121 - What Changes When Your Practice Supports Your Life, Not Just Your Business with Dr. Rachel Hovey

[00:00:00] When they say like it takes a village, like it really takes a village. And some of that village is for you and some of that village is for the baby and some of that village is for the business and every other piece, right? And so I think you can grow that village in advance by surrounding yourself with people that, you know, you speak some of your vision into and they can share things with you.

[00:00:23] And certainly women who've walked this path before us, like are some of the best people we should be asking questions to. Hello and welcome to Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. This podcast is dedicated to chiropractors who are in the seasons of launching and building their practice.

[00:00:49] Join myself, Dr. Lona and my co-host, Dr. Bobby, as we have conversations each week as it relates to building the practice of your dreams. And remember, you can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. We are here to lead you on the way. All right, guys, welcome back to the Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast.

[00:01:13] And I'm back on today with Coach Rachel, one of my favorite women in chiropractic. Yeah, welcome back. Thank you. Happy New Year. Yes. And we are going to have a conversation today about motherhood and practice and navigating building a baby and a practice and then eventually a human and a family and how to do that, hopefully as gracefully as possible.

[00:01:41] And, you know, with our philosophy and our desire to like be connected to both what's happening in the practice as well as this idea that you can have a remarkable life and a remarkable practice, right? And that motherhood is part of this. So, Rachel, I know you have two kids. Tell us a little bit about your journey of building practice and birth and babies and running kids to hockey and all the things. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:10] And this is a fun conversation to have because I think it's not talked about enough. And there is, unfortunately, like just a lot of fear based around it, whether you're an associate, whether you're an owner, like all of that. And I actually had the opportunity for my first kid that I had. I was an associate. So I got to experience like maternity leave as an associate and then also an owner too. Yep. And like what that looks like.

[00:02:33] And I know things have changed a lot as well, but I think we can be a lot smarter about how we set up our practices for maternity leave. Whether you are a solo doc or you have associates, you are associate or you're an owner. So that's been something that has been important to me as being a female. And I have all females on my team, not like because I don't want males on my team, but that's just how it is. Right.

[00:02:58] And so like, again, like that's been a high priority for me is like, how can we make this not fearful, not scary, but also like a healthy boundary for everybody. All the kids involved in this. That's good. Yeah. Right. It's not just about having babies. It's about having an ability to have the life outside the practice. Yeah. And the boundaries of like when somebody takes a vacation, how often are we bugging them? Right.

[00:03:22] When that's something I love that you bring that up because whether you're female or male, just recognizing that sometimes the status of success has been come at the cost of like the only element of your life that is successful as a practice because you've negated your health, your family, your relationships. Because it's been all consuming to build this practice. And that's not what we're advocating for.

[00:03:46] And I think you have to go into your vision for how you want your life and your family life to look with respects to like when I'm at work, I want to be enmeshed in growing this practice. And when I'm at home, I want to be enmeshed in just loving on my family and doing life outside the practice. And we're all going to have different versions of what that looks like.

[00:04:09] But I agree with Rachel that many times it's a conversation that we should have had earlier, as well as some vision for how we could put steps in place sooner to ensure not only for ourselves as likely the owners of the practice, but also for the CAs, for the associates, for the office managers. Like how do we do life with people, especially when we have A players, right?

[00:04:33] We're going to go through whether it's having babies or what happens when there's a sick kid or what happens when there's a family member that God forbid passes. Like how do we do bereavement leave? Like things like that. These are all going to happen when we do life with people, right? I think, you know, just keeping that conversation going with what you said to something that works really well, just in general that we make really difficult sometimes is just having like real conversations with our patients.

[00:05:01] I think sometimes we're just like scared to tell people like the reality of like what's going on like within our clinic. And so let's talk about materially specifically, you know, it's like, let's say you're a solo doc, right? And you're going to have coverage come in for you because I think that's a healthy boundary so you can have more than two weeks away from your practice, right? Because I know people still do that, but like that doesn't have to happen that way, right? So then it's like having a practice relief doctor come in and meet your patients and see them for a day.

[00:05:29] And just like you would onboard a new doctor and be like, they're taking care of you. I've ran through all my patient notes with them and here's expectations so that people are also excited for you to have that time. You know, like we were just saying a second ago too. It's like, you know, what would we say? Like people like respect the boundaries that you are giving to, you know, if you set that up that way. So like I said, having the conversations like upfront with people so that they know what's happening instead of blindsiding people sometimes. I think that happens a lot in practice. Yep. Yeah.

[00:05:58] So if you're one of our younger docs that are like newly in practice or in your first few years of practice, maybe you haven't had the opportunity yet to build your own family and you're building your practice, you know, building it first of all with systems that are make it easier for someone to come in, whether that is a doc that's coming in just for the maternity leave or when you bring in an associate,

[00:06:20] you know, thinking about, yeah, what will my practicing life look like when I decide to expand my family or what could this mean? And I think what's important is like a lot of chiropractors. I think we almost get to the point where we put patients ahead of our own health, ahead of maybe what our family needs. And that's one of those things that you want to have like a real awareness to if that's you that we've got to work on this.

[00:06:47] Like we've got to be prioritized as much as everyone else, especially if we're growing a human. And that doesn't mean that if, you know, you do take good care of your health, like a lot of us do adjust up until you pretty much have the baby. That's a choice, right? If your body gives you that opportunity and you're feeling good, I think that's the key thing is there's not a right way to do this.

[00:07:08] Just like there's not a right amount of maternity leave, but what needs to happen is it needs to be connected to what actually works for you and having the opportunity to choose that. So if you're choosing to practice up until you essentially go into labor, you're doing that because it's a choice, right? Same thing. Like if you choose to come back earlier because you feel great and you want a little time away and you don't want to come back full time. Great. That's a choice.

[00:07:33] But most of us haven't gone into this knowing how to build it into having those choices. And so we end up kind of with what works by default. And so a lot of what we teach in TRP, which is getting right people in right roles, getting systems in place, getting structures like your team meeting and your huddles and people accountable to different parts of the practice.

[00:07:57] Certainly make taking whether it's vacation time away, whether it's a maternity leave and you're going to be gone and want to stay far away for eight weeks or 12 weeks. Like that can't happen if we don't have rhythms in place for somebody to come in and be taught how to run those rhythms or to have visibility from other team members to take over the things that you maybe were doing that now you can hand over to someone else.

[00:08:22] And there's clear SOPs or clear guidelines of how they're going to get done so that you actually can relax on your time away and heal and bond and do the things that you want to do and need to do. And feel like there's a sense of it's okay. Everyone is actually nurtured in this process and going to grow in this process. Yeah, for sure. And that's what I was just going to say next too, because I think back to both of my times and when I'm a maternity leave in very different times of practice.

[00:08:50] But it was also like, I understood that I had to grind for like six months to really get this in place and work really hard at it. It wasn't just going to like coax to things. I was like, all right, we got to think higher level. We got to do systems a little bit different. We got to, like you said, make sure everyone knows even more what they're doing, what that looks like. And if something breaks, how do we fix that? And that's not easy sometimes.

[00:09:13] Like I said, like I look back before my maternity leave and it was probably the hardest I worked in practice so that I could get to that level with things. And just knowing like that's what I want for myself though, so that I can be away for eight weeks and not have to probably really look at my phone much for anything. Yeah. Yes, that's so good. Okay. And then let's talk about this. Like you come back, right? And many of us, at least my experience, when I came back, I never came back into full-time practice.

[00:09:41] I came back into certain shifts or certain days and it felt really great to be able to come back and adjust, but also knowing that it was still really great to have support from my team and not have to jump back into a patient load. That was more than I wanted to take on.

[00:10:25] And I say that. So the first entire year for both of my boys at lunchtime and went and nursed them. Both of them had in-home help that first year. So I would go home or sometimes she would bring them to me, but most of the time I would just go home, spend that hour at home nursing, snuggling. I needed it. They needed it. And it allowed for me to feel like I was having a really good nursing experience as well as still being able to go back to practice and be at work when I wanted to work. Mm-hmm. For sure.

[00:10:54] I don't think that emotional piece also is talked about enough either because, and again, if you have kids, you understand this, but for sure your first kid, your perspective on everything pretty much changes. I mean, it's kind of the reality of it, right? Even as a practice owner, like, what are my values now? Like, what do I, how do I look at the people in front of me differently? And so I think one thing to prepare for is like after like kids, like, I think your goals in business shift a little bit. Although that's family time.

[00:11:21] Like, what's your, like, do you really want to work Saturdays anymore? Do you really want to do all these things? So how can we shift the priorities to be like, yeah, I'm not going to be doing talks until 6 p.m. three days a week, but how can I still give that value to my patients too? And like, like you said before, like being flexible with that and being open to that. And it's not like you're delivering less. It's just knowing like the expectations of like, you're not the same person coming back anymore. Yeah. I love that you just shared that.

[00:11:48] And I think when I see women that I've kind of helped doula through this stage in practice, when we haven't allowed ourselves to like not necessarily try and fit back into the same rhythm that worked before. Because sometimes it's like, sometimes that happens very naturally. You're like, I'm different. I can let this go. I'm into this new. And other times it's like, it takes a little leg time to be like, I thought I was going to be able to do life still the same way.

[00:12:14] And I realized that me keeping, you know, this version of how I existed before as the goal or the standard is just making me crazy. And it's not actually healthy for everyone. And so I'll use the example of a morning routine, right? Like, because if, if we talk to a lot of successful humans and especially successful men, many times it's like really like, oh, this morning routine, it's got to be dialed in, nailed in. And I'm like, that's great.

[00:12:43] And it certainly worked for me before I had kids. Yeah. And then when I went through four years of nursing, co-sleeping, this idea of just get up earlier and dial in that morning routine was like, I would like punch someone in the face if they would have told me that at that second.

[00:13:02] Right. So again, this is where like leaning on the women who have walked through seasons similarly and done it, you know, like with your values too. Right. Like one of my things was, I was very clear that I really wanted to prioritize nursing and having this great experience. And so that was something that quickly had to go by the wayside.

[00:13:26] It was like, if we nursed all night and I didn't get great sleep, I was going to sleep in and my morning routine would have been minutes. I'm like, I get myself really prepped for the day. And this is also where like when you have that time before you have kids, the more that you sharpen that precision in your own mind of the state that you want to get in to start your day and to start your, you know, before you put your hands on people.

[00:13:54] You know, you may do it and you may have the ability to have a 60 minute morning routine of like prayer and workout and journaling. But that state carries through even during seasons when you don't have the 60 minutes. Right. You have to be able to just get there and practice hopefully in advance helps you. But the grace to know that that version of you still exists somewhere, it's just not going to work in that routine.

[00:14:21] And the more that you try and have like super hard structure, I think it just feels hard. It does. Yeah. And even speaking for myself, sometimes like I'm a very like system analytical, like this is how I said it's going to happen. It's going to happen. But I think for a big thing I have learned after having children is just because I've done it the way I've always done it. That's how I always have to do it. It can still be just as successful or just as how I quote unquote want it to be.

[00:14:51] It just may look different. And like, again, like I think that's kind of the fun thing. Like we always say, like, let's say, you know, your new team members by their self for a week because they're your front desk has gone. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I learned so much and I grew. Right. And sometimes taking these moments to be like, how can we learn? How can we grow? How can we just maybe make it more efficient and better in that season, too? Because this is going to challenge us to be on a high level for maybe, you know, two to four months, depending on what maternity leave looks like for yourself or your team, too.

[00:15:20] That's a really good point. Right. And that's like you said, whether it's someone taking vacation or a maternity leave or some other reason why somebody is out instead of it being already seen in a negative light, like this is going to create hardship or we're going to be down a person or, you know, whatever. It's like, OK, this is a period of innovation on some level because we're going to look at things differently. We're going to see from a different vantage point. We may have to do things differently because we are going to have to run more efficiently.

[00:15:49] And that is usually where the shakeup happens to get to the next level, too. So I totally agree with you. A lot of that's perspective. Someone said to me in the last month that how did he say it?

[00:16:04] He's like essentially like the era of singular practice is dead, meaning like the more that we can collaborate and that's multi docs in one office, you know, that there's so many wins across the board for why that that works well from a business model standpoint. And I think especially as women, you know, having like in our scenario, my three co-pilot docs, Dr. Ashley, Dr. Amanda, we've all had two boys, something in the water here where we just keep having boys.

[00:16:32] But, you know, and to navigate this with women where we can support each other, we can be there to lean on when like, oh, my kid's having a fever and like, what do you think about this or blah, blah, blah. That's amazing. It makes you a better doctor. It makes you more real, I think, to like what especially women walk through in navigating careers and motherhood and certainly from a vitalistic standpoint. But it's really great to do it with a group of people.

[00:17:03] And again, like that's where, too, I think maternity leave can help you get to that level quickly. I mean, honestly, like it's about delegating and getting to that as well. And then just because you're done with maternity leave doesn't mean you're ready to go fully either, too. Like I think that's part of sometimes what's nice about sharing the load is like, okay, for me, for our associates that we did last time when my associate had a baby, which worked out really well, was like she staggered her time back into practice. And I was like, brilliant. And it worked really well.

[00:17:32] And it was and again, it had helped us to like not be drowning by any means. But it was it was really nice to have that like staggering back into practice. And she really appreciated it, too. And it was just like a different thing that that's not really a thing where people just like slowly go back into work. Where that's actually probably really healthy. Right. Yeah. And then maybe you can even share it. I feel like just to like if someone's never had a baby, like the logistics of like coming back, it's like, yeah, maybe changing your schedule. Maybe you have like pump breaks or you have like different times to rest your body.

[00:18:02] If you know, if you're really high volume, like maybe you need a 10 minute break in between shift or what that looks like, too. I know that's something again with multiple doctors, you can be more like it's easier. But if you're by yourself, you kind of need to plan some of those things. Yeah, for sure.

[00:18:17] Yeah, I think staggering back in for women is especially nice for your body to get reacquainted with adjusting, especially if you're a manual adjuster to not go back into full volume load immediately when you go back can be a nice segment, even if it just takes a couple weeks to get kind of back into it, depending on when you come back after maternity leave. I definitely think and this is true, even if we're not having babies, is like we are in a physical profession.

[00:18:45] We must take great care of ourselves on all levels. That's like physically, of course, like whether that's yoga, lifting weights, moving your body dynamically where you're not just bent over a table all day long, that you're supporting your system in other ways, mentally, emotionally having the right support systems. You know, when I think about some of these women that dueled me into motherhood, my midwife was a huge one.

[00:19:10] I just wore her confidence for a while that like you have this sensation at first, at least I did, where I was like, what has happened to my body? Like I thought all the change happened in growing the baby and then you have the baby and like, whoa, like lots of changes happening. Right. And so like when they say like it takes a village, like it really takes a village. And some of that village is for you and some of that village is for the baby and some of that village is for the business and every other piece. Right.

[00:19:40] And so I think you can grow that village in advance by surrounding yourself with people that you speak some of your vision into and they can share things with you. And certainly women who've walked this path before us, like are some of the best people we should be asking questions to, like the moms who have kids just a step older than mine. I'm like, tell me what this is about. You know, like what are we going through? Because the second you get one stage figured out, you're on to kind of the next one. Right.

[00:20:09] And I actually feel like having the flexibility in my practice right now while my kids are like school age and into sports is like almost more important than I felt like it was when they were even younger because there's so much more going on. Right. Like now I have their schedules, not just like they want to nurse and snuggle. It's like now they got places I got to get them and stuff. Yeah. I mean, I actually remember too, like I can't remember if it was up for my first.

[00:20:37] But like, again, this may be just a pride thing, but it's like, oh, I'm a pediatric chiropractor. I should know all these things. And like, it was really humbling to be like, I need a lactation person. I need this. I needed someone then to start cleaning my house on it like an extra time a week. Like it was kind of like crazy. Like the amount of like more like help you need to just reach out for with stuff. And I don't mean like hire more people, but even like I said, just ask for advice. Be like, what do you do with this? Like, like you said, text your coach and be like, what did you guys do in this situation?

[00:21:07] Like I have no clue how to handle this. I mean, those are like the real life stuff that I know does not get talked enough about. That's where I think we struggle sometimes is the realness of how it can be hard. Yeah. But, you know, it can get through though. Like it's just, it's about really like, again, like you said, however you were in it before Lona, but it's like, these people have done this before. Like lean on that and ask for it because there's not one person that wouldn't want to probably give them some advice on something they've walked through in a challenge in the past.

[00:21:37] Yes. Yes. And, and when you have those people that have similar values to you, like, so certainly like I look at some of these chiropractors or these doulas or these midwives that are with similar philosophies, similar intentions for health and wellbeing. And you have things happen, you know, like I can remember. So my sons, there was something going on in their regions down below. I don't know what was happening. My husband was like, I don't know.

[00:22:06] You chose not to circumcise them. I have no idea. You know? And I was just like, I got to phone a friend, right? Like, I don't know what friend the phone, but I got to find out what's happening here. And so most of the time someone's just going to be like, yeah, chill out. You know, like this is all good, right? We tend to freak out, especially with our first where we're like, I've never done this before. And like, they're crying or this is happening or, and they'll be like, just take them outside and walk them around a little bit. Or, you know, like, yes, that's normal.

[00:22:36] They're teething. And this is why this is probably happening, you know? And it's like, the good news is, is as you walk through it, I think our philosophy comes alive that much more too, where you're like, holy man, body is so intelligent. Not only did we make a baby, but look at them develop and look at all these cool things that happen. And thank God for being a chiropractor for our sense of generally being able to just rest on that knowledge. I can't stress that so many times in my life. Am I just like, how lucky are we to know what we know?

[00:23:03] And I think that is many times also why when we can rest on this knowledge that chiropractic tells us that there's like intelligence in all things all the time, continually maintaining us in existence, right? That intelligence is working through us to make sure that we can adjust and build our businesses and simultaneously be building a baby, you know? And, and you can do it. Like you can do hard things, but you need to surround yourself with people that also will

[00:23:31] help you through those hard moments and make sure you realize you're going to change in the process, right? Amen. Yeah. Ah, so good. Thank you, Rachel, for having this conversation. We probably need to have more of these. So yeah. I think too, just like if you're listening to this and you have asked us these things, like I said, to hold to what we were saying before, like don't hesitate to reach out if you have maternity questions or pregnancy questions, practicing as a female, we're here

[00:24:01] for all of that. Yeah, totally. All right. Catch you soon. Yep. Talk later. Hey everyone, please listen in for this next bonus interview of one of our remarkable success partners. They all help us help more people find the benefits of chiropractic. So listen on. We're here with Dan from 2Connect, one of our fantastic success partners in Australia.

[00:24:26] Dan, tell us a little bit about the specific problems that 2Connect solves for chiropractic clinics that are engaging with 2Connect and using them for their services. What problems do you guys solve as a business? Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. And great to be here. Basically, the problems that we're solving is helping with certain administrative aspects of practices. So that very often can break down into the problems of specifically to lead conversion and patient life cycle and reactivation.

[00:24:56] So what we hear a lot as we're talking to chiros is a kind of low level anxiety about are we following up on leads A, quickly enough and B, enough times? They might take multiple calls. Do our front of house staff really have the bandwidth to be doing that? So there's a feeling that, no, we're probably not. We're leaving revenue on the table there. The other piece as well is about reactivation. So we've got this big database of people.

[00:25:26] They've come in. Maybe there's people 6, 12, 18 months we haven't heard from. Do we have any real meaningful engagement with them? Probably not so much. So again, there's a problem there with not maximizing that database and not going back and getting conversions, running campaigns. And then probably a third would just be other administrative aspects. So there might be things that can sit behind the scenes that can be done from an offshore

[00:25:52] perspective because to be clear, what we're talking about is a dedicated team member working in the Philippines for the practice. And this might be things like x-ray roll-ups or it might be doing certain aspects of reporting, punching numbers into spreadsheets right through to, as I say, the more patient-facing roles. So I guess in a nutshell, what you're talking about is finding a labor force outside of the local area. And I've got a busy practice.

[00:26:21] I've got numerous CAs and finding an A player is difficult. We've had hiring processes where we get 150 to 200 applications and maybe three of them are worth actually pulling into the clinic and having a face-to-face interview. So that can be super frustrating. So you're talking about finding a specialized labor force outside of your local area, specifically the Philippines. Yeah.

[00:26:46] And so from the sounds of it, you've helped people with their marketing and lead follow-up and lead generation or taking them from a prospect into a patient, converting them to a patient. Yeah. You've also, you know, interesting, you mentioned like ruling up x-rays, those kind of little tasks. Yeah. You find specialized people that can do that sort of stuff, train them up for what we want to achieve. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:15] The way that the model works is that we have a chat with the chiro and go like, what's the role profile? Like, what are you after? What's the need? Where's the pain? And then we go, okay, well, here's a position description. Does that meet that? Any tweaks to this? Any arrangements? And then it's like, yes, let's go forward. And if it's go forward, give us a couple of weeks. We'll come back with three to four candidates who meet that brief, who have some kind of background. So it might be, say, a medical background, or even if sometimes it can be a more salesy

[00:27:44] background, for example. And we go, right, here's these three to four candidates. Which one do you like best? And then maybe we can do some role plays or some scenario-based testing to really de-risk it and make sure we've got the right person. And then, yeah, we deploy them. So, yeah, it's a pretty simple model. Basically, a lot of it rests on us. It's de-risk because you're not paying anything until that person's actually starting work. And it's also you're not having to bring on another employer and all of the employment

[00:28:13] liability with that because they're employed to our legal entity in the Philippines. We manage all of the HR, the payroll, the holiday management, all of that. And they align to Australian time zones. They align to your national holidays. So all of that heavy lifting is done in the background. You just get that full-time team member. You get to select the one that you want. Yeah, we're off and running. Yeah, that actually sounds like a major problem solver for a lot of particularly busy practices.

[00:28:41] But even, I guess, you've probably had scenarios where people who are solo practitioner or not too many staff have engaged with your services to really help them expand and grow. So, for example, for our build docs who are just starting out and just starting to get the clinic rolling and they need somebody specialized, but they've got a jack of all trades at the front, which is often what happens when you hire your first CA.

[00:29:07] I guess you guys can add an extra dimension into specializing particular roles reasonably quickly from what you think. That is the case. Or I will say, I want to be transparent about this. I do understand that often there's a certain point or a certain scale where this starts making more sense. And often that is maybe there is two to three plus fully loaded chiropractors where you start to go,

[00:29:33] right, we've got CAs and those CAs are busy and we've got admin building up. Again, these things, are we calling people enough? That's when this model can probably really start to come into play and the ROI starts to come into effect. Yeah, I just wanted to be clear about that because solo practitioners often just that single CA might be covering things and we do provide full-time roles.

[00:30:00] So there is a, that's, again, that's where that sort of ROI stack up starts to come into play. Yeah. Okay. So in terms of that ROI, what kind of ROI can a CEO expect from investing in engaging with 2Connect, bringing in somebody offshore or a virtual chiropractic assistant? Yeah. Have you got a case study or an example? Yeah, sure. Yeah, we've got multiple case studies.

[00:30:25] And I guess the underlying maths is that getting one of our virtual CAs or patient support representatives or lead conversion specialists, it's going to cost between 55% and 65% less than hiring someone onshore, but for that requisite level of skillset.

[00:30:49] So if you start to think about that and with the ROI, say, for like the back doctor or Cairo H3 or some of these businesses that we've worked with, well-being chiropractic as well, is it's when you're going, right, we've got this full-time resource who's costing half what a normal person would cost. There's no, you know, superannuation or anything like that to worry about. And the call volumes that are being made because they're dedicated to this is usually six, sevenfold.

[00:31:19] So therefore, we've seen conversion rates, you know, double and triple based on just being able to deploy that cost-effective resource appropriately to that, you know, that conversion funnel basically. And again, similarly, sometimes there's a split or a hybrid role where they're doing some of that lead conversion stuff, but also they're taking admin away from the CA. So that's where the ROI kicks in.

[00:31:44] And there's also, I think, critically, a real patient and actual customer satisfaction piece as well. So what I mean is the front of house COs, the people physically there are able to, you know, the phone is not ringing as much basically and they're not having to make as many phone calls and maybe there's inboxes being taken care of at a certain level as well. Therefore, that's going to translate into a more present patient experience.

[00:32:08] And also what that also means is that that output is happening from the offshore perspective. So in terms of, I guess, if when we're talking about the direct ROI and we talk about the, you know, cost to acquire a customer. Yeah. It's, I guess, a bit of a balancing act, right? Because if we're going to invest in offshore help and we're going to invest in, you know, digital marketing,

[00:32:33] which is, you know, reasonably expensive for a chiropractic profession, unless you're doing it really right and you've got your ads optimized, all that kind of stuff. But it's still an expense. One thing that I don't like with my digital leads that I've paid to acquire is I don't like them sitting in our CRM waiting for someone to touch them. And we know that there's so much data on this that the faster you call that prospect, once they're in your CRM,

[00:33:02] the higher the likelihood of them actually coming into your practice. And I think it was something like the research was 87% more likely if you call them within the first five minutes. Now, I run a busy practice. I know my CAs work hard. Often they just don't have the time resource to do that. But so I guess what you're talking about is a protection of the ROI that you're already putting into marketing to, you know, funnel in those leads.

[00:33:30] And also you mentioned the reactivation campaigns. You're right. We've got a whole bunch of a large database of people that have only stopped coming in because they just kind of lost their way. It's not because they didn't love chiropractic. Yeah. Because, you know, they weren't having a great experience. They just kind of got a little bit lost and they slipped through the cracks. Yeah. Or often there's something really small and we see our clients being smart and doing reactivation campaigns that aren't, hey, you haven't been in for a while. Do you want to come back in?

[00:33:58] It's more you can almost position it as like a feedback gathering kind of survey kind of piece. So you're calling, say, I'm not sure if you recall, but eight, ten months ago you came in and we're just doing some, doing a piece of work to understand what that experience was like. Was there anything, what was that experience for you? And sometimes doing that, somebody can bring it up, bring up that thing, whatever that was, that was that barrier that made them come back.

[00:34:24] And then, of course, what you can do is do work to go, oh, OK, well, if that's the case and you can overcome that objection and get them back in as well. So it can be a multifaceted. So you're getting feedback from the market about what your patients are feeling, especially the ones who aren't coming back. You can start building that up and go, listen, what I'm hearing is, you know, you can build lists of these are the reasons that people aren't coming back in. Some of them might be known.

[00:34:48] You might go, sure, you know, maybe it's money related or maybe it's, but maybe there's an experience that they're having that you're not aware about. So, again, it's that patient care. So, yes, quicker to call. Also, the reactivations, getting information from that database and getting conversions from that. But also you can just perhaps layer in a patient lifecycle touch that you never had before because you've now we've got resource to do it.

[00:35:13] Wouldn't it be good if, you know, after X point or Y point, they got a call and were asked this specific question or, you know, we're given this specific piece of information, for example. So it can really you can really start to get smart and much more interactive with your client base. And I think probably the beautiful thing about that, especially in an age of, you know, bots and automated calls and all that kind of stuff is we're actually talking about speaking to an actual person. Yeah.

[00:35:41] Human touch, which is, you know. And listen, on that point, I would just want to bring something up, which I think is fair. Sometimes people say, OK, you know, offshore resource, I get it. It's cheaper. Sure. But, you know, what is that accent like? What's the English like? And I'd say two things to that. One, this wouldn't be up and running successfully in in this space if we weren't talking about people who were great, bubbly, empathetic communicators.

[00:36:10] So, you know, they're absolutely the expectation is that they have a very high level. The second piece is that you don't have to take our word for it. The way that the model works is you see the candidates, you make the choice. And if you simply said, well, these candidates aren't, you know, up to scratch from any perspective, but if it was communication perspective, then it's on us to find you some better candidates. I just wanted to take that off the table because I know that sometimes people go offshore.

[00:36:37] I've got concerns about, you know, how that's going to come across with our brand. But it's, yeah, that is something that we take care of and you are always in control of that. And you know what? I think it's a bigger problem in people's mind than it actually is in reality. I actually have somebody from the Philippines who's local who works on my front desk. And nobody bats an eyelid when she rings them and makes a genuine call from the front desk. So they go, oh yeah, that's, she works there.

[00:37:04] You know, the more you're multicultural, your workforce is, the less people are stressed about it. Do you know what I mean? That's what I believe for sure. I think we've actually kind of touched on this question, but the next thing I wanted to ask you was when we consider what's important next in kind of looking at the future trajectory of the chiropractic profession, the way the world is heading, how are you helping chiropractors to prepare to succeed in the future?

[00:37:34] Yeah, look, I think what it is, as we sit in that critical piece, which is where the remarkable practice sits, which is with chiropractors who are going, how am I looking to build that business machine? Really, that funnel, all of the metrics that sit behind it, you know, CAC to LTV, all of these, you know, critical metrics. As you start moving in that direction, naturally, you're measuring those things so that you can improve those phases.

[00:38:02] You can improve each stage, you know, whether it be conversion, whether it be lifecycle, whether it be whatever the case may be. And what offshoring allows is to say, hang on a second, traditionally, this phase of what we do, this part of our offering just incurs this amount of cost and this amount of effort in terms of recruiting new people, recruiting CAs to come in. Actually, it turns out that the CAs that we hire, a lot of them, they're good with our people, but they don't really like, you know, getting on the phones.

[00:38:31] That's a bit of a sort of a have to do and that kind of thing. So it completely changes that equation and we can come and say, right, let's look at all that overall business. Let's look at that pain and let's look at that cost. And let's fundamentally change that. We can cut that in half or even better.

[00:38:47] And we can move to a more metrics based approach where we are using these metrics and getting more metrics input from these people as well, because they have the time to be actually putting in things into spreadsheets or into CRMs and things like that, measuring that, building reports off the back of that. I'd say the thing is what we're doing is we're helping chiropractors scale with just dramatically reducing that operating costs from a people perspective.

[00:39:14] But that kind of bandwidth and those types of roles we're also seeing is helping feed into improved metrics as well. Yeah, those are probably the key points that I'd make. Perhaps a final thing as well is if there is a point where practices maybe are thinking of growing and there's maybe multiple practices or multiple locations as well, this solution can work really well for that.

[00:39:38] So we've got one person who can now be working across two locations, three locations or however many locations that you need. So it's basically a way of helping accelerate growth by driving efficiency, reducing costs and improving the way that you're working with metrics. You mentioned that CAC to LTV ratio, right? And we're also talking about protecting that investment that you put into marketing.

[00:40:05] And if you can optimize your marketing funnel for the same amount of ad spend, then your CAC goes down. Yeah. And if we're doing it efficiently, even if we add that expense of offshore, the CAC still goes down because it's significantly more optimized and perhaps converting prospects from, I don't know, throw some numbers out, 20, if we can get it to 30 or 40% of the immediate ROI. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:35] That's exactly right. And I'm sure you've heard this, but we do, again, hear that anxiety of like, well, I would like to put some more money in the top of the funnel and spend more money on marketing, but I'm not really sure we're going to catch it. Like, we're just going to get money in, but that's more calls and we're already struggling to make those returns. So it does free up and make that growth feel a little bit more possible, a little bit more sustainable.

[00:40:58] But it's not just the CAC, it's the LTV as well, because if you're able to communicate more regularly at more critical touch points with a patient and again, get back into those traditional someone who, right, the LTV has come to an end, not if we're doing reactivations in smart ways as well. So it's both ends of that. Both ends of the scale. That's the thing. Yeah.

[00:41:23] So I guess what we're really talking about is two connects can come along and they can plug that leaky bucket, whether plug the hole in that leaky bucket, whether that leaky bucket represents, you know, the marketing funnel and just leads prospects just dropping out of that funnel because they're not getting called fast enough or the genuine patient base who people are leaking out of that bucket just because they get lost and there's no reactivation campaign. Yeah. So that sounds like a wonderful solution.

[00:41:50] Now, I've actually got one other question that I'm just going to throw in there. There's a lot of different offshoring kind of agencies. Sometimes people go searching for themselves. You touched on this briefly, but what sets 2Connect apart from those other agencies and the option of looking for offshore labor? Yeah, there's a couple of things. I think the DNA of 2Connect is interesting because it's a family run business.

[00:42:15] And the story actually is, is that the Kukla family who set up the business lived in the Philippines for a long period of time. And the founder and MD actually basically grew up there. So there's a real understanding and connection with the country, with the people, with the culture, and also a deep understanding of the workforce and what it takes to do business over there.

[00:42:37] So there's kind of a dual mission for 2Connect, which is, yes, to serve our clients with excellence, but it's also to provide great working opportunities for hardworking Filipinos and their families as well. So, for example, we have private health insurances built into the offering. So we've got a really good reputation over there of looking after our people incredibly well.

[00:43:00] The other piece is that part of our basis, our partnerships over in the Philippines was that it started from a medical background. So we've always understood how to operate in that space, the importance of looking after patients and having, yeah, how to source those people and look after them really well. So those are probably the key points. And quite frankly, now, I think that 2Connect has more chiropractic clients than frankly anyone else.

[00:43:25] So we've carved out a niche and we've got to work with the remarkable practice and really spend some time understanding how chiropractors work and what the drivers and needs are. Yeah. And look, we're a unique profession and our needs and focuses are completely different. And having somebody who understands, you know, you're already talking about cost to acquire a customer versus lifetime value ratios, all that kind of stuff.

[00:43:48] So it's good to see that we have these success partners that can genuinely fix a problem for our remarkable client practice or our remarkable practice clients, but also that they add value to their community. I remember you talking about like you guys even go above and beyond to make sure they get a birthday cake or something for their birthday. And that helps improve. Company policy. Yeah. Employee retention is what we want, right? If we get an A player, we want to hold on to that A player. Sounds like you guys are nailing it. Yeah.

[00:44:18] I'm sure that after our little conversation, a lot of people listening are like, you know what? This is the solution that I need to help scale my practice further. What's the best way for a listener to learn more or take the next step to get in touch with you? Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. So firstly, I'd say there might be some listening who say, well, this is definitely something I need. And there might be another demographic who are just saying there might be something there.

[00:44:43] And even if it's not now, I'd kind of like to figure out a little bit how it might work, even if it's in six to 12 months that this might come into focus more meaningfully. So more than happy to, I just want to make that clear. I'd be more than happy to speak to absolutely anyone wherever you're at on that stage, even if it's a 10, 15 minute little fact finding mission. And we can throw some pricing around, answer a couple of questions and check in in six to 12 months. So I'm completely fine with that. So basically, my name's Dan Anderson. You can find me on LinkedIn.

[00:45:12] If you go onto the 2connect.com.au website, you can submit via a form there and I'll get in touch with you from there. Or, well, yeah, that's pretty much it. You know, the 2connect website, go there, get in touch. And I'd love to chat and we can arrange a time to go through things. And I'm sure if anyone listening just went, oh, okay, I don't know which one I'm going to do.

[00:45:38] Fail safe is just send a message to somebody at the Remarkable Practice and we'll put you in touch with Dan. Absolutely right. Appreciate that. Thanks for your time today, Dan. And as always, it's a pleasure. Thanks for listening to this episode of Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic and what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, share with your friends and leave us a review.

[00:46:08] And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show notes to schedule a call.