Ben Lynch: Ahoy! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! What is this? Is this a Lycra fit?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's my ugly sweater cycling edition. Very nice. I love it. Yes. There you go. Cycling. Merry Christmas. Where's Hannah? Is Hannah late again? I don't think I can do the whole session in this, by the way. No, you've got to. You have to. You can't take it off. Well, I mean, I've got, I've got my work shirt on underneath.

Ben Lynch: People want to see Jack O'Brien, uncomfortable in Lycra, looking like a Christmas tree. G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode. Warning, if you have kits while listening to this, please pause it or skip 10 minutes ahead.

Jack O'Brien: I see Christmas as another opportunity for us to curate and craft an experience for our team.

Ben Lynch: What should I do to celebrate the year with my team? What gifts perhaps should I get my team members?

Hannah Dunn: We invite any team member that has been on our team for that year, so even if you've left the team and you're not an active team member currently.

Jack O'Brien: That's probably another thing that I've learned personally, is if it's something that I want all of my team to participate in, that's going to be far more likely if we do it in work hours.

Ben Lynch: About to enter the Christmas season, which means non-stop Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey for a month. This episode will be right up your Allie if you're looking to celebrate the year that's been with your team. We're diving into end of year parties and trust me you want to hear Hannah's take on alternatives to just dinner and drinks. Plus stick around for when Jack drops how to acknowledge your referral partners at this time of year. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email hallowettclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 328, and we're about to enter the Christmas season, which means nonstop Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey for a month. Hey, it's not as bad as one of our team members in the Philippines, they start celebrating on the 1st of September. They start playing Christmas carols in the shopping center from the 1st of September. I think that's way too early, right?

Jack O'Brien: Way too early. Way too early. We were joking at church on Sunday, like, I'm ready to start Christmas. I used to be the Grinch and I decided, Being a Grinch is no fun. I've just changed. This year, it's all new. Christmas starts in November. Your tree should be up by now and bring on the carols. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Let's embrace it.

Ben Lynch: You got your Christmas shirt on, ready to go.

Jack O'Brien: Ready to rock and roll.

Ben Lynch: He's ready to rock and roll. Is that a riding top?

Jack O'Brien: Yes, it's a cycling ugly sweater.

Ben Lynch: It is great. Do you put like candy canes in the back? It's not like protein bars when you're riding?

Jack O'Brien: Yep. Bit of eggnog in the bottle. Yep.

Ben Lynch: So Jack, when does the Christmas tree go up in your household?

Jack O'Brien: Well, that is a decision for my beautiful wife, Christina. I will allow her, she loves Christmas more than I do. Okay.

Ben Lynch: But you don't have like a definitive date? It sort of changes.

Jack O'Brien: Historically, it's 1st of December, but I'm ready. So maybe it should be this weekend.

Ben Lynch: What about you, Hannah? When does the Christmas tree go up in your household?

Hannah Dunn: As close to the first of December. So probably this year on the 29th or 30th of November.

Ben Lynch: Okay. Yes. Cause I think the first is a Monday, so maybe on that Sunday or Saturday, just prior. We are the first of December every year. Now, I've debated my wife quite a bit on this, around when does the tree come down? Because if you go with the 12 days of Christmas, it takes you into like the 6th of January, right?

Jack O'Brien: Or about then. Correct. Christmas tide is the season. Yes.

Ben Lynch: Yes. That's what I grew up having, was 12 days of Christmas, that's when the tree comes down. Well, she didn't like that. And I think I got it through one year and we managed to negotiate the first to the first. So on the 1st of January, it comes down. She's campaigning for Boxing Day and I'm holding strong because I love it. It's the best season of the year for me. We've got four kids under the age of 10. So it's a magical time of the year. Hannah, do you do that silly little thing called the Elf on the Shelf? Are you involved in this? I feel I'm at my limit after about four days of doing this. Where do I put this bloody thing?

Hannah Dunn: I am, and I was protesting against it, and then my now 10-year-old came home on the first day of December in prep. And she said, mum, everyone has this elf that visits and I didn't have an elf who visited. And I thought, no, damn right you didn't. And then what did I do?

Ben Lynch: I called every Kmart in Melbourne and drove 40 minutes to get the last elf on their shelf. And it came back with a note saying it was late and it was sorry it couldn't find her or something. So we do have elf on the shelf, but I initially thought I was going to stay strong.

Ben Lynch: It's hard to resist, J.O.B., surely, with all the Christmas festivities in your house and the fact that you're no longer the Grinch, you're embracing all the things Christmas, which includes this elf, which, far out, you have to find some creative places to hide it.

Jack O'Brien: No, no elf on the shelf in our house, but we do love a good advent calendar. We run two concurrent advent calendars, the chocolate version and the acts of kindness version. So we're always looking to do something for someone else each day. We're pretty big on the whole St. Nick theme of Christmas in our place. And so, yeah, the advent calendars are an exciting time of the morning to see what comes out.

Hannah Dunn: I feel like this episode needs to come with a no little ears warning at the start so that we don't ruin Elf on the Shelf for anyone.

Ben Lynch: That's a very, that was why my facial expression was the way it was. I was like, oh, if you're listening to this and you've got kids close by, oh my God, we will do that. Warning. If you have kids while listening to this, please pause it or skip 10 minutes ahead. Anyway, Grace would be able to edit that in. I don't want to ruin Christmas for some kids. Speaking of some podcast feedback that we did get out of my inbox this morning, Erin, a psychologist that listens in says, Hey Ben, I listened to the Clinic Mastery podcast all the time and really resonated with the systems episode that we did recently. She said, look, I'm not the best at systems. I'm the ideas person, but Allie seemed like such a perfect tool to be able to get on top of our policies and procedures, which has been the goal for this year. And I'm really loving it and looking forward to adding the data in when the SPLOS integration goes live. Well, good news, Erin. The SPLOSE integration is now live, including the NUCL and Halaxy integration on top of the Cliniko integration. So head along to alieclinics.com and you can get the data side and also the system side, the training side, to be able to share with your team, sort of one hub, which is very cool. J.O.B., before we dive in, anything else on your desk?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, we've had a flurry of clinic owners reach out to get help, particularly when you're thinking about recruitment for early 2026. That needs to start in November or even sooner, but let's say November and December 2025. So if you are one of those clinic owners who are looking for help, whether you're a solo startup or scale up, whether you're doing 10k a month or 410k a month, in revenue. We have a program for everyone but particularly in the last couple of days, Tim, a physio from the South Coast of New South Wales has joined us. Adam, a clinic owner in regional Tasmania has joined us. Brandon has joined us and as has Carolina and Austria. So, really excited to have a whole bunch of clinic owners invest in themselves, their personal leadership growth and ultimately invest in transforming client experiences and leading inspired teams in their practices, Ben.

Ben Lynch: Beautiful. Well, Hannah, I'm going to come to you in a moment about how you think about Christmas parties and the end of the year. But for so many people in our community, this time of year sparks a conversation. There's normally three parts to it that come up in our Slack community. And they're around, what should I do to celebrate the year with my team? What gifts, perhaps, should I get my team members? And potentially, what gifts or acts of service or connection points should I have with my partners, the referral partners that we work with in our community? And you kind of get the sense that December is written off after about the first week. Everyone's trying to close loops, leave starts. It's a bit chaotic. And we often have the message of finish the year strong. We spoke in the previous episode about your end of year checklist to help you do that so that you can launch into the new year with some momentum and feel a sense of calm and control because it can be a bit of a silly season for some folks. But when it comes to celebrating the year that has been, so many people ask, I want to do a Christmas party, an end of year function, what should I do? And we're going to go through a couple of ideas and examples people have shared, but how do you think about it, Hannah, when it comes to Christmas parties and celebrating the year?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. We set the date the year before. So when we look at the dates, we set that date. And so we might not have a plan. We might not know exactly what we're doing, but we set the date so that the team can lock it in early. Nice. So this year it's the 5th of December and so we do it on a Friday night and we generally do an activity and have dinner and that is what we've found works best. I don't give my team a Christmas present as such. Um, that is our present. The event is the present in their activity, but we do do a Santa snatch as a team and so everyone brings a present and so we still have presents, but it's been provided by another teammate. It's always competitive on who's got snatched the most or whose was the favourite. I used to give presents and we've done a KK where you got allocated somewhere, but we've found that some people got people they didn't really know as well as others and we're across three clinics and we do it as one team. And so sometimes it just got a bit trickier as we got bigger. So we find the Santa Snatch works really well. But we celebrate our team at other times in the year with their anniversaries and do presents at that time. We do presents if there's a big event, like a baby or a housewarming or like a purchase of a house or something else big that happens in someone's life. Um, so that's when we choose to invest in a present and at Christmas we share that

Ben Lynch: Jack, put it back on. What's going on here? He's getting too hot, folks.

Jack O'Brien: He's taking his- Yeah, a bit hot under the jersey. It didn't feel right.

Ben Lynch: It was overheating in the jersey.

Jack O'Brien: Oh, golly.

Ben Lynch: Hey, Hannah, so that's a really cool play on the traditional dinner and drinks. You've said, let's do an activity first.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

Ben Lynch: Walk us through how you arrived at adding the activity then into dinner and drinks and how you choose the activity.

Hannah Dunn: Um, well we do ask our team sometimes for input on what the activity will be. Um, it's gotten harder as the team's gotten bigger at getting what the activity is. Um, we sort of consider like we would never go rock climbing cause not everyone in our team would be able to do rock climbing, that sort of stuff that we consider. Um, but generally we just choose a venue and then dinner gets chosen based on the venue. So we've done things like Holy Moly. Which is like putt-putt, indoor putt-putt with like cocktails, is that right? Yeah, mini golf. And then we've done, like we're doing saboteurs this year, which is like a laser tag, but with puzzles and things that you do. It's like an among us. Um, live version, if you ever played Among Us during lockdown. No. What is this? A little computer game thing. Um, it's like got little missions that you do in teams. It's a team building activity. Okay. We've done like other games rooms and escape rooms and those sorts of things. Um, but that's what we find our team enjoy the most. And I think that's what we've learned from going out and they like it when there's a bit of competition, friendly banter. We've done the axe throwing before. That was fun.

Ben Lynch: Yes, I have seen a few clinics do this, the axe throwing one. It's an interesting one of how you think about doing, especially as your team grows, like there's abilities to consider or preferences, like an escape room will quickly find out who's got anxiety or claustrophobia. You know, being in a room like that, I've never done it. I don't think I'd love doing it. But Jack, how do you think about the Christmas party as part of the overall calendar of events, which I love, Hannah. One, you're planning a year in advance, the date that it's going to happen. And two, you're framing that in the context of celebrating and acknowledging our team throughout the year, not just leaving it to this one event. So Jack, how do you think about the Christmas party in the overall calendar context?

Hannah Dunn: I'm going to stop before Jack jumps in. You just mentioned celebrating the team as a year. That is the other thing we do. We invite any team member that has been on our team for that year. So even if you've left the team and you're not an active team member currently, we invite you back to the team.

Ben Lynch: I remember you saying this.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. It comes from me having worked in a workplace that did that and I just loved it and it was a nice touch point. And the other thing that you just touched on was like, you learn a lot about your team. Last year, I wanted to surprise the team with an event and they were so anxious about what we were doing that I ended up having to tell them. So my team does not like surprises is what I have learned. Anyway, sorry, Jack, your turn.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I really like the intentionality there, Hannah. So one of the problems that I have with clinic owners, here I go ranting again, is we go through the motions and we have these assumed beliefs for the sake of it because it's what we've always done. And the lack of critical rigorous thinking that bothers me generally. We don't think through why we do what we do. And so, you know, at Clinic Mastery, we're so passionate about helping clinic owners create amazing experiences for clients and for team. And so I see Christmas as another opportunity for us to curate and craft an experience for our team. Now, Ben, you've taught so faithfully on this over the years, what makes up an experience? It's a moment, a milestone, and a multiplier. And so, of course, Christmas is the milestone. It comes around every year. But what is the moment that we're going to create? And what is the multiplier that we're going to apply? And ultimately, what's the objective? What do we want people to feel? And look, it's horses for courses, right? There'll be some clinic owners who simply want to tick the box and have a few drinks, let the hair down, you know, Christmas parties, kind of the annual thing that's always in the diary. For others of us, we want to be a little bit more intentional. Hannah, you're clearly crafting some memorable experiences and some bonding experiences for your team. And I love that. For others of us, we're trying to be really deliberate because You know, sometimes expense can blow out or expectation can blow out. And so really, what are we trying to achieve? And then we bring everything back to that point, Ben. So that's what I love, clinic owners who are thinking critically and deliberately and really curating the moment for their team.

Ben Lynch: And have you got some ideas or examples, J.O.B., that either you've done or you've seen clinic owners done? Is it anchoring back to, okay, we're a strong theme of connection. Maybe we've got a whole bunch of new team members. We launched a new site this year. And so a lot of people don't know one another. And I really want the experience to be anchored around connection or adventure or like, are these the sorts of things that you're looking to explore? How would you frame it? Yeah, you're right.

Jack O'Brien: You know, it's similar to culture days and how we would think about an alignment day or a culture day, however you describe that in your clinic. And so, you know, some examples that we've done in our clinic and I've seen others do really well, maybe it's around the gift, that it's simply around a meaningful gift moment. If you're a close-knit team, everyone knows each other, a Kris Kringle or Secret Santa thing can work really well. What did you call yours, Hannah? Snatch something? I haven't heard that before, but that's like the nasty Santa, right, where you take gifts off one another. I love that. You can have a bit of fun in and around that. I've seen food experiences are really good. Typically, a Christmas party will revolve around food, so maybe it can be a bit of a potluck style arrangement or people can contribute to the preparation of the food. I also think it's really meaningful to think about the presence or the absence of alcohol and how that plays out. Typically in today's day and age, there's a lot of people choosing not to drink or having non-alcoholic alternatives. But again, some cultures and some Christmas party cultures really lean towards having a big celebration.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, that's right.

Jack O'Brien: I was looking for the PG word because we're trying not to spoil Christmas for the children. Yeah, yes, yes. And so, just thinking deliberately about that. Maybe you don't want to create a culture of binge drinking in your clinic and so maybe it's putting something on through the day or having non-alcoholic alternatives. I think for us, we did a Some things that have worked really well specifically in our clinic was a barbecue and a lawn bowls, like barefoot bowls afternoon. It's summer, it's outdoors, there's plenty of time to talk. You're not stuck doing the activity. Really, lawn bowls is just a conversation vehicle. We did a mini Olympics with another clinic that we partnered with, so I know we're getting to the partnerships piece, but we combined Christmas parties with another local podiatry clinic and that was a wonderful time. Outdoors, food outside, you can have a few bevvies and have a great time. A little bit of competitive spirit is a great bonding experience also.

Ben Lynch: That's a nice way to do it. Like the combination of partners, different clinics actually sharing that experience together. I'm interested, what have you done at a Christmas party that you would never do again? What mistakes did you make? Are you like, ooh, that was a bad call or it didn't work? Maybe you haven't done anything so obvious, but you've seen others do it and it's turned out to be the wrong call. suggestion there, Jack, around considering anchoring it around food and beverage. Of course, you can have wonderful experiences there, and we'll go through a few specific ones in a moment that actually do reference that, but maybe in a more thoughtful or tasteful way, depending on how you think about it. But I like your intentionality comment around, do we want to anchor it around a long night drinking, as an example. Hannah, does anything come to mind that you've done or you've seen other clinic owners, you sort of make mistakes and go, I wouldn't do that again. Maybe it's the timing of the event, the duration of the event, where it was held. Like, yeah, what are some of the mistakes you feel you've made?

Hannah Dunn: I think just generally for people is leaving it too late and not giving people enough notice so that everyone can attend because it's such a busy time of year. Um, I don't know. I think, you know, um, feel like we learn from everything we do. So nothing comes to mind that's been, you know, at not working with having like the team that didn't know each other so well with the KK sort of stuff. I think, yeah, not surprising your team if they're not liking that. And I think also doing activities that don't suit your whole team, like not knowing the physical abilities of some of your team members and not taking that into account can sometimes be the thing.

Jack O'Brien: That's what I was going to say, Hannah. For me, my mistake is just not reading the room. We had, I recall, in the early days, we had a couple of really older team members, grandmas and grandparents or kids of different ages and season. A Friday night out or a Saturday night out even, just wasn't the right thing for them. It wasn't going to suit their lifestyle. Therefore, I didn't make it as easily accessible for as many people as possible. That was when we moved to the Lawn Bowls lunch the following year, Barefoot Bowls, because it was much more suitable to different ages, stages of life. We could do it in working hours. That's probably another thing that I've learned personally is if it's something that I want all of my team to participate in, then it's that's going to be far more likely if we do it in work hours. If we put it outside of work hours on a weekend, there's potential clashes in the diary. Put it in work hours, there's no clashes because it's a work time.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. I was going to say a similar thing that we found, like for us, the Friday night actually works really well with that much notice, but that weekends were definitely limiting on who could come and where they could go. I think location is another thing to think about. We always do ours in the city opposed to near one of our clinics because we're not all living near the clinics. Just thinking about those limiting factors.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. It's a good point. How do you balance then, you know, providing an experience, doing something that might be fun or different without making it too vanilla? Cause you're like, I'm trying to accommodate all of these different preferences and styles. And well, it kind of feels like it's not even worth doing because so-and-so can't make it or they're not. able to do it, do you give them options? Do you find that creates more complexity, it's not worth doing? How do you frame it up to people that maybe aren't interested or concerned about doing it for whatever reason? Hannah, what's your approach to giving people maybe an out, not to come?

Hannah Dunn: I don't give them an out. I mean, I just, there's just a culture of expectation, I guess, that people want to be involved in this thing. I think it's easier for us in a pediatric environment where we're playing all day. And so I think that fosters people who want to be part of the fun of that event. Yeah. If you've got, I don't know, podiatrists, osteos, physios, people who, adult OTs even, but I just think it's not the area in which you have trouble getting people to come and play again.

Ben Lynch: Okay. Good to know. Jack, what about you? Have you found ways to provide optionality for folks?

Jack O'Brien: You know, I think it's knowing that you're not going to please everyone all of the time. And so a lot of that is framing up with our teams. Yeah. That this might not be something you would choose to do. It's a little bit out of your comfort zone and that's okay because the focus of this experience really is about connection. And so that's why I think keeping things simple and making about the humans and the ability for us to converse. Again, what's the point of a Christmas party? It's to celebrate the year that was, to relax and enjoy one another's company. And so sometimes we get caught up with all of the, you know, logistics of things. When we miss, we've got to keep the main thing, the main thing, right? And so when our team can see that the main thing here is celebration, connection, and The activity is a little bit by the by. It's just the conduit. It's the vehicle. I mean, a team understand that. It seems to me like they come along for the ride a whole lot more.

Ben Lynch: It's a really good point. I think connection's kind of the key thing for whether it's a culture day, team alignment day, throughout the year, whether it's the Christmas party and then celebration. I do want to come to the dinner or the gathering. discuss things? Do you put the year in review in just a moment? But I want to actually share a couple of suggestions from our Slack community. We started this thread in 2020 and we seem to anchor back to it every year when people come up and they say, Hey, I'm thinking about my Christmas event. What should I do? And we're like, here's an incredible list. Can you add to it and see what others have done? So I'm going to walk through a few of them. I've shared them with you guys. Feel welcome to call out any that are notable or that I miss. But just to go kind of head to toe. Kelly says barefoot bowls was a good one. Jack, similar to you. Adam says a private room at a restaurant, which was really nice. I've heard others get, you know, a private chef, maybe at an Airbnb, depending on the size of your clinic. Another, Lauren, says we're doing gingerbread house making and decorating. That's really cool, really fun activity. Claire says we're doing a Christmas party in the backyard at our new clinic. We'll have Santa for the kids, giant Jenga, barbecue and drinks. Andrew says we're doing a cocktail making class. Some activity to do together. I know, JB, you spoke about the drinking side of things, but could be I've done a barista version of that. you know, making coffees, which is a really great way to do it. Darren says we're having lunch overlooking the marina. Really nice. We've got Felicity who says we always include our partners. which takes it up to over 50 people. That is huge in terms of getting people involved. Carolina does a wine tour. Are there any others here on the list that you're seeing, Hannah or Jack, you think, ah, that's a really great example of what you could do for your Christmas party?

Hannah Dunn: I think they're the main ones that jump out at me. Like, um, the other thing that comes to mind is when you said about inclusivity is like, we break the event down and say, you're welcome to come to just the first activity. If you've got something on, you're welcome to join us for dinner. You're welcome to come for a drink after dinner. Like if you can just come to part of the event, that's also an option. Um, yeah.

Ben Lynch: That's great. Go Jack.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I think the memorability of these things is important. People will usually remember one, maybe two things from your Christmas party. Do we want it to be the experience or the setting? Maybe we do. It's sometimes really hard if you set the bar high this year to match it next year and the comparison game hedonic adaptation creeps in. But do we want people to remember the experience or do we want them to remember the conversation? And look, I realise a lot of these things start to really add up from a budget perspective. Venues jack up their prices for Christmas and if we're including partners, these things can really blow out. And so do we want people to remember the experience? Maybe. But also, do we want people to remember the conversation or the celebration? Maybe you're doing a little award ceremony for your team at this moment or maybe it's something in particular, maybe there's a a bottle of wine or something really unique that isn't cost prohibitive for everyone, but what's the one thing that you want people to remember?

Hannah Dunn: That's the thing with saying cost prohibitive, like whether you're paying for it or whether your clinic's paying for it or whether individuals are contributing. I know when we were in hospital settings and government roles, we were always paying for our own Christmas parties. I think it's probably an expectation that people are paying for them in private practices for the clinics paying for them, but maybe you're paying part of them or

Ben Lynch: How do you go about doing that, Hannah? Do you cover it all? Do you cover part?

Hannah Dunn: We cover it all. We cover it all and some years I've covered cocktails and some years I haven't, but generally we don't cover cocktails, but we'll cover wine and those sorts of drinks.

Ben Lynch: And you brought up a good point there, Jack, just to make the distinction of partners meaning like a spouse, maybe a loved one, as different from referral partners, professional partners. Did you invite the spouses along to your team event? And what have you heard and seen from those that have brought them along? And perhaps some of the framing here has been, well, They're typically the ones that are hearing all the good and the bad at home, and it's a great way to involve them and maybe help them understand, meet more of the team, meet the directors of the company, because maybe they can reinforce, oh, it seems like you've got a really good culture, really good team, or just bring them into the fold. Or do you like to keep it pretty straight and narrow? It is just the team members that are coming along. Jack, how do you go about

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I think there are many ways to be right, but I would take inspiration from Tristan White at PhysioCo, wrote the book that Culture is Everything, and to include partners, spouses, particularly, along the journey. Yes, it in some cases doubles the attendance list, the guest list, but that's okay for exactly the reasons you described, Ben. We want the spouses of our team members to be the clinic's advocate. When your therapist goes home from a tough day, we want their spouse to say, oh, you can do it. You can get through it. The sun will set and rise again tomorrow. It's going to be okay. What we don't want is the spouse to reinforce any negative emotional belief where like, Oh yeah, your boss is a jerk. You're right. You're right. You should ask for a pay rise. So we want partners to feel included in the journey and to be embraced. Your team members spend the majority of their waking hours in your clinic. We want this to feel like a family and a community, a high performance family, but a family and a community nonetheless. How did you agree?

Hannah Dunn: Yes, I do agree, but it can get really costly. What we've done previously is have the Christmas party for our team. There's been a little bit of a secret Christmas party or interview celebration with our leadership team, which has included partners. So like Louisa, operations manager, Lisa, who was our finance manager, and then me and Warwick, we used to go out for dinner. And that is something we've continued on. Um, and then we do a welcome to the new year barbecue with families. So a different event that is maybe bring a plate, like you were talking about earlier, bring something to the picnic, because we've got a lot of people on our team with kids. Um, so having something in the park, just again, making it more accessible for those people and that we have done on a weekend and have had reasonable turnout to that.

Ben Lynch: That's a really great way to kick off the new year, especially if you've got new graduates or new team members coming on board. They don't have to wait for the end of year Christmas function. They get to meet people initially. I've also seen a slight, I'll say, addition to that example that you gave, Hannah, where people are asked to bring a plate. Maybe you've set the theme, you know, certain type of food, or I need you to bring us, you know, an entree or something more for main, whatever it might be. But I want you to pick something that, you know, has a story behind it for you. And I want you to write it up in a little card or on a piece of paper, and we're going to put it next to the dish so that those people who are eating it understand, oh, you know, this is what my grandma used to cook for me, or this was the meal that I made, you know, when I got engaged. Something that just adds a little bit of a story, a piece of connection, a conversation starter as well. What I want to know is. when you're doing the Christmas party, do you think clinic owners should, you know, knock on the glass, chink, chink, chink, everyone, thanks for coming, here's a bit of a spiel on the year in review, and actually go through some formalities for 15 to 30 minutes? Maybe they've got a slide deck to talk through some things, some happy pictures of the year, or should it just be really organic, the conversation through the night? Hannah, How do you approach it? How do you see other clinics approach this part of the night or day?

Hannah Dunn: I can see the value in sort of having a little bit of a celebration of what has happened. We don't. I think people want to switch off from work and want to just sort of engage in that organic conversation. We would tend to do that more so at our last team planning day of the year, which is around October-ish time. And so that's the time in which we do that sort of talk.

Jack O'Brien: I disagree. Well, I know you said you can see the value but if you saw the value, you'd do it, right?

Ben Lynch: Well, I'd do it another time. I see the value of switching up and not having work pressures.

Ben Lynch: This is earlier on in the schedule.

Jack O'Brien: Hang on. Now, you're saying you see value in switching off. You're doing a little Peter Flynn here and sitting on the fence. You're on the fence. Hey, look, I think, man, it's a great moment to Yes, to celebrate, to make comments on the year, to highlight a few folks and highlight a few memories. I'm probably of the persuasion that we wouldn't want to miss that opportunity. Or put another way, we should take every one of those opportunities that come our way. Yeah, when we've got people in the same place, when we've got a drink where we can celebrate, you know, it's a different setting than at work. Maybe your culture days are typically in the clinic, in the gym or the play space. And so, yeah, I think take those opportunities, use it as a chance to celebrate the year as a team, to focus on one or two individuals and really lean into that moment. Because again, that's going to be memorable for some folks. And so really we're trying to create that memorability.

Ben Lynch: Especially if spouses are there and you're able to paint a really great picture of, you know, there's been plenty of ups and downs along the year, but let's acknowledge a few of them along the way. And they're like, wow, I didn't know about that. Or I didn't know the significance of that when you shared it at home in that conversation. So it's a really great way for some of the social proof there to come through of, look at what we've achieved together.

Jack O'Brien: I think also it allows us as clinic owners, as we're curating these events, to create that peak end effect. Particularly if we're trying to wrap up an evening or we want to let people have their Christmas booze up in their own time, it creates a real finite delineation of this is the end of the event. And so thank you for coming. Thank you for the year. I hope you have a wonderful time in this Christmas season with your family and loved ones and community. This has been a wonderful night. Thanks for coming and looking forward to seeing you at work on Monday. You know, it creates a lot of finality, which can be important for particular workplace cultures. And it also means that, you know, if folks want to gracefully depart or make their way home, It creates permission for those folks to do so.

Ben Lynch: Great point around. Yes. Here's kind of the line in the sand, the moment where it kind of ends, but most people probably kick on and stick around.

Hannah Dunn: And that's the beauty of CM, I think, that you're always hearing different ideas. Cause I think at the moment I'm now like, Oh, actually this year I'll send you a video of my interview speech. That's the sort of thing we say on Slack all the time. That thought around, I've done this for so long and it's worked, but what could be that 1% or 10% in this case that makes it better.

Jack O'Brien: And I think, you know, it helps us. I've learned a lot from Shane Davis in this sense. He's a real people person and loves the social things, which is not typically my default, but I want to lean into it. I think it's a really important skill for clinic owners who might be that C on the disc scale, quite analytical and introverted. We need to lean into these social environments and lean into celebration. But it's one thing that I've learned from Shane, and to be honest, I'm still learning, is around how do we How do we create these environments and experiences for our team where they'll feel grateful for them? We're trying to generate some gratitude in our team rather than resentment or like, oh, he's a tight ass because he put a tab on the bar. He only put a low tab on the bar, irrespective of the fact that, oh, hang on, she put a really big tab on the bar. How do we create environments where our team is super grateful for the moment rather than out of obligation or resentment? And so I think the ability to put a pin on the end and you have the, you know, in some regards, the final say and that final moment, that end effect where people remember the peak and they remember the end. How do we create an end effect that elicits the types of emotions and memories that we want in our teams?

Ben Lynch: Hannah, you brought up a really good point around budgets for these things, that they can tend to blow out. And Jack, you said, yeah, we can kind of get on the hedonic treadmill here of, oh, we set the bar really high this year. Maybe there's an expectation next year to be equal or better. Practically, do you have an account in your bank account that you just put money aside for, for these types of events? Because you know they're going to be pretty reasonable investments, especially the team of 30. How do you manage it, or at least how would you suggest a clinic owner prepare for that? Because it can be a reasonable investment at that point in the year.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. I would do as I say and not as I do. And I would absolutely have a bank account. I think that's a good idea. But I also think getting in early and getting those quotes early, like restaurants will give you a quote on what dinner is going to be. They'll give you a quote for the activity that you want to book in. And then really thinking about how can you create that environment maybe without that cost if that's what you're needing to do, like people bringing their meals and having that special moment and really thinking about what is it that you can reinvest in the team who have given you what they've given you that year and what that looks like.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I think a really interesting point on that, Hannah, is when you talk about getting quotes from service providers, let's say, or venues, Do we recommend clinic owners use the words Christmas party for the quote that they're asking? I would suggest not. It's like, now, look, it's been nearly 16 years since I planned a wedding. But if I was planning a wedding, there's no way I'm going to the winery and saying, hey, I'd like to host my wedding reception here because you know they've just ratcheted up the quote or the estimate, right? So maybe it's an interesting thing to think about. It's like, oh, we'd love to host a small function with a couple of families at your facility and see what the quote comes back at rather than like, this is a work corporate Christmas party. Cause they probably will just add another zero to the quote, right?

Hannah Dunn: I think a mistake that people make actually as well is not remembering to adjust their numbers a week or two out when you've got that deadline of how many people on the team will be actually there and end up paying for more people than you've got or not having enough seats.

Ben Lynch: So Hannah, when it comes to acknowledging your team throughout the year, I think that was a really great distinction because we get the question, what can I get my team as gifts for Christmas? And you've quickly reframed that to, hey, throughout the year, we're actually looking for these moments. We don't necessarily leave it to the end and may not even do it at the end of the year at Christmas. How do you go about acknowledging those things? At various times, we've spoken about the love languages test, like some reassessment to understand how people prefer to receive acknowledgement. Is it through words of affirmation? Is it through acts of service? Is it through gifts? And is it through What's the other one?

Jack O'Brien: You've done three. The other one is touch. Touch.

Ben Lynch: Probably wouldn't be doing that in the workplace.

Jack O'Brien: Physios probably get in or you do a little bit of a snap, crackle, pop. If you want them specifically, it's words, gifts, touch, acts, and

Ben Lynch: Look, between us, I thought we'd have- Quality time. Quality time, yes.

Jack O'Brien: Don't worry about that, man.

Ben Lynch: We're just testing the both of you. Hey, and we found that really quite useful, yeah, as just a reference point for people to understand, hey, if you got them a gift and they're more of the quality time person, they might not really see value in it. And you're like, oh, I've spent 200 bucks getting this really thoughtful gift. but they would prefer to actually hang out or go for lunch or, you know, spend time together as one self-reflection tool to help understand, how might I be able to interact best with you? Different people have different communication styles, right? So, we're just trying to understand those folks. Is that something that you use, Hannah, to understand how to acknowledge these team members throughout the year? But perhaps the question is, how do you think about acknowledging team members throughout the year with, you know, a gift or an acknowledgement that you think will really land with them?

Hannah Dunn: We do a lot of team, like everyone gets the same gift for, like OT week was two weeks ago. And so I hand wrote a card to every team member and then gave them just a little desk buddy thing that was like a little animal that had a quote on each one. Um, and so the card might've been more effective for some, the gift might've been more effective for others, but when it comes to like an anniversary gift or a birthday, and we don't do birthday gifts, but an anniversary gift or a, um, a like had a baby or got engaged to gift, that is more personalised in regards to what that looks like. We need to do better at surveying our team and seeing where their areas are. We have done similar questions that we've learnt through Clinic Mastery around like, if it was birthday, what would that look like? What would you want? to happen on that day, what's your favourite drink, what's your coffee order, that sort of thing. But I think getting better at referencing it back is important for us. I think using the questionnaire for clinics is absolutely gold standard and also getting those insights is really valuable.

Ben Lynch: And to your point, Jack, of the milestone, the moment, and the multiplier, we're really talking about a multiplier here. It's not necessarily, for most of the time, it's not going to be the thing that saves the day if that team member's disengaged or on their way out or underperforming, but these are just little things that stack up over time that maybe, quote, put credits in the bank account of that team member. And we're looking to do it in a way. So really, this is like a one percenter to really show how much you care and the attention to detail. I think, Hannah, you do it tremendously well. And obviously, you're always looking for opportunities to do it better. But I don't want it to come across for folks that like, yeah, you should be nailing this all the time. It's hard. Like there's a lot of other bigger, more important things. We're just looking for other ways throughout the year to be able to, you know, level up the support we provide team members. So Jack, yeah. How do you think about it?

Jack O'Brien: I think when it comes to Christmas gifts in particular, there's many ways to be right, but I would suggest there's a couple of ways to be wrong. And so it's kind of this asymmetric thing. There's a lot of ways you could get it right. You can be creative, you can be thoughtful, we can do big gifts, we can do really subtle gifts, handwritten things, we can do practical things. But where can it go wrong? And when I say wrong, I'm not talking catastrophically wrong, but It just misses the point. It misses the moment, doesn't it? And so, tokenistic things that mean nothing and they're not memorable and they're not significant. What's the point? So, you know, a bottle of wine. Now, if there's something that's symbolic about a bottle of wine. But you know, if it's just a, you know, the $20 special from Dan Murphy's, like it's, or another box, another box of celebrations or favourites chocolates, like please spare me. It just go, it's going to get ridiculous. Well, look, I love a good chocolate but we all don't need 17 boxes of celebrations at Christmas. This is true. And what's going to happen? It's going to get re-gifted, right? That's probably what's going to happen. If nothing else, it's not going to get remembered. So, skip out on the tokenistic stuff, skip out on the vanilla, bland, immemorable things and think about how can we either make this really meaningful or really memorable and that doesn't have to be in monetary value.

Hannah Dunn: Hmm. I almost feel like that with a Christmas gift and a birthday gift. I feel like, are we just ticking a box?

Ben Lynch: Is it just too tokenistic, right? It could be, right? It doesn't have to be, but it certainly could be. Yeah. Is just the acknowledgement enough. I mean, most people probably don't get that as team members from a director or owner. They're like, they don't even know it's my birthday. Hey, little fun fact, Allie tracks work anniversaries and birthdays for folks listening in and just has this nice little scroller, keeps the next one at the top of the list so you never forget one of those most important days.

Jack O'Brien: You know, I've learned a lot from Shane Davis on this type of thing, right? And so, do we give a gift that stands out? I know he's often spoken about the box of cherries at Christmas. Everyone loves and remembers cherries or mangoes or whatever it might be. Maybe it's a gift that's super practical, you know, a pair of socks is something that people put on every day and they remember who gave them those. You know, maybe they're your clinic branded socks or the happy socks, Archie's posse socks. We've recommended a bunch over time. The timing of the gift is also really memorable too. I know that some clinics will do a New Year's gift because everyone's getting tokenistic merch in December and they're getting Christmas cards from their bank and their insurance company and their broker. If you need a new broker in your insurance company, please come and hit us up. We work with a range of trusted partners. But the point is, that we're inundated with corporate things at Christmas, what if you could do it in January and it's a New Year's gift and your gift stands out amongst the swathe of things that are populating someone else's desk?

Ben Lynch: I like the emphasis on practical. I think that's really great, something you can continue to use over time, but maybe that's my love language. Anything that is practical, it goes a long, long way. We actually have Maybe to reveal a little bit behind the scenes here at CM, we have a GIF system. And on that GIF system, we have documented and tracked where we can get and source really good GIFs from, depending on the nature or reason for it. For instance, If someone's had a baby, then we've got these really great packs that you can give to parents that are super practical, rather than just the box of chocolates or the wine, though some people may want those things as well, that are super practical in that context. Um, and then, uh, we have a gift request system. So maybe, Hannah, to your point, because maybe clinic owners are thinking, well, it always comes back to me. I always have to initiate these things. There's a gift, it's just a Google form and it has a few questions on there. Who's the gift for? What's the reason for the gift? You know, is there a message you want associated with it? And do you have the, you know, the idea for the gift? Uh, like, is it a hamper or a book or whatever the case may be? And so then that goes into the system and then there's a certain sort of workflow and people associated with making that purchase and making it come to life. So just thinking practically inside your clinic, could you have an acknowledgement system where other team members are also looking out to acknowledge folks, maybe you know, something significant's happened in a team member's life that you're not aware of, but they've shared it with their peer, their colleague. And so they're able to trigger a request for a gift. And you might have some parameters around the frequency and volume and dollar value of those things. But I love the idea, if nothing else, of looking to do it throughout the year and not leave it to the end of the year where perhaps it's a little bit forced and a little bit tokenistic. Really great point. So as we progress on to your network of referral partners, we've already covered some things that are reasonably applicable across the board. But Hannah, what do you look to do at this time of the year or what have you seen some other clinics do to acknowledge the relationship that they have with their referrer network?

Hannah Dunn: Um, going back to those threads that we use all the time, um, Mel had a really awesome idea in there where she gives a flower, like a plant, and has their logo on the pot, which I think referrers can use in their clinics, which is an awesome practical gift. Um, for us, we don't do Christmas. We do our welcome to the new year cards. Um, and they used to be handwritten and now they are printed with just handwriting in who that person is. Um, and it says pin on the, so it's a card that sometimes has a photo of our team and just has our contact details. And then on the back, it says pin this on your notice board to have our contact details easy for the year so that you can easily refer to us.

Ben Lynch: I like that. And one of the things you sort of alluded to it before, Jack, we've discussed it internally. Everyone can be inundated at this time of year with gifts and cards and chocolates. And so actually to stand out, I know a number of clinics just like you, Hannah, that have left it to the new year. In January, when people are coming back on board and they've worked their way through all of those gifts, they kind of forget who's this from, where did this come from. And so you do end up standing out. Jack, what else have you got in terms of acknowledging the referral partners at this time of the year?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I think, uh, branded stuff can work really well. So classic merch, uh, if you're really scraping the barrel, you can go to vistaprint.com and, uh, and pick it all up from there.

Ben Lynch: These are the best pens we've ever got. They're Vistaprint.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. Apology. Apologies to Vistaprint. Maybe they're, uh, they're leading the way. But you know, the, the branded stuff works really nicely. It keeps, it keeps you front of mind, but I think something that. Something that's perpetual, something that lasts. And again, not to take away from the branded cupcakes or the bottle of wine or the chocolates. There's a place for those things, but let's be honest, they're temporary. They're perishable. And so maybe there's something about pens. Everyone loves a pen or something they use. Maybe it's a keep cup or a water bottle or something that is practical and is perpetual so that you can stay front of mind. That's what I'm a big fan of.

Hannah Dunn: We got a pen holder one year from a psychologist and we still use it. Like it's just one of those things that we put all the pens that we get into it, but that one has actually stayed front of mind.

Ben Lynch: Wow, that's interesting. Well, what it made me think of is the system that Daniel Gibbs had come up with. We'd spoken about this previously called the random acknowledgement system. It appears random to the referral partners, but is heavily systemised behind the scenes. It happens throughout the year in a similar vein, Hannah, to you, not necessarily leaving it to the end of the year for your team, but doing it throughout the year, the same is true for referral partners. So, are there ways, again, how well do you know your partners to be able to get them something meaningful, you know, an experience? Maybe it's together. I know there's a few folks, and obviously it's right up our Allie to play golf, that have gone and played golf with a partner. That's the thing they're into. Or they've been able to go and share a CPD experience together at a certain workshop, I know. One year, I had a referral partner. We'd sent so much client referrals to them because they were doing a great job, did not have any kickbacks. But they ended up taking me on an incredible CBD trip, covering flights and accommodation and whatnot. Now, you're probably not going to go to those lengths, but just to say how can you find something maybe that you could do together as well so that there's an opportunity and maybe that is just a lunch or a dinner out together where you can have quality conversations and look at how do we continue to collaborate moving forward. Yeah, that can also stand out quite nicely as well.

Jack O'Brien: Again, we're trying to think about like what's the objective here? Maybe it's to reopen a dormant conversation. Maybe it's to stay front of mind. Maybe it's to crack through and break the ice a little bit. What do we want the outcome to be? Are we just ticking a tokenistic box? If that's the case, don't bother. But look at the opportunity here to be the signal through the noise, to deepen and further establish a relationship. And ultimately, we're trying to amplify our impact. That's the goal at Christmastime here, not just go through the motions.

Hannah Dunn: Hmm. And I think you make a good point. Don't be pressured by the time, like don't feel that you have to get it done today.

Ben Lynch: So to add to that, what I've found on top of say a Christmas card is actually a video or voice note Christmas card or equivalent. Now, it could be as simple as like a Loom or a Zoom recording that you actually send. If it's hard to get a hold of certain referral partners, they're busy, their schedules are back-to-back, or you have to go through various gatekeepers, it adds tonality. And yeah, it's a really nice way as well to do it. I personally find that super easy for me to do. Click on Loom, share a video, say, yeah, all the best, great working with you. Mention a couple of notable wins that you've had this year and what you're looking forward to in the new year. as a really great way just to acknowledge it. So it may not even be a gift. It may just simply be an acknowledgement to say thank you, stay top of mind, and sort of reflect on the value that you have in that relationship. Well, we've covered a lot of good ground here. I think there's a couple of key notes for me. I'm interested in your final takeaway before we put a wrap. For me, I love that intentionality. What are we actually trying to do here? Is it about connection, which it sounds like that is one of the key pieces, whether it's with team or referral partners, and how can we do that in a really thoughtful way and for a lot of people in an efficient, cost-effective way, because these things can blow out in cost, not only in money, but time as well, which takes it away from tokenistic ticker box. Hannah, what is the keynote for you to clinic owners listening in here about reflecting on the year using Christmas as an anchor point in the diary to sort of trigger a lot of these events and acknowledgements?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think create a plan for the next 12 months of when you're going to give gifts and write your acknowledgement speech for your Christmas party with your team. Yes.

Ben Lynch: Well played. J.O.B., how would you like to sign it off?

Jack O'Brien: I'm curious, Hannah, will you or won't you use ChatGPT to write your Christmas speech?

Ben Lynch: I will. He's one of the best ones. Yeah, yeah.

Jack O'Brien: Just remove the M-dashes and the circular sentences, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Great. So look, my takeaway from this would be learn from what the best are doing. I'm looking at our private members Slack community. There's dozens of great ideas in there and I referenced him a few times, a great man, Shane Davis. This isn't my sweet spot so how can I learn from what others are doing, getting ideas from the community and other partners that that are in your world. So lean in, get ideas from other folks.

Ben Lynch: Love that. And you can go over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for the show notes, timestamps, all the things that we referenced here and on the previous episodes as well. And, as always, if you're wondering whether we can help you or you're entertaining, open to the idea of getting help into the new year so that 2026 is a remarkably meaningful and measurable progression on 2025, then send jack at clinicmastery.com a message and we'll open the conversation. For now, though, we will see you on another episode very soon. Thanks, Hannah. Thanks, Jack.