085 - How to Find A-Player Associates Fast

Being a great leader, I think is absolutely a starting point because so often we have principals that are looking for associates and you hear them always blaming the associates. There's no good associates. They're not motivated like how I was. They're not hungry. Why can't I just find someone, you know, that wants to grow? And my advice to them always is, okay, well first, have you self reflected and look at yourself? And a lot of the times they're actually projecting and manifesting and behaving the very traits that they're seeing in people that they don't like, which I always find the irony of it.

Hello and welcome to Build you'd Remarkable Practice podcast. This podcast is dedicated to chiropractors who are in the seasons of launching and building their practice. 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.

What's up team? Welcome back to the Build you'd Remarkable Practice podcast with the amazing Dr. Lona Cook and myself, Dr. Bobby Lodassi, where we come to you guys every week with straight from, I guess you call it the trenches. Taking you through real practical and actionable things that apply in practice right now and answering the questions that we see. You guys are always throwing at us, whether it's on Mastermind calls, whether it's messaging us dming us, whether it's when we meet you at events. But whenever we try and put these episodes together, we try and answer the most common questions that we hear from people. Right? So you know, how do you goal set? Last week I spoke about my or our daily non negotiables and today we're speaking on something that I would say is probably at the top of the list in terms of like top three to top five. Five questions that we get learn that's around associates, right? So our podcast today, guys is going to be around how do you find world class great associates? And you know what, here's the flip side of it. If you are an associate and you're looking for a position, then I want you to take what we talk about today in these next 15, 20 minutes and flip it the other way around and ask yourself, how do I find world class practices that I want to be an associate at? So I'm going to flip this over to you. What are some starting thoughts with this? I know you've got multiple associates in different locations. You have and you guys have had multiple associates over the years. Do you want to give us a nice just starting point for your thoughts on associateships and how do we make this really fruitful? And then we're going to get into the real nuts and bolts of how do I actually find them? Because that's the question I want to know.

Yes, there is. I mean that is true that it's a question that gets asked a lot like where are you finding the associates? And we're going to try and answer that in a few minutes here. But also keep in mind that I think a lot of it is also creating world class associates too. So yes, having a great pot to work from of like who am I going to choose? That is feeling like you're not backed into a corner with no options, of course, but also knowing you create a players and you create great associates by being a great leader and nurturing people to keep developing into their potential. So it's a, it's a multi layered question.

Yeah, I think the last part of what you said there by being a great leader is absolutely instrumental. That is key. So that necessarily though brings about the question, well, what would you say makes a great leader?

Well, I think willingness to look at yourself in all the equations is a huge part of that. And then I also think a great leader realizes that they need their team and their team needs them. And part of what the leader is doing is being very clear that part of the best thing they can do for the team is lead the vision and have a vision that is big enough that the entire team is excited to work behind it and work alongside the leader in that positioning. So I think some of it is recognizing we're linking arms, you know, we're walking together and that my job is to help the entire team actually look ahead and see what's possible and step into their potential.

Yeah, I think they nailed it. And I think it's important to recognize that there's different roles inside of an organization. So as somebody who owns a practice that's looking for an associate, you first step have to identify, well, what is your role in the relationship? What do you bring to relationship? And I think you nailed it in the head when you said being a great leader. And that is somebody who has clarity with vision, who is committed to the outcomes and the purpose is somebody who's clear with their core values and lives by their core values is someone who has integrity, which means they do what they say they're going to do. And I think that the real big thing here is, is really clarity of vision. Because if you look at what all the great leaders have in common, they do have a vision that's compelling. So just look at, you know, I might use this as a bit of an example, but when you're going to vote for somebody in an election, really, if you take any notice, I know a lot of people just don't care, like, oh, they're all the same. But what a lot of people fall in love with is the vision that that leader is projecting for where they see the country or the state, whatever the election that you're voting in, where they see it going. And so if you align with that person's vision and if you align with their core values, then you're more likely to, you know, dedicate your vote to that person. Being a great leader, I think is absolutely a starting point because so often we have principals that are looking for associates and you hear them always blaming the associates. There's no good associates. They're not motivated like how I was, they're not hungry. Why can't I just find someone, you know, that wants to grow? And my advice to them always is, okay, well first, have you self reflected and look at yourself? And a lot of the times they're actually projecting and manifesting and behaving the very traits that they're seeing in people that they don't like, which I always find the irony of it.

Well, and that's energetically sound, right? Because everything is a mirror on some level, the more you get into the energetics of it. So that's part of being a good leader is being willing to look at, wait, am I the chicken or the egg here? Like, what part of me needs to shift in order to, to actually attract a different result.

Yeah, exactly. So if part of the equation is being a great leader and being a great leader, someone who has a compelling vision story, who's really clear with their core, is really clear with their core values, does what they say they're going to do, you know, wants to grow and expand and nurture and lead, what would you say then makes a great associate? What would you say are traits that if this, if this associate has these traits, it really sets themselves up for success provided that they find the right position.

Well, the two words first is I think humble and hungry, right? Like I would like to hire a humble and hungry associate. Somebody who knows that they're going to come in and learn. Like they want to learn, they want to soak it up, they want to be transformed knowing that they're coming in to be fed on some level and then they're also ready to receive it and do something with it. So, you know, I definitely don't want to hire someone that thinks they know everything already. And that's the humble part. And then the hungry part is like, I'm ready to. I'm ready to grow. I'm ready to, like, do work. I'm ready to grow the, the vision alongside you. I want to develop myself. I want to develop this mission. I want to be somebody in this organization.

Yep, 100%. I always say internally in my team, and I say this to my associate. If you give them to me with these two things, I'll turn them into a superstar. And here's what they are. Number one is coachable, and number two is hungry. Like what you said. All right. And coachable, really? I guess you could translate to humble because someone who is coachable, someone who's humble, who wants to learn, who is an open book, who doesn't come in with preconceived ideas or ideologies and doesn't want to move and bend on those. Okay, Right. I think it's part of being humble and part of being coachable is this idea of understanding I don't know everything. There are levels to this game. I do want to master high levels of this game, and I understand that the people that I associate with will take me to their level. I think Einstein came up with that. Einstein was the one that said you will end up being the average of the five closest people you spend the most time with. Okay. And I look at a modern day version of that and the way that my brain views this is I go, okay, so if you hang with five drunks, you're probably going to be the sixth drunk, all right? Whereas if you hang with five millionaires or billionaires, you're probably going to be the six millionaire billionaire. That's how life works. Because we are who we are today as a result of a combination of two things. The people that we've met and the experiences that we've had. And that, quite frankly, makes up how you view the world and how you and how you see it right now, today. So as an associate going into a relationship, I always say, if somebody is coachable and if someone is hungry, which means willing, wanting to learn, you will turn them into a superstar. Starting point of successful relationship. Absolutely. But the topic of today's podcast is how do I find them? All right, so this, this topic today is one for principals. However, if you're an associate. I want you to hear the reverse of this. How do I find great locations to associate in? So I know what's been your experience of this. If you're advising me now. So I was someone working with you, and I'm like, oh, and I'm growing. It's awesome. The systems are all clicking beautifully. But I can't service everyone. I need to expand through associates. I can't find associates. You know, I've been trying for the last three months, six months. What advice would you give to that person? How do you find great associates?

Okay, I'm going to give you my true answer here. And this might not be the answer that you expected me to say. Maybe it does. It is the clearer I get about what the next move is for expansion for us. So in, you know, in my history, like, at first it was like I was a lone show, and then I had a ca and then I had two cas. And then all of a sudden I was like, I'm going to open another office. But I didn't have an associate yet. It was not the right sequencing of how to open a second office, let me tell you that. But I quickly realized I need an associate and I needed another doc in my new office. Right. And. But that became very clear. So sometimes learning what you want is also in the process of learning what you don't want or how you did it wrong. Right. So when my clarity of like I someone yesterday and I'm really clear that I'm looking for an associate doesn't mean that I wouldn't put advertisements out there that I'm looking for an associate. I've definitely done that. But I'm also really aware of who starts to come to me because I do feel like it's almost like the clearer your vision is they sort of just arrive. And so I've had a lot of experiences where other people will send me. It could be a CA or a dc And I look at the timing of like, my clarity of like, it's a now thing. Let's start to like, actually put an advertisement out there or what have you. And then also witnessing what actually gets pulled into my field. So for instance, before we started advertising this new associate that we're hiring right now, my current. One of my associates said, like, hey, I have a friend that's going to be looking for a position. And I don't. I know we've been talking about that we're going to be hiring again. Like, would you be interested in. And so before I even put the Advertisement out there, here's this person that's showing up, right. And I was like, okay, great, I want to pay attention to that because that's to me, it's like the universe is already giving me opportunities right there.

Yeah. And I've got a question for you. How much time passed between you working out? Okay, this is what I need to do. This kind of person I need. And then that person actually appearing, like quick, really quick. Are we talking days, weeks, months?

Days, Usually within a week or so.

I thought that'd be the case. And I want to bring this up because sometimes hearing what you said, people assume, oh well, that's slow, that takes time. Right. I'm going to put out there and manifest this person. But what I don't want you to mistaken, I don't want you mistaken. Clarity of vision with speed. I don't want you to think, oh well, I got clear with this. And the person will come to me, you know, over time. The reality is a person will come to you when the time is right. So very often if you're thinking, oh well, I'm looking for three months and four months and six months and nine months, the first thing you should do is stop and self audit. So audit yourself and go, well, maybe, maybe I'm not manifesting, showing the universe that I'm ready. Am I doing the action steps? Am I open to receiving? Have I gone to events and seen people? Or have I just left in someone's hand and said, oh, there's this recruiter they're looking after and they haven't really sent me just two candidates. It's like, are you really then ready? It's kind of like, you know, if you had the age old analogy, a bleeding neck, would you sit there and go, oh well, we'll just kind of see if this thing settles down. Let's see what happens. Or would you be like, no, stop the bleeding neck immediately. You would take action different, differently. So for me, I have an analogy in our business that I hate crawling. I love sprinting. I love moving fast. You guys probably learned that about me.

That's shocking.

Yeah, I know. Who would have thought, huh?

Who would have thought? Crazy thought. But I was moving fast. However, if clarity is speed, so by stopping down and slowing down and creating clarity, you actually gain speed from that. And then people come your way. If you know exactly what you're looking for. That's what I'm hearing you say, right?

Yes. So good. And Bobby, to, to your point, it's not like I'm hiding under A log not enmeshed in chiral world. Trying to figure out who's out there and what avenues I can start asking for. Who knows someone that would be looking. Right?

Yeah, spot on.

I'm definitely planting seeds left and right about what our organization is doing a hundred percent.

For example, let me give you an example of this. Okay. Now as a story. So a little while ago, I won my associates Tuesday. All right, so Bob, can I have a meeting with you Tuesday afternoon? Cool. All right, no worries. I'm super available to all my associates Tuesday afternoon, have a meeting. And he says to me, look, you know, there's been change in life circumstance. I think I'm going to be moving. I'm moving up north, like new town, changing life. You know, we're buying a property. Xyz. I'm like, all right, that's in a sad. It was a great relationship, awesome associate. We had a great time together. And I was like, all right, are you sure? Like, yeah, I'm pretty sure. That was Tuesday afternoon. Okay. By Wednesday midday, I already had four candidates ready to rock and roll. Okay, now you might say, poppy, what did you do? I'll come back to that. But by Wednesday afternoon, I had four candidates ready to rock and roll. Thursday morning, I meet back up with this associate. I'm like, hey, I know you've had a bit of time for a little digest. How you feeling with it all? Like, are you sure? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure. Are we talking like 100% sure? Are we talking like 80% sure? No, I'm like 99.9% sure. Like I sense a bit of doubt, but it's like, I'm sure. All right, cool. No problems. Four people ready to rock on. Let's work out the exit plan. So we're going to do a six week transition and there's a bit of holiday there. So I might actually extend to an eight week transition which ends up happening. Let's make sure that it's smooth for you. From X, Y, Z. Does this work? Yep. Are you sure that works? Yep. Great. Here's all the from our perspective and just kept communication lines very clear, very honest, very open and it was a beautiful transition. This person transitioned out of our office super successfully into a new role. We replaced this individual with two other associates. Both transitioning in fantastically, beautifully. But the reality is that I was clear liner like what you said exactly. What's the vision of the business? Where are we going? What kind of people do we need? What kind of associates do we need? And so then the universe just straight away next, they provided four people. But if I was like, sat in my hands now for a little while, I'm literally sitting my hands out here listening to this and I'm like, oh, let me think about this. So should I replace them or should I just absorb their. Their database? This person was adjusting probably around like 250 people. 250 plus a week. We sit in my hands. I'm not sure. Maybe you just absorb them. With our existing associates, do we replace this person with just one individual? Do we get two? That's not how you operate, right? It was like, cool. Here's where we're going as a company. Here's the kind of people that we need, here's how many of those people we need. And so let's go to the market and start looking for them.

So good. Yes.

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So I'd love to hear and I'll share my now tips. All right, so I feel as though I'm ready, I'm clear guys. I know what kind of person I want. I know when we need them by. I'm the leader. I want to manifest. All right, give me now some direct action steps. So I'd love to hear from you. You're clear now. And this afternoon you start the process of all right, I'm going to look for an associate. What is the first practical thing that you do? And then I'll share my practical things that I did that I got the four people straight away the next day.

Yep. So if I'm really clear about which role I'm hiring for, like am I hiring a caregiver doc, a doc that's going to be in the office most of the time, or am I hiring someone that's going out and finding new patients, putting on events based off of the role? Then I'm going to have. Well, I obviously have my channel on ChatGPT that knows my clinic pretty well. So I'll go in there and play with writing up the job description and more of the tone of our practice so that I can write it in how we would best put it out there for different channels. So I'm putting it out on social or if I'm putting it out on a LinkedIn or you know, do a paid for, you know, ad which I've never really had success with personally for DCs, but I know that some people do. But in the, in the region of the country I'm in, that might have something to do with it as well. And then I really look at like, gosh, all the relationships that I have that are, that know our brand too, that are trusted chiropractors, that also have wide webs of knowing other chiropractors who may be seasoned, that want to move to Wisconsin, or may have a student that's gonna about to graduate, that may be coming back here. And so I just want to put those feelers out. And so that would be a very quick action step for me too, is to get the influencers who know a lot of chiropractors to know that we're looking as well.

Yeah. Cool. I love it. So here is the first thing that I just want to add to that. To give you some structure around it and give everyone some framework around it. First thing is first hire. And looking for associates is like marketing for new patients. You should in your business have two funnels. You should have a new patient acquisition funnel and you should have a talent acquisition funnel. It's the same thing. All right, so new patient acquisition funnel generates new patients, generates interest on the front end. You have a qualification process, a nurturing process all the way through. They come to a day one, they convert into care. Do you accept them? You know, you guys are going to create a relationship here. Same thing when it comes to talent team members in your office. You want to have funnel for talent, which means there is a way to get leads in the front end, people putting up their hand. You have conversations, then you nurture that work out. Are you aligned, core values, vision wise, do you go to the next step talking about contracts, all right, start dates, onboarding process, long term associateship. There's two funnels every business should have. As you're growing and scaling, you're going to be adding people on, and you'll be adding them on at a pretty awesome rate. So you need to have talent acquisition funnel, right, what you just described. And by the way, your business at any one point is only ever experiencing a bottleneck based on the amount of new people that are coming in or your ability to deliver the product which is directly related to your systems and how big your team is. All right, so as a business owner, this is getting a little bit more complex for a build call. But as a business owner, when my team is working at below 80%, they're not making money, all right? We're like breaking even when they're working at 80 to 90%. All right. On my team's capacity, any one time, we're making really great profits. 90 plus percent, 100% long term burns your team out. So your job is to foresee the growth of your business in the future. A higher ahead of time. And then your roles, design, systems and process to make sure that you get your total team's capacity right at 80 plus percent. But you always want to keep it at 80 to 90, 80 to 100, because long term, 100 will burn people out. So you should be hiring ahead of the curve. Right. And a lot of people, they do, they do it the reverse. They like weight to hire, or they're either exhausting themselves or they're exhausting their team or they're not getting through the next level. They're frustrated, but they can't quite hire yet. And so they do it in the wrong timing. But a conversation for another time. However, what you just said there, lo, is exactly what I do. Let me give you some structure behind this, guys. So essentially, marketing only ever has four avenues. You've got one to one warm reach out. One to one cold reach out. One to many warm reach out. One to many cold reach out. All right, one to one warm reach out is message every single chiropractor that you know and say, hey, learner, hope been fantastic. Loving life up north. What's been happening? Hey, just to let you know, we're looking for a new associate inside of our practice. Here's the position, here's what it looks for. If there's anyone that you know, I'd love to hear from you. And you just sent dozens and dozens of the messages out to every single chiropractor, every single ca, every single associate that you know. That's an example of one to one warm reach out. All right, one to one cold reach out will be messaging even those that you don't know. Right. Hey, Lana, never met you before, but I'm loving your podcast, loving everything you guys been talking about. Totally aligned with it. Hey, I heard you talking about associates. We're actually posted looking for one now. Is there anyone in your network that you know that's looking for position X, Y, Z. Right, great. That's cold reach out. Do a bunch of those. Social media has made it easier than ever before. One to one warm reach out is what you just did before. Post on your socials, post on your stories, post in your, in your groups that you're involved in. Like, post in your Socials to your audience. That's one to many warm people that know you. And then the final one is one to many Cole reach out, which you also reference there. And that's paid ads. So if you need to get to a volume of people where you could target chiropractors through paid ads. Now, yes, there is a way to do that properly. And that takes a little bit of time, a little bit of money to learn how to do it properly. But the reality is it does work. Definitely. So what I did when I found that news on Tuesday is literally the next day I did. All I needed to do is one to one warmer reach out. I just reached out one to one to not even all the people that I knew. To a handful of people that I knew. From the handful of people that I knew. Great. We had, I think six people respond back to me like, yes, on some level, you know, I quickly pre qualified down to four. Those four I all had chats with. All the four that I had chats with. Two, I was like, yep, great, fantastic. Literally they had job offers by Thursday afternoon and I found out Tuesday afternoon and we're ready to rock and roll and they've got everything set up Friday morning. Because success loves speed. Yeah. So anyone that says to me, I've been looking, some message me the other day. Yeah, how are you going with your associate? I asked this person. Yeah. How long have I been out for? 5 months. 5 months, right. You are crawling and you're crawling on just your hands. Right. Like, what have you done? Well, I've left in the hands of the recruiter. Right. So that's how we find associates.

Yeah. That's great, Bobby. That was beautiful.

So, final comments. Helena, I know we wanted to keep this one short and sweet and easy and give you guys some action steps to get your next associate. Do you want to add any final comments?

I think just double check your heart and your mind and see where you're holding yourself back. Right. Because a lot of times it's like we. Especially when we're adding maybe our first associate or a second associate, like there can be times where you're like, I want to, but there's something in me that's still like afraid or holding me back. And that's why you're not finding, because you're not allowing yourself to go all in.

Very, very smart advice. Exactly. Fear of the unknown. So often because we get used to the comfort zone of what we know. Yep. Food for thought there, guys. All right. I love it. So I don't know who needed to hear this message this week, guys, but there you have it. So associate, please. Next time I hear you say there's no good associates out there, you're going to hear it from me. But take the lessons from today's podcast, because at any one time. So right now, just quick summary on this. I think there's close to 100,000 car parkers worldwide. Okay? They say at any one time there's 20 to 30% of people actively looking, right? So that means at any one time, there's 20 to 30,000 chiropractors actively looking. And I would go as far as saying every single person almost is for sale for a better opportunity. So if you have an opportunity that potentially can help that individual realize their vision and their goals that I have for their life, that person's for sale, believe me. All right, so makes you think about your own team, too. Are you painting a big enough vision for your own team? Are you looking after them? Are you future casting vision casting for them for what's possible because they too are for sale at any one given time. So hope you found this useful, guys. Fantastic podcast. Remember, there's no shortage of awesome people out there, just a shortage of focus and attention. So, lona, awesome as always, and I'll catch you in a few days.

It's good. See you down there.

Lovely. All right, guys, season.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Build you'd 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. And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show notes to schedule a call. Sam.