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.

Daniel Gibbs: Around our clinic, within a two-kilometre radius, there were 16 other podiatry clinics. At the time, we had to figure out a way to stand out.

Bec Clare: We demystify people who maybe haven't seen a physio before. How do we welcome them into our environment that feels like they don't necessarily have to purchase, but they want to purchase?

Daniel Gibbs: I prefer to think of it as colleagues, not competition.

Bec Clare: I've seen nothing but benefits and win-win-win come from the abundance mindset.

Jack O'Brien: Well, welcome back to another episode of the Grow Your Clinic Podcast. I am your host today, Jack O'Brien. We've kicked Ben Lynch out. We've brought in the big guns and the world is better when Ben's not on the podcast, at least for a week or two. With me today, our ever-present co-host, Bec Clare. Welcome, Bec. How are you?

Bec Clare: I'm great, thank you, Jack. I do think that Ben would be appalled by the colour scheme that we've got going. Daniel and I got the memo of the black Clinic Mastery uniform. I just don't know where we're heading with this today, Jack.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, look, I've decided. I'm not a fan of the monochromatic, drab, Soviet, just black on black. We're just going for a splash of colour. We're bringing back the, I don't know, it was the 80s, the 90s, and going full colour. Bec, on the weekend just gone, of course, it was AFL grand final weekend. Were you wearing purple or were you sympathizing with the Queenslanders?

Bec Clare: No, we, the whole house was decked out purple. Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, right. Even Crows fans can stomach supporting Frio?

Bec Clare: Yes, we'd much prefer that, actually. We want to see someone fresh in there, to the point that Audrey actually learned the Dockers song the night before. And so she was, but the Frio, we are the Frio Doctors is the new version of the song. We're not the Frio Doctors. The Frio Doctors, according to Audrey. Very cute.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. Well, actually, I'm surprised that you're mocking my colour choice because if my AFL trivia is on point, I'm wearing the Crows colours, am I not?

Bec Clare: Yeah, they've just got to be placed in a certain way though, Jack.

Jack O'Brien: Right. Okay.

Bec Clare: There's a certain aesthetic to the way that you blend those colours.

Jack O'Brien: Right, right. Okay, and joining us again today, the brand czar of Clinic Mastery, kind of like the border czar but taking care of our brand colors, style, the one who brings style to Clinic Mastery, the effervescent Daniel Gibbs, co-founder, founding director. Welcome, Daniel.

Daniel Gibbs: What an intro. How about that? I will remark though that you're Newcastle Knights jersey from 20 years ago before there was colour television. It's quite obvious that there was no colour television at the time.

Jack O'Brien: Nor was there fit. Like this is a very unflattering shape, but I can get past that. Well, Daniel, great. When was the last time you were on the podcast, Daniel?

Daniel Gibbs: Oh, a little while ago, but so good to be back. And are you nervous? Am I nervous? No, it's just chatting, isn't it? Unless you get nervous and I'll be nervous.

Jack O'Brien: Well, we are making it about you. Like, I wonder if you're nervous because Grace previously has chopped up the swan, the Daniel Gibbs swan. So maybe we could get that overlaid, the Daniel Gibbs head on the swan that's paddling. But yeah, something like that. All right. Well, we're talking all things client experience today and specifically, Bec, we're going to unpack a little bit of Daniel's personal story. So where shall we start? Daniel, shall we talk about your childhood or should we just jump to post-hippodiatry?

Daniel Gibbs: I was just jumped straight into posterior podiatry, I guess. So you're a podiatrist. Was there any particular reason you chose podiatry over physio? Missed out on physio. Sorry, the audio is just a bit laggy. Yeah, yeah. Missed out by, what was it, half a mark or something like that. And I originally wanted to do physiotherapy because I thought Who would want to work with feet? Who would want to actually admit to someone that they're a podiatrist? My mum was a physio and I thought that would be a respectable profession to take. But when I was at the Open Day, at UniSA here in Adelaide, which is now merged with University of Adelaide to create Adelaide Uni. I was convinced by the program manager there at the time that podiatry could be a good option. And the reason why is because we do first year with physio and if I got a good enough mark, I'd be able to switch over into physio in second year. We were treating people from week seven in the first year, Jack. It was very practical. And we were doing surgery in year two. And although I did get offered a place in physio, I said, nah, I'd like to do surgery, please. And so stuck with podiatry. I'm glad I did. It's a great profession and to all podiatrists out there.

Jack O'Brien: I admire podiatrists on a number of levels. I went and saw a podiatrist yesterday, a clinic owner here in Newcastle, part of our clinic owner community and he has a wonderful job. It really is and I am somewhat jealous of their ability to generate more revenue than physios but that's a different commercial consideration. Dan, yeah, talk us through post-stupidiatry and ultimately what maybe led to the origin idea for clinic mastery.

Daniel Gibbs: Yeah. Okay. So the headline story with posture podiatry, podiatrist here in Adelaide, we won a couple of awards and as a result of winning those awards, started getting some phone calls from people saying, how did you do that? Can you help us? And that essentially led to Clinic Mastery. But there's a story behind the headlines and that is that around our clinic, within a two kilometer radius, there were 16 other podiatry clinics. And at the time, we had to figure out a way to stand out. How do we stand out in such a crowded market? And we decided we wanted to be known for providing the best experience for all of our clients. And so we had to think of new ideas to do that. We borrowed from hospitality, we borrowed from other industries to figure out ways to show that we really create a great experience for clients. And we did things like renamed the waiting room our welcome room and we offered mineral salt essential oil foot baths and we did a selection of herbal teas and just little things like this that really sort of demonstrated we're here for the clients. We then realized in doing this, in order to do this consistently, we had to have good systems and policies and procedures in place. Uh, we needed to make sure that there was a great team aligned with that purpose of providing a great experience as well. Uh, and by aligning the team with that vision, you know, that sort of saw them thinking beyond the four walls of the clinic. With consistent services, service delivered consistently every time, uh, the business was recognized with some awards, uh, cause it did pretty well. And, uh, and that's sort of what led to the idea for Clinic Mastery and what we're doing now.

Jack O'Brien: So I'm curious, Bec, for you when you think about differentiation because you guys are in the same city, it's a big city, but differentiation or other clinics, I heard it said recently like the physio in every corner. How, Bec, do you think about differentiation or when you're coaching clinics, what do you share with them around standing out?

Bec Clare: Yeah, it's a really great point and literally in Adelaide there is a physio on every corner. It is quite saturated. There's a couple of ways that I go about looking at this personally and what I share when I do coach and obviously in the Practice Leaders program as well where we're getting our admin teams together. They form such a significant part of how we can elevate the client experience. I think it's around ensuring that clients feel heard and that they feel seen. We can do all of the mineral salt baths, all the herbal teas, but if we come back to some of the core needs for people is they want to be seen, they want to be heard, and it's in our consistency of our execution that's also really important. And what I like to think about as well is how can we be really great at what we do? And so one of our core values as a clinic is we are world class. And part of that being world class is to take from other industries and Understand what those experiences look like and why they look that way and not necessarily look sideways at the clinic next door to us and what they're doing and do we need to outmatch that, that thing. Broaden our horizons, look up and look at what other industries are doing because I, in the end, I also think there are plenty of knees, backs, hips to be treated here in Adelaide. We just actually need to be really good at what we do.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, so on that, I guess I'm thinking about the tree that falls in the forest, right? You can pursue world class is probably what I'm thinking. Or you can, in fact, be world class, but if you don't tell anyone, then no one will know. How do you think about communicating that or putting that on DisplayBic?

Bec Clare: Yeah, so we put ourselves forward for awards. We've just been named the best physio clinic in the city of Salisbury, so that's a collection of 30 suburbs. We're a finalist in the Greater Adelaide region for being the best physio clinic, so we nominate ourselves and we put ourselves out there and we talk about the things that we do really, really well because you get that outside sort of gratification, I guess, or that acknowledgement that you can then put on your socials, you can put it on your website.

Jack O'Brien: Just on that, does it feel self-gratifying? I'm thinking about clinic owners who are listening along going, I could never apply. for that award. That feels awkward. Bec, I'll get your take. And then Dan, you've obviously won National Telstra Business Awards, multiple finalists, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, Bec, how do you feel about this self-gratuitous, like, I'm going to nominate myself for awards?

Bec Clare: It really felt awkward to begin with, honestly, I will say that. And it wasn't until I won the Telstra Businesswoman of the Year Award in 2020 in the Emerging Leaders category that I actually understood what winning an award could do. And so when you're on the other end of it and you see the the momentum that it can give you and the doors and the conversations that it can open, it's really awesome to be allowing yourself into those other spaces. And if you're doing a good job at something, why wouldn't you talk about it? Why wouldn't you put yourself up to have someone see you do something great? The first one's super awkward. It feels really hard. Um, and then you start to get into a bit of a groove. Um, and also your team should be really proud. Our team, After winning the award this week for Salisbury, our team got around it and it really created an awesome buzz that externally people were recognizing the good stuff we were doing.

Jack O'Brien: Daniel, what about for you? How do you think about those feelings of self-gratuity?

Daniel Gibbs: For me, it wasn't so much about winning the award, but it was about going through the process. And I think that validation that you get from external voices who are looking at your clinic, it helps to plug holes in your knowledge, you know, through the business audit, for example. Do you have an induction process that covers these seven things? We do now and that sort of helps with structuring the business in a way that maybe would look good for an award. So I don't think really so much about winning the award or being a finalist. That's great if that happens but really even if that happens, the real work begins after that because you do need to get out of your own way to actually market the fact that you've won the award.

Jack O'Brien: So, the process of going to be an award-worthy business was the value for you, wasn't necessarily, I'm pursuing the award, I want to be a business worthy of an award.

Daniel Gibbs: We talk about this in other respects, you know, when it comes to building a clinic that is ultimately saleable. If you're building a clinic that someone else would want to buy, then it represents a clinic that, you know, is healthy. And so, what are those markers of health that would be in a clinic? You know, it's not reliant on the owner. it's benchmark performance, it's profitable, it's good longevity with the team, there's a cultural element that's healthy, clients are being well looked after, they're getting good outcomes, good reviews, good feedback, all of that. And so if you've got a business that is functioning well to the point where someone might want to purchase it, then that's a great place to get to when you're creating a business. And so it's just another benchmark or another avenue to go down. If you could be considered for awards or just going through the process of applying for awards, you can discover where those holes are or where there's opportunity in your business.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, that's really, really good insight. For clinics listening along, there's a key action. Look at the awards around you, maybe your local business or Telstra Business Awards or others, and think about applying for them. So Daniel, back to your journey and your story, what happened at Posture Podiatry when you won the Telstra Business Award?

Daniel Gibbs: It's a good question because not much. We got the award and then went back to work the next day and a great gala dinner and everything that went with it but it's sort of why I say the real work happens once you've won the award so they give you brand assets that you can use so you can put it on your email signature, you can put it on your website and just little things like that. But you actually have to do that, which means getting out of your own way to do it. And so, I don't know if you can see behind, we've got some business awards up here for clinic mastery and small business champions award. for best business consultancy. And then we've got the 2022 Telstra business award as it's where everything came through full circle, but that wouldn't mean anything if you don't actually have it on display or doing anything. So what we had to discover was what is the what is the purpose for the award and how are we going to work that into what we do for the business. And so using the award as a platform for starting Clinic Mastery was essentially how we ended up going. When people started saying how did you do that, they wanted I found myself being flown to different cities to talk on a stage about what happened with the awards and then from there questions come and how did you do that? Can you help us? And being open to the opportunities that come as a result. I was originally inspired, Jack, by Ted in North Adelaide who had his clinic, the Foot and Leg Center. And Ted won the same award back in 2006. And it was our turn in, I think it was 2014 when we won it. But really there was not much in the way of healthcare represented in awards like that. But I did remember what happened at Ted's clinic and he was a master at marketing the award and huge signs out the front of the clinic. He took his treatment room outside, so people were lining up outside to treat, so it looked like there was a real buzz outside his clinic. And there was sort of ripples through the podiatry profession about, oh, Ted won that award. And that essentially became my motivation to go, I want to see how we would go in that awards program, which is why we did it. But coming back to what we're all about in terms of client experience, if you think about what is the real purpose for what we do as health professionals, we're here to help clients. And what is the way we can best help clients is through building good rapport. Clients won't essentially let you help them unless they like you. And we all have stories of bad experiences with certain health professionals, doctors, specialists, whoever it may be. I don't want to rag on those professions at all. But if we were to whiteboard and if the listeners are thinking about what is it about a bad experience that you might have had at these places, it could be that the waiting room is dirty. It could be that the magazines were out of date. It could be they were late or rude or dismissive or didn't answer the phone or whatever the case may be. But none of this is to do with the skills and expertise of the practitioner. These are all things that are to do with the experience. And so we thought, just like in the, in tradie world, if an electrician came to your house and left a mess, You would go, huh, I'm not going to get them back. Why not? Well, they left a mess. You may not understand all the great work they can do with all the wiring in the walls. They could have done perfect runs. They could have done really good technical work, but they left a mess. You understand mess? Mess is not good, so the electrician's no good. And that's just how our brain works. When people have a great experience and they link that to the service that you're providing, they go, wow, that was a great cup of tea. You must be a really good podiatrist. It's irrational, but it's human. Absolutely. And the first time we heard that, it was kind of like mind-blowing. Oh, you must be really good podiatrists if you serve this quality tea. And so, essentially, all of this was about building rapport so that we could then do the best that we could for the clients that we had, which then leads them to an ideal health outcome, which then, ultimately, they achieve their goals for treatment and we achieve our goals for them.

Jack O'Brien: It's really interesting. Bec, I think you've talked about the design of the first impressions of your spaces now and how it's open and where the doors and tables and desks and chairs and all that go. How do you think about crafting some of that initial first impression experience at your practice?

Bec Clare: Um, the way that we've come about the design of the clinic is how do we remove the barriers? Physical and metaphorical, right? So whether it be, um, they need to walk through a door, they need to walk by something. How do we create the most open and inviting place for them? We demystify people who maybe haven't seen a physio before and they might be apprehensive or scared. Um, how do we welcome them into our environment that feels like they don't necessarily have to purchase? But they want to purchase. So they come into that, they come into our environment and they're wowed by the care, the experience, our knowledge, all of those things, and then they look around them and they feel like it's a choice that they are making versus feeling like I have to do something. And so it's about walking through, and as Daniel said, walk through your client journey or your experience, particularly for a new client, as to what they see, feel, hear, smell, Be that new client in your clinic. Look at the flaws. Are they dirty? Look at the experience that they're receiving to the point that even walk through that experience as an online user. So look at how your online experience feels for a new client. Are there any barriers? to them actually appearing in your diary. So the way that we've, in summary, the way that we've shaped up our whole experience is let's remove all the barriers so that there isn't a reason for them not to book in.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. Very interesting. Dan, maybe I'm going to play adversary here and the skeptic that's listening along goes, ah, righto, righto, cups of tea and foot bath. Sounds a little pretentious, sounds a bit gimmicky. That's not going to resonate with our population or our client types. What would you say to those thoughts?

Daniel Gibbs: hundred percent, it might not. Um, it might not work for you. Uh, and, and that's okay. Uh, we were inspired by some stories in other industries and we wanted to look at tangible ways to help people feel like they, uh, yeah, feel like they were being well looked after, but there was a practical element to it too. So the reason we did herbal tea was because you don't ask someone, how do you have your tea? Because if you ask someone how you have your tea, there's 45 different ways to do it. And if you don't get it quite right, then you're going to miss the mark. So it needs to be an experience that's sufficiently different. And so what we did was we had the kettle that boiled the water to a particular temperature for the herbal tea, put the water in with the teabag and that's it. But then along with it, it's presentation. A little wooden tray, see-through glass with the pyramid teabag in there and a little tea timer to make sure that when the three minutes was up, the teabag comes out and it's there ready for them. It just made it easy. You literally put the teabag in and pour the water and that's it. With the foot baths, again, they were just easy. It was Epsom salts and a couple of drops of tea tree oil. Sorry, it was lemon myrtle oil in essential oil in a foot bath that had some marbles in the bottom. So it felt nice, it was warm, but the Epsom salts were great at softening the skin. And when you're at the podiatrist, Firstly, to walk into the podiatrist with clean feet. it was just, it's something that helped the client feel less self-conscious about their feet when they came in. But then also, skin's nice and soft and the podiatrist can do their work perhaps even a little bit more thoroughly and a bit more efficiently. So it actually contributed to the consult itself by doing that. And then there were other, it wasn't just tea and foot baths, there were other things that we did. Like even the serving of a glass of water We wanted to make sure that experience was amazing. So instead of, you know, water cooler in the corner, it's a, would you like a glass of water? We serve it in a nice glass. good water with a rolled up hand towel and some hand cream that they can take home. Why would you give someone hand cream next to a glass of water? Don't know. But if you pay that much attention to a glass of water, how much more attention is the perception that you're going to pay to their condition or to them? The other thing was around the nocebo effect. You got the placebo effect, the nocebo effect. So when someone has come to a place where they receive their treatment and they've seen, call it 20 different practitioners before, 20 different clinics before. The experience is very similar. You walk in, you get greeted, you fill in paperwork, you give the paperwork back, they say take a seat, you wait a bit, the practitioner comes out and greets them, brings them into the treatment. There's nothing really different. But if you can just do something that interrupts the expectation and adds to the experience, it opens up the door for them to think, oh, this place is different. Maybe it's here that I'm going to get the answer to my problem. And we often saw that quite a bit where people who had seen many practitioners before or many clinics before would come to see us and then just find that sense of, oh, I'm now open to something different, which would enable us to deliver that treatment plan or the recommendation because there was that element of rapport that was built very quickly on the first visit.

Jack O'Brien: I love it. There's a couple of quick cliff notes for listeners. Daniel spoke to the streamlining of crafting these experiences. You don't need 47 variables and tea with milk and sugar and blah, blah, blah. It's like, how can we make this consistent and easy and systemized for our team? Is there a way that we can incorporate the experiences into our clinical workflows or can it make our clinical workflows better? I think about even little things, psychology practices that pay a lot of attention to the smell or the scent of their environment and how that can have a psychological impact or de-threatening an environment where there's paediatrics and children involved. And then also, how can there be a clinical element to what's going on there? So that's really insightful, Dan. I really like it.

Daniel Gibbs: It could be as simple as a smile. As soon as someone walks in, the most beautiful thing they can receive is a smile and an acknowledgement. And carrying a smile can be enough to convey some sort of sense that this is going to be a different experience. It can be represented through the paperwork that people fill in, whether that's on an iPad or whether it's done before or whether it's there in the rooms. But you don't have to go to the nth degree on experiences to get an outcome and build rapport, which is to build rapport. It can be as simple as acknowledgement and a smile.

Jack O'Brien: It's a really good point because the point listeners is not that you start doing herbal teas and essential oil foot baths and removing all the physical barriers. That's not the objective, is to pick up these things. The point is to pick up the thinking behind these things and how can you craft an experience that patients feel appreciated, they feel seen and ultimately they value your care.

Daniel Gibbs: Talking about the thinking behind, Pete and Andrew at their clinic, PhysioFit, they employed a barista instead of a receptionist. And the idea there was if we employ someone behind the desk who has experience in hospitality, that's going to bring a new level of hospitality to the experience that the client's having, plus someone who can operate the coffee machine for them too.

Jack O'Brien: That's right. It's a good example of the thinking. Bec, let's shift gears a little bit and back to that point of differentiation. You said something, I'll paraphrase you a little bit, but you said there's always more shoulders or always more sore backs. Broadly speaking, how do you think about competition? That's a very open question, so interpret that as you will. Dan, I'll come to you later, but Bec, yeah, how do you think about, do you think about the clinics down the road or how do you think about competition?

Bec Clare: That's a really interesting one. It's one that has been a journey for me personally. Competition was something that was really threatening, particularly when I first actually joined Clinic Mastery. And based here in Adelaide, there's a physio in every corner, and guess who the other members were? Pete and Andrew, who run PhysioFit. And I was really challenged by the fact that we'd be sitting in the same room, we'd probably be sharing the same ideas, would we be implementing the same things? I felt like I couldn't openly share in this environment because they might steal my ideas. And I actually got to know Pete and AZ really well. We're now really good mates. And it's not about the competition and the way that I've been able to personally move through that is that if all of us are actually trying to elevate the experience for clients, elevate the outcomes for clients, it's going to lift the profession. And that's the ultimate goal, right? If we were to lift both how people access physio, the outcome that they can get, we all benefit from that. If you've been following along the APA's article in the last few months about what physios should be generating in revenue per hour, it's some figure that most clinics feel is way out of reach. But if we elevated the profession together, then that's absolutely what we should be looking to charge out in revenue and what we're worth as clinics. So I had a very unhealthy relationship with competition coming into the Cleaning Mastery community and now it's one of abundance. I actually very rarely look sideways at the clinics. If I do, it's to go, oh, they're doing something really cool. Well done them. How about what's on our 120-day plan right now? What do we need to do? Right now it's a big world class. What are our goals that we need to achieve? Because that clinic is doing that action because it meets their goals. It's not going to meet mine necessarily. And so really staying laser focused on what we want to achieve is where I've now come to with competition. And it's one less thing that I have to keep awake at night about.

Jack O'Brien: That's right. You get to choose how you sleep, right? Dan, what about you? You might be able to quote the stats of how many clinics are within a couple of Ks and ultimately, you went on to coach a clinic that was just around the corner. And the same was true for me. I remember as I joined the Clinic Mastery coaching team, I was coaching a clinic, running the Google Ads for a clinic that was 1.2 kilometers away from me, running the Google Ads in competition to myself because ultimately, it's not competition is how I see it. But yeah, how did that play out for you, Daniel?

Daniel Gibbs: Kind of see it as a game board. If you're on a game board, you've got to think, okay, well, where am I now on the game board? Where do I want to be? What's the outcome for the game? What are my markers of progress and who's the competition? And so it's not so much competition to say they're trying to stop you from getting to the outcome. But it's just knowing where they're at in relation to where you are, right? And that can be a great motivator. But I prefer to think of it as colleagues, not competition. You know, everyone's running their own game. Everyone's on their own journey. And you can teach the same thing to two different people and it will be applied completely differently within their own context. You know, there were times when coaching companies would look at postcode restricting and that was a scarcity play to make sure, you know, help people to sign up or whatever it might be. But the simple fact is you can apply so many different things to make a clinic better. And it's just the outcome of what you're looking to do on the game board. And business is lonely enough. You know, why isolate yourself even more by looking at the people around you as competition? You know, there's so many opportunities for networking, for getting together with things. And you know, people say, I've got this great idea, but I don't want to share it with anyone in case they steal it. The thing is, the idea is one thing. It's actually implementing, it's actually bringing it to market. That's the key. Um, business is lonely. Be part of a community where you've got other business owners around you. Um, either create that community yourself or get into one. And something we do with Clinic Mastery, especially in the Slack community when people share resources, take the resource, make it better, then share it back. And, uh, and that way we all get to share in the, in the expertise that everyone brings to the table.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, okay. Again, I'll play, I don't like the phrase devil's advocate. I'm going to play adversary for a minute. Dan, talk to us like about the comparison of a finite versus an abundant mindset. You know, there'll be a clinic owner listening along who's a bit skeptical and so like just help them along the journey, Dan, where they go, yeah, but if I lose a patient to that clinic, I lose and they win or the recruitment game and it's this fixed mindset versus abundance. Can you speak to that a little bit, Dan?

Daniel Gibbs: Yeah, I mean if no one, if you're in the arena of MSK and you deal with people who have injuries, if all the injuries that are ever to be had have been had and there are no more to happen, then okay, play that game. You need a slice of that pie of anyone who's injured currently. Similarly, if all the practitioners that have ever been trained and coming to the market have been trained and that's it, there are no more coming to the market, go ahead, play a finite game. But the reality is. In that space, there are always going to be people who need help and there are always going to be new practitioners coming to market as well. And the point there is just understand where you sit in the market, who is your ideal client, who is your ideal team member and find a way to match your service with where they're at. And if you can reach your ideal clients, let them know about what you do, and they can find you in some way, then there you go. But as much as people are with other practitioners or whatever the case may be, there are so many more out there that just don't even know you exist.

Jack O'Brien: I like that because it's like I don't have to lose for someone else to win or someone else doesn't have to lose for me to win. We can both win. We can all thrive and that notion of like a rising tide lifts all boats. Bec, you've obviously, as you mentioned personally and I've observed personally, you've grown into this. I'm curious maybe what the Has there been any side effects or outcomes of this like abundance approach and collaborating with other colleagues rather than fearing competitors? Has that played out from maybe a client attraction perspective, maybe recruitment or collegiality, camaraderie when the going gets tough? What's been the consequence of adopting this abundance mindset?

Bec Clare: I've probably had all three of those outcomes. You know, when the chips are down, who are the top five people who I would call? Probably the people who I originally viewed as competition, because they get me and they get it. And so having that community has been so, so powerful. From a recruitment perspective, there might be times where I interview someone and I go, this is a really awesome person, but they are not right for us. And so I point them in a direction where I know that they're going to thrive. And equally, I've been on the receiving end of, hey, this person wants this. We don't have a role available at the moment. I know that you do. So it's being able to create that community. So I don't necessarily need to be advertising and I could have a really great candidate come across the threshold because we're working together to find the right people for each other. And then when it comes to clients, I've been a client myself at PodFit. So whenever we don't offer podiatry, they're multidisciplinary, so we send our clients there. And we just have a mutual respect for what that looks like and how we can then work together. Um, and I think it's respecting those relationships and ensuring that we're both on the same page about how we view competition. But as you say, Jack, like the rising tide lifts all boats and I've seen nothing but benefits and win, win, win come from the abundance mindset. Um, and as it, as to Dan's point, business is lonely. And when it's, it's great. when it's going well and at times you want to celebrate with others who get how big pressing play on that set of ads was that you felt really scared about doing or how great it was to sign that lease. You want to celebrate those moments, but equally when the chips are down, you want to be able to call someone who can just sit with you in that moment and understand what it is. Yes, they might provide you with some solutions, but they can also just sit and get it. You don't almost need to say anything. You can say, this happened. Oh yeah. Okay. I got you. And I think that's, what's been really important.

Jack O'Brien: Interesting. Daniel, like let's play on this scarcity mindset or feelings of scarcity. You know, we're talking about this globally, but if we come in a little bit more specifically, you have conversations with clinic owners every day who are thinking about making big changes or big decisions. And rightly, rather wrongly, but let's say rightly, they've got some fears or anxieties, uncertainties. What if it doesn't work? How do you encourage clinic owners to address these feelings that pop up of scarcity?

Daniel Gibbs: Something maybe to keep front of mind is if you knew you couldn't fail, would you go ahead and do it? What do you mean by that? Well, I think people, when you talk about scarcity, if you talk about implementing new things and you think, oh, is this going to work? You know, if you knew that it was going to work, would you do it? And often the case would be, yeah, of course. If I knew it was going to work, of course I'd do it. So the fear actually exists in uncertainty. And we're all going to experience uncertainty at some point. And some people may rise to the challenge of uncertainty and think of ways through it, and others might be swallowed up by the uncertainty and wait or delay and ultimately do nothing. But, uh, if we think about what makes us comfortable, like what makes us uncomfortable, the, uh, our, our growth comes through discomfort. And so doing things that are out of the ordinary or being inspired to do things from, you know, ideas or stories from different, um, different industries to be able to think about how could we do something different, uh, to make this happen. I think of, um, the book Unreasonable Hospitality, uh, by, uh, Will There it is. Yeah. Great book. And so essentially he wanted his restaurant to become the top restaurant in the world. And so he, the book talks about what they implemented to make that happen. And, you know, we can all go on that journey in our own clinics to make it as Again, back to that game board. What is the outcome? The outcome for everyone might be a bit different. For us, we wanted best client experience and we wanted people at the dinner table to be talking about their experience with a podiatrist because how many people talk about their experience with a podiatrist? Probably not many. But we wanted, our idea was dinner table conversations, right? And so if we create an experience that made people go, wow, and then they were talking about it at the dinner table and then someone else says, oh, my podiatrist doesn't do that. Maybe I should come and see yours. You know, that's, That was one way of getting the word out. I think the biggest challenge for Jack was getting the team on board. Not that they were resistant, but if anyone's skeptical on this, they might be thinking, oh, I could have all these ideas, but there is no way in my current context that any of the team members will be willing to do this because they're busy as anything already. They don't understand why this extra work is going to make a difference. They're not even my team, you know, they're contractors or they might be a receptionist for the center that you're consulting at. And so it might all sound like a great idea, but there's all these roadblocks to actually implementing this. Um, and so there are ways through that and there are ways around that, but I get it. Like, you know, it's, it's very easy to go, oh, this isn't going to work for me. But there are things you can do even as a practitioner to make sure you're building rapport. Uh, and it could be as simple as seeing people on time, um, sticking to what you say you're going to do and do it. Um, recommending good treatment plans, making sure you're booking ahead, uh, all of those little things that really inspire rapport in the client that you're seeing.

Jack O'Brien: Speaking of clients and clinics, I'd love you both to just quickly think about a clinic owner that you've interacted with recently that's doing cool things or is overcoming challenges. I'm thinking at the moment, and this is a bit of a segue, but for listeners, we want to make sure that you know this isn't just cerebral. This isn't just a lovely idea for a podcast. We are in the trenches every day, every week. coaching clinic owners. We've welcomed so many new clinics to our community over the last couple of weeks. So many new clinics are jumping on Allie and this is real-world practical stuff. I'm thinking about a speech and OT clinic owner who is thinking about some of the challenges that are facing our community at the moment, the award changes, which happen in 10 hours, folks, the award changes at the time of recording. They're thinking about the NDIS changes, they're thinking about recruitment and all these challenges that are coming. This clinic owner rightly jumped on a coaching call with me this week and she said, Jack, it's time to double down. I could hesitate and pull away or I'm going to double down. What do I need to do? Where do I need to focus? And specifically, we talked about her social media strategy. How can she double down on content that speaks to the ideal client and content that speaks to the ideal applicant? How can we create reels and carousels and how can we maybe look at getting the skills of younger people in the clinic or in the community to help with content? How can we make sure that the filming process is streamlined, using tools like ClipFlow? We love the software called ClipFlow for social media stuff. But ultimately, the mindset for this clinic owner wasn't head in the sand or wasn't desperation. It was double down. And I love that. That's someone that we know. We have a high degree of confidence that if you do the work, it works. And so I love that. Bec, is there any clinic conversations that come to mind recently for you?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Working with a member, Speech and OT Paediatric Clinic in Far North Queensland. She's doubling down on her onboarding process for her new hires. but also has found recruitment challenging to date. And so we're working through, uh, her ads, how they're worded, where they're placed, how she gets in front of people that are not looking and she's done the work and she's getting the applicants, uh, and she's interviewing. And I just love the, the energy and the tenacity that she's putting behind it. And she's seeing it turn around in a very short period of time.

Jack O'Brien: That's awesome. Execution, right? It's not just a coaching idea, but it's getting the work done. How about you, Dan? You're speaking with clinic owners most days, these days. What's coming across your desk?

Daniel Gibbs: Yeah, a couple of clinics that are doing fit-outs at the moment, and the challenge was to think about how could we create an experience where we're thinking about the flow of the clients through the building, and what would it look like if there was no reception desk? Because the receptionist can be quite a big behemoth. It can be a real guard, a barrier between the client as they come in and the receptionist there. Is there a way that something could be designed to have a real sort of open experience for them in, you know, without needing a reception desk? Um, that, and, and so it's thought provoking, you know, what is it about the experience that's important, et cetera. Um, but, uh, but yeah, that was one of the things that they're looking at, uh, and others that are going through the stages of being solo, uh, to, to then growing their business and having team members on board. Uh, their diary is completely full team members, rather empty. And so, uh, going through the transition of. coming off the tools and focusing less on the clients in the business and more on the team in the business. And through that, discovering that actually they are building a recruitment and training organization. And that recruitment and training organization recruits and trains amazing therapists to then take care of the clients, clients take care of the business, the business takes care of the business owner, and putting their attention where it's needed, which is on that recruitment and training.

Jack O'Brien: I love the things that you both touched on there, right? Because they're not overnight magic potions. It takes time to build a clinic that doesn't depend on the owner. It takes time to build a recruitment hub and ecosystem. But when you do the work, it works. As you mentioned, Bec, kind of like overnight success, right? It takes years to build. They're getting applicants come through. Dan, spending time on the fit out ultimately leads to fruit that lasts as it pertains to client experiences. And as you were sharing that, Dan, it triggered something in me that we need to remind or share with our listeners and watchers in particular. If you're listening but you haven't watched, you need to head over to YouTube and grab the podcast over on YouTube. We're looking here at our Clinic Mastery website, www.ClinicMastery.com. A new feature here is in and around our partners. You can see partners up in the menu. You head to our partners here and we've got so many deals, Dan, Bec, so many deals for members and the broader community. that you might not know about. And so, Dan, when you mentioned fit outs, what immediately came to mind for me was our partnership with Rainy Financial. These are finance brokers that help clinics with fit outs. They help clinics with mortgages for property. They help clinics with finances for motor vehicles, both personally and professionally. You can get personal finance or you can get you know, equipment finance, fit out finance, all of those things happen. So that's a great example. Make sure you get in touch with us. We'll connect you personally and make sure that you get looked after. There's a bunch of featured partners here and then there's dozens of categories and dozens of other partnerships here. Some of these have special deals or unique codes that you can jump on and so make sure you head to clinicmastery.com and find our trusted partners. You'll see heaps of them here and There's plenty more to come. So, head to clinicmastery.com and the same is true for all show notes, links, time stamps, coupons, anything that you could potentially want is over at clinicmastery.com/podcast or you can email me, no AI in this inbox, jack at clinicmastery.com and I would love to have a human conversation. Bec, Daniel, it's been fun. Should we invite Ben back?

Bec Clare: Does it mean that we lose the Guernsey, Jack?

Jack O'Brien: I'll lose the jersey, yes.

Bec Clare: Done. He's back.

Jack O'Brien: We'll have him back, we'll have him back, our fearless leader, Daniel Bec. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Listeners, thank you for joining us and we look forward to bringing you another episode again really soon. Bye for now.