Ben Lynch: G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode.

Jack O'Brien: It's like a haunted house, but it's clinic owners continually being surprised that Christmas is coming.

Hannah Dunn: There's a couple of clinics that say to me, I'm always being asked for pay rises at the end of the year. Just because it's December doesn't equal those things. Like they can happen at any time throughout the year.

Ben Lynch: You can actually get access to the end of year checklist over at clinicmastery.com forward slash free resources.

Jack O'Brien: It drives me bonkers that there's these assumed beliefs. Christmas time sucks. January's a write off.

Hannah Dunn: If we go to the gym regularly, we continue to have those gains.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, I know all about that, Hannah. Jack, he doesn't know. I mean, he's skipping leg day, arm day, everything. Look at him. This episode will be right up your Allie if you're looking to fill your books in January. We're diving into your end of year clinic checklist. Stick around for when Jack gets a little hot under the collar as he discusses what you shouldn't do with your marketing at the end of the year. And trust me, you want to hear Hannah's take on treatment plans for clients over December and January. 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 helloatclinicmastery.com with a subject line, podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 327. Good to be back with you all. In the hot seat. Is it a hot seat? I don't know. Sometimes, Jack, you tend to put us in the hot seat. I have Hannah Dunn, Director of DOTS, which is an OT service in Melbourne, Australia. Multi-site. Team of, what, 30 now, Hannah? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's getting big. Continuing to grow. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

Ben Lynch: And of course, joined by my business partner, recovering physiotherapist and previous clinic owner of Terrace Physio Plus, Jack O'Brien. Welcome to you. Welcome to you. Oh, thank you. Welcome. Welcome. I am sipping on one of the more incredible coffees that I discovered the other day. It literally stopped me in my tracks. I drink a filter coffee. Hannah's switched off already because you're not a coffee drinker. And I literally gasped when I had a sip of it. And Jimmy, my mate who I was next to, was like, what? What's happened? I said, this might be the best coffee I've ever had. So I bought a bag. And oh, just when you get that cup of coffee. I don't think it's that bad.

Jack O'Brien: Who is it? Where's it from? How's it processed?

Ben Lynch: So Headlands is the roaster and I forget the specific name of the coffee, but it had tasting notes of like yellow stone fruit, peach, mango and then lemonade of all things. It was delicious. Anyway, welcome to the pod. If we haven't met, my name is Ben. I'm a recovering podiatrist. And amongst other things, we published a book. If you're new to the pod, if you're new to the community, We've got a book called The Grow Your Clinic Book, which helps you understand all the different areas of growing your clinic to grow something sustainable and perhaps, most importantly, meaningful. Inside of the book, it kind of puts together a whole range of different things you should consider for designing a business that matters to you and makes the most amount of impact. You know, you may have heard different things on this pod or worked with other business coaches, and you've got different systems at different times that work maybe for a short period. But what this book calls out is seeing the whole, actually designing a clinic operating model where it all works cohesively together. Otherwise, you end up with this kind of Frankenstein clinic that doesn't particularly work or it can't scale with ease. So we call that out in the book. The book was written in COVID times when QR codes were a thing, you know, like masks and standing one and a half meters away from one another. And so when you scan the QR code that's littered throughout the book, it takes you to a whole bunch of resources and assets, practical things that you can install in your clinic. It's free. You can get a copy for free as a PDF, or you can buy one of these hard paperbacks on Amazon and other book retailers as well. Jack O'Brien.

Jack O'Brien: Well, my desk is busy and busy with new clinic owners jumping in, looking for help to grow their clinic. It might be to fill their books, grow their team, amplify their impact. So a quick shout out to a range of new members. Carolina from Melbourne joined us. Denise. We've got Mark. We've got Lachlan, who's a physio and remedial massage clinic. Bryden, a psychologist, caddy and OT. Heather, another psychologist. So our books are full for October. We actually said no to one or two folks. Our November cohort is now open. And so the way to get help, there'll be two, three key ways. I'll give you three ways. Number one, email me, jackatclinicmastery.com. I checked my inbox, contrary to Ben's inbox behaviours. That is jack- That's a love-hate relationship. That is jackatclinicmastery.com. No AU at the end. You can send us an Instagram DM, just DM us the word podcast and we can start a conversation there. Alternatively, you can head to the website for this episode, all the specific links, timestamps, and you can get in touch with us there. That is at clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast. podcast. Let's just open a conversation. Nothing forced, nothing obligatory. You're not going to twist your arm. We just genuinely want to help. And if there's scope to work together, we can explore what that looks like as well.

Hannah Dunn: And Ben, after you brought up COVID times, that was the time in which I was one of those clinics who reached out and I was a clinic of 10. And with CM support have gotten to where we are today with our team of 30, our systems in place and sharing that information with everyone now. Wow. You were at 10 at that point.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. Wow. Two stars, I think. Yeah. Kudos. Oh, and Wok as well, your husband. Yeah. He was working what? In construction. Yeah, construction. Yeah. And then the business grew so much he quit that. And now he's, what, head of operations? Is that his?

Hannah Dunn: He was doing finance.

Ben Lynch: Finance.

Hannah Dunn: Finance in the clinic. I could not run a clinic of three sites and have three young kids at home on my own.

Ben Lynch: Oh, wow. That's good. That's been great. That's good. I also have Sherry, Kelly, Karina, Damian, Bob, Clinton, and many more. I couldn't list them all, who have just joined. Allie, of course, we have just released our integrations with Splose, Halaxy, Nookal, to build on the existing integration with Cliniko. You can test it out for free for 30 days. All right, let's tee this up. As the year is wrapping, A lot of clinic owners kind of feel the crunch. I don't know about you, but I always thought once you got through the first couple of days of December, it was like the year was baked in. It was done. Like your books are full. You've got your holiday set. It is crunch time. And it can feel a little bit chaotic. So what we want to talk through is the end of year slash start of year checklist so that you finish the year with some sense of calm. You launch the new year with some sense of control. And you feel like all the boxes are ticked. Quite literally, we're going to go through a task list or a checklist. There's so many seasonal things that recur. But I want to just frame this up. Several Christmases ago, I was sitting down with a relative. They work at Kmart, the big retailer here in Oz. And they're in the marketing department. And we're just talking about December and how they wrapped up their year. They said, yeah, it's been kind of super busy leading into December. We had to finalise everything like Friday. I think Christmas was like on a Tuesday. I said, oh yeah, what were you doing? And it was this part that really pricked up my ears. They said, we had to submit the final version of Easter's promotional material. So they were three months into the future, having planned and been ready for what was to come. And I was like, wow. Now, obviously, they've got a massive team. They're a big corporate. But what a cool thing to work towards or aim towards, because Easter's coming up every single year. So I'm sure they've got a bit of a blueprint that they just follow each year. The same is true in a clinic, like wrapping up the books for the end of the year and starting the new year. There's a lot of things that just happen seasonally. So I want to talk through this, but maybe to open us up, J.O.B., what are one or two things that come to mind for you that you feel clinic owners often overlook or they're super important and they leave it to the last minute and they just make the pinch, the crunch feel even more uncomfortable?

Jack O'Brien: Well, I might get you to re-ask the question in a minute, Ben, because I want to tag on a bit of a trend, a Halloween trend, if you will, for those who are savvy with Halloween and social media and Instagram. I don't know if you've seen those haunted house, but, and so it's like, what is a current day version of the haunted house? What gives you the ick? What frustrates you? What scares you? You've seen this, Hannah?

Hannah Dunn: No, I haven't.

Jack O'Brien: You're nodding very, very much like you have. So anyway, I would say it's like a haunted house, but it's clinic owners continually being surprised that Christmas is coming. And in all seriousness, it really bugs me that clinic owners still get surprised by these things that happen every single year. If you're not aware, Christmas happens on the 25th of December. And you know what? To your point, Ben, of the Kmart story, Easter happens about three and a half months following that. I think it's four moon cycles later. It happens every year. And so, I would encourage clinic owners to really think about their end-of-year year checklist, which we're going to dive into a bit more detail here. But your start-of-year checklist for 2026 should be starting to think about Easter, because Easter is coming, the April school holidays, the end of the new grad onboarding, making sure your induction's finished, new probate. all these things are not surprising. And what I've noticed, Ben, is that the best clinic owners are looking forward. They're able to think in long time horizons and they're not caught off guard by, again, the day of recording here, tomorrow's a public holiday in Melbourne. And if you're on the fringes of Melbourne, where some of your team live in Melbourne, or they work in maybe the Geelong or the Bellarine regions over on the other side in Mornington, like this can be really complex. but it's not unforeseeable. And so I get super frustrated by clinics that don't see the future, but I'm also really encouraged by clinic owners that have their eyes wide open, are able to think in advance.

Hannah Dunn: And on that, Jack, just with school holidays, talking about Easter, the Victorian school holidays are listed up until 2030 on the Department of Ed. I just looked up New South Wales. It's the same. You've got until 2030. I assume other states are the same. So even though those dates change, they are listed on those websites so we can get them in well in advance.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. Earlier on this year, we did a podcast. It might have been circa February, foreshadowing April of 2025. Because of the way Easter and Anzac Day fell here in Australia, and with school holidays, there was going to be this squeeze. Then when we got to May, and everyone's like, oh, revenue's fallen off a cliff because of all of this. It's like, Hey, we could foresee this just by getting a bit of time to look forward in the calendar and prepare accordingly. Before we dive into the checklist, anything else to add that things you see clinic owners overlook, super important things that make up the end of year checklist?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, client bookings, like it seems so obvious, but it actually doesn't happen until, Jack said, like December. And we need to think about it in October, early November, like to really think about what are those rhythms that are going to happen over that period. And for us at DOTS, our goal is to ensure that there's at least three points of care during a six week period. And sometimes that's more and sometimes it may be less, but at least we know which families are away and what that looks like. What do you mean three points of care? Three points of care could be a direct one-on-one appointment, it could be a group appointment, it could be us creating a resource, it could be us writing a letter to school for the support that they need going into the new year, it could be any form of care, whether that client's available for one-to-one or group or whether they're not available, it could be indirect work that we're doing to progress that child's care in some way over the holidays. And we do a lot of coaching with parents about the way in which skills can go backwards. I think we all know if we go to the gym regularly, we continue to have those gains. And we know that if we take a month or two months off the gym, that those gains are lost very quickly and that you really feel how hard it is to get back into the gym if you're not there. and we use that analogy with our families.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, I know all about that, Hannah. Jack, he doesn't know. I mean, he's skipping leg day, arm day, everything. Look at him. He's fading away. He's not on the bike, mate. I beat you to it.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I was going to say Ben. Ben nodding along so enthusiastically for those watching on YouTube. You know, it's funny, isn't it? I see so many clinic owners. Here's another thing that frustrates me. I'm getting frustrated. I haven't had enough caffeine. Here's what frustrates me. Clinic owners that take on the common popular narrative around Christmas and New Year's. It drives me bonkers that there's these assumed beliefs.

Ben Lynch: What do you mean?

Jack O'Brien: What do you mean? Well, I mean things like, oh, Christmas time sucks. January's a write-off. Parents won't come. Children don't need us. In a musculoskeletal sense, people are too busy. These are limiting beliefs and they hamstring clinics. And on the flip side, we've seen countless, dozens and dozens, if not hundreds and hundreds of clinics reverse that narrative and make the new year one of their strongest months. It is absolutely possible. And not only is it good for business, it is in the best interests of the clients, families, participants that we serve. And so we have a duty of care to make sure there is continuity of care and therapy for these families. So stop with the assumption of the popular narratives, please.

Ben Lynch: It's a really good point about hearing people say, yeah, January's a write-off or December's a write-off. and having significant drops in productivity, revenue, profitability, getting into a cash squeeze and not having cash buffers set aside knowing that that's coming. So let's get into it because there is a model for how we ought to think about this. To go back on the plug for the book and just the model that we use, a clinic operating model. There are seven areas, and I'm screen sharing. Come over and join us on YouTube. Not only is the podcast published there, but we do regular weekly episodes, tips in under 10 minutes of how to grow your clinic with Peter Flynn. Here are the seven key areas. The first one is personal mastery, making sure that you are continuing to grow and develop. The second is purpose, and aligned with that is strategy. The third is team. The fourth is systems. The fifth, finances. Six, brand and marketing. And seven, experiences. Each of you are already touching on specific actions that would fall into one of these degrees, as we call them. And we want to dive in firstly with the personal side of things. So as I share my screen, I've got a couple of examples. We won't read through all of them, but a couple of examples of things that you could action in the lead up to the end of the year to start the new year so that you end with calm and control. J.O.B., what do you see in this area to get yourself as a clinic owner in the best possible state of flow leading into the back end of the year? What do you think is critical to be on that checklist?

Jack O'Brien: Oh, great question. So I spoke with a clinic owner in a coaching and mastermind session last week, and they're feeling tired and burned out and feeling like Christmas is too far away. They can't hang on. and they don't want to just drag themselves into the new year, have that classic sickness because the immune system is cooked through Christmas and Boxing Day. And so it's really around how can they set their own rhythms now and then through to past Easter into the second quarter of next calendar year. So I think getting those big rocks in around your own personal holidays, long weekends, long periods of time off, whatever that might be, I think that is absolutely critical.

Hannah Dunn: And that's exactly the analogy that comes to mind for me too, Jack, around really getting those big rocks in, those big things locked in the diary, whether you've got a team retreat that doesn't move and that you want to get that locked in, whether there's, you know, a holiday that you've got that you need to put in your diary before you get onto those smaller activities. And then those sand activities that are those really tiny tasks that can end up taking up our whole time if we don't focus on getting those big and medium rocks in place first.

Ben Lynch: It sounds like you're both really referencing the calendar as an important tool or asset for folks to look at and then plan for getting their renewal time booked in, an important date scheduled out ahead of time. Hannah, famously, you would use a paper diary to do this.

Hannah Dunn: I would use a Google calendar first, but then I would review it on my paper diary. Fantastic. I was telling Shane that you guys pay me out about this the other day. I said because he was telling me how he was talking to his team about how good it is having everything planned out.

Ben Lynch: Yes. And I think at one moment, the both of you were flipping the tables on me on the digital side. It's good fun. I think whatever works, right? Yeah, absolutely. How do you approach that, Hannah? Jack just spoke to planning all the way through to Easter. How do you go about it? And Jack, I want to throw to you your rhythm around holidays and the pre-booking. We'll come to that because I learned that from you many years ago. But Hannah, talk us through the process that you use and then by extension, how you advise other clinic owners when you work with them one on one.

Hannah Dunn: Yes, so we do a leadership planning day, which for us was a couple of weeks ago, where we look at the calendars, get the dates in for our team days, our PD time that we like, when will we offer that professional development to our team. And those we look at other people's calendars and make sure that it works for majority of people. And then also personally sit down with Warwick and look at when we've got our holidays booked or what holidays we want to book and what other commitments there are throughout the year. Things like when there's, if we have the advance notice on school closure days or any of that. Jack, you don't know what that is, but sometimes they just say, guess what, in three weeks there's a curriculum day. And so, yes, making sure that those non-negotiables are locked in there and then really thinking about Also getting clear on what you want your year to look like, like what needs to be included in that? Does there need to be an overseas holiday? Does there need to be three local holidays? Like what does it look like and where do they need to go? I think what people sometimes feel overwhelmed with is pulling the calendar up and going, right, I've got to get everything in before they're really clear on what is everything that they want in there.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, fantastic. So Jack, when it comes to holidays, something that I learned from you was having the next holiday scheduled and planned for before you finish the current one. Do you want to just elaborate on that? Maybe it's evolved since you first shared it with me.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, the principle here is that we want to prioritise ourselves and our families. When we are at our best, our businesses can be at their best. If we are dragging the chain and high on cortisol and low on energy, then it's going to be really tricky for us to lead effectively. we have a rule that when we're on holidays, we never come home from that holiday unless the next one is already booked. And there's something in this, like our scarcity brain, a little crocodile at the back of our head that thinks, oh, this will be our last holiday because we don't have another one booked in. And so you end up in this like panic scarcity mindset. Whereas if you're away with your family or doing something that you really enjoy, and you already know that there's another holiday coming in 2, 3, 4 months time, you can be really present and soak up the time that you've got now knowing that the next one is just a matter of weeks away. And so, it's really important that you think about having that next one booked as well as the different types of holidays. There are times when holidays are adventures and we're exploring things and we're going crazy with the kids. They're the holidays that you feel like you need to come home and have another holiday from. And then there's the real rich renewal type holidays where you spend a couple of days catching up on sleep and doing a lot of the self-care things that fill your cup. And then there are those short little getaways, little three, four day weekends where you can quickly top up your tanks and then get back to it. And so having those mapped out throughout the year, ideally an annual rhythm, allows your brain to relax and click into work mode knowing that it has breaks coming.

Ben Lynch: I know clinic owners can often say to us, they feel a sense of guilt, having time off, taking it away and maybe leaving it up to the team. But I found it such a productive catalyst before you go on leave to wrap a lot of things up and finalise things. And it feels like this great sense of completion. And then when you come back, you've got all this renewed energy to go at it again. Well, to keep things progressing here, let's move on to The second area, which is around purpose, this is around the values, the mission, the strategy that you have at your clinic. We've got a couple of examples here as we share screen. Scheduling the team culture day or the team retreat that you might have. What else would you add to this? Hannah, when it comes to the purpose and planning rhythm that you've set up in the year, maybe even finalising the current year.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. Having a really, it's written here though, having that really good 12-month plan. So, knowing what everyone, what the projects are that you're going to be focused on for the next 12 months. And I like to leave a little bit of leeway that there's a other projects column on our 12-month plan, because sometimes things change. But just at least having locked in those 12-month plans. And that, for me, means me knowing what my plans are, but also what Belinda, our team leader, Louisa, operations manager, that they all know what their projects are as well, so that we're really clear on who's mentoring who and what that looks like and what the projects are that they're working on.

Ben Lynch: So Jack, how do you go about setting this area up in the calendar and advising clinic owners as well as they look to round out their year and start the new year with some momentum?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, particularly as it pertains to purpose and plans like we're looking at here. It's super critical that you have these big meetings in your diary and whether they're one-off meetings or regular consistent meetings. And what I'm specifically speaking to is ideally you'll have a quarterly or a monthly review session with your accountant and or your financial planner and or your insurance broker. And so if anyone needs an accountant or a financial planner, please do get in touch. We work with some trusted professionals we'd love to introduce you to. But getting those rocks in the diary are really critical planning milestones. And alongside that, your coaching. Your coach is your business partner that you don't have to share profit with. Your coach is someone that you want to have in your diary. That should be the most important appointments in your schedule on a fortnightly or a monthly basis, whatever the frequency is. Get those sessions in your diary and they don't move. Because it's critical that you have external eyes on your business. It's critical that you have those accountabilities built into your diary. And it's critical that you are staying sharp with the most important strategies that work in 2026 in your diary. That is good planning and good purposeful leadership of your clinic.

Hannah Dunn: And I'd say they're two of the areas that we see the biggest change in for some of the clinics we coach in not having enough external meetings. So not meeting with the accountants regularly enough, not having those people in your corner and then internally having too many meetings booked in. So I think having really thinking about it and making it purposeful gives you some real clarity on how often you truly need to book those meetings in.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. It sort of blends in the personal purpose and where we're headed team next. And a previous episode of the pod where we were talking about cost cutting or looking at efficiencies, where you might be looking back and going, gee whiz, I think we're probably spending a lot too much time in meetings as a team or myself, what does the rhythm look like into the new year? And if you've gone through that exercise of auditing the cost, the real cost of meetings in your clinic, this is a perfect action. Practically, I like having a single document, it might be a tab on a spreadsheet, where you've got every meeting that happens in your clinic, the duration, the frequency, who attends, so that you can get a snapshot in a quick view of, Here's where everyone is, including myself throughout the year. And where are the efficiencies? You might be scaling back some of those things to open up more billable time with your team. The other one here that I love is review slash refine your own desire statement. What does your role look like? into the new year. For so many clinic owners, they get to the end of the year and there's hopefully some things to celebrate and acknowledge yourself for. There's also some areas you're probably feeling like, this is unsustainable, I can't continue like this, or I don't want to continue like this. whether that looks like specifically your role day to day, or any other version of how this business is set up to serve and support you and your family. So I think it's really important for you to review what that looks like, what's the meaningful part of or meaningful changes in your business that you want into the new year, make sure that's super clear. Well, as we progress onto The third of seven, which is team, we've now got another suite of actions that could form part of your checklist leading into the end of the year and setting up your new year. A couple that we've mentioned there, blending in team meeting schedules that they're locked in, CPD, whether you do case studies, whether you're doing a conference into the new year. We've always got the end of year Christmas party that tends to happen. Hopefully you've already done that by the time you're listening into this. What else, Hannah, do you think are essential items? Because there's so many that could fit on this list. But what do you think is truly essential as part of the end of year checklist as it relates to team?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. For our team, we do a lot of coaching around the year being circular, like that we're not, it's not the end, like December is not the end. It continues on a continual circular path. Then we need to make sure that our mindset isn't that we just drop everything on the 24th of December and then we'll pick it up again next year sometime.

Ben Lynch: So you're like thinking into January or even further beyond?

Hannah Dunn: Just like to March, end of term one, like we really want to be thinking about what is the client care? What are our days look like? There's a couple of clinics that say to me, I'm always being asked for pay rises at the end of the year. I'm always being asked for changing my structure, like creating a conversation where just because it's December doesn't equal those things like they can happen at any time throughout the year. changing the narrative of when those things happen. An example of that with clients is we used to do a six-monthly review in June and December. And when we did that with parents, it felt like, okay, December, we've done our review, great, we'll see you next year. We moved them to be the end of term one and end of term three, so that it felt more continual throughout the year. And it made a real difference, just that mindset of not feeling like, okay, we've done our review, we'll start next year, it just continues through.

Ben Lynch: really nice distinction of changing up the rhythm there. And I think so much of at the end of the year, it is the time to think about how is our collective calendar structured so that we get more flow, that we get better results. And dealing with a lot of things in December is a bit chaotic. So I like that you shifted away from that. You brought up something really good.

Jack O'Brien: How did your team receive that change? Like, is there any resistance? Are they open to it, feedback?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I mean, my team were open to it because for them it felt better as well because it felt like they had to squeeze in all these reviews with parents at the end of the year when there's already so many other things happening. So it creates better flow for them as well.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point. And you mentioned something really nicely there, Hannah, a question that we've often asked clinic owners is shoot through the goal here. If the goal is the end of the year and finishing, quote, strong or with momentum or calm, whatever it is for you, if we go through that goal till the end of March, the end of Q1, and we said, what would success look like at the end of March? You define success however you want. But let's say another version of it is, let's say you're at the end of March, you're sitting down having a great cup of coffee, just like this one, and you're going, you know what? We've had the best start of the year we've ever had. And it's because of these reasons. One, two, three. Okay, let's define them and then what would need to be true for those things to happen. So we're shooting through the goal and you're starting to think ahead. So Hannah, it's a brilliant point that you make around thinking beyond just the end of the year.

Jack O'Brien: And I love that exercise, Ben. I'll often say in my coaching or strategy sessions, I'll say to clinic owners, put yourself in that chair, in the couch, the Ames armchair, if you will, with your coffee, your glass of wine, sitting by the fire. What will you be grateful that November, Jack, did? What will you be grateful that you did in December? When you're sitting back and you're reflecting on things that have gone well, what did you do that meant things went well? So that idea of future pacing yourself can be really productive.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, it's sensational. Just to whip through a couple more on the team list here for those that are listening in, but come over to YouTube to see what we've got. And you can actually get access to the end of year checklist over at clinicmastery.com forward slash free resources. I'm sharing on my screen. There's a whole bunch of mini courses, videos, but at the bottom of the page, downloads, and you'll be able to get a copy of an end-of-year checklist. But on the team side of things, we mentioned the CPD and mentoring calendar are set. So they're the mentoring sessions, one-on-one that your senior therapist has with a junior therapist. We have practitioner training. We have a new year recruitment strategy. We've got the 0-100 induction or onboarding for a new team member. So many clinics are hiring the back end of the year and then onboarding at the start of the new year. So having that 0-100 document published. the first hundred days of a new team member's journey so that they're clear from day one how we're going to give them the best possible start. We've done previous podcast episodes on this, so you can go back and look through the archives of what's included in that. But before we go on to team, JB, systems.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, we'll stay on team, please. It's a great time to think about, you know, mention CPD there. I know from personal experience that for early stage career professionals, CPD is easy. There's an abundance of courses but if you've got someone who's 2, 3, 4 years out or you have a client care team, client support, admin team, it's really difficult to find CPD opportunities for that team or for your more experienced clinicians. And so for those who are a part of our Clinic Mastery Business Academy, you get complimentary access to a mentor mastery program and our practice leaders program. And so now is a great time to start priming the mindset of your senior team, your mentors, your mentor mastery is for those in your team who are clinical seniors and clinical mentors. And the practice leaders program for practice managers, admin, client care team leads, their CPD is taken care of inside PLP.

Ben Lynch: Yes, get it in the diary. All right, let's progress on to number four of seven, which is around systems. So we've got a couple here. Maybe there's important policies or procedures that need to be updated on your internal hub, like Allie. Perhaps you need to prepare for a price rise or a fee change that could kind of fit into systems or finances at this time of the year. You're preparing for a 1st of January fee increase. And we spoke about that on a recent episode, looking at your fees. Hannah, what else do you see as really important at this time of the year when it comes to the systems?

Hannah Dunn: I think throughout the year, making sure that when anything happens that you have a system in place and if there isn't a system in place, getting that in place. But potentially, if you haven't had time to create those systems, you might find that you want to make sure that you know what systems you need to put into place. I know I've spoken about clients, but having a system around how to get those clients in the book, it's not just about telling your clinicians to get the clients into the book. So for us, we've got a spreadsheet, it has some prompts, it's got some scripting on there of what they can use with families. It's got where they can put the client's name along with what the first contact is, second contact, third contact, and who's responsible for that. Because it may be that a clinician is away, but another clinician is taking over that client for that period of time. So it's not just about us saying, OK, everyone, make sure you've got books, your books are full. We're really putting systems in place to make sure that the team's supported to be able to do that. And if there's anything that you're asking of your team over this period, it's great to have those systems in place. Other ideas of systems are like even having lists of social media that they can create during that time if there's downtime or what other tasks to do during downtime that might not generate revenue on the spot but will ultimately lead to an increase in revenue due to advertising, marketing or whatever that is.

Ben Lynch: It's a reasonably broad bucket, this one, systems. And to give another couple of examples that I just had here were perhaps you're changing your hours into the new year. And so your Google listing, your website needs to be updated to reflect those changes. Maybe, and recently we were talking about maintenance, more from a cost perspective, but perhaps you need to schedule a whole bunch of maintenance into the new year. Or for example, the air conditioners need to be cleaned and the filters need to be cleaned or changed over. So we're looking at things that just keep the back of house running nice and smoothly. Jack, is there anything else that you would really emphasise when it comes to getting your systems right into the end of the year?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I'd really double down on the scripts for your admin team and your practitioners. And this is such a key one here that we help our patients and our clients have continuity through this period, whether it's their holidays or our holidays, that is the key one. And then I think there's also, there's, I don't know the technical term for it, but your systems degrade over time. And sometimes they just gather dust and they need to be refreshed. Allie's a great opportunity to update those. So many of those systems are done for you, plug and play. You can look at automating a whole bunch more as well using AI and different softwares. So it's just a great pin in the diary each year to refresh things and bring your clinic up to best practice. If you're still running your systems in Google Docs or in an arcade Google site, it's actually impacting the value of your business and things like Allie can see your valuation increase over time as well.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point around say compliance docs typically happen this time of year, your first aid, CPR, police check, working with children check that you need to have on file, are they current, APRA, you need to have these things. So it's a really great opportunity to check in, are these valid? Are they up to date? Or do we need to go and check them? Allie does make that super easy for you to be able to do. All right, let's move on to finances. This is number five of seven. We spoke to a little bit of this, getting your rhythm installed with your accountant, super important, especially if you felt a little bit of a pinch this year financially at different points. What are the proactive rhythms that you have? You should never have an unexpected tax bill. If that's happened to you, change your accountant, give us a message, we'll hook you up with someone who knows what they're doing and they're proactive. And secondly, you've got to have the schedule of meetings. We've spoken about this on recent episodes as well. But again, just to maybe get some signal from the noise, forest from the trees, insert whatever analogy you want here, let's put a highlight or an emphasis point on the financial aspect that you want to get right, your checklist into the end of the year. Hannah, what stands out for you either on this list or that forms part of your own list at DOTS?

Hannah Dunn: For us, like, again, those rolling break evens, making sure that you're really clear about what your team need to be hitting for you to be financially viable, potentially reviewing your rewards program, making sure that that is still working for you. Sometimes there are changes that impact your reward system. So an example of that for us being that we used to have our targets set at a number that didn't include really indirect time because before NDIS sort of were allowing us to charge for that indirect time. we weren't really charging for it. And so what then happened is when we got really good at charging for our indirect time and making sure we valued our team for the work that we're doing, the targets became a little bit easy to achieve. And so it allowed us an opportunity to really look at that and check what's happened there. Same thing if you increase your fees, like how's that impacting on the target numbers, depending on what targets you're using, if it's not a financial target, if it's a client number target or an impact hour target, then looking at making sure that's being reviewed.

Ben Lynch: There's a couple that stand out to me here, J.O.B., that I would jump to. Number one is outstanding accounts. We want to be doing this throughout the year, but there's nothing like a deadline to get someone motivated to get an outcome. So whether it's your practice manager or reception team to say, hey, wouldn't it be great in the year by bringing our outstanding accounts down from whatever it is to a target number, you know, so we can clock off at the end of the year and high five? I think that's a really great one. The second one

Hannah Dunn: Can I jump on that one before you go ahead? For us in a PEDS clinic, it's actually a really hard time for us to get outstanding accounts because it's Christmas and families are really trying to save money to spend on Christmas. And so for us, we really want to be hitting that sort of in October so that we're not having the conflict of Christmas presents for kids.

Ben Lynch: Great context. I think In an ideal world, some of the checklist items here, as we say, for the end of year, really should start in October. Because some of them need actually a little bit of lead time, preparation planning, or there's delays, you're waiting on other people. So the best time for this sort of checklist is October. Start of October, we're working on the end of year. The other one that I think is perfect for it, we spoke on a very recent episode, is your fee increase. We've obviously discussed it here, but your communication around it, you're changing in your patient management system so that it's all set up and ready to deploy. And then the other one, depending on the timeline, reserves. This is an ideal time for you, even if you make marginal gains in building cash reserves in your bank account, making sure you've got the bank account structure set up. Every dollar has a purpose, to quote Jacobin.

Jack O'Brien: I'll quote Dave Ramsey.

Ben Lynch: Okay, you quote Dave Ramsey, one of the best. And I think that is so important. When there's leave over the Christmas period, you want to make sure you're looking at it rather than looking for it when it comes to money to fund some of those quieter periods. So those for mine, I would put an emphasis on. Jack, is there anything that you would add or refine about that list? Nothing further, Your Honour. Okay. You may approach the bench. Let's continue on to brand slash marketing. As we continue through here, Jack, you're a bit of an enthusiast for marketing. Maybe that's a polite way to put it. This so often gets overlooked, but it's a wonderful opportunity at this time of year to look at the brand, look at the marketing side of things. What do you want to highlight here for clinic owners? It seems like you've dialled down the frustration since we opened the episode. I don't want to stoke the fire too much, but give us your best. What do you want to highlight here?

Jack O'Brien: You've just awoken the tree. So I've got a problem with clinic owners who turn off their social posting and particularly turn off their social ads over the Christmas period, either because they haven't foreseen that they need to do it or they think, well, we're not there to take the inquiries, so what's the point? I'll tell you what the point is. It's the empty diaries in January. That's the point. And secondly, if you're running social media posts and you're running ads on social platforms, what do you think the rest of the population is doing between the 25th of December and the 5th of January? They're sitting on their couch, scrolling on their phone, looking at everyone else's posts and everyone else's ads and going to their clinic, not yours. So, Yes, you can create a post today and schedule it for the 27th of December. You can create ads with a schedule that turn on at Christmas and turn off in the New Year. And again, we can introduce you to great partners. There's Lingo and Clinic Apps and so many others that handle inbound inquiries, often with AI layered in, so that you never have to miss an inquiry. You can sit around playing backyard cricket on Boxing Day while the systems in your marketing and your AI inquiry handling take care of the diary. You can walk into a full diary in January, with a little bit of planning, coaching, and guidance now in November. There you go, Ben, time for me to go back to sleep for a minute.

Hannah Dunn: Just channeling my inner Jack, the thing that really annoys me is they're turning off a waitlist, like just saying, oh no, we're not going to have a waitlist. And I'll say to clinics, like, why? And they'll say, oh, it's just too hard to manage. But there are so many systems in so many client management systems that make it super easy to be able to do. And it's just around that communication to your clients around what does a wait list actually mean? Because January is the ideal time to be jumping on those clients and giving those one-off appointments or a block of X number of appointments.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point and the one that we commonly see clinic owners who are proactive at this time of the year do is send some comms out to their clients perhaps they haven't seen in a while around their health benefits. Maybe they do have health benefits that expire slash renew at the beginning of the new year and there's an opportunity for them to be able to access those in alignment with the right care plan and just reminding them of the change of the new year.

Jack O'Brien: Here's a mindset shift for clinic owners, Ben. Sometimes we think, oh, I don't want to pester my clients. I don't want to annoy their inbox. What you will actually find is the inverse is that so many of your clients and community want to hear from you because there's a tsunami of information, Black Friday sales and all this sort of stuff. You get lost in the noise. And so your clients want to hear from you about what are your openings and availabilities through December. They want to be introduced to the new therapist. They want to hear about your tips. We think that we're bombarding them with information, and we think we're shooting a fire hose at them. Meanwhile, our clients and community are sitting there parched, waiting to drink from you, and we're withholding information. So you have a duty of care to communicate with your database.

Ben Lynch: Parched, waiting to drink from you. I've never heard that one before. That's a new one. I like it. Well, as we progress to seven out of seven, this is now experiences related to client experiences. This is all about creating raving fans, delivering meaningful outcomes for your patients, for your clients. Let's have a look at this list here of things to put on the end of year checklist. Hannah, you spoke to this, and it's especially important in the industry that you're in serving, say, NDIS-based clientele, where so often they're booking well in advance and they need a certain time for continuity of care. I think broadly, NDIS-based clinics do diary management into the future really, really well compared to some peers. But what do you highlight from here to clinic owners when it comes to client experiences?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think you want to be proactively rather than reactively looking at your data and looking at your team's bookings in the calendar. But also it's those small things that you mentioned before. It's the time to get the whole clinic's carpet steam clean and make sure that your clinic's up to scratch. It's the time. And a lot of people have a narrative of like, oh, no one works between Christmas and New Year. Oh, my gosh, carpet cleaners work between this time. And it is such a good time to get the clinic revamped. having a look at what other, like having a look at your client journey and ensuring that that is intact for the new year and making sure that there's no other touch points that you want to do. Another thing that we made sure we did at our last team day, which is part of brand and part of experience, is making sure all the dates are in the calendar. Like when is Down Syndrome Awareness Day? When is OT week? All of those sorts of things so that Like Jack said before, we're not like, oh, fancy that it's Easter or Christmas. It's the same with these days. They're often, you know, Father's Day, Mother's Day, all of those events that you can tie your social media posts to. You can tie your activities in sessions to whatever it is that's in the calendar. And the calendar does get busy. Like, we want to make sure that those dates are in there so that we're not surprised. Or even for us in our paeds clinic, every year we're like, oh, book week's next week again. It's like, We forget that those things come up and we think, oh, we really should be dressed up or we really need to do a bit more. So getting on top of those dates is, yeah, for the client's experience, but also for your brand.

Ben Lynch: A really important point for those clinics that have mentors in sort of supervision roles, support roles of therapists is the whole show me your diary. when they're sitting down with a therapist, let's look at your diary in the coming weeks. Let's look at your specific caseload and show me, does each client, each family, whatever the context is for you, have a management plan, a treatment plan into the future? Have we published that? Have we shared that with the family? because then they can rebook, as you're saying, Hannah, into the diary, and we can secure those spots into the future. So I think that's a really practical thing, is shifting the mentoring session focus in the final weeks of the year to review the caseload, show me a diary, and that every client has a treatment plan into the future. J.O.B., what else would you emphasise as we look to wrap this checklist into the end of the year?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, if you bring that checklist back up, Benny, I think it's a great time for clinic owners to put yourselves in your client's shoes and go through the new client process yourself. Book in with your clinic. For many of us, we've never actually booked into our own clinic. And so I think this is a really interesting one to sit back and go, well, what does it feel like? What communications do I receive? What happens between booking and showing up? Go and walk through your own front doors and smell the smells, see the sights, feel the chairs, have a look around as if you were a new client. A great time to do so, I think that's a really critical one, but perhaps even more timely is the gift products to sell over the counter. And I've noticed time and time again, clinic owners have a limiting belief. Oh, who's going to buy a Christmas gift from a health clinic? Who's going to buy a Christmas gift from a physio, podiatrist or an OT? And time and time again, those clinics open-minded enough, willing to be coached, having a teachable attitude, say, right, I'll give it a go. You know, I'm going to put aside my preference. I'm going to let the data decide. they go ahead and maybe they run a big push on selling Archies. Archies are a wonderful Christmas gift. Or maybe you sell socks.

Ben Lynch: We did that. We did that for our family. Yep. It's a perfect way to do it. Archies are a good partner of us here at Clinic Mastery. And we bought about seven family members Archies from the Cairo that we go to. And everyone got Archies. Happy days. Perfect for the summer.

Jack O'Brien: Happy days, you've just given me an idea. I'm thinking I might stock up on some socks and shoelaces from Profeet Footwear. That might be the gift that you'll all receive this year with some new shoelaces. But it's such a great opportunity to boost sales in your clinic and it increases the physical and mental availability of your practice for your clients. And what I mean by that is when your clients think physio or when they think products for exercise. You want them to think your clinic and Christmas is a great time to do that. So sell some product for Christmas. Just make it happen.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point you bring up, JB, of going through the booking experience yourself, even to the point of can people book in online. Maybe you do or you don't offer that for various reasons. But go through the booking process. Is it super clunky? Are the communications clear? It's a really great opportunity to whip those things up and iron out some of the creases. There's so many things that are on this list. We've just given a few. Go and get an example copy over at clinicmastery.com forward slash free resources. But for members of the Business Academy and Elevate, jump into the portal where you can get the expanded version on the spreadsheet where you can tick these things off. And it's a really great thing for you and your leadership team, practice manager, senior therapist to work through into the end of the year and then kick off your new year. We also have a new year checklist to work through January and February to make sure you get the best possible start. So make sure you've got a copy of those for the members tuning in. Well, Hannah, J-O-B, are there any parting thoughts before we put a nice little bow on the end of year checklist for folks? Hannah, anything that you want to stress? Because J-O-B, I need you to take a little bit of the steam out of this for J-O-B. It's a little hot under the collar here.

Hannah Dunn: Yes, I think absolutely make sure you get the checklist and just make sure you're putting those things through your own filter. I think sometimes it's really easy to grab at everything, but there are some really great ideas in there and it just promotes that thinking and being a bit more creative and not just being alone.

Jack O'Brien: I like it, Hannah. And I'll say this to clinic owners, it is really easy to get busy doing busy things for the next six weeks. You don't have to buy into the narrative of crazy around Christmas. Now is the time to think intentionally about your end of year checklist. And if you're thinking, oh, I've got a project I'm gonna get started, you need to do the gardening now. You need to do the farming now. If you're looking to get help for filling your books into the new year or recruitment into next year, now is the time to get your house in order. And this is what we're talking about here. The best clinic owners are proactive, get their house in order, follow the checklist and the system like the greatest chefs and pilots, they follow a process and that is how you grow your clinic.

Ben Lynch: You are just the king of analogies, JLB. You've got analogies for everything. It's fantastic. It's really good. Well, I agree. I think the best thing to do is if you don't have a checklist, get a copy of Vows, it's free, and start actioning it. If you've got a checklist, blow off the dust, start implementing it or refine it. If you feel like you're already hitting your strides, making great progress, compare it against the one that we've got, update it and finish the year with a sense of calm so that you launch into the new year with a sense of control. That's what we're brilliant at doing. And if you need some support, schedule it in the diary to have a chat with us. Jack at ClinicMastery.com because the new year could be the step change that brings your meaningful vision to life. And we can be there to support you to do so. Hannah, Jack, thank you as always for sharing your insights. We'll see you on another episode very soon. Bye bye. Bye.