that makes sure and you can structure a lot of that, Chris, you can structure that like you could have, and I assume you did have, let's say, I'm just saying the weight loss program, the diabetes program, that the idea of that is, when you've got a really good program or a package of treatment, the package becomes the star not the therapy? Yes, yes. So so what I'm getting at is you can be the owner of the X, Y, Zed Diabetes Prevention Program, or whatever it is, whatever, whatever you call it, and you can be the only you can name it something that you're the only people that have that crease in your practice. So I say you're suitable for our diabetes away prevention program, whatever you call it, here's the details of the program. It's so many times a week, it's so much this is what you get by bar and the person just goes on the program. That's not about you're not relying on the therapist saying I need to see you in a month or two months or it's not discretion, you've removed discretion at the operating level of your business. Yeah, I love that you've removed which is what you said you took away from that lecture I did 10 years ago. The the action plan the rebooking system, that's that's the system Chris, that's not discretionary. You can't leave that up to the therapist, whoever comes in hoping like hell that they rebook Well, you can't run that risk, because so many times you're doing and you suddenly got all these new patients wherever they are gone. Like yeah, well, your rebooking rates terrible. Well, I don't need to see them for three months. I don't see him for six months? Well, yes, you do. Here's the package, this person is suitable for the package, that's the booking plan, you remove that from
CHRIS HUGHES 23:40
Yeah, I love that we, we put packages together, we had a mix of like Medicare, and then our, like Medicare, our bulk bills were our lead, like our last leaders to come in and then introduce them to our package. So we had packages that was just that conversion. That, you know, a lot of the new grads in particular probably struggle with, they got there and I mean, I say six months, you know, some some would have been quicker, but it was, you know, probably didn't need to go back and look at our training systems to make sure that we were sort of upskilling them a lot quicker than what we were but
PAUL WRIGHT 24:12
the thing you made to that you never stopped like we talked about marketing systems and when you when you talk to practice owners about marketing, we've got a principle at practice ology where you what we call is you hold off the blood transfusion. That's kind of the principle this principle is hold off the blood transfusion. And the analogy is and I'll share it with you I'll do it in my presentations, but you know, he's on I'm a med SurfSki panelist while I'm out on the ocean paddling happily all of a sudden a Noah's Ark comes out and takes my leg up like horrific as it sounds, but now my Surf Lifesaving mates with me they take me back to shore there's a there's an ambulance waiting luckily there and they come in the mistake the ambulance would make would be to try and pump blood into the straightaway like I'm losing blood like nothing else out of my leg. They think we're going to put more blood into him so they put more blood in that's the mistake because they haven't stopped the blood loss first. So the analogy of hold off the blood transfusion is saying, you've got to, you've got to don't put more blood into this body until you stop what's leaking out of it. Okay, what are you thinking? What's the hell got to do with health business as well? I'll get to it. help business owners look for shiny marketing objects so that their blood transfusion is Google ads, Facebook ads, doctor's visits, newspaper ads, whatever, whatever other fancy shiny things that they can pump more new patients into my business. That's the blood transfusion. But that's the worst thing they can do. They're already got leaking systems, they've got high cancellation rates, they've got people not following up, they've got they've got therapists saying, give me a call in a month and and you're spending good money pouring more blood into this body, but you haven't stopped the leaks first. So the analogy if you guys look at your internal systems, what are your therapist saying? What do you what are your admin team saying when when someone rings new want to talk about cancellations? Someone rings, I need to cancel appointment, no problems. Give us a call when you want to rebook it, like if that's what your admin team is saying, if that's the script, do you really want to be putting good money into spending marketing money getting that when they're doing that if they're not
CHRIS HUGHES 26:07
getting the experience as well, that client experience? Yeah, I love that. I'm certainly guilty, guilty of going for the blood transfusion first,
PAUL WRIGHT 26:16
we all laugh, because that's what because that's what we think works. But I can tell you, we've had so many clients come into practice ology, with all these glamorous marketing things. And we've just stopped, I'm not going to spend another cent on that, I'm not going to watch you spend five grand a month on your Google ads for another instant until you fix this up. So you can sometimes sometimes you can stop their whole paid marketing, we've had clients where they their hallmark paid marketing has stopped, we focus their attention on their current clients and their massive past data that they just let slide and sit there for ages. And they've said where all the patients come from? Well, you you had a majority, you've already got their details they already know like, and trust you. Yeah, why you're going after the this audience that don't know, that's the most expensive audience you're gonna get. That's,
CHRIS HUGHES 27:01
that is so true. Well, my wife and I, my wife and I, my wife was my business plan. And we were talking about this when we recorded the first episodes of this podcast, and it was like, one of their biggest mistakes was not nurturing the list that we own. We were chasing, trying to build the list. And we already had a massive list. I can't tell
PAUL WRIGHT 27:19
you how many I can't You're not the only one, I can tell you how many clients we see that have big lists been in business a long time. And I'll do a diagnostic with them. And I fill in the diagnostic and said, How are you staying in contact with your past clients? And it's blank? I've got I've got a newsletter now to do follow up phone calls? No. Have you got anything? No, no, we're relying on them. And then when you when you finally Chris, decide to sell your business, you guys would have done it. When you finally decide to sell your business. One of the biggest assets is your database. That's one of the things that's got some value. And we talk about when we're looking at practices at valuing practices. We'll talk about recency and frequency. So I'll look at your database. And I'll say when's the last time these guys were actually in? When was what was the what's the recency of this list? There might be 10,000 people on it, but only 100 had been in the last six months. So what's the recency? And what's the frequency? How often have you been in contact with this list? If if you've got none of those, this this 10,000 person database that you thought was worth a fortune is almost worthless, if they don't know who you are anymore. I'll give you the best one of the best example. He he's one of the best and simplest marketing things you guys can do. If we're talking about simple marketing that's free. I dealt with all of our clients when they start, where are we now whenever whatever month, this goes live, go back, go back to say it say it was, let's say it's February, just to pull up month out of Alabama, go back to December. So go back in your software system to the month of December and get a report from your software system of every patient or client who had a consultation in December, but haven't been in sync. So they saw you in December, they haven't been in sync and there's that list and there might be 100 names in that list, whatever there is, and then for God's sake, do something with the list. So communicate with the list and we got all our people one of my favorites is a is a phone call. Hey Chris Paul HIFF mix was a dietitian Just following up on how you went with that with that thing. We looked at the weight loss thing back in December just checking in how's it going? Yeah, just something but just some sort of message if it goes to message bank, here's the script. My good friend Steve Jensen taught me this one this is this is brilliant. He says hey Chris Paul here from x y Zed. I've just got some important information about your diabetes about your weight loss I've just got some important information for you about insert problem yeah that's that's that's a golden it's a golden message to get on the message. Hang on Paul from the practice has called me about got some important information for me I'm gonna I'm gonna return that call or vertical back yeah, I'm gonna go back and put information Yeah, man I just look at your I saw you had this diabetes issue back then. I just want to check in because there's a new report that's come out that's got this nice want to make sure we knew about it hit. But that's something like that. Like you've got this list of people. So this 100 People list here's the numbers if you do that, anyway. need competent even even incompetently? You'll probably still get two out of 10 of those people rebook into your diary, I'll make something two out of 10. Right? That is absolute go go to go to any online marketing, I gotta face go to the Wizards of the world and say I want you to give me a 20% return on the number of people and see how they go. There's no one in the world, I can give you those numbers. And there's what there's one other list you need to do. And you You wanted to talk a little about cancellations today. The other list you've got to have is anyone who cancels and doesn't have a future booking. So a canceled no follow up do anything with that list. You can't wait weeks and weeks for that you don't wait. You don't go back two or three months for that. Yeah, that's done within 24 hours. That's done quick. Hey, Chris got a message to say you canceled your appointment tomorrow. Don't check. Everything's okay. I wanted to do this. And this will be wrapped up week two of our weight loss plan. I just want to check in make sure we can make that up. So how's it going? What happened? Like that's yeah, you should, you should get an eight to 10 return on that on that call eight or eight out of 10 of those people should get back in your diary, which
CHRIS HUGHES 31:00
is massive, isn't it? But that's it now.
PAUL WRIGHT 31:02
Now people will say here's the here's the rub professionals who have the Cumberland curse, like I inherited and like you like most of them do. They'll say, Gee, I'm ringing past patients sounds a bit salesy to me, and especially if you tell them to do it, because they're saying you're only doing it telling him because it's money in your pocket. So you're so this is what goes on inside their head. And that's why when people like us come in and say, mate, this is just good customer service, you've got to follow this up, because your reputations on the line, that person is not coming back for some reason. And then you go deeply into why haven't Why aren't they coming back? And that then you start opening up a real door for these therapists because they think maybe they didn't like me, maybe that comes back to their own self esteem issues. Sometimes they don't make the phone call because they're scared to make the phone call or what the patient will say, but but here's here's the better option or not another option. People say to me all the time, Paul, who makes those calls, who's who should make those calls? Let's say let's say the follow up calls from last December, who makes those calls? Is it the therapy? Is it the admin person? Is it the owner who makes the calls? I've got an interesting take on it. The person who makes the calls is the person who's got the best conversion rate.
CHRIS HUGHES 32:12
Ah, right. So not necessarily the clinician themself. The clinician might
PAUL WRIGHT 32:16
be hopeless clinician, the clinician might have such self esteem issues about what happened in that concert. They're worried about what the patient is going to say we've got clients, I've got one client special I can think of who husband owns the practice the wife's she's not involved in the practice at all. She she's she's doing other things, but he gets her to make the phone calls because He's exceptional on the phone. She's just brilliant. She's a she's a people's person. Yes, she'll Well, that's no good had to do that. Oh, that's the oh, let's let's organize this. I went there. The other day, I had lunch there, whatever happened. And all of us now it's Mary from XYZ healthcare. I'm calling on behalf of Chris, who just wanted to follow up with this, what's happened.
CHRIS HUGHES 32:52
I love that because I also love the fact that thinking back in our practice that for whatever reason, there may have been like a bit of a personality clash between the clinician and the client, and so that that neutral person would call Yeah, I love that. And
PAUL WRIGHT 33:06
even if let's say you haven't got it, but I don't care. I really don't care who makes it, someone makes it but but if I get my therapist to make the calls and they're doing a zero out of 100, rebooking rate I, even though I've trained them in it, and they're better at it, and I've and again, Chris, I've role played that conversation, I've had to have a lot of role plays with that to get them confident and comfortable that they make a good call. If they just can't do it, then we'll find someone else. But the therapist will then say, I hate the I hate it. Sometimes therapists say I'm too busy to make the call. Well, let me look at your utilization rate. Let's go to your diary. And what's utilize it how fully booked is the therapist if that therapist is fully booked from start to finish, and there's no gap in between? They've got a case and I'd go Okay, fair enough, then we'll find someone else adult trained an admin or trainer, a junior therapist who's got some space to make those calls on your behalf. Someone's still gonna make that it might not be the therapist but if you look at that therapist, and I've got a utilization rate of 70% or less well what about this hour what's happening in here? I've got to do my notes. Now you do your notes during your console you don't do it like you fix the systems inside the business. There's another massive leak is I'd
CHRIS HUGHES 34:10
go on the golden nuggets you give me today we want to go open up a practice again for
PAUL WRIGHT 34:17
well, though, okay, well here Well, here's here's the rub, that they will give you something to be finished with. I opened my practices mistakenly and there's because there's only really two drivers of a successful health business Chris, there's two key drivers of any successful business there's Available Market meaning there's enough demand for your service. That's the first requirement and there's available labor supply there's enough there's enough available therapists or team members to provide that service if I if I knew that when he years ago I might have been more selective about what I did with the practices because you've got it you did it you open let's say you open regional practices you I'm going to open a dietitian practice in the middle of nowhere now maybe there's enough demand, spread the error out there's enough people who need that stuff. So maybe there's enough market but blind Freddy can see you're going to Trouble with recruitment, there's, you're gonna have trouble getting therapists to those locations. So you've already and that's what then what happens is, as maybe happened to you and happens to lots of people, I opened the practice in my hometown because there was a huge demand for it. But then I find myself working 60 hours a week. And the thing is, I can't get other therapists. That's because I didn't satisfy the second thing and we fall in love. Here's what we do. We fall in love with the idea of being a therapist, I wanted to like what was the classic I wanted to be a physio, I didn't think for a second was there a viable market for that was there a demand was cut to get labor? Like, I didn't think any of that I just wanted to be a physio, and then I wanted to open my own practice. Yeah, the universe doesn't care what I want. The market doesn't care what I want. My job is to fill the market. So your job, here's, here's the big takeaway. If you want a successful business, in any area, you find a desperate problem, and you solve it. And whatever that is. Zig Ziglar said, If you help enough people get what they want, you'll always get what you want. So what is there enough people that need dietician services of a certain niche of a certain condition in your area in an area? And can you then staff it with available labor to deliver it? Xena is great advice, then there's a chance you're gonna run a successful business, otherwise, you're going to be scrambling for available labor scrambling for clients, or both. Yeah,
CHRIS HUGHES 36:14
well, my we were lucky in that there was demand for services. But recruitment, we got lucky, we staff were great staff, but it was still It wasn't as easy as recruiting, you know, in the capital cities. And so yeah, I, we, my wife and I talk about all the time, we wouldn't start a regional practice again, we wouldn't that thought of going through all that, again, I couldn't do so that's got to
PAUL WRIGHT 36:38
go into, you've got to go in with very, like, we talked to our clients at the moment, they've got to be heavily invested in their recruitment, like they were taught about marketing that they say that I should be marketing my practice. But a big part of marketing, your practice is marketing your practice to other therapists. So you're not just marketing to patients. You're also you've also got a marketing campaign to attract therapists, you got to marketing things going on at the moment. And we focus too much on patient attraction, not enough on therapist, retraction attraction, you're going to work on both of those. Yeah,
CHRIS HUGHES 37:05
you're only as good as your staff, essentially. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
PAUL WRIGHT 37:12
You're only as good as the systems that the staff follow. Yes, yeah. Because because I can make a pretty lame therapist pretty good. You can you can make a therapist pretty good. With good systems, you can leverage people with great systems, because great people hard to find. So you've got to be able to broaden your labor pool and get people who may not be great yet, but you leverage them with a great system. So they work well in that system. Look at McDonald's do it spectacularly. Like you got 15 year old kids that can't clean their room, and they can run a run a business. How's that work? They're so tightly controlled in their system.
CHRIS HUGHES 37:43
Yeah, I love that. Well, Paul, look, I mean, you've been so generous with your time, and you've given us so much information that Yeah, I mean, if anyone starting or owns a practice now would have got enough out of this talk, simply to start driving a bit more profit in their business. If someone wants to work with you, Paul, what's the best way they can get in touch and I imagine there's gonna be quite a few just
PAUL WRIGHT 38:05
might just easiest places our main website head to head to my practice ology.com. So my practice ology.com you can there's a practice survey, you can fill in there to get on our list and we'll send you a downloadable copy of the book, How to run a one minute practice, which in itself is a great a great little read on that site, mate. You can also have a chat with me so you can click on the button there and organize have a chat with me. We do regular webinars trainings, but get on our email list first just do a practice survey or reach out to me on LinkedIn on LinkedIn guy, go to LinkedIn poll, right Newcastle. Send me a message on LinkedIn say, say you're on Chris’ podcast, and I'll help you out as best I can. I get great resources, happy to share as I said, Sunday, help enough people get what they want. You'll always get what you want. So happy to share all of our resources. Let me know what you guys need. Happy to help.
CHRIS HUGHES 38:52
That's brilliant. And we will put the link to your website in the show notes and comments. So appreciate that. Paul Riley pleasure, man.
PAUL WRIGHT 38:58
Hope that was useful for you.
CHRIS HUGHES 38:59
That was amazing. Thanks for your time. Do you find this podcast valuable? There may be other nutrition professionals out there will also be like, share and subscribe. It's going to help other nutrition professionals make an impact on the world just like you Thanks
