Ben Lynch: Well, in a rare turn of events, Hannah's the one that's late today. She's been given Jack some sticks, so have I. But here we are, waiting for Hannah. Tick tock on the clock.

Shane Davis: Time to twiddle my thumbs.

Ben Lynch: I wonder where that comes from, twiddling your thumbs.

Shane Davis: I'm looking at the history of thumb twiddling, and the article says Adelaide, Australia. We created… Twiddling?

Ben Lynch: No, please. Hannah Dunn.

Hannah Dunn: Hello. Without Jack, I thought you needed someone to be late.

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. What is the single most important thing you're working on right now? If you can't answer that question, you're going wrong.

Shane Davis: I look at what's their disk profile and what are their strengths.

Hannah Dunn: What is that 12-month plan? We decide what is the most impactful. Set aside half a day of planning each quarter. So are you anti-whitespace? Yeah, I am anti-whitespace.

Shane Davis: I'm anti-whitespace for sure.

Hannah Dunn: Your team might have a heart attack hearing this. If you have white space in your diary, that is free for our Client Connection team to book.

Ben Lynch: Practically how do you sit down and prepare to win the week ahead?

Hannah Dunn: Well, I was thinking everything I've learned I've learnt from Shane, so let's start there.

Ben Lynch: This episode will be right up your alley if you've got time to work on your business, but you're not sure what to focus on to make it grow. Stick around for when Shane talks about the most underrated tool that we use to unleash productivity for clinic owners. Plus, you'll want to hear Hannah's take on how to prepare for your week so that you feel a sense of accomplishment. 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 clinics, policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email hallowettclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 310 and this is a special episode because I opened up my inbox and saw this. Congratulations! Your podcast has 250,000 unique downloads! High five, everyone. Well done. Well, Shano's joining us here today. You did all the hard work. What up, mate? Stepping in for Jack O'Brien, of course. But this is a thank you to all those that tune in every single week on Apple, on Spotify, and increasingly on YouTube as well for tuning in and trusting us to deliver you insights and strategies about how to grow your clinic. Well, Jack's not here to celebrate it, so we have our bestie guestie replacement, Shane Davis. Welcome to the crease, Shano.

Shane Davis: Thank you. Great to be here on a sunny Monday afternoon.

Ben Lynch: So last week we had our bestie guestie, Dan Gibbs, another founder of Clinic Mastery. This week it is Shano. If you've ever thought that recruitment is a challenge and you need help hiring or that you want to retain your team or you want to be more across your numbers and understanding your finances better, For so many years, in fact, 10 years, Shanp, you have been the go-to in the CM team for developing those assets and then rolling them out to clinic owners. For those that don't know you, although you were on a recent episode, you are the supporter and the guy behind the scenes pulling the strings, keeping everyone together and connected, right? And it's part of the reason why you've been able to grow such a massive empire of clinics and stores. I know that probably makes you feel uncomfortable, but it is an empire by most stretches. How many people are a part of this empire of yours, Shano, at the moment? How many team members?

Shane Davis: You're right. It does make me feel uncomfortable, Benjamin. I think we've, I'd say between our different businesses, we've got about over 100 team members, which is super and super grateful. We work with great humans and it also gives me a great sense of joy when we get to pay them. I'll say every second week on Xero, I give myself a a virtual hive of power in the back for the people that we get to impact and to help collectively to create those win-win outcomes for everyone. It's good.

Ben Lynch: Very nice. Always humble that you've built something truly incredible and continue to create impact in the lives of the team and the community as well. Again, I'm joined by the ever-organised and always practical, Hannah Dunn, director of DOTS, an OT clinic with 30 team members in Melbourne. Hannah, has the media attention settled? Has it?

Hannah Dunn: It has. It has? Yes. Yeah. We did gain a few followers on socials and on our website, got a lot more views. So yes, but happy to have that media attention dying down.

Ben Lynch: Yes, for those that are listening or watching in, you can go do a bit of a Google, but well done. You handled it with grace and poise and anchoring back to your key principle of good communication solves most things. So well done. Before we dive in today, a quick and warm welcome to those who've just installed Allie into their clinics to help with systems, team training and performance management. They are Adrian, Ella, JB, Sarah, Amanda, James and Claire. Thank you for checking out Allie. Hopefully your team are loving it. All right, let's tee this up. We have so many clinic owners say, I want to reduce my clinical workload so that I can spend more time working on the business. And then that time becomes available and they go, now what? So the question that I have is, if everything feels important, because it kind of does, How do you decide what to do first? So you've got the inbox, you've got Slack, you've got team members coming at you. Everything kind of feels important. How do you decide what to do first, Hannah? Kick us off. What's your process for prioritisation?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. Trying to choose the thing that's going to have the biggest impact over the most areas, I guess, like if there's something that we can choose that's going to have a big impact. If we think about all those things that you just listed, if we haven't time blocked, is time blocking going to be the first thing that we look at? Because it's going to have an impact on when we can do the inbox, when we're available to team, when we're able to get those projects done.

Ben Lynch: And how do you define impact? So if you're saying, okay, that's my primary filter, I'm going to choose the most impactful thing to do. Like, give me some insight, practicalities of how you determine that.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. I think first of all, is everything going to keep moving? Like, is it going to, is there something that is stopping something happening? For example, have we got a process that isn't allowing us to get initial appointments booked, which is what I was just working with someone that I was just coaching on. And that's a massive flow on effect because it means that diaries aren't filled. It means clinicians are feeling like they're not sure what to do with their time. So there's all those flow-on effects. Is it a quick and easy thing that we can just put a few things in place and then we can do a bit of a deeper dive later on? Thinking about what are the low priority tasks, like is checking our inbox really going to make a big difference? Or is it that we can put that to the side and maybe at two o'clock today, we can have a look at that rather than that being the big thing? I think back to eat that frog, eat that frog, eat this frog, what's it called? Eat that frog.

Ben Lynch: You can eat your frog as well, if you like.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. Being like, get that big task out of the way first and it will create the success for the rest of the day and just keep flowing through. I like it.

Ben Lynch: So you're talking about impact, Shaina. What about you? If everything feels important, how do you decide what to do first?

Shane Davis: I think it's a great question in terms of If everything is important, what do we do first? I often look at what is someone doing right now? And obviously we have gone through this process ourselves, but also in helping so many other business owners go through this process, it's also a really good learning in looking at what do the best do, what do the best do when they are, I'll say, coming off the tools or reducing their consulting time. And to your point, now that I've got all of this available time in their week, I suggest what the best do and what we get the best to do is actually get an understanding really objectively of what are you doing at the moment? What does your day look like from a life flow perspective? And we talk life flow rather than work-life balance or alike because work is a part of your life. But what does life look like from the time you get up or wake up in the morning through to the time you go to bed? And then you get to actually see what someone is doing in their 168 hours of the week. And in breaking it down to 168 hours of the week, what a lot of people actually say is, I've got all this time to be doing stuff. And yeah, importantly, what do I do now? But I think the first realisation is that I have got enough time to be getting these things done. And that's a really important foundation of mindset to have because then it allows us to be able to, I'll say, backfill some of those times with the time blocks to your point, Hannah, that are going to be impactful. essentially those quadrant two important but not urgent items that we want to be able to time block into someone's week. So I'll get them to put in the big rocks first, as I said personally for their own life, and then get to put in the rhythms that they're doing already, e.g. I don't know, but maybe payroll's part of what they actually do. So blocking in that three or four hours every, you know, every second Tuesday or whatever it is, put that in if that's what you're already doing. We may not be getting them to do that forever, but at least that's in there at the start. We can massage around that to create the time blocks, yeah, to work in that important and non-urgent type time.

Ben Lynch: So you're starting with an audit of where their current time is going, and then looking at where they go moving forward. If we go too further down this track, Hannah's going to bring up the Agendio calendar again, so we'll wait for the official sponsorship to come through. But then Shaino, how do you actually determine what is the priority? Like you said, people can then just stuff the day, stuff the week with things and feel busy, but maybe not be productive. So what's the process for actually deciding what is the thing worth working on?

Shane Davis: It's a really good point, Ben. To find what's important for them to be working on. I'm very much a who person, but I want to be able to understand what is their genius? What's their behavioural style? Because what that is for different people and different behavioural styles will be different.

Ben Lynch: Yeah.

Shane Davis: And the sooner that I'll say we as humans understand that and as coaches and consultants understand that, the easier it is for that person to be working in their genius on the things that are going to be impactful in their business. as well as being able to, I'll say, buy or invest in the resources needed to do the things that they're, hey, maybe not as good at and that they shouldn't be doing. So it's as much about looking at things they shouldn't be doing as what they should. But to get really practical, I look at what's their disk profile. So, what is the profile of their working style already and what are their strengths? And trying to work and align some of the tasks to that as well as their wealth dynamics, which is another behavioral style that we do quite commonly here at Clean Mastery. And asking the person, like, what do you enjoy doing? What are you passionate about? What do you think you'll like? Because often it'll take, you know, I'll say, they may say, I wanna be doing more mentoring, but then they get deep in mentoring. I'm to go, actually, I don't really wanna be doing more mentoring. I wanna be doing more of this or that. So sometimes I need to make those, I'll say mistakes themselves, but it's ongoing refinement and definitely specific to the person, the behavioral style to get, yeah, get deep in what they actually should be doing.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, nice. So again, starting with some version of a reflection is where you like to begin about where you find is best. But Hannah, what about the clinic owner that is early on in their journey or they don't have the luxury of being able to pass on different tasks to other team members? It's like, I'm it. It's me and maybe a couple of others. So how do you guide a clinic owner who's in that position to be able to prioritise what is truly important?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, definitely around, I think what Shane was talking to around before about looking at the, you know, when you get up at 5.30am through to when you go to bed at 8.30 if you've been. I'm definitely not getting up at 5.30. Whatever time you get up to when you go to bed doing those audits, what we find is that people having their like, I'm available to the team or I'm available or I do like a bit of payroll here and then I do a bit of payroll there. And so I think once we've streamlined that and made that first the priority of finding those times, having a look at, well, if they don't have anyone else, is that where we go next? Like we spoke about in a previous episode around getting those clinicians there to support you in the business as well. Is that where we're going? Are we going to get admin support? Are we putting something external? And if it's not about another person, then we're definitely looking at systems. Are the systems in place? How can we streamline anything Is there five different ways in which they're recording something or having their Google Docs not sorted? Is there simple ways we can elevate the areas in their business?

Ben Lynch: So if I'm hearing you right, you're actually saying it's let's look to hiring. If you are stuck, if you are in this position, one of the highest value things you could prioritise is Who is next on the team? And can I do activities related to recruiting that person? Yeah, that's a really useful one. We often anchor back right to getting new clients and getting new team members as kind of the two default things that at any stage of business, if you're pursuing a version of growth, But they're kind of the two things, like if you audit your diary, how much of your week is allocated to those things, or maybe you've got a bigger team and they are delegated, how much of your budget is allocated towards achieving some of those things? Yeah.

Hannah Dunn: We're talking about work here, but we also want to talk about our personal lives and having Shane here, who I reference often in our podcast as someone that I've learned a lot from. One thing that Shane said to my husband, Wok and me was like, sorry, what? You decide every week who is going to swimming and every week who is going to basketball. Like, yeah, on the day it's like, oh yeah, I haven't got too much on, I can do that. He was like, absolutely not. You stop that now. You can change term on term if you want to, but just set that in place and set that in motion. And it's such a simple thing to be like, walks on swimming, I do basketball, and keeping that to the terms. And we have swapped it. It was probably two and a half years ago that we had that conversation and it's been such a game changer like I didn't realise how many conversations we were having over simple things like that. We were talking this year at the Clinic Mastery retreat about how Wok and I have levelled that up again and made a decision on who cooks dinner each night and who's responsible for dinner, who's on lunches each day and so that is set in stone and so of course we can change that if something comes up but it's a discussion that needs to happen because the assumption or the default is we know who is doing what, we know who is going to which gym sessions when, and it's just, yeah, really streamlined and created good flow and freed up a lot of time.

Shane Davis: And Chris, as well, ignores the changes and the shifts that you've both made. How you feel now compared to what the feeling was that you both had at that time, and also by extension, how the kids feel now. Yeah. You guys got three kids, obviously, you know, and are growing with them, if that makes sense. They're feeling now compared to then as well. Yeah.

Hannah Dunn: Three might sound like a lot to some who are listening, but the two boys here have 4H. But I think it's just karma. Like for us, it's not that cognitive load of throughout my workday thinking I need to message Wok and see if he can do swimming because this is run over or, you know, I really don't want to do dinner tonight because I just am not going to make it. I need to get this done. It just creates a calm and also, you know, the flow and effects. And we've spoken to this before, but sitting down and having the diary planned out for the week before and the two weeks before, all of that flowing together makes sense. And it's just that clear communication of I actually can't do this week or can you do this? And it just means everyone knows what's going on without a conversation, whether that be the Is it you, Shane, that has it up in the pantry that every kid can pick up?

Ben Lynch: I'm outnumbered here. I'm outnumbered on digital versus paper. I'm feeling good about it. I've stacked the chips today, haven't I?

Hannah Dunn: This is purposeful. I'm pretty sure he drinks coffee, though.

Shane Davis: I don't need coffee on the Zoom.

Ben Lynch: Oh, gee. So on that specifically, I love this, you know, how do you win the week? How do you win the day? As a good little reference point, just speak practically, Hannah, to how you do that. Is it something that on a Sunday you prepare for or you're preparing the month in advance? Like, practically, how do you sit down and prepare to win the week ahead?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, so last year we tried to sit down and write out our week together. Now we're at a point where we just write out our weeks individually and make sure they're working. And then we sit down and like almost consult with each other to make sure that it's all in flow. Wok also has an agendio, both loving it.

Ben Lynch: Ace palm for those that are listening. But if it works, good on you.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. And ideally, we do that on a Friday. But if something's gone astray, then that might like if we get a call from the school, for example, to pick up a kid, then on Sunday at the latest, we'll run through that and just make sure it's aligned. And we feel chaos if a week goes by where we haven't done it.

Ben Lynch: Yeah.

Hannah Dunn: So on a Friday, what you carve out an hour or so.

Ben Lynch: Just like half an hour. Half an hour. You've got your paper-based calendars next to one another. Yeah. And you're talking through, this is what next week looks like. You only do one week at a time. And that allows you to be, you know, in sync. Yeah.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, it's really just is there any changes, like anything we're not aware of, like birthday party, we've got dinner at this person's house, whatever. It's just meant like we're not buying the birthday present that night before, which we used to be doing. We were like, oh, that's on tomorrow.

Ben Lynch: Funny sidetrack, Maddy. Commonly, my wife jokes to me, she's like, Ben, you got all the ideas about these birthday presents. They're brilliant. And you never pull through with them. And so I might take that. Maybe that's where the paper-based diary wins it for me. That's a great idea. Why didn't you tell me earlier?

Hannah Dunn: You can write it in two weeks before their birthdays and then you've got it there ready to go when your idea comes two months early.

Ben Lynch: Well, Shano, what about you? Do some of these things also carry across into your household or how do you prepare to win the week?

Shane Davis: Yes, I do. And I've actually worked with a lot of our business owners on these things, Ben, if you weren't across it or aware. But yes, and Hannah is, I'll say, a great student of this and put so much of this into place. And by extension, now I feel that positive ripple effect that you have on your circles around you, obviously with your family, but all the members that you work with. And I'm sure your team members in the clinic at DOTS as well. these changes that you're making in being able to create flow in someone's life. So, I think to your point earlier, Ben, you have joked a little bit, but we commonly say that the medium doesn't matter whether it is paper-based, whether it is digital, whether it's a combination or hybrid of both of them, it doesn't matter. What matters is the outcome and you've got a single source of truth and that it's done. And I think what is also true, it often takes people a few iterations of trying one thing, trying another, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't work, to get to their version of what's sustainable for them. So, yeah, for us, we start with our big 12-month perpetual planner, physical, in the pantry, and it's really practically got family birthdays on there, it's got public holiday weekends or days on there, if that makes sense, when school term starts, when school term finishes. The other blocks that we put in at the start are our family holidays. people, our children, our family. Know when we're going on holidays. Yeah, know when we're going for a weekend away or someone's got something important on and they're really the big blocks, if that makes sense. Know when I'm away, yeah, for work events or alike. Yeah, so know a lot of those things and have certainty around it. We then below that have a weekly planner which has got each child on it. It's got each child and essentially what they're going to be doing that day, sport, extracurricular activities, what they need to bring to school. It's also got dinner on it so the kids know what they're having for dinner. Great. So they don't ask the same question every day, what are we having for dinner? And I know it's super simple, but it gives everyone in the home certainty and is not just another one of those decision fatigue things that we need to think about every day. So, yeah, we have that calendar there for our family. I then have my calendar, Ben. It's very physical. the Profeet Weekly Planner, which is a version of the Agendio. But yeah, we have hours. And so I fill that out four weeks in advance on a Monday. I do it religiously at seven o'clock with a coffee on a Monday morning. And I'll fill that out for the next four weeks. And often it's, I'll say, lighter in week four. There's not a whole lot of big blocks and it's heavier and more dense in this week. But to your point, Hannah, what it often does in seeing what's happening three and four weeks in advance, it brings actions forward. I need to organise this for that. I need to be able to get this present to your point earlier, but it brings those actions forward and makes it a lot less proactive. Sorry, it makes a lot more proactive, a lot less reactive, which therefore helps us to be in flow or to stay in flow. And really that session for me is a bit cathartic. It's me getting the things that are in my Google calendar, and which is my single source of truth. If something's going to go in there, I can put on my phone, my computer, my iPad. I'm just putting a calendar invite in there so that all of that is mapped out in my G-Cal. And that's for personal. from the time I get up, get ready, dinner, bath and bed is there from six or seven every night. Our date night is there from seven to nine 30 every second Thursday. It's like, it's just, yeah, that is our, and my single source of, of truth. So, um, and I practically do that on a Monday morning every week and it feels good.

Hannah Dunn: And you just said that it's your personal and your work, which is something that is not just a little point, like it's something we commonly see with business owners who are like, no, they're totally separate. And no, we don't have visibility of my partner's calendar or anything like that. But you are one person and that is your time. And so If you've got one action to do from today, it's to get one calendar. And it doesn't have to be, like you've said, with Google Calendar. If you want to keep them in separate calendars, but at least have a view of all of them together so that you can see what you're doing. And I think that's really tricky with business owners who have a team or a small team, because what I hear often is like, Oh, I'm trying to push them to have full calendars. And then my calendar isn't full. And so just having the confidence to say like my calendars offline, my clients are in Cliniko or whatever software you're using because of the billing that needs to be attached to it, but everything else is somewhere else. And so. don't assume that if it's empty, I'm not in a meeting or doing something else. I don't know, Shane might have better language around that.

Ben Lynch: This is a beautiful dovetail though into when you're looking at your calendar for the business time. We've talked about this before, Hannah, of don't put admin time, which basically defaults to opening up your inbox. As we drill down even further from when the week, when the month to when the day, How do you go about structuring your day so that you are working on those important things? And how do they actually show up in your diary? Like we said, the time block, we don't want to call it admin time. But how do you actually set up the day so that it reflects the priority in your business?

Hannah Dunn: Well, I was thinking everything I've learned, I learned from Shane. So let's start there.

Ben Lynch: Let's see how you've evolved it.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. Not very far, except that I now pay more than he does for my diary. So I really will carry things over. I might have admin time booked into my Google Calendar for like three weeks ahead, like this is project time is more so what I would call it, but not having those white spaces and writing in the specifics of what I'm working on when we do that Friday blocking of diaries and making sure. So I do one week of detailed plans, so the week ahead has in like I don't know, desire statement meeting with X team member, and then another week ahead just has in those key things that I know are already happening, but doesn't have in the specifics of what those projects are, and then fill in those gaps that week ahead. So are you anti-white space? Yeah, I am anti-white space.

Ben Lynch: Every minute is allocated for the next week.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. For those listening with a team, your team might have a heart attack hearing this, and I think my team did first. But essentially, if you have white space in your diary, that is free for our client connection team to book. And that doesn't mean that you have to have a client in there. It's a communication tool, and so it needs to communicate to our client connection team what is happening in that time. So you might have in there indirect client time because you've booked it out two weeks ahead. But by the time that week's finished, it needs to have booked in there what happened. You can put an admin block in there if it's specific, but you need to have typed in what you've done in that time. Like I've just, I don't know, like one of them I read today was like cleaned the ball pit in the gym. Like, so it is really clear as to what's happened or they might have is usually Timmy's appointment, but away to the 5th of the 8th. And then something else will be in there after that.

Ben Lynch: Yes. So Shane, you were nodding your head. You're also anti-whitespace?

Shane Davis: Yeah, I'm anti-whitespace for sure. And I think it comes down to booking appointments with yourself. So, you're allocating even your, I'll say, free time or your me time, yeah, or your whatever that is, going for a walk, having lunch outside, it's date night, like those things are booked in, dinner, family, dinner, bath and bed, I think is what I've got. And I did our productivity session on Thursday and I brought up with the people that were there, this is what my day looks like. And it can look like- Can look quite busy. But to me, it's in flow because I know what I need to be doing at each point of the day to be able to make that day effective for me. So, I'm happy to share my screen and what that looks like.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, show us your screen. Let's see.

Shane Davis: As an example, Ben is digital.

Ben Lynch: And this is the productivity session that you're running for Business Academy members as part of Clinic Mastery who come along and they're looking to find more flow in their week. They're looking to make more gains and traction in their business and they're just stuck a little bit. So they come to this session and you help coach them through, guide them through finding that flow by looking at their calendar. Is that right?

Shane Davis: And this is, yeah, for us is last Thursday, as you can see in here, productivity, time management, and personal flow expert session. Ben won't let me have an emoji, but that's okay. So my day up here, and you'll see the blue components. I've got to colourise it. I do try and make your calendar a little bit light and bright. Got a lot of brown there, but by putting emoji in there and putting your different calendar types in there. So I've got walk for 60 minutes in the morning, get ready, and I'll travel into Geelong, have meeting with Oli, who's one of our co-owners, which I do every second week, then travel home, or travel here, in this case, for a meeting with Allie, planning meeting with Allie and Rosie. White space, which is actually black. But then PT at lunchtime, into lunch, into the productivity, time management, personal flow session, then I'm traveling down to Melbourne to this meeting, and then back. family, dinner, bath and bed, got there a bit behind, and then date night for Flick and me and home, 9.30. So it looks busy looking at those days, but to me, I know exactly what I'm doing through that day to get the best outcome, yeah, for me and for the roles that I have, if that makes sense. So, you know, it's to your point before, Hannah, I do learn from you. I actually think you recommended this. Did you recommend this?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I did.

Shane Davis: every room in Hannah's clinic, she's got a little visual time manager, which is called S-T-O-U-C-H-I, Stouchey, off Amazon Prime, probably can get it.

Ben Lynch: Just mentioned on a previous podcast, I think.

Shane Davis: Hannah recommended it to me at the CM retreat in Palm Cove, and I actually had bought a couple of them whilst away. So to your point of like, what do I practically do? What I don't do is book out four hours to work on a particular project because I'm just going to feel that time. What I do do, I know I work best in give or take 30 to 60 minute blocks of working on a particular project. And I know if you give me that 60 minute block, I'm probably going to be able to get 80 to 90% of that thing done. And so, I bought this clock and it's even better because I'm competing with this damn clock that I've got now to get these things done. But I know that I'll then put that hour in and I'll say this new client flow to your point before or new client form. asset that I'm trying to get done at the moment. 60 minutes, get it done, and away we go. So, yes, I definitely do learn from you, Hannah, and I break it down to little things that I'm really specific with what I want to get done in that particular time block.

Ben Lynch: And so that project example, Shano, how does that make it into the calendar? Coming back to where we started, how do you choose what to focus on? Is that part of a bigger plan that you have as a business? Is that just something you've chosen to work on that week? How have you made that decision to put that in there?

Shane Davis: It goes back to impact, you know, to Hannah's point. Some of the things that we do are rhythmic, right? We do the same thing.

Ben Lynch: Payroll as an example or mentoring.

Shane Davis: I'm not doing that, but yes, mentoring is an example or having our strategic meeting or having our accounting meeting. etc. A lot of those things are rhythmic but there's going to be, we need to have time in the week to do the thing, to take the action, to get the thing done. What I choose to do in that time is based on either what's on my project, so for this three to four month project list this is the thing that I need to do, or it's a bit more reactive It might not be urgent, but it might be important. So as an example, AI notes might not have been a project on our project list or on our strategic plan for the next 12 months. Until it was, until it became a thing, it was like, oh, Heidi AI, a patient, no, it's like, who's doing this thing? And we want to be early adopters. We want to be able to help our team to stay in flow. We want to be able to be, again, early adopters of technology. So there's going to be these things that come up reactively. And so there's space or what time project time in my week to be able to implement those things, read about them, learn about them, and then do the necessary work to get that project off the ground to go, yes, let's do this because it's going to be impactful.

Ben Lynch: Just talk me through the specifics of impact. You've obviously trained yourself over many number of years to be able to spot what is impactful and not, having done it in your clinics, the dozens that you have, and also helping thousands of clinics now over the last 10 years. Just help that person that is new to this. They're still not quite sure, well, how do I spot what's impactful? Because both of you have seen this and worked with clinic owners who you do audit their week, as you said, Shano, and you go, they just keep working on the wrong stuff. Like they're not prioritising the impactful. So, are there any heuristics, any practical filters that you use to determine? Is it like, this is going to generate more revenue? This is going to generate more profit? Talk us through how you actually… What's the filter of impact?

Shane Davis: The filter of impact, I think this comes right back to Client Mastery and how we started, is really based on the client experience and the team member experience. And it's those things that then result in sustainable, profitable clinics. If we're able to work within a framework and benchmarks of, I'll say, investment, and we're able to optimise the client experience to make that client experience even more, I'll say, of a wow experience, then we're able to, essentially, our remuneration is a reflection of the value that we bring. we're able to get more value for that experience that we provide. Yes, there's some constraints with third party providers, etc. We understand that. But in general, someone gets paid based on the value that they bring. Secondly, for the team, for our team to be able to progress and to be, I'll say, sustainable and successful in their careers, they want to grow and progress. And for them to be remunerated more, they need to be delivering more value in an efficient way to the clients or to the patients that sit in front of them. So how can we optimise that team experience? to help them stay in flow so they can be efficient and, again, bring more value to themselves and the clients that sit in front of them. So that AI example, if we're able to invest in technology that helps our clinicians and our team to be able to stay in flow and to do what is usually a pretty big pain point, getting your notes, your letters, your reports, your papers, et cetera, done. If we can make that thing easier, for them to do, awesome, because they're probably going to have more available energy to see that two or three or four or five clients in the week because we've made this thing over here easier. And whether that's Heidi AI in 2025 or in 2018, it is doing a clinical management plan within two minutes. I think it's probably still live on our website using keyboard shortcuts and templates. It's like, what is that thing for now that's going to help with that efficiency for our clinicians and optimise the client experience? Because by seeing that additional few clients, that means that they are able to, again, generate more value, more revenue, and therefore more remuneration. That's like a win-win-win for everyone.

Hannah Dunn: And you were talking before, Shane, about like those spot fires and those emergency things. I think when we audit someone's business, we want to hear what those urgent things are that they're doing. And again, back to the person I was coaching this morning, they were saying, yeah, because I need to be available to like the new grads when they haven't been able to have their reports read. So I'm reading those reports. It's like, OK, great. But can we systemise that? Can we say that on Monday and Thursday at two o'clock, that's when you read those? And so then your flow isn't interrupted. All those rhythms that are urgent, what are they and can we systemise them?

Ben Lynch: Shano, I'm mindful you're gonna have to drop off the line in just a moment. Thank you for your contributions. Hannah, I wanna pick your brains on impact further. As we go to that, you mentioned eat this frog or eat that frog, whatever your choice, you can have both. And really the emphasis there for mine is like, what is the single most important thing? And perhaps amongst all of this, I think where clinic owners struggle the most is identifying the single most important thing right now. Because everything feels important. And like you said, okay, I need time to respond and react to the new grad that's here. Eat that frog. Sharing it on screen. That's beautiful. book because it's really short, which is fantastic. Going back to that point there, which you broke my flow, so let me just rewind. The single most important thing On any given time period, let's call it one month to three months, I think it's super important to have one major thing that you're working on and other things which maybe you're able to kick the can down the road on a little bit because you've got to nurture that new grad or you've got to respond to this client complaint or you've got to react to some financial things that have happened. There's a mess in the books. The bookkeeper hasn't kept things up to date, right? That's always going to happen. But if I was to ask you, what is the most important thing you're working on right now? That should be clear as day. This month, we are working on generating new clients through digital advertising. This month, we are setting up our onboarding for the new group of practitioners that are joining us at the end of the month or the end of the quarter. or we are working on the new client journey experience. Now, there's a whole host of other things that are also happening at the same time, because that's business. But this is the single most important thing that we're working on, and what does success look like when that's implemented? So I'd probably say to clinic owners that if you can't answer that question, you're going wrong. What is the single most important thing you're working on right now? Because to your point, Hannah, it's like people have like seven things they're working on. So do I. But there has to be one that you're prioritising in the calendar. So when you think of impact, and Shana, if you need to jump off, you're welcome to do so. Thank you for your contributions and insights.

Shane Davis: I'll do that. I'll do that as well. But yeah, thank you for today. I'll just give one small practical tip. We talk about email inbox and getting flooded by responding or replying to emails. There's one tip someone gave to me, I can't remember how long ago, but search unsubscribe. in your email inbox and unsubscribe to probably the 30 or 40 things that come through to your email each week. Because when I look at clinic owners' emails and see all of the stuff that they've subscribed to over time, even just deleting or archiving those things takes up mental energy. So just do that and minimise the stuff that actually comes through on email.

Ben Lynch: Stay subscribed to the Clinic Mastery newsletter, though. Subscribe from everything else. Absolutely. So, Hannah, you also spoke about impact and given his insight into how he would think through it. What are kind of the ingredients of deciding on the most impactful thing to work on? How does that work for you? What are the criteria of most impactful things?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think all aligns with what Shane says in regards to that impact that it's going to have. I think one thing that Shane said that we skipped over a bit was he's like, yeah, my 12-month plan, I've got this. And it's like, yes, what is that 12-month plan? And so I think we decide what is the most impactful as a team of leaders, where we sit down and we set aside half a day of planning each quarter. And we say, right, where are we at? What are we working on? we revisit the goals we set for the 12-month plan and make sure that they still align with what Shane was saying, you know, all of a sudden there's Heidi that maybe you want to bump the current goal, but it's done in a considered and not reactive way. So making sure that you have a 12-month plan or a version of a 12-month plan about what you're going to work on in each quarter and then revisiting to make sure that that is still the priority. And then as you said, have that one project that you're working on. And for us at the moment, that is our team pathways. It's something that we've had in place. There's been a few changes to the way our leadership work. It's become not as clear as it previously was, but that is our one big project that I'm working on. Other people on the team have other projects which I'm fortunate to have that team. Another example is our zero to 100 is something those first hundred days of onboarding we've done we think quite well now but we haven't had an onboarding training for people who are moving from a clinician into a mentor and so we've got someone developing our mentor training to make sure that we're all doing the same thing there. So lots of different projects and I think it's about Yeah, what is going to have the most impact? What is that sticking point at the moment? And when we say impact, I think I really think about what is impacting team morale? What is impacting our clients? What is that thing that if you did a survey to the team, you'd get a five or below on or out of 10 out of 10? Yeah. Or if you sent it out to your clients, do you know what that sticking point is? And really thinking about what is going to have that impact on the team?

Ben Lynch: Yeah, great. Okay, so you're also using that lens of clients and team predominantly. And then your choice, Sarah, of like, what is the sticking point? What is maybe a problem or a challenge that keeps coming up? And it's causing dissatisfaction, frustration, and we want to be able to solve for that. That's a really good point. How do you think about then the goals on the 12-month plan? Because you spoke to that as well. You said, you know, maybe we've got this backlog of projects that we want to work on. New systems, new initiatives, new campaigns, etc. I like that distinction of, while we might intend to do this, none of us have a crystal ball. So in nine months' time, we don't want to just work through this project because we said we would and it's not actually the right thing right now. So getting clear on what is the outcome, what does success look like, or what is the goal or objective, however you want to frame that up. How do you go about deciding on what that goal is as a team? Is there a certain set of questions you use, a framework that you use?

Hannah Dunn: I feel like it's one of those times when, you know, you're a supervisor and a student says, why do you do this? And you think, I just do it because I do. I got to think about the theory behind why. Yes, I think it's because we're aware of what we feel like, like we might rank them, we might brain dump and just say, like, what are all the projects that we need to work on? And then we'll try and fit them into our spreadsheet that has, we use a version of the Clinic Mastery one, but then we've also added a column at the end that's future ideas. And that means that we can pull ideas in or put them out. if it's not, I think Shane would hate to hear that, because he's very bland, but it just creates a bit of leniency, I think, in not feeling like we have to have locked in that whole 12 months, but knowing that we have locked it in and that there is space to change that if it needs to be changed. Yes. I think, yeah, I really think we're thinking about the impact that we're having on the team and what is a sticking point. Like if it is getting those clients in, if it is the progression pathways, if we've done exit interviews and we're getting similar themes happening, then maybe that's something to look at. If you've got doing three month reviews with your team and you're hearing different things or the same thing, then maybe that's a project to work on.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point, and I think each of us are going to be different. The way you do it, the way Shane does it, there's similarities, there's differences. The way I do it, there's similarities, and there's differences. Perhaps just the principles that are consistent across are that you know, there is an outcome that's defined. You know, this is the thing we're looking to achieve or influence in the business. For instance, it is client satisfaction as part of the new client journey. And so we're gonna work on the systems there from the emails, the messages, the way the first appointment runs. And ultimately it culminates in new patient satisfaction when they fill in the net promoter score, you know, after their first session. Or it's we need to be able to fill the books of this new site or location so that we can hit break-even and we've got break-even defined and therefore we know how many clients we need to hit. So we're going to work on these campaigns. That's probably the problem that I see a lot of clinic owners run into is they focus on projects over progress. I use that kind of alliteration because they don't first think What are we trying to achieve here? It's not to have a new client journey necessarily. It's to create satisfied clients or, you know, to get client outcomes. Okay, well, we believe the new client journey is going to be instrumental in making that happen consistently and consistently well. But how do I know that I've actually made progress along that dimension? I think that's probably one of the key things people miss is they rush to do a project because they heard it was the right thing to do or something to do. And they don't actually think, you know, what is the outcome? And then compared to other outcomes, is this the thing worth pursuing now, for instance? I've had a couple of people like, they'll spend three months working on cancellations. And like, that will be useful, but it'll bring it from like 15% down to 12% cancellations. And it's like, okay, that commercially makes a difference. But if you'd have chosen to work on new patients or rebooking, and put the same amount of effort into that, it would have had magnitudes more impact in the business than picking cancellations and did not attend. So that's not to say that doesn't have any value. It's just being able to weigh it up, I think, is super important in the context of other things. So as I talk through that, how do you go about making sure you you know, the team aren't pursuing a whole bunch of low value actions that they just want to do.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, definitely. And I think that comes back to making sure that our leadership team is on the same page and that we are reviewing goals that anyone else is working on and making sure that we're making those tweaks of where the focus should be, as you were just talking about. And it comes back to what you were saying about creating SMART goals for ourselves, like that we make sure we've got those SMART goals in place so that it's really clear and tangible. So, for example, like as you said about like creating pathways for our team, having a SMART goal around our team can tell us their own pathway opportunities by the end of quarter three. with the use of a visual as well, or whatever you want to have in there. And so, yeah, making it really clear and measurable, because when you write out those measurable goals, you might realise that that 3% increase on cancellation is actually better served by increasing your new referrals by 5% or 10%. And so really looking at what can be measured.

Ben Lynch: I remember the course guides or program outlines at university. They would say the objectives of this course are A, B, C, and D. By the end of the term or semester or year, you will have been able to do these things. And in a similar way, when it comes to picking projects, I think that's one example of a useful framework of, by the end of the quarter, we will be able to have A, B, C, and D. And so we're going to pursue this particular project. And perhaps, I think to take it to another level, it's like, why has this been chosen over something else? And that might be that it isn't the highest dollar thing, but emotionally, like the stress, frustration, challenges that are coming through from clients, team, or yourself. But so long as you're aware of that, I think what we're trying to do is just bring like a conscious awareness to what you're pursuing and choosing. Because you can easily look back at the month, the quarter, the year and go, gee, I felt busy, but I really don't have a lot to show for it.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. I think you touch on such a valid point of like, when we're saying like, come up with these goals, instead of coming up with these goals, thinking about like, what do I hate most? What is really impact me the most is like a really easy way to then think about what's the opposite of that? And is that my goal?

Ben Lynch: I love that. I love that. So much of this is asking a good question or a variety of different questions to elicit some critical thinking about the answers. Well, that's been a great insight. Despite talking about paper diaries for so long, I know I say that with tongue in cheek. and agree that it's less about the method that you use, so long as that it is sustainable, it's used, and that you feel like you're making progress. So thanks again for sharing so openly. And for folks listening or watching, head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for past recordings, show notes and links to anything that we've talked about. And we'll see you on another episode very soon. Thanks, Hannah. Thank you. Bye bye.