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

Caleb Gray: I built up this Achilles Academy online course that I would sell. And that's sort of what I did for the first couple of years. And I think actually that set me up for clinic ownership way more than I thought it would.

Jack O'Brien: What would you say to the graduates that are coming out now? I wouldn't be afraid of burnout. I'd be afraid of not learning. You almost want to get to that like 10,000 hours worth of practice as quickly as possible, because that sets you up to accelerate the process towards clinic ownership.

Caleb Gray: Started doing mentoring with the chiro of all people. That was a paid thing, but I reckon the ROI on that was like 50 to 1.

Jack O'Brien: All right, well, welcome to the podcast, Caleb Gray, the famous infamous Caleb Gray. You're everywhere across socials and I love that, mate. So welcome to the podcast. Good to have you. Thanks for having me. It's a real privilege. Super. Listeners, we're really excited to get back into some clinic owner stories and connect with folks that are just like you, doing cool things in the allied health space, progressing through to clinic ownership. And Caleb's been part of our community for a couple of years now, awesome clinic owner. So yeah, really looking forward to unpacking your journey. Caleb, I guess, take us back to where it all started. How did you decide to go from being a school student to a physio student? Why physiotherapy?

Caleb Gray: We're going back that far. That's a while ago now. But yeah, I suppose for me, I knew that I wanted early on to help people. I knew that was something that was important to me. But to be honest, I wasn't really sold on physio. I had a good experience of physio early on. I suppose when I was in school, I hurt my shoulder. I wasn't a good volleyballer, but I played a little bit and hurt the old shoulder, had to see a physio and surprise, surprise, it helped. So that was really cool for me to see them. Back then you had to like submit your top five sort of jobs that you wanted to do into uni. I think number one for me was medicine. Medicine and dentistry were the top two and then physio was after that. And then there was like law and some other ones. I thank the Lord every day that I didn't get into the top two. I don't know.

Jack O'Brien: We have a couple of dentists in our community. I'm not sure if there's many that listen in but I was talking to my kids the other day. They had to go to the dentist. I'm like, what a job. You get to stare into someone's stinky mouth and find all the holes in their teeth and inflict pain. I don't know who would sign up for that but there's plenty of dolls in it and I guess you help people with their dental health, right?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, I can't rag on it too much now. My brother-in-law is, well, my sister-in-law's partner is a dentist, so he owns a practice.

Jack O'Brien: He's good though. I'll have to send him this episode. Okay, nice. And was it always private practice for you going through uni or did you have dreams of working in the hospital system?

Caleb Gray: I hated the hospital system. Yeah, it is definitely always private practice. I was like a musc guy from the start. Yeah, I love the, I think I love the problem solving behind musculoskeletal. I love the sort of, I don't know, there's a vast array of things that we can cover in musc. And that really appealed to me. So yeah, from the start, and I think it helped that I probably from third year, I was working in a private practice just as a physio assistant. So yeah, it really helped me shape my perspective of where I wanted to be when I finished.

Jack O'Brien: So say more about that, that experience of being a student working in a clinic and then even like all the way back as a volleyball youngster and being a patient, what was it about like those experiences that wet your appetite to get into physio?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, I think the first one was the volleyball, because I remember that clearly. It was one of the memories that vividly stayed with me, because I remember one night, it was immense pain in my shoulder, to the point where I just didn't know how to get out of pain. I was just on the floor. Like holding my shoulder and just like i was being a bit of a silk but i was under 16 or whatever and just wanted to get rid of pain but i couldn't and so that's when i booked the appointment and it was i remember going in and i actually saw a physio student because i was poor at the time too. But even the physio student, it took, I don't know, an hour and a half to get through the consult, but he was able to do some techniques and manual therapy that instantly alleviated some of the pain. And then the exercise program that he set me up with, I was good in the next week or two after that. So that was really big for me.

Jack O'Brien: I think it's always interesting, right, because all of us in the clinic owner game are in the recruitment game and attracting ideal applicants into our practice to work. But before that, I think some of us have maybe greater responsibility than others, but the responsibility to represent our profession well and to encourage particularly those in senior years of high school into our professions because ultimately they're going to be the physios, podiatrists, psychologists in the next six, seven years by the time they graduate. Has any of that experience as a patient or as a student working in a clinic, has any of that shaped how you lead ClickPhysio now?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, I would say 100%. I think the whole movement towards exercise at the moment that we see, although it's evidence-based and I'm a big proponent of that too, I think it's really shaped how I would administer and maintain a focus on manual therapy as well, especially when patients are in acute pain, etc. At our clinic, it's almost a non-negotiable that people will get some sort of hands-on treatment. We know that that's not the be-all and end-all, and it might not be evidence-based in the long term. But if we can impact someone like I was impacted, if we can make someone have their pain in one session, like their buy-in to treatment is just so much, it goes through the roof. So for me, that's probably been the biggest part. And I'd say early on that working as a physio student in the physio clinic, I mean, it was an all right clinic. I won't name the clinic because I didn't think it was the best in terms of it probably was one of those clinics that was, I had a clinic owner that probably wasn't that evidence-based, did things like the cookie cutter type, clinic did. But even through that, I think you learn the benefit of, well, for me, it was the benefit of manual therapy at that time, because patients still got better, even if it wasn't the best treatment that some of the patients were getting at the time.

Jack O'Brien: Interesting. It is in a lot of regards that the experiences we have often inspire us to replicate that or inspire us to do the opposite, right?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, there's definitely some things that I don't do at my clinic. We don't have electrotherapy, probably, mainly for that reason. It's not really evidence-based, I think, anymore as well. But yeah, I think seeing some of the the sort of negative sides of that has probably shaped how I view, how I run the practice moving forward as well.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. Maybe talk to us about after graduation, how did you decide on which job to take and what was it like being on the employee side of the private practice world?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, well, I actually went and I already had a job lined up at the place that I was working, which I just mentioned wasn't the greatest, but for me, it was awesome. I think at the time, I was just happy to get into the workforce, work for a private practice because that's what I wanted to do. And I went in like sort of with my eyes open a bit to the challenges of that particular clinic, but at the same time, I was really excited just to get in and start practicing, start building a list, doing all those things. And actually, now that I think about it, Um, there are a couple of other things from more business point of view that this clinic did in particular that I replicated in the clinic that I opened now, for example, it was more like a bulk build medical center would operate, like patients would, would turn up, they would have an appointment time, but they wouldn't be allocated a physio. It was kind of whoever was around would see the next patient. It was really interesting. It was the only one in the sort of that I know of that was sort of using that model. Um, but. I really appreciated the, I think the patients were brought into the clinic, not the clinician. And as a clinic owner, that's something that I wanted to try to replicate from a way that, yeah, maybe have a little bit of both. And that's what we've kind of done in our practice.

Jack O'Brien: That's an interesting learning. I like that. Just say more about your mindset as a new grad, right? You said, I was hungry to build a list and just happy to get a job. Do you feel you still see that with graduates that come out now or what would you say to graduates coming out? We often hear the sensationalist stories on social media of the entitled Gen Z or Gen Alpha that only wants to work a three-day work week and suffers the B word burnout after seeing 15 patients a week. What would you say to the graduates that are coming out now about those first couple of years and your mindset going into your first graduate year?

Caleb Gray: I think for me, what I would say now is I wouldn't be afraid of burnout. I'd be afraid of not learning and not growing as a clinician. For me, that would be the focus that I'd put the new grads in. I think that The benefit of being a physio is there's just endless opportunities to learn and i think as you're learning and as you're seeing results with patient. I don't think that well i didn't get burnt out because i could see the results that i'm having in that that created this inner satisfaction like i want to go to work because i can see the results and obviously have off days and all that stuff but. On the whole, I loved it and I remember particular patients where they would walk in with 9 out of 10 pain, they'd walk out with 2 out of 10 pain and that definitely wasn't every patient but the ones that was that patient, it was awesome. You're like, this is why I'm doing this.

Jack O'Brien: I really respect that and I think that if there are some recent graduates here who are one day thinking about starting their own practice, we have many of those listening in. The value of your first couple of years isn't always in monetary side of things, right? It is about working really hard because I can say at least from my stage of life, I've got four kids now and we run a couple of different businesses and it's tricky to work as hard now in my late 30s as it was in my early 20s. You can work 30, 40, 50, 60 hours a week and then you can do sports work on the side for free and get this vast experience bank that then sets you up to be a clinic owner down the track. And I'm sure for you, Caleb, it was like, build that list. Let's see, you know, you almost want to get to that like 10,000 hours worth of practice and experience as quickly as possible because that sets you up to be able to accelerate the process towards clinic ownership, right?

Caleb Gray: And I loved experimenting, like I loved experiment, I'd create my own manual therapy techniques that were like, I could understand the principles behind what I was trying to do and try to like, and you just sort of have fun, not in a negative sense with patients, but you just explore a little bit. And when things worked, you're like, I'll add that to the toolkit. And that's kind of how I saw those early days of just, those early years of creating my own toolkit that I could then get the best outcome for patients.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, so fast forward a year or two or a handful and there's a thought bubble in the back of your brain that says, maybe I can do this myself. Talk to us about that experience. How did the idea of starting your own practice come to light?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, it was actually many years later. So I was 15 years out before I started a practice. So I suppose the story in a brief nutshell was three years out, my thumbs really started to hurt because that practice was like a really manual clinic, just massage every patient, etc. So in my, I don't know, brilliance, I decided to go and do Masters of Musk at uni. I don't know what i was thinking there but it kind of worked in the end it gave me a bit of a break over that year i did it full time. And then i actually did end up in a hospital but i ended up in a outpatient like senior musculoskeletal position. I think those years were really important too because. At the start there, I was actually really comfortable in that role, like the public system, they pay really well. It's a pretty cushy job. So at the start, I was like, Oh, this is it. This is me for the rest of my working life. I'll just, I get to play ping pong every, every morning tea and lunch. Yeah, it was great. Like through COVID, that's where I was like, it was really secure. So I was there for seven years and towards the sort of five-year mark, I just started sort of wondering like, I probably can't see myself in the next 20 years being in the same position. Cause I was a senior musk physio at the time. I might've been able to move up to a HP five, which is like the next rung up. And, but outside of that, there was nowhere else to go in the hospital, unless you wanted to do management. And I tried that and I sucked at it. I did not want to do that. I think I'm a good leader. I'm a terrible manager. And I found that out doing those roles at the hospital. So yeah, I think that's where the thought of private practice came from, or just business in general for me. Um, my company is called click physiotherapy and it actually started online, uh, before COVID I, I created an online company or yeah, it was an online company that I did on the side. I was working at Queensland health, but I, I created this website and I just wanted to build a website presence. And I thought for me, I'll just start doing online courses. So I did, I built out this full Achilles Academy online course that I would sell, um, And that's sort of what I did for the first couple of years. And I think actually that set me up for clinic ownership way more than I thought it would.

Jack O'Brien: In the business sense?

Caleb Gray: A hundred percent. Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. Interesting. So when it comes to then starting a clinic, what, what surprised you or what shocked you? Was there something about how long it takes or how much it costs or yeah. What was the gap between expectation and reality?

Caleb Gray: Probably what I could say is like, and I kind of knew it would be like this, but it still was a lot was the amount of new things that you have to learn. Like I think every business owner goes through that. I had been in private practice seven, eight years ago, but yeah, learning how systems have changed, adapting to that process was probably a big part of it for me.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? We often say that you go to university for four, five, six years, depending on what degree you do, and you spend 40, 60, 80 grand, depending on the size of your HECS debt, to learn the skills to be an allied health professional. And then we start a practice, start a business and we expect it to just come naturally because we were a good health pro. So I don't know, this is a whole different skill sets. And so that learning curve is quite steep. You have to invest in your learning and just because you are good at your craft or good as a technician does not mean you will be a good business owner. And so you strike me from what I know about you as a very astute entrepreneur, like you seem to love the game of business. Where did that come from?

Caleb Gray: I reckon it came from, like, I think I've always had it. I remember when I was sort of 11, maybe 12, I wanted to go on a ski trip and it was going to cost 800 bucks, which was massive money at the time. My parents wouldn't pay. So I'd, I'd started a car washing business on the side and I, I got enough money to go to that. And then I remember a few years later, like I started this, this Coke can business where I'd buy the 50 cent, like, well, the Coke cartons, you can't do this by the way, it's illegal. And I just put them in my fridge, take a couple to school and sell them for like two bucks or whatever it was. So I think I've always had that sort of drive there. But the real Kickstarter for me was, I think the early days when I did the online clinic at Quick Physio, like I was I started to invest more in like marketing research than I did in like PD. And that's sort of when I knew like, Oh, maybe this is something that I really want to pursue. I was still passionate about physio. I was still a good physio, but I felt like I was doing more. Yeah. In, in those early, so yeah, the, the first, like it would have been around the two, whenever I was, um, just before two years before I started the business, it was. me looking at, like I remember researching Neil Patel, like downloading his podcast. He's a marketer if you haven't heard of him. I would be spamming their podcast for like two years just learning. I remember like I was big into SEO because I didn't want to put any money in the business so I learned how to create websites and I ended up getting like 40,000 visits a month to my ClickFizio website at the time. That was like a lot of international traffic. But I think those were the skills that probably helped kickstart my clinician or business owner journey.

Jack O'Brien: It's a good note, I think, for listeners. It's like, if you had the choice, would you pursue more clinical professional development or more business professional development? And I was similar. I would sit in the clinic late at night, finish my notes and sort of I could watch YouTube on some assessment technique or I could watch Gary Vee. I'm like, I'm going for Gary Vee all night. And it tells you a lot about how you're wired. And I think for those who are really clinically wired, that's totally fine. There's absolutely room for clinic owners to be very clinically oriented, but it really speaks to maybe the opportunity to have a business partner who is perhaps more commercially minded or even more so the the necessity really of a mentor or a coach in that business side of things to help with the commerciality of running a business. Again, you can be wonderful clinically, but if you can't run a business, you'll have an empty diary and be wonderful clinically. So, talk us through, mate, what came easy and what came hard for you in the early days of click physio in the practice? What was really comfortable, natural, easy and what was like, oh, this is harder than I thought it would be?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, for me, the hardest thing was learning to do referral networking well, so developing relationships with GPs. I'd never really had to do that before. I'm like, do I just rock up to this GP clinic? How do I get an invitation to see a specialist? All that sort of stuff was really quite hard for me. Um, I think the easy things were like treating was easy cause I'd done that at the time had my masters. I was really confident. Like that was a breeze. That was probably the easiest. Um, and I think marketing was sort of in the middle. I had some things down pat, but other things I had to learn. I think I did well and I'd recommend to any new business owner is just getting mentoring. I knew that the gap for me was so big in what I knew and what I had to know. I was on that train nearly day one.

Jack O'Brien: I don't want this to just butter Clinic Mastery's bread, so you have full permission to speak whatever you want. We were actually saying on a podcast the last episode or maybe the one before with Michael Rizk around the mindset of investing in coaching and mentoring. I'm going somewhere with this question, often with larger clinics, they appreciate the value of coaching more because they know that it might be one conversation. that unlocks $100,000 of revenue with a new marketing idea, or one conversation can help unlock the whole recruitment pathway and means they can generate an extra 500 grand a year or two. They see that one or two conversations, whereas often when we speak to clinics in that earlier stage, They're stuck on like, oh, it costs me how much money for how many sessions or how much time do I get? And I didn't see my return this particular month. And they struggle to see the big picture. So what was it about your journey that valued mentoring and coaching right from the start?

Caleb Gray: Um, I think it helps that I I've grown up in the church. I'm a Christian. And I think from a young age, like I've always had that anyway. Like, I know I need to learn more. I learned more about my faith there. And I think when it comes into the business, like it was the same, like I knew there was gaps and I knew I needed to, to get into how do I, how, how do I fix those? And. I think that was the big thing. I was okay, and probably there's a sliding scale because when I started my business, I might not have been okay to spend, I don't know, 10K a month, but I was okay to spend a smaller amount to start with. And as the business grew, I would value, and I knew that there would be such an ROI on investing in mentoring. I remember starting with a mentor, Paul Hedges, who was amazing at the start, really, really good guy. And then after that, we went through a season there and I felt like I had sort of reached what I needed to learn from that particular mentor. And then I went on and I actually started doing mentoring with the chiro of all people. And I reckon that the start of that for me, that was a paid thing, but I reckon the ROI on that was like 50 to one, like honestly ridiculous amount of ROI. And that's just because he suggested some simple changes to me that I just hadn't thought of and I implemented them and they worked.

Jack O'Brien: It works if you do the work, right? So how do you get the most out of a mentor?

Caleb Gray: Well, firstly, it starts just turning up and doing the work. So I think it's not just a conversation at the end of the day. Like I go in and I think two things, like I think I go in with like, what do I need out of my mentor? Is there a question, am I struggling with a certain area? And I sort of go in with a list, like this is the outcomes that I need to achieve from the session. And I think that helps because like, I mean, any good mentor would do it too. I think guys at Clinic Mastery are amazing at this and that's sort of why I stuck with Clinic Mastery in the end. I'll get to that soon, but if you go in with what you need solved, it helps the mentor. sort of bring in, because they know a lot, but like you need to hone in on this one area, not like touch on these other random bits of the clinic journey.

Jack O'Brien: But focus is a real key. And it's like knowing what I want to get out of this session. I think it's an important key because we often have clinic owners, and I'll speak with them, just podcast listeners or part of the community. They're like, I want to take in everything. It's like, well, you don't need everything. You just need one thing. for right now and then we move on to the next thing. But it's almost like it has to be sequential rather than in parallel. We'll come back to some of that coaching and mentoring stuff. But when it comes to Click, what are you most proud of? Now, we're a few years down the track. Feel welcome to speak to specifics or not. Keep it as vague or as general as you want. But yeah, what are you really proud of?

Caleb Gray: I think the biggest thing that I'm proud of, like two things, the biggest thing is my team, uh, and seeing the development with my team. Like, I think. One of the things that I thank God for that probably comes a little bit naturally to me is a leadership ability. And I think seeing the team start to grow and thrive is something that I enjoy the most about clinic ownership. I enjoy the impact secondary that we can make on our community. That's probably number two, uh, best thing for me. So yeah, I think as the team grows, it's amazing to see just the culture that's taking shape. Um, the friendships that are made, like seeing people that were once not great at a certain skill and now are amazing at that skill. Um, and being able to impact people along that journey that I think the team is. The people I rubbed shoulders with the most, and I think of all the team, but like in particular, my practice manager at the moment, like seeing where she started and where she is now and being able to impact that has been just incredible.

Jack O'Brien: I love that because we are in the people game. Clinics don't thrive without people. I'm sure there's been some challenges on the human front. Is there any particular lessons that come to mind maybe around recruitment or letting people go or having difficult conversations? What lessons come to mind?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, I think firstly, for me, I will hire quickly and fire quickly. And I think that sounds really blunt, but it is probably the biggest thing. A staff member that's, I know you guys have mentioned before, like Jim Collins analogy of like being on the right seat in the bus is incredibly essential. And I think if you get that wrong, it can really impact team culture and it can impact where the business is going. So I think, yeah, there's been a couple of times where I've had to either rearrange seats on the bus or have those difficult conversations. I probably let one of them go on a bit too long. Um, thankfully it wasn't ages, but even still, I think I probably could have gone on that a bit earlier. And I think like two things, like when we came to that decision, it, it helped. That the team person who wasn't in the right seat, it helped them thrive and it helped the business thrive because now we've actually got the people where they need to be.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. So I'm going to double click on that pun intended. Uh, you said like higher fast, uh, higher fast, fire fast. That maybe goes against conventional wisdom, a little bit of higher slow, fire fast. Speak to your hiring. How do you think about recruitment? You've had a reasonable growth trajectory. How do you think about attracting talent, developing relationships, encouraging people to apply at your clinic and ultimately grow and thrive in your team? How do you think about that side of things?

Caleb Gray: Yeah, that's a really good question. I actually started thinking about recruitment on one of our conversations, the first one that we had where I first met you. We were talking, and this is coming back, I definitely want to give Clinic Mastery a shout out because you guys have probably been the most impactful in my mentoring journey, and that's obviously why I'm still with you. But I think that first conversation, you just said, where do you want to be? And I think it was two years at the time, I can't remember. And I told you and you're like, okay, so you're going to have to hire someone three months, every three months for the next two years or whatever it was. And I was like, I did not think of that.

Jack O'Brien: I do remember that conversation. Yeah. Cause it's all well and good for us to say like, Oh, I want to generate 2 million bucks a year or whatever that number is. It's like, okay, cool. That looks like. I think there's eight FTE therapists and you're currently at one and a half. So, we're going to need seven and a half FTE, which might be 10 humans with a little bit of part-time and yeah, it does maybe look like recruiting once a quarter for the next 12 quarters.

Caleb Gray: Yeah. So, I think on that note, Clinic Mastery says it all the time, but we are trying to always hire. I had an interview the other day with a new grad that reached out. Traditionally, we haven't hired new grads in the past. We've tried to look for people with more experience. But I wanted to sit down with him because one, he reached out, and two, we don't have a position. I just literally hired two EPs. But at the same time, I'm always looking for three months down the track. And that was the conversation with him. We don't have anything now, but maybe in a month, two months, we might. I didn't say hold your don't apply anywhere else, but it's kind of like, look, we are interested. And so I think that's sort of the model that I go off when I'm talking about hire quickly. We're not going to hire the wrong people, but it's more about, I think you need to prepare for hiring probably three to six months in advance of when you actually need to hire someone. For example, like our first hire was really quick. That was like, yeah, that was a story in itself. But the second hire took six months because we just, we did three rounds of seek. I couldn't find the right person. Um, I ended up doing some LinkedIn, like just DMing different people, um, and, and eventually got the right person for the job. So that wasn't necessarily a quick hire. Um, but I think, yeah, that's more what I'm talking about there.

Jack O'Brien: Makes sense. We often say that to clinic owners is you can all, not always, but it's often easier to find more patients. We can run the marketing. We can attract more patients. We can do things to fill someone up. But if you've got a good person who wants a job, it's like almost hire them before you're ready and then back yourself in to fill them over time.

SPEAKER_01: Okay. What about, have you ever wanted to throw in the towel?

Jack O'Brien: Like, is there a moment where you're like, I'm done. This is, I'm out.

Caleb Gray: Um, no, I'm probably one of the, one of the rare ones and maybe I haven't been in the game long enough. I've only owned a business for three years, so I'm sure that time might come, but yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm the guy that's like not really resonating with the, you guys did a episode lately on clinic struggles and like clinicians getting to that point. I haven't ever been near that point yet, and I'm sure it might come, but I've really enjoyed it. I'm thankful for that, that it hasn't been this crazy hard. Obviously, you've got to put the work in, and there's weeks where I work 60-hour weeks, et cetera, but I think because I've found what I really love doing, I haven't really considered that at all.

Jack O'Brien: It's actually a really interesting mindset, as you mentioned it out loud, mate, because If you have in the back of your mind, I've got a way out. I could just close the doors and go and get a job at the hospital. It changes the way you lead or the way you show up to make business decisions where if you're thinking like, there ain't nothing that could force me to quit this game. You're going to have to carry me out of here in a box type thing. It shapes the way you think. I would encourage clinic owners to not obviously run it through your own filter and make your own judgment calls, but don't hedge your bets and go, I could just go and get a job somewhere else. If you're on the fence, I know a lot of us when we're starting our clinics, we keep a job for a day or two a week. As quickly as you can, get your practice to a place where it sustains you and then go all in. That's where you see the returns and the exponential growth over time. What's in store for you? Is there a big grandiose vision or is there any particular giving goal that you're working towards? What are you doing this all for?

Caleb Gray: I just love the game. I know you guys have said similar before, but it's true. We do have a vision and we are going somewhere. The vision is five clinics in five years. We're in year number three now. We've got one and a half clinics if I count the one that I'm third owner in. That's our goal. We want to double year-on-year for five years if we can. It's going to be a bit of a stretch, but we'll see. We're pretty close so far, which is awesome. And I think the purpose of that is we want to impact the community. I think the clinic where we're in North Brisbane at the moment has been just amazing seeing the impact that we can have on the community. And I want to multiply that impact. I want to see physio done really well across the area. And I think we have the tools and the skill set to do that. I think part of that, we work with Compassion as well, so we're working closely. At the moment, the goal is 10% profit. We'll go back to Compassion. We've sponsored nine kids now, and it's going to be sweet to see that grow. I can't wait. Longer term there, I'd love to be able to bring the team over somewhere and visit some of the sponsor kids or just some of the areas that Compassion has worked in as well.

Jack O'Brien: Amazing, mate. That's so good. Thank you for your contribution to community. Just on that, you've mentioned community a lot and you mentioned your faith. How do you infuse some of those values in the day-to-day way you show up or in the way Click operates? How do you infuse some of those values? Yeah, belief systems into what you do.

Caleb Gray: Well, our slogan is hope through movement. So everything that we do is to provide hope to patients. And even if you don't profess in a faith yourself, I think like any clinic or like clinician can uh, align with that because you, a patient walks in there at the most vulnerable time and we really get to impact them at that point. Give them hope. There's a way out of this. There's a way forward. And, uh, one of our core values is building healthy people. We want to make sure that people are healthier in every way, in every, in their mind, in their body, everything, when they walk out compared to when they come in.

Jack O'Brien: So good, mate. Thank you. Yeah. Again, thank you for what you do locally and globally, obviously. Let's move into some advice piece and as we land this plane, what would you say? Is there a couple of different types of clinic owners that are probably listening along? There's the one who hasn't yet started their business and thinking about stepping out and opening their own private practice. There's ones maybe closer to your stage where some of that friction points of This isn't just an owner-operator gig anymore. We're starting to build something substantial. But for that first listener thinking about starting their business, what advice have you got?

Caleb Gray: I reckon, yeah, get a mentor early. I think that's the biggest thing. Be open to having your thoughts and the way you think things should run. Be open to having that challenge. And be flexible and adaptable. I think as well, if you're not opening a clinic yet, the biggest number one area of research that you can be doing is marketing. Because if you can't market yourself or your clinic, you will never grow. I once heard, oh, who's the guy? It'll come to me. It's the guy who made ClickFunnels. Anyway.

Jack O'Brien: Russell Brunson.

Caleb Gray: Russell Brunson. Yeah. Yeah. He, he once said marketing was the most important job in the world. And I was like, what, whatever. Like there's doctors, there's lawyers. Like I can think of heaps of it. Maybe not lawyers. But then, but then when I thought about it, I was like, actually, yeah, like you could have like a life changing, whatever it is, drug service. And if you didn't know how to get the message out there, like it might over years, but like you can super expedite that process. So I think get good at marketing. Like that's the, the number one skill that you can carry as a business owner.

Jack O'Brien: get good at marketing. I'm going to shoot my shot. There's some clinic owners who are thinking about CM and on the fence. What would you say to them?

Caleb Gray: I would say do it. I'm not saying that because I'm invited onto this podcast, even though it's a big honor. I'm saying it because I think clinic mastery is some of the best people that I've rubbed shoulders with. I love that the culture and values align with my own, but more than that, I think having access to a community like Clinic Mastery, the previous coaches I was with had a skill set and they had a place. The reason that I've stuck with Clinic Mastery is because there's like 20 or more coaches within the group. So you don't need to like find the next coach or do the next thing. You're constantly learning in the group. And the other thing that I really appreciate about Clinic Mastery is the resources that you have on file. The business dashboard and the breakeven, like two that has changed my business just available for people who sign up for the course or for the mentorship, whatever you call it.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah.

Caleb Gray: Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: Wait, version 3.0 of those is coming down the pipes. And I know you love a little bit of software dev and some AI and you dabble in it yourself on the side. What's coming with the rolling break even and P&L tools will probably even blow your mind and that's pretty high bar. Thank you, mate, for the kind words. Let's get back to maybe some business advice. Think of that clinic who's at that friction point. Maybe they've got a team that's growing and they're still figuring out on the tools, how do I lead a team? I've got to figure out this marketing stuff. What advice, whether it's practical business stuff or more personal in mindset, what advice would you have for that clinic owner?

Caleb Gray: I think at that stage of growth, the most important skill that you can develop is leadership. So if you're not reading leadership materials, I would highly encourage you to. I know Craig Rochelle and the podcast channel that he has, Alex Hormozy, they've been two big sort of leadership and slash business influences for me. But I think at that stage, like you said earlier, it's about people. And you need to be able to rally a team behind a vision and almost have them working with autonomy. I think the other thing that you need to get good at is delegation and not holding things too tightly. I can probably over-delegate at times. Like if you ask me how half of our admin is run, I don't know. And that's probably bad in itself. But I think there's a real… you're going to be the bottleneck unless you can get good at delegating. So that's what I'd encourage. Yeah. Sort of practices around my own size to, to get good at.

Jack O'Brien: That's awesome, mate. Hey, thank you. Yeah, really love hearing your story and your wisdom. For those who don't know, Caleb, you strike me, mate, as a giver. In Adam Grant's language, there's givers and takers, and you're such a giver. You're everywhere I look helping and offering experience or advice. So thank you for the contribution that you make to our community and to the broader physio and allied health community. It's seen, it's appreciated, and super. Super grateful for that. If people wanted to get in touch with you and maybe learn more about your clinic, ask you any questions, follow-ups from today, how do we find you on the line?

Caleb Gray: Just click Physiotherapy. If you Google that, you'll find our Instagram, our website. You can reach me through those sources. Facebook is another way. I think that's the easiest way.

Jack O'Brien: We'll make sure we link all that up in the show notes, folks, for Click Physio and for Caleb personally. But again, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Really appreciate it. No worries.

Caleb Gray: Thanks so much for having me. It's been really fun. You're welcome.