Episode 19: Rules For Medical Renegades

Are you a renegade? What is a medical renegade? Design and implement changes in your business so you can grow and have a practice that is business not a job! 

Do not miss these highlights:

01:03 It's so important that what we learn, we put to actual action

03:33 We build power within ourselves and within our team. We build for longevity when we build for our team and for ourselves.

04:05 There are ways in protecting you from losing the people that you invested in

04:56 You can have a life and lead your business at the same time - It's all about learning how to structure your business

07:04 You can design your business to run without you in certain aspects

08:13 What does it mean by “You have to resign as the General Manager”

10:04 If you can't generate revenue from them, it doesn't mean you failed, it’s only the idea and the plan that failed

11:13 You just need to find the wheel to make it work, once you find the wheel that creates that profitability, you can just keep generating it

12:08 Become a renegade in your own practice, in your own business, in your own individuality

Transcript for Episode #19:

0:01
You're listening to the Functional Medicine Business Podcast featuring Dr. Deb, one of the most creative functional medicine business practitioners in her industry. She shares the wisdom and knowledge that she has gained over 25 years of functional medicine, a pioneer in functional medicine, scheduling, leadership and Practice Management. Dr. Deb has a wealth of knowledge and is eager to share to help functional medicine become more productive. And for the practitioners and patients to live better lives. Our podcast shares the good and the bad of our industry. Because Dr. Deb knows the pain you live every day building a functional medicine practice with practical tools on how to manage money, taxes and patient care. She will discuss it all with you.

0:54
Welcome back to FMBI podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Deb and today I want to talk to you about what you put in action. It's so important that what we learn we put to actual action. And if you're like me, you read a lot of things, you look at a lot of things you learn a lot about your profession, your expertise in the medical industry. But maybe you're not learning enough about business. Or maybe you're learning a little bit about business, and you have every good intention to actually apply what you're learning. But somehow you never get around to it. It just time gets out from under you. You're busy seeing patients, you're doing your paperwork, you're doing your finances, you're with your family. And lo and behold, all of a sudden six months has gone by, or six years have gone by for some of you. And you haven't actually implemented anything that you've learned over the years. And so what do we do? We see the next latest and greatest book and we pick that up and we read it and somehow that seems familiar the information we're learning about, I've heard this before, how do I know this? And all of a sudden, it dawns on you that you learned this same inflammation information, and maybe even purchased the exact same book. I've done that before, five years earlier, and forgot that I had read it. And now lo and behold, there's new information. And it's exciting information. But it's actually the same old information I learned five years ago.

2:21
How many of you have done that? Because I know I'm not the only one who's done that. But sometimes when we learn different things, it's just not the right timing for us to apply it to our business. So I want to share with you guys today one of my absolute favorite books, it was one of my first books that I ever purchased on business. And I remember I was in the airport looking for something to pick up and read while I was waiting for my delayed flight. And this was the book that was there. And it's called Rules for Renegades how to make more money, rock your career and revel in your individuality. And the book's not super large. But it's it's you know, easy read. It's about 250 pages long. And I was able to read this almost in the time that I was in the airport, believe it or not. Nobody gets delayed like that, right? So you gotta have something to do.

3:21
But one of the things that I loved about this book was they talked about building power instead of borrowing it. So we build power, within ourselves, within our team. We build for longevity, when we build for our team, and we build for ourselves. And I think it's so important because it's hard for us to think about investing in other people sometimes. If we think about investing in other people, our biggest concern is those people are going to leave, right? We're going to train them, we're going to educate them, we're going to invest in them, and then they're going to be gone. And there are ways around this protecting you from losing your people that you invested in. There are opportunities that you can give to these people like profit sharing, or buy in the practice or another leadership role. There are ways to encourage people to stay when you're investing money in them, besides just attaching a price tag and saying if you leave, you're going to pay me this back. Because let's be real, nobody pays you back. And you don't withhold it from their paycheck and no legal group is ever going to allow that so it never happens. So you may think that but it doesn't happen. Let's just be real, let's call it what it is.

4:42
But there are other things that we can do. Now, the other thing is this thought that you can't you can lead a business but you can't have a life. That is so untrue. You can have a life and lead your business at the same time. but it's all about learning how to structure your business. So that it is set up to run without you. You hear me talk about this quite often, you do not have a business if the business depends on you to be there to earn the revenue, pay the bills, write the bills, make the money for the bills, manage the people, do the time cards. If you do everything, you don't have a business, you have a job. Now there are some things you can choose to do. Like I still choose to pay my bills. Well, why do I do that? It's a mundane task, I can pay somebody $14-$15 an hour to do that. Well, it's a way for me to keep a finger on the pulse of the finances. It's a way for me to understand, are we growing? Are we stagnant? Or are we losing revenue in our business, it's a way for me to know are my people doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is collecting cash at the time of service. If somebody else did that job, I would not have the ability to see week to week what's actually going on. That is how I know my numbers. If you're not doing that, that's okay. But then you need somebody to give you a report every single week on your numbers, so you know what your numbers are. So you have an understanding of that. Because the last thing you want to do is go to your bookkeeper and say, Hey, I need $20,000 for this piece of equipment. And she looks at you and laughs and says, Sorry, babe, but you don't have it. We've been in a deficit for the last seven months. What didn't you understand? Didn't you realize the practice was slow didn't realize there wasn't any money coming in? Didn't you realize I haven't been able to pay sales tax. Didn't you realize that I haven't been able to pay our employees. That is not the information you want to get from your bookkeeper at a time when you think your business is thriving, because you're busy, but nobody else's, or you're busy, but nobody's been collecting the salary. It's so important for you to have that finger on the pulse and understand exactly where your money is going and what it's doing and where it's coming from.

7:03
So, you can design your business to run without you in certain aspects. But other aspects you need to stay on top of, you can design your business so that you can take time away from your business, go on that two week vacation with your spouse, and your kids and love it and not have to worry about what's going on at the office because somebody else there has it covered for you. People are seeing patients, they're taking care of your people, they've got money coming in, they've got patients being scheduled, all of that can happen while you're on vacation, if you have your business set up properly. If your business isn't set up properly, you're not going to have that luxury, you're going to be working, when you're on vacation, you're going to be checking in taking care of patients, making sure that your patients have what they need, you're going to be answering messages from your team. Those are things that happen when you don't have a business, then you have a job. And there's nothing wrong with having a job if that's what you want. But if you truly want a business that can grow and run without you, then you have to put some of these steps in place.

8:08
So one of the pieces in this book that I found that was so good was you have to resign as the General Manager. And that's really what we're talking about here today. You can be the person that oversees your practice at a general manager level or at a high level. And for me, I want to be that person at the high level, I don't want to do the day to day general managing, I don't want to be the person to go to my front desk and say, Hey, why aren't you scheduling? Why aren't you collecting money? I don't want to go to my medical staff and say, Why are these refills not being done? Why are these patients not being called back? I want a middle person in there now. I did that job for many years. I'm not good at it. I'm an asshole, let me tell you, I just an asshole. I don't deliver those messages nicely. I just shoot from the hip and it comes off wrong and people get their feelings hurt. So I have a person in between that can do that for me. She does it very well. We get what we need. The business grows, and I get to work on more higher level thinking and higher level projects of how we're going to grow the business. What are we going to do? What are we going to do that's going to bring revenue to us? And that's where I choose to spend my time these days, doing that portion of the business. I'm the visionary of the business. And then I have the people that actually are the doers in the business, they carry out my vision. I think that's incredibly important for you to have somebody if you're not the visionary, you need a visionary to grow your practice. If you're the visionary, you need an implementer you need somebody that can help you implement those ideas before you come up with the next grand idea. And you're on to the next thing again, when you're constantly turning over ideas and you're not actually generating revenue from it that can be one of the biggest problems we have and then over time, we get burnt out. And we say I've tried all these things, they don't work. You've tried them, but you haven't done them correctly. So therefore you haven't generated revenue from them. And if you can't generate revenue from them, then you're right, they failed. But that doesn't mean you failed, it means the idea and the plan that you had in place failed. And it may not even be the idea, that idea may be fantastic. And what really gets to you is when you had that fantastic idea, before somebody else did, and all of a sudden, now you're seeing your idea being put out there by someone else. And now that person is running with your idea and making tons of money from your idea, and you're sitting back going, I couldn't get my idea off the ground, I couldn't make any money off of it. So this person's doing it, I'm going to go on to the other idea. No, don't do that. Stay with your idea. Just get the right marketing and get the right plan in place to make revenue from that idea. That's the important part elicit a team of people that can really help you generate that revenue, you didn't have a bad idea, if you had the bad idea, somebody else wouldn't be running with it. Remember that your idea is good. And they've proven to you that they can make money with that idea. So it's a proven concept. You just need to find the wheel to make it work to make it be profitable for you. And once you find the wheel that creates that profitability, now you can just keep generating that.

11:25
So don't get discouraged by that. Stay positive with that. But set yourself up with people around you that are better at what it is that you are not good at. So if you're not good at being the general manager, don't be the general manager. If you're not good at marketing, and web design, don't do the web design, don't do the marketing. Let somebody else do that. And I would argue with you and tell you that you should not be doing those things anyway, because your skill set is different. And you're better off using your skill set to generate revenue instead of creating something that may or may not ever generate revenue for you. So I want you to really think about this, become a renegade in your own practice, in your own business, in your own individuality, become that Renegade and develop your own rules and strategy for growing your business exactly the way you want it to look because it's so important for you to have what you want, not what somebody else wants you to have.

12:29
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others. post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest for me you can follow me on Facebook at FMBI, join our free group where we support one another and share our struggles. Thanks again. And I'll see you next time.