Jack O'Brien: I'm going to put you on the spot, Bec. How would you filter for someone who is dynamic and agile in a recruitment process?

Bec Clare: I think Dan Gibbs talks about the swan. If you can see a team member who is like a swan at the front desk.

Ben Lynch: cool calm collected on the outside, paddling like mad underneath the water is the analogy. That's the perfect person. Daniel Gibbs is a swan. Yes. G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode. come over to YouTube, I'm sharing a position description for a practice manager.

Bec Clare: A practice manager is your paramedic. They should never run, they walk calmly, they speak calmly.

Jack O'Brien: I've heard paramedics say before, the more emergency the situation, the more dramatic the situation, the slower they walk.

Ben Lynch: This could be the single biggest mistake clinic owners make when it comes to their admin teams.

Bec Clare: As soon as we start to call it a welcome space versus a waiting space, we treat that space and we treat the people in it differently.

Ben Lynch: Do titles matter when it comes to practice managers?

Bec Clare: But it's the undocumented stuff that actually makes for a really good practice manager.

Jack O'Brien: Do the best receptionists make the best practice managers?

Bec Clare: No.

Ben Lynch: This episode will be right up your alley if you're looking to improve the performance of your practice manager. We're diving into the position description behind the role. And trust me, you'll want to see the example that we walk through. Plus, stick around for when we discuss how to objectively assess the performance of your practice manager. 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 hello@clinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. I've had three and a half coffees and I'm going to try and speak faster because I get a lot of stuff for speaking slow. I met a guy recently who says he listens to the podcast and he was actually telling me to hurry up in real life in the conversation.

Jack O'Brien: He's like, you speak so slow. Well, I'm curious, Ben. Listeners, if you listen to this on Spotify, jump into the comments and I'm curious what speed people listen to this podcast at. What speed do you listen to Ben at?

Ben Lynch: Let's dive in. It is episode 318. Today is a special episode. It is something special that's about to happen, not only here, but ongoing, because we have Bec Clare. Welcome to this show. I don't know if you're going to want to stick around. Honestly, we're not that good a company.

Bec Clare: I'm so excited because I'm a regular listener and now to be on the podcast with you both and just chew the fat. Good.

Ben Lynch: It's going to be great. Well, for those that haven't met you, Bec, you're a clinic owner, Physio West here in Adelaide, multi-site clinic. How big is the team at the moment?

Bec Clare: Well, as of about an hour ago, 27.

null: 27?

Bec Clare: I just added another two this morning.

Jack O'Brien: Did it used to be 25 or did it used to be 29?

Bec Clare: It was 25.

null: Good.

Ben Lynch: And Bec, you also in 2020, most of us want to forget those years, but in 2020, you won the South Australian Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award. That is a mouthful. What did you win it for? Like what was like the essence or the purpose of that award?

Bec Clare: Yeah, so I won in the emerging leaders category, which is for a woman in a leadership position under the age of 30. Nice. So things like leading team culture was a big component of that systems and structure and really trying to balance all the things that goes into being a leader and creating space for others. So that's the message that I championed as part of the awards, was to be a good leader, is to make myself largely redundant to create space for others.

Ben Lynch: Nice. Well, we're going to get into that and the specific important role of practice managers today. And of course, you are also a mum. How's little Audrey going? How old is Audrey at the moment?

Bec Clare: She's 19 months old.

Jack O'Brien: Wow.

Bec Clare: Going on 19 years. So she's definitely, I'd say she's got her dad's tenacity, not mine, her dad's. She's awesome and the words are flowing thick and fast and everything in our house is a climbing gym.

Ben Lynch: It is an absolute racket, isn't it, for us parents?

Bec Clare: It's so much fun.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, love it. It is, it is. It's riveting to come home from work at the end of the day and just have even more chaos. Yeah, it's just what we all love doing, right? Absolutely. To it for the kids. Well, we're excited to have you here because we've had so many practice managers as part of our community, operations managers that tune into the pod and they want to be better represented. They're saying, hey, Help us understand how we can run better admin teams, transform client experiences, work closely with our directors, and really grow a sustainable clinic. And you are an expert in HR, operations, practice management. So you are going to share some wisdom today as we unpack things. And of course, we have Jack O'Brien for those tuning in. Jack is preparing for a triathlon, Half Ironman.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it is a type of triathlon, 70.3, half Ironman. This weekend, Western Sydney, track me on the app if you want to, or not, I'm feeling inclined not to.

Ben Lynch: I'm looking forward to the pictures of you in the Lycra.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I shout out to Bottle It by Bo Jones, a positive mental health initiative for triathlon, but it's a floral suit. So the floral will fly on Sunday.

Ben Lynch: Yes, that's good. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing this. Before we dive into the practice manager side of things, We launched a priority list. That's our version of a wait list. A priority list for early access. If you're on Splose, Nucle, or Halaxy, we are integrating Allie with those systems. Now, it's just gone crazy, so I'll just read out a few names. Ryan, Kelly, Claire, Adam, Chris, Daniel, Zoe, and Tim. Thank you. The list goes on. But thank you, folks, for jumping on. We'll be sending out some comms through our newsletter and database soon if you are keen to get early access and test out Allie inside your clinic. So that extends on its connection already with Cliniko. J.O.B., you also have a couple of things on your desk. Go for it.

Jack O'Brien: I do. Yes, a couple of new members have joined us in the Business Academy. So Joanna and Trudy, welcome in the last couple of days and Karen actually since we last recorded. So fantastic to have a couple of new members joining us in the Business Academy and it's super exciting for them because they now get access to the Grow Your Clinic Summit. 2026. If you're on YouTube, you can see it here. This is a members only summit event. Two days to focus, connect, grow together. It is hundreds of clinic owners all in the room and listeners. If you want to join us, you can. if you're a member. So if you join us in the Academy or in Elevate, you can join us at the Summit. If you want to do that, send us an email, ben at clinicmastery.com, and we'll help you out with a membership, we'll help you grow your clinic, and we'll help you get along to the Summit in March in Melbourne, 2026.

Ben Lynch: Very nice. So Jack, in a thread on Slack, you posed to Beck this question. Beck, do titles matter when it comes to practice managers?

Bec Clare: I often think that titles are sort of semantics. Practice manager, clinic coordinator, operations manager. However, there's intent behind the title.

Jack O'Brien: Right.

Bec Clare: And I think that that is what's important.

Jack O'Brien: So Beck, just if you're unfamiliar with the podcast, we talk about sitting on the fence and splinters. And so you may have just taken Ben's title of chief fence sitter.

Ben Lynch: Oh, come on. Surely I'm not the chief. That was Peter. He was the chief fence sitter. Yeah, but he's not here to defend himself.

Bec Clare: I actually do think in this role, the title is particularly important. You really want someone to embody that title, the purpose and the emphasis that goes behind it. I often liken a really good practice manager to your freedom manager as a clinic owner.

Ben Lynch: Ooh, I like that.

Bec Clare: Nice. You have a really good one by your side, you've got freedom.

Ben Lynch: Yes, they really can become an extension of you. So many clinic owners will say, if there was only a second version of me, a clone, if I could have a clone, that would be great. And I think when you've got a great practice manager, and we've seen great practice managers, and we've seen those that just have missed the mark and created more headaches, it really can be quite a difference, meaningful difference for you. So then, Bec, I have seen, I'm sure you have as well, clinics maybe rush to make a receptionist that's on the team the practice manager, and they've given the title maybe without necessarily putting them through their paces or realizing what a great practice manager actually looks like. And I want to maybe distinguish here that while we're talking about the title, I think what you're alluding to is then the relevant kind of position description and the roles and responsibilities that go with it. So just talk us through that journey for someone that does have a practice lead, whatever they call that person or whatever they title at the moment. When is the right time to actually make that distinction and say, this is a practice manager role?

Bec Clare: Having gone through that pathway myself, so if I if I roll back 16 years, I actually started at Physio West as a casual receptionist two afternoons a week.

Ben Lynch: Yeah.

Bec Clare: I barely saw ground. It was just here you go. Here's the front desk. We just need you to look after it. I then progressed to part time and to full time in that role as what was then reception. It's now client care. Again, do titles matter? I think they do. And then worked my way through to practice manager, through to operations manager. What I do see the very best doing is that their receptionist or client care team member or their clinic lead will start to pick up additional roles and responsibilities just on their own initiative. And it might be as subtle as they'll take a system and look at how it's functioning, reinvent it to really be relevant to where the time and the technology's at now. They're the types of things that you want to see from a practice manager that might give you a hint that that person's ready to step up. Because a good practice manager has that self-drive and self-initiative, absolutely they'll follow their task list and they'll have it really well time blocked and they'll do everything that's in their position description. but it's the undocumented stuff that actually makes for a really good practice manager.

Ben Lynch: And so, J.O.B., I wanted to put you on the fence-sitting spectrum here and go, where are you landing with this?

Jack O'Brien: Do you believe the titles matter? I won't take the bait on that pun, but yes, I do think titles matter because It's a language thing, right? Semantics do matter. And the reason I posed this question initially was so often we hire a quote, receptionist or a practice manager. And the person applying for those jobs has a certain set of behaviors or roles, responsibilities in mind. And sometimes I think Here's my hot take. I think clinics use the title of practice manager without being specific around what that actually means or what they need for their clinic. So for instance, in our clinic at a particular point in time, we didn't have a practice manager. We had what we call an admin team lead. And I felt that most accurately reflected what the role required. It was, there's an admin team that was primarily responsible for administration. Yes. Some client experience type work, but ultimately it was admin and I needed someone to lead that, to lead and manage it. And so that made more sense than a practice manager. Now we're talking a few years ago. But when we thought about advertising for a practice manager, we would get someone who had some medical secretary experience. And that, you know, in inverted commas, medical secretary is very different to someone who is responsible for leading humans in an administrative inclined experience focus. So that's why I think titles matter.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, I agree with you. I think getting clear on the titles, and we've made the mistake of, yes, really pinning it on a title that was really quite internal and made up, and then getting a whole bunch of applicants who were really bad.

Jack O'Brien: So you're saying we were effectively too creative or too abstract in the title and too meaningless.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, the language, correct, deviated massively. And I think that works once someone's joined the team and we can, you know, add those cultural framings. For instance, it's like, you know, maybe client experience officer, great framing, great positioning. Maybe you put that out in your recruitment and you get sort of this hodgepodge of different applicants rather than just going with the industry standard. So I think one, that makes sense. I think two, then being able to construct a position description, That is very clear, very objective. And to your point, Bec, you know the purpose of that role. You know what it entails. And that the person fulfilling that role is able to actually go about learning the craft of it, whether it's reception front desk or whether it's, you know, behind the scenes practice manager or operations manager. I think it helps them sort of scope and shape up how they can get better at it. That's interesting.

Jack O'Brien: So what do you mean shape up, Ben?

Ben Lynch: Well, I think being able to evolve the role, because Beck, you mentioned their practice managers in particular, tend to just kind of pick up a lot of the pieces along the way. Yeah. I think if we spoke to most practice managers, they'd be like, yeah, I've got a position description, but what I do doesn't reflect that. Right.

Bec Clare: I actually wrote that in the recent position description for the role we've just hired for. Yeah. They said it's virtually impossible to outline everything that you will do.

Ben Lynch: Yes. It's a great point. They need to be quite agile, quite dynamic in their approach to how they do it. So when I say shape up, I think it is reasonably dynamic that it will evolve over time. I think that's a really smart thing, Beck, for those listening in to pre-frame it like that, or if they've already got someone in the role, start to reframe it and just go, hey, whenever we've said that line to a practice manager, They nod their head and they smile. They're like, yes, finally someone understands. Of course, I've got this position description, but I kind of do everything.

Jack O'Brien: I'm going to put you on the spot, Beck. How would you, how would you filter for someone who is dynamic and agile in a recruitment process? Or if you've got someone on team, how would you foster dynamism, I think is the word, and agility in them?

Bec Clare: You can see it on any given day on the front desk, because there are so many different things that will happen. And that agility, I think Dan talks about the swan. Yep. If you can see a team member who is like a swan at the front desk and everything is cool, calm, and collected, they are cool, calm, and collected, while everything else is going on behind the scenes or under the water, rather, that's the perfect person.

Jack O'Brien: Daniel Gibbs is a swan.

Bec Clare: Yes.

Ben Lynch: Pool cum collected on the outside, paddling like mad underneath the water is the analogy. And you go, they're able to, yes, because I've worked with those receptionists that they get frazzled and then they just pass that energy on to the practitioners and the rest. And it's like, it doesn't need to be this theatrical or dramatic. Like, let's just calm it down a little bit.

Bec Clare: The panic permeates.

Ben Lynch: Great word.

Bec Clare: and very quickly. And so you really need that swan. And I was even thinking about what the best do. And I like it as well. My sister's a paramedic. And one of the first things that she learned was paramedics don't run. They might walk fast, but they don't run. And why? Because they don't want a scene transcending into panic. They're there to control the scene to ensure that everyone gets the very best care and to get a really good outcome in a most ideal scenario. And so you want your paramedic. Your practice manager is your paramedic. They should never run. They walk calmly. They speak calmly.

Jack O'Brien: I love that. I've heard paramedics say before, like the more, the more emergency, the situation, the more dramatic the situation, the slower they walk.

Bec Clare: Yes. It's deliberate. Totally deliberate.

Ben Lynch: There you go. Well, here we are. We're sharing screen. For those listening in, come over to YouTube. I'm sharing a position description for a practice manager. Beck, as you said, it can be quite tricky to define this and scope it down because it is quite dynamic. It does evolve over time. But I wanted to share some specifics and practical elements of this example. I'm sure yours is different and every other clinic is different. But before we get into the details, what do you think are the critical ingredients in a position description for a practice manager to help them understand how to do their role properly?

Bec Clare: Definitely pre-framing the fact that this is indicative of what the role might look like. However, it will go beyond this. I also do frame up in our position description for our practice manager that the role will evolve over time as well. The role should continue to grow as our clinic and as our team grows. And that what I'm looking for from a practice manager is also to ensure that they empower those around them versus become the bottleneck. Some practice managers will find that they seek significance in feeling like they're the go-to person for everyone, for everything.

Ben Lynch: It's hard to let go.

Bec Clare: It's very hard. The very best empower every member of the team to help them on that journey.

Jack O'Brien: Yes.

Bec Clare: Because the practice should still continue to run when your practice manager is sick, when they're on holidays. If they happen to leave and you have a gap between practice managers, the team should be empowered to continue to run a thriving clinic without them.

Ben Lynch: So Beck, I want to get to in a moment, what does success look like for a practice manager? How do you actually observe that, measure that, and know they're doing a good job? Because they are touching a lot of different things within the clinic. So how do you actually go, yeah, this is worth the investment for the company. But as I talk through this, especially for those listening in, We're starting with the purpose of the role. Just add a headline. We've got a paragraph there, which we'll walk through. The second section is starting to outline some of the key areas that they'll have influence and control over. So first, we've got team support and culture. Secondly, client experience oversight. Next, we have operations and systems. Finally, we have finance and reporting. Then there's a little bit about what it means to be part of the team, some qualifications and experience, skills and abilities, just with a rating, you know, do you need to have a very high level of competency in this area or sort of medium? And then we attach some other relevant documents like employment contract, clinic handbook, et cetera, and then we would sign it. Beck, let's go into team support and culture. There's a couple of bullet points here, and I wanna ask you about what you expect in your clinic, and you lead the Practice Leaders Program, where there's, what, there's well over 100 practice managers now that you coach and support so that they can be great extensions of clinic owners in their clinic, creating change. But when it comes to team support and culture, what we've got here, just to read out a few bullet points is, We want you to lead by example and create a positive, respectful team culture, support on boarding, leave tracking, HR coordination. We want you to regularly check in with team members, raise issues early, coordinate team meetings, uphold the clinic values. These are some of the points under the team support and culture. These are the expectations. And perhaps just a subtle distinction that we're not outlining a task list here. It speaks more broadly. And I think that buys you flexibility, the agility over time, right? To change what the individual tasks are while still relating them directly back to these more umbrella global categories. So Beck, team support and culture, what are some of the key expectations that you have of a practice manager in this domain?

Bec Clare: We definitely have these or a variation of those. We've been quite specific in terms of help us, I'm just going to read from ours, help us foster a positive environment that flows through how we speak. I specifically referenced staff versus team. Waiting room versus welcome room. I'm wanting this person to speak our language, use our vocabulary, because it flows through. There's intention behind those words. A bit like where we started with, does a title matter? The way that we speak and we lead is intentional. As soon as we start to call it a welcome space versus a waiting space, we treat that space and we treat the people in it differently.

Jack O'Brien: I love that language shapes our approach, that the words we use changes our intention towards something. And all the way back to the point about titles, but around the spaces that we have or the labels that we assign things, it really does matter. One of the key elements of a practice manager is that they would carry culture. They set the tone, the temperature for particularly the front of house admin, non-clinical team, whatever we want to call it. how they carry culture really matters. If you still need to correct someone 12, 18, 24 months into their role on staff versus team or on weight room versus welcome room, that's a yellow flag that needs attention.

Ben Lynch: Yes. You sure it's not an orange flag? Well, amber, in fact. Well, yellow if it's CM. Well, that would imply a good flag, but nevertheless. Beck, in this team support and culture, are there any other points before we move on to the client experience side?

Bec Clare: I also add recruitment into here. A practice manager can also have their eyes and ears out everywhere helping you recruit. There's incidental conversations that they have. And if they're fostering and helping to foster that culture in the clinic, there'll be team members that they can approach to say, hey, do you know someone who can join us? If they're leading the charge on that, they should be an absolute gold standard for helping us with recruitment.

Jack O'Brien: I really like that on that as well, Becky. I'm thinking about, uh, you know, medical practices, specialists, GPs as well. And, you know, these are large administrative teams. And when you've got a team of five, six, eight, 10, 15 admin team members, the practice manager needs to have the mindset of always recruiting that their role is a people role. First and foremost, you're not just the fastest, you know, words per minute as a secretary, you are here to lead people in alignment with our culture.

Bec Clare: They're also a brand ambassador. So our practice manager is also often in touch with medical clinics in our local area or the sponsors that we work with. And we should always be open to who would be best working with us on our team, who already shares those values with us that we are already connected with.

Ben Lynch: So as a slight digression, would you promote from within or would you externally recruit?

Bec Clare: We've done both and both have worked. It comes down to the person. It's a heck yes or it's a no. So if you're wavering about promoting someone up into that role, it's like if you were recruiting externally. Sometimes it's also that you're not ready as the clinic owner.

Jack O'Brien: Yes or no question then for you, Bec. And Ben, you don't get away with just asking the questions.

Bec Clare: I'm fence sitting today.

Jack O'Brien: And so, does the best, I'll say receptionist as a generalized term, do the best receptionists make the best practice managers? No. Ben, yes or no, do good receptionists make good practice managers? I agree with whatever Beck says. Oh, Ben, why would you say that? Because I trust Beck. Okay. So answer me that Beck. Why don't the best receptionists necessarily always make the best practice managers?

Bec Clare: Say it's the best footy players don't make the best captains.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. Say more. Keep going.

Bec Clare: Just because someone's really good at their role does not mean they have the drive, the want, the need to lead others. Some people are perfectly happy with the role that they have. And that's really good because you need champions at every level at every sector of your clinic and your operation.

Ben Lynch: Yes.

Bec Clare: Because we're leaders. So we naturally think that everyone wants to lead.

Ben Lynch: Everything Beck said. I can't believe you brought up football so close to the Crows getting just smashed.

Bec Clare: Oh, we're in trade. We're in trade talks already, Ben.

Ben Lynch: We've moved on to the cricket season. Hey, look, at least Port and the Crows won the same amount of finals this year.

Jack O'Brien: Are they NRL teams? I haven't heard of those teams.

Ben Lynch: What is that? Hey, I would go as far as to say this could be the single biggest mistake clinic owners make when it comes to their admin teams, is promoting a really capable receptionist to practice manager who's not actually a practice manager because it burns them out. They might end up leaving and moving on. It creates incredible amount of stress. Being a practice manager, you're almost a business owner. like in the sense of some of the responsibilities, the decision-making capabilities that you have to have are significant and significantly different from being on the front desk and being really capable.

Bec Clare: And so- You have to think like a business owner as a practice manager.

Ben Lynch: Absolutely. I think, so when it comes to the promote from within or hire externally, I'm going to try and thread the needle and say, I would still advertise for this externally and have internal team members apply. Now that could create some challenging scenarios where you have to say to someone, you didn't make it, someone else did. But if they're super keen, then go for it.

Bec Clare: Ben, you'd also typically see it on their desire statement too. So if you've been doing desire statements, and I promote doing desire statements with every member of your team.

Ben Lynch: If you could explain a desire statement for someone that's, you know, not part of the Clink Mastery community, what is it? How does it work?

Bec Clare: It's a written statement broken down into, I believe it's seven categories where we sort of carve out our life in terms of our home life, our professional life, how we give and contribute in the community, our fitness and health and lifestyle. And we write a statement that's three to five years into the future. Where do we want to be? Because then we can actually pair our daily intentions to getting there. We don't get there by accident. And so with our admin team, if someone is wanting leadership or practice manager, the role of practice manager, you'll see themes of that coming through their desire statement.

Ben Lynch: Do you want to see a receptionist demonstrating off their own back some investment in themselves to become a practice manager? They're reading books, they're doing courses, they're listening to podcasts. How much do you want to actually see that before they put their hat in the ring? Or you're actually okay that they just apply for the role? They request to be in that role and then they'll figure it out once they're in there. Like just talk to us about how much initiative you want to see before they enter a role like this.

Bec Clare: I certainly have seen the very good candidates that have come through. I've seen them already doing it. And it's subtle in that they'll pick up on something I've said, or they'll ask me, oh, so you mentioned Renee Brown's something. Can I follow her? And they'll start to then use that language with me in follow-up conversations. So I can see that they might not necessarily go and do their own courses, but I can see them actively absorbing and implementing.

Ben Lynch: That's good. Well, Jack, do you agree? Would you promote from within or are you hiring externally?

Jack O'Brien: Well, a good little litmus test that worked for me in my clinic was putting one of my high-performing reception or client experience team members through the Practice Leaders program. is part of their desire statement was to progress towards practice leadership or practice management. And what became evident over time is that that's probably not going to work. And so it was a great process of immersing in this learning experience and then identifying that this isn't a great fit. This particular person was phenomenal at client experience and not cut out for leadership and management. And it was wonderful to learn that through the process of education, a great way to further their career, etc. But the program and the immersion helped us identify what was or was not a good fit for them.

Ben Lynch: It's a nice way to find out, right? As we come back to the position description and we'll share screen again.

Bec Clare: Jack, to your point, putting someone into the Practice Leaders program where they're in a community of practice leaders can actually show them whether that's something that they do aspire to or they don't. And a really great way to know whether that is something that they do aspire to is whether they actually come along to sessions.

Ben Lynch: Yeah.

Bec Clare: Do they prioritise it in their diary or does the world just get too much and panic around the spot fires day to day and they can't carve out the time to come to the sessions? Attendance, that's what the very best are doing. They're rocking up, they're in the room, they're at the table.

Jack O'Brien: Because the key difference between say practice leaders or practice managers who are invested in their career and their professional development Versus, and I absolutely mean this with the utmost respect, sometimes a customer care team or a receptionist is not necessarily someone's ultimate career aspiration and professional development isn't as high on their priority list.

Ben Lynch: So coming back here to the client experience oversight, this is the section, one of the sections in the position description for a practice manager. A couple of bullet points here around ensure that the reception and admin processes support warmer, efficient client experience, respond to client feedback or complaints in a timely and thoughtful manner, monitor client communication channels and follow-up systems, help build a culture where every client feels seen, heard, and valued. So, you can see again that these are, you know, directionally clear without prescribing exactly what to do. So, we can come back to this and say, you know, let's look at what are the systems or processes we have to capture feedback and then what's the process then that we, how we deal with it. So, in the client experience oversight section, is there anything else that you would add here

Bec Clare: I would add around professional relationships here, because our client experience extends beyond the clients that are coming in to the clinic. The client experience is also about our suppliers' experience, the doctors down the road, their experience with us. In a way, they're all our clients. So we need to be fostering those professional relationships as well and ensuring that they all have an amazing experience with us.

Ben Lynch: Sounding like a ChatGPT there with the use of fostering, Bec. I like it. Is that a compliment or an insult? That's both. That's both. It's very Bec's.

Bec Clare: But don't you talk to me with a comma and an and in the same part? You'll know I'm really ChatGPT.

Ben Lynch: Bec's one of the more articulate team members, so. I expect nothing less. Yeah, I think this is so important that we want to be able to create a great experience. I think one of the outcomes we spoke to, how do we measure success of a practice manager? One key element of that has got to be related to their satisfaction and satisfaction scores. Maybe use the net promoter score, which is a really well-researched, validated survey tool. There are different softwares you can use to administer it. But essentially ask, how likely are you to refer a friend, family member, or colleague to our clinic after your experiences? A rating out of 10 with an option then typically of comments. Now, the therapists are going to have a lot to do with that experience. But so do the admin, like right from when they welcome the new client all the way through. So I think as a practice manager, I definitely want to see you thinking through contributing to how we boost this score or any other version of client satisfaction, client outcomes that, you know, a practice manager could have influence over and reporting on that frequently, fortnightly, monthly, to figure out how are we going and what do we need to do to get better? How else do you actually measure this, Bec, maybe in your mentoring or the conversations you have with the practice manager to make sure that they're actually doing this?

Bec Clare: Great point. What I look for is in our Google reviews as well. So we look at NPS, absolutely. But in our Google reviews, do clients actually reference by name the client care team member that has supported them on their journey? Because if someone, if a member of the public, a client has remembered client care team members name, you're onto an absolute winner already. They've built a great connection. And the more of those reviews that we see per month, so say we get 10 Google reviews for the week or the month, I want to see at least 50% of those. referencing our client care team.

Ben Lynch: Wow. That's great. I definitely prioritise that for practitioners, but to hear admin on that, that's a really great sign of a wonderful experience.

Bec Clare: Absolutely.

Ben Lynch: Jack, you love measuring everything under the sun. You even measured date night with I won't go any further, but anyway, talk us through measuring client experience.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. I mean, NPS is a great way to do it. And interestingly to Beck's point, you know, getting feedback, soliciting feedback from our clients as frequently as comfortable and as possible is, is a wonderful thing. We would, uh, we would do this and it was uncanny to me and made me so proud at how frequently our clients would mention our client experience team. without being prompted. It was just a very vague NPS question, yeah, based on your recent experience, likely, et cetera. And if I share a screen here on YouTube, you'll see collated some of this feedback data. And, you know, this was all around, you see here, like from the person I spoke to through the phone booking to the reception and the actual conversation, you know, you're the best, great prompt service, very friendly, good, friendly service. I love what you all stand for, great care. And so, you know, so many of these comments are more than just the clinical outcomes, more than just their therapist, but it's really around the clinic as a whole. And that made me really proud. And it also spoke to our team as to what patients value. Yeah. It spoke to the therapists to say, well, it's not just what you do, but how you do it that matters to our client experience team. You're not just here to answer the phone process payments and to shuffle papers. You are here to create an experience that is in alignment with our core purpose and our core values.

Ben Lynch: This is a great point. So one of the great exercises that we've done with admin teams in training days or events has been the compare and contrast. Tell us about an experience that you've had that sucked, that was so bad, and you told maybe your friends about it. Maybe you didn't write a nasty Google review. But tell us about one that's so memorable for all the wrong reasons. And maybe it's in the medical field. Maybe it's somewhere else. You had it at the mechanic or you had it at a shopping center. Write it out and tell us everything about that experience that was bad. Then, tell us about an experience that was amazing. You're a raving fan. You tell everyone about this. You've got to do it. Then what made that experience just incredible? And let's compare and contrast the two. And you often see that there's a lot of the same elements in both of them, but they're at opposite ends of how they were delivered. They used my name. It was a warm welcome. They didn't use me. It was a cold, sterile environment. And I find that's a really great way, especially for folks listening in who have resistant admin team members, who don't like change. They don't like the new tools, the new tech, the new… It's like, oh, another system, another policy, you know, another procedure. How do we get them on board? I'm actually keen to ask you here, Beck, around doing that. This is one exercise that's been really great to get them to see, ah, Maybe I'm providing that bad experience for a whole bunch of people, and this is what good looks like. At least we can anchor back to it when, hey, the way you answered the phone call to that new client inquiry, remember the bad experience we were talking about? Okay. And we can reference it ongoing whenever rolling out changes. Beck, in particular, I think this is a key part of a practice manager's role, is getting the reception team to deliver quality client experiences, but not everyone's always on board. So what have you found useful in supporting a practice manager to get those resistant receptionists on board with providing a great client experience?

Bec Clare: show them, take them as part of a team training session of some variety, take them somewhere they're going to have a good experience and demonstrate to them what that looks like. So we've taken our team to places like Hagues, as an example, here in South Australia. Because the experience you have whenever you walk into a Hague store, from the moment you walk in the door to the time that you leave to the little chocolate that you get handed to you with two hands, the subtlety of their operation is just phenomenal. And having your team experience it and experience it together and the joy and go, OK, so are we all smiling right now? Are we all happy? We've just opened our wallets, we've invested in their company and in their product, but we're happy to do so.

Ben Lynch: This was the sort of the emphasis on unreasonable hospitality, right? Will Guardiola, is it? That's the author, like won the best restaurant in the world or in New York. Forget the details. Come on, guys. It was the world, Ben. It was the world. The best in the universe. Anyway. And what they did was they went to what was the best restaurant at the time. And from that exercise, they debriefed and they looked at what were all the things that just met the mark. They were okay, but there were nothing kind of wow. And there was a few things like the coffee machine and maybe the beer selection, if I recall that, like a massive wine list, but nothing for a beer drinker. And they just picked all these little things and they're like, how could we just make ours subtly better than what this restaurant had, because a lot of the other things were super obvious. So I love that. As an experience, as a shared experience, go along with your admin team, carve out an hour, a couple of hours, and do this, and then reflect on it and look at how we can bring it into our clinic, Jack.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's a really important distinction and something that just came to mind is a topical in the news currently is we often encourage teams, both admin and clinical, to think about prominent businesses where they've had great experiences. Historically at Clinic Mastery, we've often referenced Virgin. the flight company and how they create amazing experiences typically. But my point is how quickly that can come unraveled if we don't continue to reinforce that. This week they've made a massive blunder when it comes to how they treat breastfeeding mums and women. And that is going to strike a chord with the population. Right. And what happened? What happened? Well, they asked a mom who was pumping, you know, in quite a private kind of way, asked her to leave because she was making people feel uncomfortable, which is ridiculous. Wow. And so Virgin Australia who had known for their client experience are now known for their client experience in the negative sense.

Ben Lynch: And not only client experience, inclusion. I don't think anyone goes harder at inclusion than Virgin. So that's very interesting. OK, let's get back to the screen share of the position description as we get to some of the drier but very important things. Operation systems, finance and reporting. So in the operations and systems side of things, here's a couple bullet points on this position description that might be useful for yours. So maintain smooth scheduling, billing, and reporting systems. Oversee the clinic software. Coordinate facilities, stock, and supplier relationships. Ensure compliance with policies, procedures, and industry standards. If you're in the NDIS as an example, it'd be potentially around registration. support regular reviews of clinic systems to improve efficiency. And then I'm going to dovetail, blend finance and reporting into this, because they so often go together, right? So in the finance and reporting section, track weekly, monthly, and quarterly business data. Here's a little plug for A11y, a11yclinics.com. Go check it out for free. Next bullet point. Work with the clinic director to support budgeting and forecasting. Oversee invoicing payments and managing outstanding accounts. Oh, that's a big one. I want to get on that one with you back in a moment. Support payroll coordination and leave reporting. Beck, when it comes to this section here and assessing the performance of a practice manager, looking more objectively at the success in the role, what are some of the measures that you use to know they're doing a good job in these two areas?

Bec Clare: There would be two dot points that I would add, firstly, and then I'll come to how I'd measure those. The first is around diary. So, you've mentioned here maintain smooth scheduling. Really, it comes down to your practice manager should also be looking and creating opportunities, because in the end, the opportunities to create impact with new clients or being able to welcome others into our community, that's how we do it. It's via our diary. So ensuring that schedules are smooth and are nice and tight and they're efficient and effective for workflow for our team.

Ben Lynch: So you're trying to minimise white space, like empty diaries.

Bec Clare: Yes, absolutely. So as an example, if, you know, as a physio clinic, we have 45 minute initial appointments and 30 minute subsequent appointments, ensuring that there's no funny little gaps in the diary, because we want to be able to be available, open, visible to our community. That's how we make an impact, by helping people.

Ben Lynch: You're also looking at waitlists for those clinics that do have a waitlist. It's about curation management of the waitlist in a similar vein.

Bec Clare: And having systems in place to nurture that waitlist. Someone shouldn't just be sitting on a waitlist. They should be continually being nurtured while they're on there. They're an active lead, if you like, and we need to nurture them so that they prioritise us when the appointment does become available.

Ben Lynch: Yes. How many clinics are like, yeah, I've got a massive wait list. It'd be no trouble to fill the new practitioner that joins, new therapist, new therapist joins. And then they start ringing around and they're like, oh, no, we already found a provider. And you're like, oh, actually, that wait list wasn't as big as I thought it was. They've all left because we didn't nurture them. So it's a great point. You said you had two points. What was the second one?

Bec Clare: In terms of outstanding accounts, we refer to it as cash flow management. Reason? It's all about cash flow. You need it coming in, you've got it coming out, and it's the time in between those two things. So cash flow management, you're having your team member, your practice manager potentially paying supplies or ordering stock, so it's the timing of that, as well as ensuring that you get timely payment in.

Ben Lynch: And so Jack, in terms of setting some KPIs or outcomes, maybe you've got some specific numbers here that you would anchor to in those areas, or maybe just some principles for how someone could think about setting objective KPIs for their practice manager to nail these two areas.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, particularly as it pertains to outstanding accounts, ultimately you just want to get better, right? And so we can speak about industry standards or benchmarks. I'll touch on those, but whatever your current outstanding account is, we want to reduce that number. We need more cash in the bank account, not sitting in someone else's bank account. So internally comparison is the most important, but if we were to objectify it, you know, most clinics could think about 10% of their monthly turnover. or less as outstanding accounts. And so if your clinic turns over $120,000 a month, then you want to think about $12,000 or less being outstanding at any given time. Now, some clinics that are entirely private, that number should be much lower, and clinics that have a high third-party compensable or those types of systems, it might blow out a little bit, but ultimately, we need to be paid for the work and the services that we've already delivered. And so whatever your outstanding account is, reduce it, and ideally it would be 10% or less of your monthly revenue.

Bec Clare: And then Jack, once it is at a point where you're happy and it's reduced and it's ticking over and consistent at that, it doesn't fluctuate in waves, I'd then be looking at the time it takes to get it in.

Jack O'Brien: Yes.

Bec Clare: So can we narrow that timeframe smaller and smaller and smaller and advocate for ourselves to be paid on time? We don't like to ask the question sometimes. Advocate for ourselves, knock on the door, get those invoices paid. We've delivered, as you say, a service.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. And this is where you see great practice managers really shine. Yeah. They're finding creative ways to reduce that time between service delivery and finance receipt and reducing those aged receivables. It's where you want to start to have someone who's quite skilled and literate in finances and in your zero account and your profit loss and balance sheet. looking at aged receivables, looking at your debt to liquidity ratios, those types of things become really critical, particularly as your clinic is scaling. And if you're at a size as in monthly revenue that dictates having a practice manager, you probably have enough revenue to really start paying attention to these financial metrics in your Xero account.

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Ben, on KPIs, in the Practice Leaders Program, just this week. In fact, we had a whole session on how to measure impact. And that's what we're talking about, right? KPIs are how we've measured our impact. The whole session was on what can we measure in our clinics? What can we measure in our role? How well do we know that we're performing? What KPIs can we set for ourselves versus our directors needing to set them? Because the very best practice managers are already setting themselves targets if they haven't been set for them.

Ben Lynch: And what were some of those common threads with what people had put in their report that they're going to send their director? What were some of the stats?

Bec Clare: Debtors, so your outstanding accounts. It was new patient data entry. That can be something that is not done consistently. We want to know how our clients are finding out about us, particularly if we're investing in marketing. Accuracy of the way that payments are entered. At the end of the day, if that's not done accurately, our reporting's not accurate, and it can take a time to go back and fix it, and the time is lost money. Number of service agreements returned and signed, referrer meetings, number of new patients, where is the cancellation rate at? So it was really dependent on what was the focus of that particular clinic in their 120-day plan, and how can the practice leader affect and contribute to that?

Ben Lynch: fantastic way to anchor it to, you know, things that are needed all the time. And what's specific maybe to this, you know, focus 120 days or 90 days, whatever plan you're using, there's a couple of KPIs that are going to be subbed in and subbed out of that list, depending on the focus of the clinic. Yeah, really nice to get some clarity on how do you actually assess the effectiveness of a practice manager in the clinic? Because they do tend to pick up a lot of different things and be across a lot of different things. And either they feel stretched or you as the clinic owner start to question, what are they doing? How come they're not across X and Y? And if we haven't defined what success is, really simply, then they can get lost. So I think coming back to, you know, here's three to five key markers of success in your role and having the reporting frequency so that they can update you. They can also have some accountability themselves, whether that's asynchronous in a message sent through Slack, whether that's part of your mentoring session, you know, fortnightly or monthly. And that's probably a key thing. a lot of clinic owners don't do. They'll mentor their practitioners, they'll have that booked in the diary, but the meetings with the practice manager are ad hoc, or they have an admin meeting where it's just like the agenda's just stuffed with a whole bunch of top of mind things, and they never actually get to proactively support or build the structures required for sustainable change. So as we round up this episode on practice manager's position description. We're going to continue down this line and reference this almost as an anchor document, an anchor reference point for our conversations. I'm interested in, you know, at the end of the day, how would you describe success for a practice manager? You know, if we were to just simplify it for a clinic owner, simplify it for a practice manager, what does success look like? Jack, You love measuring everything, as we mentioned. How would you more objectively assess this PM is successful in their role?

Jack O'Brien: Is our overall investment in our admin team, I'll say broadly, receptionist, practice manager, is our overall investment as a clinic in that team efficient? and improving. And that looks different for very different styles of clinic, but broadly speaking is our overall admin team investment 12% or less of our overall revenue. And, uh, that's a great way to see whether our admin team is productive, efficient, and contributing to the profitability and sustainability of our business.

Ben Lynch: That's a great point for those listening in go and check out recent episode on the clinic owner's way to assess a profit and loss. more than assess it, in fact, structure it up so that you do have those category segments like admin. We go through it in depth, we share screen, we show you. So what you're referencing there, Jack, just dovetails perfectly into that episode. Bec, how would you assess the effectiveness of a practice manager in a really simple but focused way?

Bec Clare: This topic, this could be another podcast topic. I would lean to unreasonable hospitality. The way we do the little things is the way we do the big things.

Ben Lynch: Okay.

Bec Clare: Assess how they're doing the little things. Cause that will amplify out into how they do everything else, how the team does everything else. And that goes to culture as well.

Jack O'Brien: Yes. And freedom. You mentioned freedom right at the top too. That was good. Are you more free as a business owner? It's a great measure of effectiveness, right? 100%.

Ben Lynch: Are you more frank? And that's what we're doing. We do a role audit for an owner and a practice manager. Like, what do you do in your week? And then show us your week, literally with the time blocks. And you can compare and contrast that, you know, three, six, nine, 12 months down the track and go, wow, actually, my week as the owner looks meaningfully different than it did 12 months ago, because the practice manager has taken these roles and responsibilities and their week is now filled with them. I think that's a really great one. Maybe we'll open this up in another episode, but I love that framework. The outcomes and outputs, behaviours and attitudes as a really great framework for assessing the performance of any team member. I think Jack distilling it in the P&L sense, the 10-12% for most. Obviously, every clinic is different, as you said. I think it's a really good, solid anchor point. It captures their efficiency and effectiveness in a whole range of different things. And then I think being able to see, are they minimising the white space in the diary, as you said, Beck? I think that's going to be super important. I think at the end of the day, that is kind of the core of it. If they do that, then the P&L looks good. So can they minimise the white space in the diary? I think… It's going to be huge. Well, I'm excited to continue this conversation on practice managers specifically. They're so integral to a growing clinic. And then by extension, reception teams as well. And it's all kind of wrapped in transforming client experiences, which we're just obsessed about here at Clinic Mastery. Jack, Beck, thank you so much. We will catch you on another episode very soon. Folks can head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for the recording, previous episodes, show notes, links, all the good stuff. Anyway, we'll catch you on another episode very soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.