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. This episode will be right up your Allie if you're looking to build systems that actually make your clinic run better and not just sit in a folder somewhere. We're diving into where to start, what's worth systemizing, and how to make it easy for your team to actually use. Plus stick around for when we discuss how AI and tools like Allie are changing the way we create, find, and use systems in the clinic.

Jack O'Brien: We all have a practice management software, but we often don't have a practitioner management software. How do we manage our practitioners?

Ben Lynch: I've got so many documents and so many systems and so much of the barrier that we've all heard is the clinic owner that says, well, I need it to be fully built before I start sharing it with my team.

Bec Clare: Document versus create. So the next time you go to do that task, screen share, hit record.

Ben Lynch: We want to add some value as we navigate through the playbook section here, the know-how section of your business, Physio West, that we're seeing on screen.

Jack O'Brien: I would say as a clinic owner, don't answer questions. Point to Allie, which answers questions.

Ben Lynch: 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 organized 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 hello@clinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It's episode 382. I'm Ben. I'm back with Bec, and I'm back with Jack. And The other day, I had a conversation with a clinic owner that's just like, I've got so many documents and so many systems, they're scattered everywhere. And I want my team to follow them because essentially I want them to treat like I do, like give clients the best possible journey in their care. I want them to understand how everything works so that I'm not always the bottleneck, they're not always asking me questions. And so I want to unpack that with you, not only about like creating systems in the business, but actually how do you get people to use them? Because I think that's actually the problem to solve for, not the creation piece, especially in the advent of tools like Allie or ChatGPT or Claude. It's like those things are pretty quick and easy to do. But it's actually how do you get people to use them and get the desired outcome. So I want to unpack it with you, Bec, especially because you're a systems thinker. Before we unpack that, though, JRB, is there anything of note, notifications-wise, for folks tuning in before we dive in?

Jack O'Brien: There is a lot. I will say if you don't yet follow Allie on Instagram, now is the time to do so. There is a bunch of fresh content coming down the pipes. Oh, there's just a lot of cool tools that we're talking about across Allie and Clinic Mastery from Preve through to Avar. We're looking at Colabs with ClipFlow, wonderful software. There's kind of things in the works happening. So what you'll find, folks, is maybe by the time this recording goes live, you can go to clinicmastery.com, our website, and find the Trusted Partners section. You'll be able to navigate to it and you'll see a whole host of as the label suggests, trusted partners. We work with brokers who can get health professionals unique finance deals for your mortgage, car loans, fit-out loans, business acquisition purchases. It's like naming your children, right? Once you start, you got to get through all the names, but there's a number of wonderful partnerships. As I mentioned, Preve and Ava are two primary ones that we want to highlight, but a number, so head over to clinicmastery.com and find the trusted partners.

Bec Clare: Jack, what I love about our Trusted Partners and the energy particularly that you've been putting into the showcase for them is that you've done all the work to find who it is that's best, that's out there in the industry, that's moving, that's adapting to change, and then you just link us with the right people. So I just get on the bandwagon with our Trusted Partners and it feels like life's a whole lot easier. So I want to shout you out and say thank you for finding all of the Trusted Partners we now use.

Jack O'Brien: Thank you. And you know, I'd say folks, we're transparent where there is relationships, but ultimately we wouldn't recommend something that we don't use ourselves. And so we test these, we trust these, many of our team, many of our members already use a bunch of these tools. And again, whether there's a relationship or not, we would recommend good products from good people to the good people of Clinic Mastery. So it's all about the product value for clinic owners, and that's who we trust.

Ben Lynch: Speaking of good products, Allie is one of those products that you should check out in your clinic. And not to put too much of an emphasis on it, but it is one of those tools ultimately to help get an outcome. And that outcome is, how can you empower more of your team to take the reins, especially in your absence? talked about going on a five-week international holiday and being able to have the team continue to run the business, despite some turbulence, of course. You had a couple of resignations, which we spoke to, and how you quickly turned that around. But one of the key things in being able to allow you to step back, whether that's the clinic owner that's looking to just take a half day a week or a full day a week, or work remotely, or step into a new role as clinic owner rather than clinician, They need to be able to have good systems in place. And what we find is that there's a couple of scenarios. The clinic owner that goes, everything's kind of in my head. The clinic owner that goes, I've got a version of these things, but they're scattered. Maybe they're out of date. Maybe there's duplicates and there's no real source of truth. And then the clinic owner that says, I've got everything, it's super organized, but my team don't use it. And maybe they fit in one of those three brackets broadly. I kind of want to touch on all of those areas. And notably, the conversation that I was having with a member just the other day was, I've got all this stuff, but I need to organize it and make it super accessible to my team so that they ultimately use it. Stop coming to me to ask all these questions that I've already answered, that I've already documented how to do these things, especially the clinical ones, how to treat these certain conditions, how to run a new patient consult, how to run the follow-up consult, so on and so forth. So when you get posed with that question from a clinic owner that says, where do I start? I've got something documented, but where should I start? Is it clinical systems? Is it finance systems? Is it reception systems? How do you help them navigate from what feels like an overwhelming point and everything's a possibility and opportunity?

Bec Clare: That's a great question, and I guess it was the exact question I asked myself before diving into Allie. And the really great thing that I learned about Allie when we decided to go with this platform was that there was a whole lot in there already built. And that momentum that that gave us meant that we weren't starting with a blank page. I'm the type of person that cannot start with a blank piece of paper in front of me. I need some guidance to go, okay, this is great. And then some momentum where I'm like, oh, now I want to add this to Allie and this to Allie. become quite large and really quite significant for our team to the point that I know that Allie for us is also never finished. And so I'll share screen during our session today. You'll also see that there are a number of playlists that are a work in progress. Because I've gone, right, I need to get that bit into Allie, but I don't necessarily have time to build out the entire playlist category, but I need that one thing in there. So just do that. It's almost the start somewhere, knowing that Allie also has so much already pre-built. Jack, I think he might be on mute.

Ben Lynch: Jack's on mute. This is his first time using the platform. It's okay, Jack. We all remember our first time of using Riverside, too. There's a button there that just looks like a microphone, and when you tap it, it will mute, and when you untap it, it will mute.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, no, I appreciate you both, Gen Z, as helping out this millennial. I realize you're both a bit fresher than I am. But to look back to that, I think maybe, Benny, we were talking about this on a recent episode or we talk about it, I feel like I talk about it all the time, that to your point, Bec, that Allie's never done. If you're a clinic owner listening and thinking that I'm going to close this loop and I'm just going to do it once, you're missing the trick here. That's not how elite clinic owners think. Elite clinic owners know that this is a never-ending passion project of making those incremental improvements in your clinic over time. To think that you can set and forget something is incredibly naive. I mean, go and ask Blockbuster how that played out or Kodak how that played out. You cannot set and forget. Our job as clinic owners, what you signed up to, whether you knew it or not, when you started or bought into a business, You sign up to be a firefighter, putting out fires and solving problems in perpetuity for the rest of your days. And you get to get up every day excited to do so. And that's really what Allie is, is your opportunity to solve problems, create solutions and opportunities in perpetuity.

Bec Clare: Jack, the thing that I've discovered by using Allie so frequently and just adding to it, adding almost weekly, two things. Firstly, I've gotten my team now involved, so there's key team members in our leadership group who can be adding to Allie, so it's not just reliant on me building this. So if you've got people who can help you and maybe they're more systems sort of wired than you are. have them on board to help you build this thing. And the second is that unlike maybe a Google site or anything else, you can now set permission levels and just invite key people to key modules. So as we've gone through the process of setting up our Allie, I now have playlists that are just for my ops manager. I now have playlists that are just for our finance team so that That information that I don't necessarily want shared across the whole group is just for these key people, but they know where to look. And Ben, to your point about how do you get to ensure that your resource is not just gathering digital dust, is getting, moving everything, that this is where we go to now for our resources.

Ben Lynch: Irrespective of your role. There's so much, there's so much in there Bec that I want to double click on. Let's go to the team component. Just bring us into the room. What have your conversations been with your team in getting them to take on some of the ownership of building things out? Does that look like. Certain team members are focusing on certain areas, certain playbooks. Give us some of the high-level instructions, the authority to build and create that you've passed on to these team members. Because I hear the clinic owner saying, fantastic, wouldn't that be great to have team members jump in and start systemizing the business. That definitely reduces the reliance on me. So how have you guided your team to help you build and systemize your clinic?

Bec Clare: What I was hearing inside our clinic was that you'd jump into the Google drive and Ben, you'd call the document something, Jack, you'd call it something else. It was hard to find. And when they did find it, there were four versions of it. So which one was the one that needed to be looked at and referenced? So I was hearing a lot of that and I was like, okay, great. So there's people who are. Clearly enough to navigate our drive and find the documents. I need them to help me. The second part was that. We've built a culture of constant improvement in the clinic and we have people chomping at the bit who want to help us improve. And so I just put a shout out to our team and said, okay guys, we're going to be going down this pathway. We're going to move everything into a centralized spot. It'll be your one source of truth. Who would like to help me? You then get your early adopters who put up their hand, um, and the people who you probably already know who you're going to tap on the shoulder, but creating that culture where people are willing to volunteer for stuff is ultimately what we want to do. I might tap a clinician or a team member on the shoulder who maybe has a little bit lighter load to help, or they might be new to us so that they're learning. as they're building. So it really comes from a few different areas of what am I hearing my team say and how as a leader should I respond to that? I'll find a solution and they'll help me build it. And then put the word out that, hey, can you help us improve this? I'm wanting to make your life easier. I'm wanting to make it a great place to work where you can find all the tools really quickly. Help me build that.

Ben Lynch: J.O.B, you spoke about that it's a never-ending project of not only building, but maintaining what you've built as you systemize your business. One of the key problems actually to solve is this idea of adoption that as a business owner, as a leader, I can build out all these things, but if my team never see it, or they see it once and they never use it again, then it's not really, or it's unlikely it's going to get the traction and the impact that we intend for it to have. And so much of the barrier that we've all heard is the clinic owner that says why need it to be fully built before i start sharing it with my team so practically how do you coach and work with the clinic owner about creating adoption you know early and often.

Jack O'Brien: It probably comes back to your philosophy or values around leadership, and even more broadly, your identity, right? How many of us perhaps have maybe a subconscious guru complex that we must be the best clinician in our clinic? that we must be the font of all knowledge of systems and processes and the way that we think it should be done is the best way that it should be done. I'm guilty of these mindsets at times as well. I think, Ben, you joked on the phone recently, you're like, Jack, you seem to really adopt ideas that are yours, but you're really slow with other people's ideas.

Ben Lynch: It was like Jack's like, let's move quickly. Let's go. Let's go. I'm like, that's because it's your idea. You move quick. It's anyone else's idea. It's like, we need to slow down, pump the brakes, think about.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, you need to accelerate and to brake. I'm a chief sinner in this regard. We all need to think about how do we bottle the collective genius of our team? How do we encourage our team to be able to contribute drafts? that aren't polished. Pat Lencioni talks a lot about this, when we're generating ideas and avoiding groupthink and making sure that it's a Teflon-coated room, as Daniel Gibbs has often referred to, that it doesn't stick, that we can critique ideas and refine them and get better over time. I would say that it's an identity issue in the clinic owner first, and then a cultural values issue with how we operate as a team and ultimately you as the leader are responsible for that listener.

Bec Clare: Jack, I literally just jumped off the Practice Leaders program, where we get all of our high-level admin team members in the room from clinics across Australia, across the globe, and we talk about this stuff. And one clinic leader shared their decision-making framework on the call, and it was just golden. they have a policy in clinic of a two-way door. So if you can walk through that door and you can undo that decision, and it's not either going to cost money, there's not going to be significant ramifications for it, then the team are at liberty and encouraged and empowered to make that decision. If it's a one-way door, then it needs someone else in the team to maybe approve that, a mentor, a leader. It needs a conversation. But I've really liked the visual of that in terms of allowing and empowering our team to contribute to building these systems that are ultimately going to help progress us forward. So if it's a two-way door, why not let them, as an example, draft something and put it to you and you cast your eyes over it and see what it is that you like about it and what you'd change.

Jack O'Brien: I mean, that's the beauty of the internet, right, is that most things are written in pencil. Like there's an edit feature on every resource in Allie, like it's all editable.

Ben Lynch: And trackable as well. I think that's something that stood out for a lot of clinic owners is you're able to send a resource and give their digital signature to say, yes, I've read this. Now, hopefully they're not just clicking a button and not actually doing it. That speaks to a broader issue, perhaps with your culture, but the ability for you to be able to know, yes, everyone's up to date with the latest confidentiality policy, privacy policy, treatment plan, discounting policy, whatever it is, you're able to track that. I think two parts that come to mind in solving the adoption piece. that I've seen, I guess, be really easy and controllable for a clinic owner. The first is making it very outcome-driven. And so if there's an area in your business right now that you're working on, you're really focusing on, start there. So let's say for you, you're looking to recruit at the moment to open up more capacity to serve a waitlist. It's very clear that's kind of the key thing. Well, now would be a really good time to document your recruitment process that, Bec, you've spoken about recently in the pod of even the interview questions that you like to use, the, what is it, four or five step interview process that you use. What a wonderful way to take it out of, you know, Microsoft SharePoint, OneDrive, you know, Google Drive and put it into Allie and share that with your team so that they could start to recruit just like you. That's an example of where I would start with what's our playbook for hiring great practitioners. All right, let's do that. Let's publish that. Let's share it with the relevant team members. Or at least just have it there for you next time as you refine your process, because every opportunity in this example of recruiting I've always found, oh, gee, that was something that I didn't have documented in my system that I'll do next time. The second thing that I've found useful sort of extends upon that is making that outcome specific to a team member. I think team members will embrace change when they understand two things, the importance and the relevance of that change to them personally. The selfish version of this is, what's in it for me, with the crossed arms? It's kind of like, why should I care? But I think it's a really useful thing whenever we're implementing change, if you can just sort of document a couple of points of your own thinking, well, what is in it for this person if we start to use this tool or make this change? And so that can mean a number of different solutions are considered. But one in particular that I think we could jump to is some version of a career progression or career development plan for a team member. Whether that's over this month, this quarter, this year, perhaps they're working towards being able to change their caseload, progress from practitioner to clinical mentor, senior therapist, whatever the case may be, I'd love to be able to create and curate some systems, policies, training that they could consume to help them in that journey. So I think that's how you could create a playbook that has massive importance and massive relevance to them so they would actually follow through on it and consume it. In terms of that stickiness piece of the adoption, people log in once to any platform, maybe twice. They continue to use these things. Ultimately, we don't want people just reading policies, procedures, and training all day. They've got patients to serve. That's ultimately who's at the center of all of this. But these things help us know how to do it, how to do it well. if we get into trouble, how to troubleshoot. So what's your lens, Bec, on, hey, yeah, we want to have really good systems for how we do things, but not creating this massive admin burden where people feel like they're always having to read these docs, and that's really at odds with serving the next patient in the diary.

Bec Clare: And as you were speaking just then, you said, you reminded me of a playlist that I need to create in Allie, so I just did it. Recruitment. So it's in there now. Well, it's earmarked to be built. That's how quick you can take that action. I've got a template actually, sorry.

Ben Lynch: I've got a template for you, by the way, which I'll hook you up with. Love that. And members can message me if they want that template in Allie.

Bec Clare: Brilliant. To your question around how do you How do you not create a burden for your team?

Ben Lynch: Yeah. How do you balance this like need to document everything and feel like I've answered every question possible for my team without burdening them with all this stuff they feel they need to read and be across in it. It feels somewhat at odds with their core job, which is perhaps supporting the next consultation, the next appointment, the next unit.

Bec Clare: I try and drip feed the resources because you have the ability to control how they are shared is in their initial few days or few weeks, I will go, right, these are the modules that I'm going to drip feed to them. And then I'm going to keep layering and layering because the last thing you want to do for a new team member is they, they turn up day one and they open Allie and they're like, whoa, I'm never going to stuff. This is impossible. So how can you control that drip feed? Equally, our Allie is segmented into like patient categories. So I'm only sharing those patient categories with the team members who will be doing that work. So for our community care team, they've got all the modules that are geared towards them. They don't need some of the in-clinic modules and same vice versa. So it just controls how much they're needing to actually look at. The search function as well, just absolute gold. And that's where team members can jump in and, okay, I've, I need to find that sick leave policy. Great. Type it in and it's like a Google search of your Allie. So they can, they don't need to know where it is in Allie. They just need to know it's in Allie.

Ben Lynch: Yes. You said we're going to do a screen share. I'm really looking forward to this because I've seen parts of your Allie over time. I think many moons ago on the pod you shared, so I'm keen to see the progress. J.O.B, is there anything just coming to mind for you around this notion of clinic owners always say to us, I feel like I need better systems and processes. I'm not sure where to start. Ultimately, we want them to be effective, whatever you create and build. Do you find yourself going back to routinely when you're coaching a clinic owner, navigating, systemizing their clinic?

Jack O'Brien: We see clinic owners all the time get overwhelmed with this notion of systemization. It's like, just pick one, just like get started, make progress. And you'll see the opportunities over time, but it's all cerebral until you get your digital fingernails dirty in actually building a system or refining a system or using a template. So I'd say, don't think I need to systemize my whole clinic. It's like, what's one thing that frustrated me today that I need to fix? And like Bec, I mean, We all thought she was listening to you, Ben, that she's busy building something in Allie. And it was like, you know, whatever that was, 60, 90 seconds, done. So it doesn't, I think we get this like analysis paralysis or whatever you want to call it. We think about it too much. It's like, no, no, it's not that big. It's just start with something small, make progress and then tweak as you go.

Bec Clare: What frustrated me today or this week or what question did I answer today that I've already answered before? That's your Allie answer. Yep.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. I mean, like I did it today as well. I was, I was in a software use. We use clip flow for our content and social media scheduling. And there was just, there was a resource that was in the wrong spot and you know, this file wasn't attached properly. And so what I do, I open up a little screen record and recorded a 60, 90 second video. This is how I'd like it done next time. And ongoing please team, here's the resource on how we do it. Systemizing your clinic isn't a months-long project, it's minutes-long projects consecutively stacked over months.

Bec Clare: Yeah, great point. Jack, to that point as well, the number one thing I see in the Practice Leaders program is that overwhelm around there's so many systems in the clinic. I need to carve out time in my day to create all of these systems. We really try and change that mindset and that lens. Document versus create. So the next time you go to do that task, hit screen share, hit record, go through the motions of doing the action in real time for a real task. There you go. You've got your policy, you've got your procedure, you've got your how-to guide. And the other point about that is I often get, well, what if it's not perfect? What if I make a mistake? Great. That's an even better how-to guide because what you're now teaching your team is how to actually problem solve that in real time. They're seeing you work through the method of, well, what if something doesn't go quite according to plan? They're great resources. So don't chuck them out and put them in bin.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I like that. We're good here, Bec. Maybe, Ben, you can log off if you like but the idea of systemizing your clinic is a minute's job, not a month's job. Hopefully, that just gives permission for clinic owners to take the pressure off. You don't have to systemize your clinic. Just do one thing. It takes a couple of minutes. It feels good. If you do nothing else today, you systemize your clinic.

Ben Lynch: It's great. It's a great frame. You just come back to how can I do something early and often. That's it. It's going to be valuable. One of the things that you're sparking for me and J.O.B. will come back to just in time and just in case, because you've spoken about that over a long period of time. But the other sort of concept and notion here I find is ultimately I think a lot of the policies, procedures and training. are the know-how, the guidance, the rules that we have in the clinic, ultimately for delivering our service at the end of the day. These are all the things that help us understand how our clinic does it different to the next clinic. how we treat our patients, how we treat one another in the clinic, like literally some of the values that we use, the operating principles and values, the policies we have internally. And to some degree, they're all about being impactful in various ways. So that's where I come back to the outcome. What is the outcome? And normally there's or outcomes, normally there's a workflow that's attached to that. There's a series of different things that need to happen eventually to get that outcome. And if you thought of that workflow as a number of discrete, isolated policies, procedures, perhaps training, working together in concert to get to a certain outcome, For instance, let's take delivering a great new patient experience or consultation and perhaps one of the outcomes we're looking for is that they book a subsequent visit, that they give a great satisfaction rating after coming to that appointment? Well, there's a number of processes we've got, which are appointment reminders, emails, SMSs. We've got kind of the policy around cancelling your appointment that's connected to that. We've got some of the processes for actually how to deliver that appointment. So you run on time and deliver on the promise that we made, maybe in some of our marketing. So all of that connects together, perhaps in what you might term the new client journey or the new client experience. And so I think whenever you're creating systems, you want to sort of ask in what context, in what workflow, is this actually making the whole thing coherent and integrated and reinforcing towards a certain outcome? I think that's where the concept of the playbook comes in within Allie is to say, it's not just one thing, and I think that's where clinic owners get a little bit stuck, is they have this piecemeal approach. They have a whole bunch of isolated things that don't actually connect. So it makes it hard for their team to adopt because nothing's really quite clear or coherent in a single picture. So I'd encourage you to use visuals, use videos and use the written word too, which you're able to do in a product like Allie too, to just make sure everyone understands exactly what this all leads to. Speaking of visuals, Bec, let's share screen. So for those that are listening in, come and join us on the YouTubes so that you can see this section. Bec, we're just gonna have a wander through your account. And of course, we've created this tool, Allie. We think it's fantastic. And we're continuing to innovate on this every single week. But if you're using another tool, a lot of the principles are still going to apply, but I'd strongly encourage you to come across and check out. Allie, you can do a trial for 30 days for free. So Bec, just orientate, especially listeners who can't see what we're doing just yet, but still we want to add some value as we navigate through the playbook section here, the know-how section of your business, PhysioWest, that we're seeing on screen.

Bec Clare: So we've divided and tried to, as you say, piecemeal things together and group them so that the D.O.T.S connect for our team. Something you'll also see if you're joining us on the video here is that we've used a lot of visuals like emojis. Part of our culture at the clinic is that our emoji game is very strong. So we almost wanted that cross-pollination of what the team really love and enjoy about Slack, which is the other platform we're using to communicate, that they then come into here and they see a common theme. So, it's very on brand, it's very seamless for our team. So, we start with step one and you can see how many team members are invited to each module here. So, step one is welcoming and onboarding. So, it's a really sort of zoomed out version of what we do here in the clinic. So, things that are in here. Welcome, it's great to have you here. That's a video of Grant and I just being a bit sort of rah-rah. Hey, it's great to have you here. We love that you've joined us. Everything you need to know is right here in Allie. So, a bit of a pre-frame.

Ben Lynch: And so Bec, just to clarify, the playbook that you're sharing with us right now is onboarding a new team member into your clinic. So you've just recruited, you've gone through your recruitment process, they're starting at the clinic and they need to understand the context of the clinic, the story, the values, the orientation, and this is the playbook you'd send them.

Bec Clare: Absolutely. So we also share our history in here because we talk about our history quite a lot in the clinic and it's really nice to now have it documented.

Ben Lynch: So in this module here- That's called PhysioWest history, a trip down memory lane. I love that.

Bec Clare: So it's a video that the team can watch, again, Grant and I walking through the series of photos that have existed for our clinic. And it's just a really nice way for them to connect and understand where it all started and why it started. So it's our why story. Um, yes, all the basics in here, sort of that really zoom out approach, the clients we serve, the services we deliver. Um, there's a module in here. I got this, um, this little nugget from a fellow coach here at Clinic Mastery, things your directors love and the things that they wish they could say to you. Um, so in here we talk about the, have you, have you got a minute conversation that that's not allowed in our clinic. Um, so the things that we wish we could say.

Jack O'Brien: You want a quick chat?

Bec Clare: Yeah, I want a quick chat. Nope, no minutes left today.

Ben Lynch: Yes, yes. I did a presentation back in COVID times for Jane App in Canada, based out of Canada, a patient management system. And the opening slide was, can we chat? And everyone in the chat on Zoom was like, oh, this is the worst message to get. You get that SMS from a team member and your heart just sinks. So triggering. So yes, I like that. And so often we're talking in the pod here and in our masterclasses with members, our coaching, How can we start to pre-frame things early and often, especially from some of the mistakes we've all made and gone, ah, gee, it would have been nice if I'd have shared that with them sooner or we referenced that sooner and could anchor back to it. So right from the beginning, you're saying, hey, don't send us that message. Here's actually how to communicate right from the beginning. I like that. Nice. Continue on because there's so many playbooks here.

Bec Clare: So many playbooks. It's been an evolution. We then roll straight into all the support that we provide. So our EAP, Family Benefits Program, it's really clear then. We get asked a lot, so what sort of discounts do you offer me as a team member and my family? So it's all laid out here. We then go into some personal development, so things like desire statements, building your ideal client and the ladder of loyalty. So all resources available within Clinic Mastery. We go then into policies you'll need to have on hand, so they're the frequently referenced policies like sick leave, annual leave, uniform, unpaid leave policy, all of those things. Practitioner training at Stage 1, so they know that there's a couple of stages coming just by reading the fact that it's Stage 1, and these are really elementary sorts of things that we tackle in here.

Ben Lynch: So, what happens- Just on that, Stage 1 means what in the context of PhysioWest?

Bec Clare: So at the moment we have three stages in our practitioner performance. And so we've tried to break them down as to what they need to understand at a foundational level. And then we build and sort of layer on top of that. Um, so diary management's a real basis.

Ben Lynch: Similar to jump shots in a way that we've previously referred to. Yeah, which is kind of like the thing you need to be able to do really well consistently, almost with your eyes closed type thing. Yeah.

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Like what's, what's going to trip them up in their first couple of days that they really need to know in order just to feel like they command the treatment room. I think that's what team members find most challenging is they don't know where things are, whether that be physically in their room or digitally. So it's a matter of how can we help them feel most comfortable that they then command the space and can provide a really great session. So that's what's in stage one.

Ben Lynch: And a couple of these that you're referencing, you've clearly refined your own versions. However, many of these are actually available to folks starting a trial of ALI as templates that you can then modify to suit your clinic. So as you said earlier on, Bec, it's hard to start with a blank canvas or a blank page. We've made that a whole lot easier for you. So yes, you can certainly refine those.

Bec Clare: So we've got our client care scripts in here. And then, as I said, we break them down into, you know, what does return to work look like? What do home visits look like at early intervention program? So we've tried to categorize and then down the bottom here, you can see all of the stuff that is in process. Recruitment process was just added. Um, amplify and expanding your reach when moving in, um, partnering with health. So just starting to, the things that come to mind, there's getting put into Allie, but they're not finished. They're not perfect.

Ben Lynch: I love that. There's always a work in progress. You've already started that recruitment one and added four resources to it.

Bec Clare: The resources are not there, but these are the placeholders. Like I want to talk through what Hungry Humble Smart is, our templates, the process, the philosophy. So as you were talking, I was like, right, these are the things that come to mind when I think recruitment, that if I couldn't do it, a team member is going to need to be out at reference.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. Perfect. That's what it's about, isn't it? What is the best practice at our clinic? How do we want people to do it? You can layer on your own character and your own strengths and personality, but here's part of the process that we want you to follow. Bec, how do you know that you've done a good job with this? How do you get the feedback loop that all this work that you've put into building out these systems has been worthwhile? How do you assess the effectiveness of what you've created? Because I think part of the adoption piece for a lot of clinic owners is doing just that. They say, I've done all this work. It's amazing. It's awesome. And then the humbling thing is, well, Does it get used? And when it's used, does it create the desired outcome because people followed what you'd created? I feel like that's almost why these things exist is coming back to trying to achieve the outcome in a consistent, reliable fashion that's on brand, values aligned to our clinic. That's why we have these things sort of written down, videoed, documented. But how do you assess for yourself? that all this work, whether it's Allie or any other tool, has actually been worth it, is actually effective?

Bec Clare: There'd be a couple of ways. Firstly, the inbuilt tools that are in Allie, so having people actually acknowledge that they've read something. Um, we also have some of these playlists set to renew every 12 months. So team members will get a reminder that they need to refresh on these. So they're the questions that at the 12 month mark, or if you haven't reread something, that's the question that's popping up in their support sessions. Um, so that's really helpful is setting that reoccurring loop, which I love. I mean, so you've got the data there as to whether they've read it. The other sort of more cultural feel is just hearing stuff in the clinic. So I checked Allie and I saw that, blah, insert, whatever it is. I was reading this thing in Allie and I had a follow-up question.

Ben Lynch: Yes. And it's pretty easy to share like the link to a playbook or a resource in Slack or Google chat or whatever the case may be. Yep.

Bec Clare: Absolutely. It then prompts us to maybe that if there's a question that we're getting off the back of them reading an Allie resource, well maybe we need to edit it or add another layer of information in there. Um, so they're probably the two ways that I see, I can gauge whether it's being used. The nice thing as well about Ally for our practitioners is this is where they can see their CEIs or their numbers, you know, their, their metrics, I guess, for their performance. So ultimately they're, they should be in there frequently enough to know how they're traveling. And hey, there's all the playbooks and resources there. So it should, it should just be a tab that's open really for our team.

Ben Lynch: J.O.B., your eyes lit up when Bec started talking about numbers. My senses. The spreadsheet guy, the numbers guy is like, oh, I'm back in the conversation here. Tell me more.

Jack O'Brien: Well, I'm so glad you asked. You know, I think when it comes down to it, what do we want as clinic owners? We want our practitioners to perform. And so, we all have a practice management software, but we often don't have a practitioner management software. How do we manage our practitioners? And so, Allie is your practitioner management software. I think that's the functionality of it. It supports our admin team, which supports our practitioners. And then, when it comes to it, we want our practitioners to perform and we want to improve their performance over time. And so, this is the measure of Allie's effectiveness is, are your practitioners improving their performance? Allie is your practitioner performance improvement tool. And so every system, every script, every template, every history document, all the things must lead towards improving the performance of your practitioners, whether they get the ethos and they understand the values, whether they know clinically how to be excellent, whether they understand the flow and the way, in inverted commas, of our practice. All of these point towards improving performance of practitioners. We see it in metrics and you can define those metrics however you want, right? It might be that it's revenue is the key one or appointments, episodes of care or new clients or new to service. I don't particularly mind which one you use. Here's what I would actually say and Ben, you helped me refine this so you get all the credit, not partial, you can have all. Ultimately, practitioner performance is financial utilization. How well are they utilized financially and what we mean by that is how much revenue do they generate relevant to their remuneration. Yeah, it's revenue as a fraction of remuneration. And so that's what Allie does, improves the performance of your practitioners.

Ben Lynch: Yes, it's a really great point. And I hear the clinic owner or practitioner saying, Oh, but isn't it about patient care and patient outcomes and patient satisfaction? Just add some nuance there because it sounds like you're just seeing them as a cash cow. Tell us more.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's an important distinction because it appears like that on the surface. If you've been around Allie or Clinic Mastery or the Grow Your Clinic podcast for two and a half minutes, you would know that we live and breathe client experiences. We're here to make sure patients get excellent clinical outcomes and wonderful client experiences. And so the natural way that we measure those things objectively is through things like performance. Revenue, utilization. Ultimately, what is revenue? Revenue is a reflection of the value that each individual patient perceived when they came to your practice. And if you're generating more revenue, you are generating more value and you are helping more people. And so all of this is undergirded by a fundamental belief that good people at clinics for good help people, help them more often and continue to add value.

Ben Lynch: Great distinction around measuring some of the value that we provide. There are other mechanisms, right, to do that with, say, like a net promoter score or customer satisfaction surveys, checking in that clients are actually achieving their meaningful outcomes. But ultimately that sort of manifests in, well, I'm paying and investing in a salary for you as a practitioner. I need to make sure absolutely that I'm covering those costs and ideally doing it in a profitable and sustainable way to reinvest back into the patient experience, the client experience, as you said, Jack, back into the facilities that, you know, we all work in and operate in, back into the training and support and career development of the practitioner and to be able to provide them opportunities to progress in their pay too. So that's the more nuanced version, as you said JRB, of looking at the money side of things. Well, before we wrap the episode, have we missed anything here on systems and getting, one, where do I start seemingly around some outcome that you're working towards at the moment or an outcome that's important and relevant for a practitioner? Two, how do I create some of the adoption that is ultimately the thing to solve for? Writing all these things is pretty easy and quick to do. The organization's made super easy with a tool like Allie, but how do you actually get cut through an adoption ultimately so that it leads to impact and outcomes? Is there anything else, Bec, that we need to keep front of mind as we systemize our clinic ultimately so that we can empower our team to take more off the clinic owner, who's often the bottleneck?

Bec Clare: I think it comes down to that mindset around progress over perfection. And it was really tempting for me to hold off sharing Allie with the team. Cause I was like, no, I need, I need more in there. I need it to be fully finished. And what I realized is that as a clinic, by the time something's fully finished, it's changed. Things are moving so quickly.

Ben Lynch: Yes.

Bec Clare: That if I held it and kept it until it was perfect, well, it would be imperfect because it would be obsolete. So, Get it out of your head, get it into a platform, get it into something like Allie and share it with your team because that is going to be progress for you and for them and for your clients.

Jack O'Brien: I would say as a clinic owner, don't answer questions. Point to Allie, which answers questions. And so to that point of like, how do we drive adoption? When someone comes and asks you, whatever they're going to ask, how do I restock the cabinet, the display cabinet? I don't know, ask Allie, right? Like, have you checked Allie? Have you checked Allie? If you use Slack or whatever comms you use in your team. Hey, here's a new link to a new document that we've created in Allie. When we're talking about our daily stand-up huddle or at our clinic weekly sync up or whatever it may be, reference Allie all the time. Don't answer questions, point to Allie. And then to that point of like, where do we start, Ben, I would say to clinic owners like, you can start anywhere, but if you had to Like we're going to start somewhere. I would start with things that generate revenue. Systems that are revenue accretive. You know, it's all well and good. I know Daniel Gibbs often refers to like the system to go and check the post office box or to water the plants or blah, blah. Look, Post office boxes need to be checked. Plants need to be watered, so I'm told, but they don't generate revenue. They're not paying the bills. They're not covering payroll. They're not creating freedom for you as a clinic owner. Start with things that generate or accrete revenue, i.e., client experiences, consult structures, scripts around rebooking or reactivation or handover to admin or how do we use things like Health, or Preve, or Ava, or insert any other. How do we use these things that help us to accrete more, i.e. help more people create online experiences? This is where I'd start.

Ben Lynch: Narrative is, for many clinic owners, I'm the bottleneck. I have so much reliance on me. And if you want to decrease the reliance, create a second brain. Replicate yourself. Clone yourself. And that's where it can be housed and used is in Allie. You can head to clinkmastery.com forward slash podcast for all the show notes and go back and check previous episodes for members tuning in. We've got a nice value pack associated with this episode. Check Slack once this is published to find that value pack. Jack, Bec, thank you so much. We'll see you on another episode very soon. Bye-bye.