39: Which Executive to Hire Next

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Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott, and I'm going through the questions I got for my Adso presentation. Which executive should I hire first? That was the next question. Which executive should I hire first? I think when anytime we're thinking about team, we're always wondering, is there one specifically that we should be hiring next in line? Especially as we're building out our DSO and it feels like a thousand things are coming at us at once. I can remember just getting a friend who had been a CFO to help build out the Performa when we first started. We were going to go get money for that first location, me and Dr. Evans and just very intimidated. Really wanted to know financially though, how the story was going to play out. Getting that financial clarity can just be so helpful. And then thinking through on that pro forma, what was going to drive revenue, what was going to be our marketing niche in order to drive revenue and to get patients to come in that door. And of course, what was the clinical expectations? Now that wasn't something I could give input on, but it was something that I could put into the assumptions to really know what was going to be on average, the amount of production that would come from these patients over time and then what's the expenses that needed to be there in order to support the doctors and support this business venture long term, to make sure we could support our doctors, support our team, support our patients. All that came before we ever hired our first person. But many of you are way beyond that point. Maybe you've got your second or tenth location and now you're asking yourself, okay, I need some more business support. Who should I be hiring first? Let me share just two principles. Principle number one, if you're the leader, if you're the visionary, if you're the entrepreneur, if you're the one that's really driving the ship forward, if you're the One deciding where this is going. Always hire what would bring you the most protection and support. Always hire what would lift you to your highest and best use. That's so much of the game that we are playing in our careers at this point. That's the entrepreneur game, that's the owner game, is we can bring more value when we offload those things that aren't our strengths, those things that are bringing pressure and noise in our life. Using words of Alex Charfen One dangerous thing I sometimes see is people trying to make the right decision based on some other CEO, some other owner, some other entrepreneur. You're not that person. So really understanding you and where you're feeling the need for additional help, additional support, that's the next executive, that's the next support person, that's the next hire that you should be thinking about. Now take the time to really write this out. So often I'll hear people say, I just need an OPS person, right? That's a real common one. I just need an operations person. Then as they describe that person to me, it might sound more like a facilities person, might sound a little bit more like an IT support person. So take the time to write down what it is specifically that you're hoping to accomplish. Now, the other thing you have to be careful of sometimes. I've made those lists and I looked at that list and I go, man, if I could find a human that could do all these things right, I'm really looking for a unicorn. We call it someone that it's not going to exist in one person. I want someone to create my marketing strategy, build out my financial performance, make sure I'm operationally efficient, help lead the teams, train the doctors, you know, things like that. So be careful as you're writing those out, once you write them out, look and say, is this really two people or three people? And if so, what's the couple items that are most important to me? And hopefully those segment into what one person could actually do. But my big warning here is don't think of this as there's a right hire that needs to happen. Think about what is most important to you to provide you the right support. This is a right mindset that you need to have as a dso, and it's the right mindset you're going to use to support your clinicians. And if you are a clinician, then by golly, make sure you're hiring support DSO mindset people, day one items and people that support you. So that's principle number one. Now if you feel like you have the right support around you, but you're just trying to sort through and prioritize that there's a next org chart to hire. If it's not specific around that, I'd say always hire people who improve your customer experience or your patient flow. Let's be honest, revenue covers a lot of sins. So if I'm going to go out there and get support somewhere, somebody who's going to increase my customer experience, who's going to help with patient flow, that is a nice ROI that I can calculate. Now, the first customer that you may need help to acquire is doctors, because doctors are our first customer. So if you don't have associates in places that you need to have associates, then maybe the person you need to hire is helping with the recruiting of those doctors of those clinicians and bringing them into your organization. Maybe then the next hire is helping to bring the customer of our customer, those patients in the door. So that's not a perfect science. You might outsource one help and then insource the other, or you might stack them, you know, as cash flow allows. So which executive should I hire first? If you're the leader, always hire what would bring you the most protection and support and lower your pressure and noise. Otherwise, hire people who will improve your customer experience. If you have more questions on this, come to our Facebook page on DSO Secrets. And until next time, keep smiling.

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