Process Over Results

Hey there and welcome back. I'm Dr. Vince Leone, executive producer and co-host of the Practice Builders Podcast. With my partner in crime, Dr. Kyle Pankinen, we deliver proven strategies to help you grow fast, specialize with confidence, and build profitable staff-run practices. Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode now. Hello and welcome to the Practice Builders Podcast. My name is Dr. Vince Leone. Dr. Pankin has the day, a well-reserved day off today. Hardest working man in chiropractic. I have a special presentation for all of our listeners. And by the way, I first want to thank you. Our podcast has been growing, and I listen to or hear from doctors on a regular basis that they're getting a lot of value out of this. They're sharing it with their friends. And so I want to thank you first of all for doing that. And if you can like and subscribe, that would be awesome. We always appreciate that. If you can give us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, that would be phenomenal. And share it with a friend. You know, there's too many doctors out there that need this information. And Dr. Kyle and I put a lot of work into this podcast so that we can share what we've learned in the trenches over the years, so that you can help more patients. Specifically, we've been focusing obviously on high-value cash services, but we have really at Specialized Practice honed in on spinal decompression. Now, today's episode is in what we call our micro training. So every single week for members of Specialized Practice, we do live Q&As. On Tuesday, Dr. Pankinen does a live clinical Q&A for members where he presents case studies, Uh, research, um, challenging cases from members, etc. And then on Thursday, I host the business Q&A. And so at the beginning of each business Q&A, I do a micro training on a trending topic. So I do well over— well, I don't know, I've done well over 400 coaching calls, um, you know, several hundred of the business Q&As. So every single week, I, I do between 5 and 10 coaching calls. And so I think essentially I take what tends to be, um, uh, the area where doctors need the most help right now, and that's what I do the micro training on. And as we head into 2026— and frankly, this could be done at any time of the year, but this is a phenomenal time of the year because while, you know, I'm a big proponent of goals, and those goals are very important to give us a North Star, what Uh, to get traction, you, you need to focus on the process, right? It's great to set big goals. It's great to have that North Star. But if you don't work backwards from that and lay in a very clear plan of attack, right, then, uh, then it's, it's just a wish, right? So this micro-training, we're going to get to this, um, and you'll hear it in just a second. It's called Process Over Results. And I got this and I was inspired by this from the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Coach Mike McDonald. Now, of course, I'm a Christian. I'm a father to 2 beautiful young daughters. And, you know, I like nutrition and working out, all those things I love to do, but I have 2 hobbies, golf And I like to follow my Seattle Seahawks. But Coach Mike McDonald is the, if not the youngest, tied for the youngest coach in the league. He's had phenomenal success in his second year. He's already won 10 games, basically turned around this defense, which was just putrid the last decade with Pete Carroll. And now we have one of the top defenses in the league. And It's— it all comes down to his process, and he always talks about process over results. So I started studying him, and I did a training just on this, and it has been well received by our membership, and I thought I would share it with all of our podcast listeners. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this. There is an exercise/homework to go along with it, so I encourage you to— Take out a pen and paper and do the exercise. Take advantage of this time right now. It's December 12th. Okay, we're moving into the new year. There's no better time than right now to prepare for 2026 to make it your best year yet. Grow spinal decompression, grow cash services, help more patients, and create the life that you love. So enjoy. this micro-training on process over results. So we're going to dive into our micro-training today, and this is, um, called Process Over Goals, and it's the mindset that actually grows a practice in spec— and specifically niches. Now, why is there a picture of a football coach? So this is our So, I'm a— if you don't know this, outside of, you know, my family, I have really 2 passions at this point. I love golf. And, and this is outside of, you know, being a Christian and family man and, you know, staying in shape, but just hobbies. Hobbies. Golf. And I'm a big fan of the Seattle Seahawks. And I have been since 2003, you know, so not forever, not since my dad was never a fan. So I wasn't like brought up watching football. But I played football since a young kid and in peewee football all the way through high school. Loved the camaraderie, loved the team aspect of it. And, and, you know, like I said, in about Whatever, 2002 to 2003, something like that. I just really started following the Seahawks and we were doing well, right? We went to the Super Bowl in 2005 and lost. In 2013, we went to the Super Bowl and won. We had the best defense in the league, historically one of the best defenses ever. Lost the Super Bowl in 2014, should have won it. We were at the 1-yard line, we passed it, it was intercepted. Who knows why you pass on the 1 when you have Marshawn Lynch in the background? Okay, I'm sorry. I still have scars from that one. So anyways, so this is Coach Mike McDonald, youngest coach in the league, came from the Ravens, before that came from Michigan. He was a defensive— he is a defensive-minded coach, had a phenomenal defense at Michigan, had the best defense in the league when he was at the Baltimore Ravens. And this is his second year, the only coach in our history that's ever had 10 wins in his first 2 seasons, and now one of the top 3 Super Bowl favorites. So why am I using him as kind of an example? It's because he talks about this relentlessly, process over results. Because the point with this is that if you Focus on the process; the results take care of themselves. So really love this guy, family man, Christian. No, not a big like cussor. He's not like the you know that type of guy. He's just he just has a way about him. And in the second year, he already has you know his team in the playoffs already, and and one of the best defenses in the league. But he just does it right. He's a phenomenal coach. So, but this is one of his mantras, process over goals. So, I wanna talk about this because I often talk about goals, right? And because I think they're imperative that we have a target. You know, it's like if you're gonna go on a road trip, you have to have a destination. But once you start, Then it's about the process of getting there. So here is some problems with just goal chasing. So many people have goals. I wouldn't say everyone has goals. There was an old study done, I think it was from Yale, 3% of the graduate, like one graduating class had written goals, right? Written goals. They— I think it was 10 years later or something like that, they reassessed that class. Those— that 3% had a higher net revenue— sorry, higher net worth than all of the rest of that class combined. Okay, so goals are important, but the problem is not enough people have systems in place to reach them. They often feel very good setting the goal. Right? And in our, uh, if you probably recall, when we do our fast, fast start consultations where we're, you know, doing our kickoff call and we are, um, setting goals, I talk about— okay, Dr. Buffy, we'll see you later. Um, Dr. Buffy has to run. So, um, I talk about having, first of all, realistic goals, right? It always feels good to set goals. Setting goals that are unrealistic feel really good, right? Hey, If you're doing, you know, I wanna do $200,000 a month and you're doing $50,000 a month. Well, that would be a good 3-year goal, but certainly not a 12-month goal. So, um, they feel good, but they don't necessarily change behavior. Um, what I have noticed sometimes is clinics will get stuck when they watch the scoreboard instead of running better plays, using the football analogy. So a goal without a system, um, is a fantasy. So we wanna make sure that Again, we have the processes in place, and then that's where we put a large percentage of our focus. So revenue doesn't rise just because you want it to. Decompression starts don't necessarily increase because you hope they will. Conversion happens when your daily processes get dialed in, and your growth ceiling is either capped or opened up based on consistency. So a ceiling will come in place with inconsistency is the point here. Now, if we look at Coach McDonald's principles, he is— while they have the target of the Super Bowl, right? That is their long-term target. That's clear. But on a daily basis in practice or at the game, he's not saying, let's go win the Super Bowl. He's focused on, did you get the right read? Were you in the right place? You know, did you tackle properly? Did you do the right reps in practice? Did we adjust to what the offense is doing? Or vice versa to what the defense is doing. That's what he obsesses over, right? So we want to take that same principle to practice and obsess over these processes that lead to our results. And small actions, if executed consistently, that's what results in those, you know, the big-time results. And there is no such thing as an overnight success. One of my best friends, he has a $100 million construction company. He just celebrated his 24th year in business. And 3 years ago, he hit $30 million. In 3 years, he went from $30 million to $100 million. Wow. It's, it's that type of thing. He is one of the most detail-oriented people I, I've ever known. And it was funny, we were out having dinner a few weeks ago and he was saying, I'm, you know, celebrating 24 years in business. Um, and I started my official LLC was September 2016. I was still in active practice, so I started doing this on the side. And I was like, oh, that's so cool. I'm going into my 10 years. And I'm— and I was like, you know what, but it's weird because I feel like I'm behind. And, um, but just this year we decided to go all in on decompression. And we, uh, we obviously still support knee pain and neuropathy. All the training's in there because that's what we've been doing for years— decompression, neuropathy, knee pain. At the beginning of this year— Excuse me. And I thought I was niching down. I thought, because the whole goal is to go, uh, you know, a mile deep and an inch wide, right? So, if you're a generalist, you're going a mile wide, inch deep. So, we're trying to go a mile deep, inch wide. Um, so, just the beginning of this year, we said— I made a shift. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to niche down even further. I'm going to go all in. All my messaging, our team, our whole focus is on decompression at this point. We've had tremendous growth ever since then. It's simplified things. It's allowed us to focus on just this thing. My messaging in the marketplace is just this thing. And now I feel like I'm actually becoming known for decompression. And so, and he was like, no, no, no, you're not behind. It took us 10 years just to figure out what the heck we were doing. He's like, that's totally natural. And I think in our profession, We get marketed to a lot of this easy button and you can double your practice overnight. You know, does it happen? Yeah, it does happen. You know, but, um, it's not the norm, right? It's not the norm. It, it, it, and again, that's following this proven model. You'll, you'll have faster growth than, you know, trying to figure it out on your own or, or, or again, just trying to hit the easy button. Um, but the point being is we want to behave in the same way. Small actions executed consistently over time. That's when people start to come up to you and say, what are you doing? Like, how has this happened? And you probably will just smile and say, well, it was a lot of hard work. You know, it was consistently putting in the effort, the systems, etc. And that's what we're seeing, you know, time over time. And It was funny, like, he— my buddy Chad, uh, he, he was like, this is actually what works. And he just wrote like 5 bullet points, and he talked about working your butt off, talked about building a team that can run things without you being involved in every little step, relentless with sales, right? Getting your name out there, meeting more people, getting more business. Um, I mean, it was just It was just the basics. And sometimes the basics aren't sexy. And that's, that's the problem. We all want sexy. So how do we translate this to decompression? Well, every new patient call is handled the right way every time. So this— so in week 5, staff training, right? And Dr. Benisiak, your game plan is coming over today. And of course, part of that will be staff training. So Your front desk. Where, where is their skill level, one to ten, in terms of being an excellent communicator, hearing the patient, creating empathy, scheduling them, and getting them there? Hey there, it's Dr. Vince, and if you're getting value from this episode, please make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you know another doc who's If you know someone who's ready to grow their practice, share this with them. It might be exactly what they need right now. Thank you in advance. And now back to the show. So that's their job. And so, um, we want that, uh, role trained properly so that they have— one, have the tools. Like, if they're not working off a script, then they're winging it, right? And if your front desk is 25 years old, they don't have The life experience to wing it and do it properly, I promise you. So, um, so use the script, which is in week 5. Um, next, every day 1 and day 2 is run the exact same way, right? Day 1, hey, they get there 15 minutes early, they fill out their paperwork, they watch the pre-consult video, you are notified at 4 minutes, and then you walk right in. Right. So they're seen on time, they're getting educated. And even before that, they get the new patient webinar. They're consuming that prior to coming in. Day 2, right? What we would do, we would just show— and this is something I wanted to do— is create basically a highlight testimonial reel that everyone can show to their patients. So it'd be a pre-day 2. But this is what we did, is we just had 5 minutes of testimonials. And it was all our testimonials, so I'm kind of wavering on whether this is, you know, um, I want to be transparent about this. In other words, like, if a patient sees all these testimonials but they're not the doctors, I think there's a way to frame it. Hey, these patients have had— have been through our protocol and have gotten these results. That way, they— it's not saying, hey, all these patients were this doctor, but I Again, I'm always trying to create things that you guys can just plug and play, like the pre-consult video. But the point being is every day 1 and day 2 is run the same way every, every time, right? Your report of findings, you don't have to change anything about that report of findings. It's the same report of findings because they're all disc patients, right? Um, report your ROF, again delivered using the proven framework. Um, internal marketing Um, what you'll find is if you only rely on external paid marketing, your costs will continue to rise over time. If you balance it out with internal marketing strategies like patient appreciation days, open houses, email marketing, physician referrals, you know, et cetera, et cetera, signage, flyers, postcards, What you'll see is you will be able to much better manage your new patient acquisition. Um, and your staff roles are executed without improvisation. Again, in week 5, spinal decompression A to Z, spinal decompression frequently asked questions. Um, you know, how do you put a patient on the table? When do you put a patient on the table? When do you ice? When they, when they go to laser, what does that look like? Like, all these processes really need to be dialed in so that the, the staff member at least knows what is correct so that they can then work on that and they can hone and improve their skills. Are they asking for testimonials? Are they asking for referrals? Are they asking for Google reviews? Are they doing that on a daily basis? Are they getting bonused for that? We talk about performance-based bonuses in the program. So these are elements of having a staff-driven practice, and when it's done right, that's when it's operating properly. And it's a beautiful thing because it takes a lot off your plate. So the 4 buckets of our high-value processes— this is our plays, right? Clinical. So protocol consistency. Are you consistently recommending our protocol? That's the first thing. Are you doing evaluations at the proper time frame? So midterm evaluation after four weeks, final exam after the entire protocol. I am interested. I was talking to Dr. Horn. They do an eight is eighteen. Basically, at the end of month 2, they do another exam, basically when the patients have 4 visits left. I like this for a couple reasons. One, obviously we're checking in with the patient. I've never done this before, so I'm, I'm going to explore it further to see if we want to add it into the protocol. But obviously we're able to get an update on where the patient's at. to see whether they're going to need more than the final 4. And I would always bonus 4, by the way, guys. I mean, I didn't— if they needed, like, you know, if I felt like they needed, like, way more than 4, then yeah, we'll talk about charging. But I would, you know, they'd already paid— well, in our case, our care plans were around $8,000. So they'd already made a big investment. So I wasn't going to— and by the way, I don't recommend case fees that high. I like the 4 to 6 in the case fees. range. Point being is at that visit 18, we'll know, hey, are we 18 or 20? Point being, well, do we think they're going to finish on time? We can start laying the groundwork for maintenance. We can see if we're going to feel like we're all on the same page with what success looks like. So the evaluations, you know, are we putting them on the 24-visit care plans? Um, then systems and operations. Are you having regular meetings with your team? Huddles? These can be daily. They should definitely be weekly. A huddle, by the way, it doesn't need to be some drawn-out thing. It can— if you do a daily huddle, it could be a 5-minute before you start the day. Okay. Um, what new patients are on the books? Day 1s or day 2s? Are there any problem patients I should be aware of? This, this would be feedback from your techs. Are we on track to hit our goals? That's it. I mean, again, it's a, it's a huddle. Come in. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Now, the key with the huddles is you want to have the staff member ready with the information. And so for them to be ready with the information, you need to tell them what to provide. Tracking your metrics on a weekly basis, you know, obviously, like we just talked about with Dr. Mark, consults that are scheduled, showed, closed, revenue. And if you want to track visits, if you, you know, in terms of just your chiropractic side of things, hey, are we on track with visits-wise for the month, right? And you would check that at the end of each week. If you're not tracking your metrics on a weekly basis, and I would, You know, I would recommend carving out time either on Monday or Friday. So Monday, you'd be reflecting back on the past week. Friday, you would— at the end of the day, you'd be reflecting on the past week. Hey, did we hit our goals this week? Did we hit our goals in terms of consults and starts and visits? Because what that does is, if you're on track, great. You know, reward yourself. If you're behind, Hey, kick things in the butt a little bit. If you're ahead, awesome. You know that your things are working properly, so continue to do them. Staff execution. Are you doing training on a regular basis? Descripting handoffs. So handoffs is like if you're doing the trial, once they're done with the trial, you're going to hand them off to your case manager if they're doing the finances because you've already done the doctor stuff, right? But what do handoffs look like? Are they following the scripting? Are they able to answer the frequently asked questions? And then marketing and growth. So internal, again, with the marketing, the internal marketing we talked about, report of findings, conversion, and then follow-up systems. So if we're closing it, say we're closing at 50%, do you have a system in place to follow up with those patients that said no? I, my belief is that if someone has a cell phone, a job, and a car, they can afford the care one way or another. Maybe they can't write a check for $5,000. Um, and if they can't, maybe they can't even get approved for CareCredit. But we talk about, or we talked about in the past, of doing self-financing, right? Where say it's a $4,000 care plan, they'd put $1,000 down. That's going to cover supplements, brace, orthotics, and, you know, 3 to 4 visits. So, but it's getting them invested. And then you take the balance of the plan and you spread it out over 11 months. So now you're the bank, but they've committed. So that would be an alternative financing method that you may want to implement if you're not doing that already, because the more— Financing options we have, the more patients you'll close. Um, so that would be an ROF conversion thing. But follow-up systems— all those patients that said no, I got to think about it, let me talk to my spouse, let me look at my finances— you never heard from them again. Those are all just soft nos, right? For whatever reason, you know, um, it wasn't a good time for them, they didn't believe you, they didn't trust you. They They didn't like your staff member. Who knows? Who knows what the reason was? But most likely the problem did not go away. They may have had surgery, or maybe they found someone else with decompression that they did trust and they went through care. But a lot of times, the problem still persists. They just, you know, they're putting off dealing with it. And so it would make sense Monthly or quarterly to have a system in place to reach back out to those people that have spent all this time with you. They've done the day 1, they've done the day 2, they've gotten all the communication, to reach back out and check in with them. It could be a phone call from you. Hey John, Dr. Vince here. You know, I regularly go through my files every quarter. Just want to reach out and check in, see how things are doing. Are you still suffering from that condition? And then have a conversation with them. Well, what held you back? Why didn't you move forward? I definitely felt I could have helped you. Well, and then have a conversation. Was it just the money? Like, if if it was just the money, I mean, just tell me. I mean, I if you don't have it, that's one thing. But if there's you know, if it's there, you're just not sure if you want to spend it. Tell me that too. I don't want money to stand in the way from you. You know, having. A good quality of life, and this probably isn't going away. It's been three months since we talked. It's still there. It's probably getting worse. Like, let's figure out let's figure out a way to get you under care. That's just an honest conversation, right? And that's just a simple system that you could put in place even on your calendar. Like systems, they don't need to be all this tech and automation. You can literally put it in your Google Calendar. Follow at the end of you. Each quarter, follow up with all past ROFs that didn't move forward, and then set aside a couple hours and call them. Pick up the phone and call them. Everyone is so text-based and email. When a doctor calls a patient, that, that means something, right? So be that different doctor. And is everyone going to sign up? Nope. But I, I bet some will, some will come back in. And if 2 hours of phone calls once a quarter results in 2, 3 patients starting care that you've already paid for the leads, you've already spent all the time, $5,000 to $10,000, maybe $15,000 in revenue, that's worth it, right? That's worth it. So Again, just simple systems, consistency. Okay, moving on. Choosing your 4 keystone processes, and then we're going to wrap this up. So I want you to pick one process in each of those buckets, right? We talked about these buckets here. These are your buckets: clinical, systems and ops, staff, and marketing. So I want you to pick One of those in each bucket, and that's what you'll focus on in Q1. Right? So you want to make 2026 your best year yet? That's my goal for you. That's my goal for me. So we don't want too many things, right? So just pick one thing in each of those buckets that you can focus on. So. Again, keep it simple. One behavior, one system, one staff action, one growth driver. These are your plays, if we're going to stick with the football analogy. And then create a very simple scorecard. The goal here is we want to track inputs, right? So what are we putting into the system? What are we putting into our practice? Take emotion out of it. Um, but what, what are we doing on a daily and weekly basis to build our practice? And then score yourself 1 to 5. You're gonna— and, and, uh, in fact, I will create this spreadsheet. So I'll create this spreadsheet, very simple, so that you can choose like each quarter These are the the one thing from each of those buckets, and then on a weekly basis, you'll just give yourself a one to five score. Right? One didn't execute. Five executed perfectly. And it's not. This says don't track how things felt. Um. I would say we try to take emotion out of it. Just say, hey, honest assessment, how did I do on that? That's it. You know, did we do it? That would be the first step. Did we do it? And then how well did we do it? If you did it and you did it well, that's a 5, right? You need to reward yourself for that. These are just examples. Did we run a weekly reactivation campaign? So what does that look like? That could be phone calls, emails, postcards. Did we follow our report of findings framework for every case? If you go through the ROF training, the Alchemical ROF training, which is vital, and, and by the way, if you want help coaching, etc., on ROF, Dr. Vinny's your guy. Um, uh, Fridays he's available. Please take advantage of that. In fact, today I'm gonna— I'll post links for Dr. Pankinen, uh, Dr. Vinny, and myself for this 15-minute coaching calls. Um, but are you following your ROF framework, right? Are you using the tools? Are you asking the Four Horsemen questions? Are you doing the trial, right? Are you Um, presenting all the financial options. Did you complete some staff training reps? Um, this could be each week. If you go into week 5, you'll see the frequently asked questions. It's a sheet, I think 3 sheets of questions. And you— so at, you know, a designated time. So you really want— you don't want to do this kind of haphazardly. You want a designated time. Go through five questions. So hope, if a patient asks you, "When am I going to start to feel better?" What's the answer? That's it. And you're going to do five of those and make sure that she responds appropriately. By the way, if you look at the FAQ sheet, I've always said most of our patients start responding in two weeks. The research in the podcast we covered with Dr. Pankinen. Most patients start feeling significant changes in 3 to 6 weeks. So I thought that was interesting. Um, did we complete our internal marketing action? Again, these are just examples. Okay, so wrapping up, what happens when you do this for 90 days? What I want you to do is, um, test this. Don't take my word for it, just test it. I'm gonna be doing it alongside you. I'm gonna be doing the same thing in my business. Um, but when you do this 90 days, it creates what's called a flywheel. A flywheel, if you think of it like this, it's a circle and it has little arrows on it, and each touchpoint reinforces the next, and the flywheel spins faster and faster and becomes more and more profitable. So an example of this is Amazon. So Amazon, so you buy something, you get a great result, it Or it gets delivered to you quicker, you get a great result, and you buy more stuff. That's literally their whole business model, right? They just want you to buy more stuff, and they want to deliver it fast, and they want to make sure that you like it. And if you don't, they have easy returns, and it goes round and round. And that's why it's a— whatever it is, probably a trillion-dollar company at this point, or getting close. So that's the flywheel. Report a finding. When you do this and consistently over 90 days, I think— and if you do this for 90 days, I think you're going to start to see results. So your report conversions will rise, starts increase, staff confidence will increase, which is awesome. That makes your job easier. Marketing becomes more consistent because you're not relying on just one source. The practice stops feeling chaotic. In other words, not this, it's more like this, which is what we want— smooth and up and to the right. If We're thinking of like the stock market chart. Um, and the scoreboard begins to reflect your inputs, right? So the scoreboard, that's the revenue. So scoreboard's revenue. The inputs, inputs is all the stuff we've talked about today. So stop trying to hit— now, now we're mixing sports. Stop trying to hit home runs, run the plays. Um, stop, stop focusing on touchdowns. Focus on running the plays. Goals create your direction. The processes create the results. Consistency beats intensity. This is huge, right? Because when we start to fall behind or we're not hitting our goals, we tend to go, I need to do all this stuff. But if you consistently do these things, you don't need to get into that intense mode, right? Because the consistency, the inputs will create the results. So we focus on the process, outcomes will take care of themselves. Here's the homework. Identify those 4 keystone processes. Build your weekly scorecard. I will create this for you in a simple spreadsheet. And it will be— so all these micro trainings, by the way, if you're new to the group, go in week 12. And so there'll be a downloadable spreadsheet there with it in the action items and resources. Commit to this for 90 days. This is a perfect time, right? First quarter of 2026, commit to this, this process, and then report your progress. Okay. As you go along and, um, progress questions, that's what these Q&As are for. That's what the one-on-ones are for, et cetera. All right. So I hope that that was valuable for you. I know we went a little long. Um, but I just feel like the, the timing is super important heading into 2026. Hey, it's Dr. Vince again, and hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you're ready to grow your practice fast with high-value decompression patients, then the Decompression Accelerator could be a phenomenal option for you. This is our 90-day sprint to help you scale with proven systems, staff-driven protocols, and full marketing support, and it's all Spots are limited. Head to www.decompressionaccelerator.com to learn more.