Your First Hire May Not Be Your Best

Welcome to Pelby biz podcast. I'm Dr. Kelly Alhui. I have grown and established brick and mortar practice in Northern Virginia called Ortho Pelvic Physical Therapy and also founded Pelvibiz, which is an online business consulting company that helps healthcare providers make more money and be healthy while doing it, especially in the pelvic health realm. And let's get into today's episode.

Today I'm going to go over why your first hire may be the worst hire that you've ever hired. Okay. In your hiring career as a business. Now, let me give you a little backstory here. My very first hire ever was my admin and this person was actually a patient previously. And I was like, I don't know how I'm going to make this transition from talking about her and her health issues and then also then trying to bring in the business aspect and then making sure that we're running the business and then how to handle objections over the phone when patients call and all the different things. And it actually was something that worked out very well because my, my patient that was my admin was like on the other side. So she could relate to being a patient and what a patient would think and be able to talk to them very easily. And then long term, three years later, she became my manager and then, you know, the rest is history. But if it wasn't, I think that's an amazing scenario. Okay, that truly is. And some practices will have that success. I have found, though, about 95% of people, when they hire their first hire, it's typically never the right fit. No matter how much preparation that you have ahead of time, no matter what systems you have in place, whether or not you think you're prepared, not prepared, it just ends up long term being the wrong fit. And here's my guess of why. Okay. After hiring and firing many different people, I would say the reasoning is when you first are hiring a therapist, okay, I'm going to go therapist now. You don't know what you don't know. Okay, let me say that again. You don't know what you don't know. You think you're going to know because you were a therapist and you still are a therapist. So you know what a therapist is going to want. The problem is there is a lot to hiring and this is why most people are scared to make that jump. I was too, because I knew I couldn't afford to pay myself because I had four different jobs. So how the heck am I going to be responsible for a for in My case, a physical therapist salary, when I know they all want to make over $80,000 because I was one of those people and I wanted to provide that because I wanted, you know, give back to my community. But I was like, I don't even make $80,000, so how I'm going to pay this person and make $80,000? So that was the first thing I was super, super scared to pay that high salary of how am I going to pay $80,000? Like, I just didn't understand the math behind it and how it was actually going to work. So my very first hire, I hired her within, like, I think I put out an ad. I got a hit. I hired her within like a day. She came on within two months, she ended up quitting on me. And it wasn't her fault. It was actually my fault because she. I didn't know if she was like a W2 or W9. Like, this is the stuff that no one goes over with you. So I didn't tell her, hey, by the way, you're gonna have to pay taxes now. I didn't know how to price her per hour rate, and I started with a per hour rate because I was SC to go full time and have to pay her a salary. So that was also a turn off for her because she wanted steady income, which now in the, you know, being many years out from it, I get. But again, I just didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't have any systems in place, so I was just like, yeah, treat the patient. And she's like, she was 100% green. I had to teach her all pelvic health stuff. I had, like, I said nothing recorded, no systems. Okay, we'll just like co treat the whole entire time. That was my plan. Okay? Which it does work. But do you know how much effort that takes? It takes so much effort. And at that point when you're ready to hire your first therapist, you're already, like, out of energy because that's why you're hiring, because you need someone to take on the patients because you literally have no more time in your schedule. So. So I was already at that point seeing 50 patients a week. 50 patients a week for over three months straight. I was like, dead. And I hired this therapist. Like, I said, I trained her. I co treated for like two months. And then she just, she left. She said, I'm done. And I was like, crap. And then you feel like, oh, my gosh, is it me? Am I the bad person? How could anyone quit on this, like, how do they not see the vision? All these things you start questioning of yourself, like, did I do this right? How could I done it? How could I have done it differently? And the reality was I just wasn't prepared, literally wasn't prepared. But I needed that rep in of hiring her so that I could have more feedback to understand how to do it better next time. So that's why the title of this.

Episode today is your first hire will.

Probably be the worst hire ever made. Now, my admin situation, it was one of the best hires I ever made because I developed a relationship with that person beforehand. My PT that I hired was probably my. It was my worst hire, I can tell you that, because I, like I said, I just didn't know what I didn't know. And then going off of that, I would say you don't know necessarily, like what interview questions to ask the person. That's very hard. Like how to interview someone. You're just like, okay, great. So you're interested in pt, okay. Or pelvic health. Okay, great. Okay. This Tuesday at 10 o', clock, you want to come in? Okay, great. We'll just do a little practice here. All right. You seem like a good fit. Can you start next week? Great, let's go ahead and get started. Like, that's literally how I did it. Which in the long run, it worked out again. I got my reps. Got my reps, but it was painful reps. So I'm trying to save you guys from that. I would say the best thing that you can ask them is in a cash based model, there's two things I would bring them in and see how comfortable are they in the room and are they like with another patient? Hey, coach, even before they come on with you, are they interacting with that patient? Are they standing in the corner and like not wanting to look at any parts? Are they barely speaking? Are they, you know, what are they doing? And if they're interacting and like starting a conversation with the patient, I'm like 100% hired. That's what I've learned. You cannot teach that. I cannot teach that. So I'll hire them. Also, are they willing to just like kind of get in there and be like, yeah, let's try this. Or are they like, I want to see you do it like 12 times before I actually treat someone, Those people I'm a little hesitant about. For me personally, I'm also hesitant when someone is like, well, but this is what we learned in school. This is what the research says. It's Amazing to look at research. We all should look at research, but. But research can only go so far and tell us so much. I truly believe that the best way you can learn, especially in the pelvic health realm, is have amazing mentors, like in person mentors. I could tell you that's how I learned. I could tell you that's how many other people have learned. But a research article can only say so much about a very narrow, specific thing it's trying to study, and you've got to connect all the dots. So I really feel like having an in person mentor is, is the best way to go when you're looking to get in the pelvic health world, and especially when you're hiring, you can actually use that as a benefit to people. Coming on with you is Instead of taking 12,000 Con Ed classes, they just come on with you. It is a con Ed class every single day because they not only get access to you, but they get access to all the con Ed classes basically you've taken throughout the year or throughout the years that you practice because you, you have built up your skill and you can end up teaching them all your skills. So I think that's really important to hone in on when you're hiring. As a added bonus that you can provide them mentorship, which many people want that because as we know, I mean, there's a lot to know in the pelvic health world. So in a textbook and in research articles, again, it's very limited. It is limited. The other thing I would say is build the company around the people. This is another lesson I learned. So when someone comes on with me, I truly ask them, like, what do they want? They're like, well, you know, I want to see patients and I want time off. And it's like, okay, great. But, like, what makes you tick? That's what I want to know. Do you love working with postpartum moms? Do you like working with pain, chronic pelvic pain patients? Do you like treating peds? Do you like treating breast cancer patients? Like what do you like treating? And I want to know that so that I can help further nurture that so that you feel fulfilled and that you feel happy and want to keep loving what you're doing. Because the last thing I want is to burn someone out and for them to be kind of in the position I was in of like, I hate this, and I just don't want to do this anymore. And I don't want to burn, you know, anyone out. That is not why I started orthopelvic and that is not my intention at all. So I really like to nurture and build a company around my people. Even my admin and manager. I like to know what they like to do. And I will build programs that align with the company's mission around what they want to do and have them take control over it. I mean that's, that's really how you build an amazing team that has a mission behind it. Because there's got to be a why. Otherwise what people are just there to collect the paycheck. I don't want people like that in my company. I want people that have passion and really, truly want to help people. So I think, I think that's, that's really big. The other thing I would say is making sure that whoever you hire is not a liability and that it's. They're an asset. Let me say that again. Anyone that you hire, you want to make sure it's not a liability and that they are an asset. That they are bringing value to your company. Whether or not that's because of their personality, whether or not it's because of the knowledge that they bring, whether or not it's because they have amazing team building and they get the team together, everyone's going to have their own thing. But are they an asset and not a liability? Are they just there to collect the paycheck? If they are, bye bye. I do not have any liabilities on my team. I have quickly learned to get those people off the team because long term, even though they may be like a space filler for the moment, long term they are going to be one of your worst employees because they're just there to collect the paycheck and there's not really any passion behind it. So I would say that's a huge tip over the last year that I have taken away and I have learned is and quickly get them off. Whether or not you even have to put yourself back in, get them out as fast as you possibly can. Let's see systems, let's go over systems. So having systems in place is very important when bringing someone on so that you're not scattered. You have a style of how you treat them. You are able to systematically feel that there's. There's two different things that you really need to go over, especially in the therapist world. And in a cash based model you need to go over objection handling with them and you need to go over how to treat. There's two different things. So in one eye and one, you know, in one Part there is how to communicate, how to show, in my eyes, it's, it's more the method, how to get the patient to understand that they are here and showing the roadmap that they're going to get to here. There's also the part of getting patients to understand this takes time, Setting expectations. None of this is taught in school, none of it. And so this is the stuff that I have to teach my therapist when they come on all these different things. How to set expectations, how to show them the roadmap, how to get people to understand that, oh yeah, they have this problem that they didn't even know about. How to get people to have hope and that we can actually solve the problem and to trust us. That's huge. How to get people over the hey, I talked to my husband and calendar objection or the childcare objection, all that kind of stuff. So that's one side of it. And then you want to create systems around that. And then the other side is that how to treat, how to feel confident. Enough of hey, this person has chronic pelvic pain, she's probably going to be here for 16 sessions. Or this person had acute low back pain, should probably be here for seven sessions. Like when to know, when to have the person keep coming, when to have them stop, have they reached their goals, how to take them and progress them to the higher level exercises. I find that's typically really hard thing for people to grasp as they come on as therapists come on. So just having systems in place that helps coach these therapists when they come on through this stuff I find is massively helpful. And they get less overwhelmed because it is very overwhelming coming in because it's completely different than anything they taught them in PT school. And now they have these patients, they have to do the notes, which is not hard. And you know how we do it. They have to figure out heps, which we have a whole system on that so they don't get overwhelmed. But still they have to answer the person's questions that may be so off the wall they don't know how to answer it. So there's all these different factors, right? Trying to figure out a routine, trying to figure out time, trying to figure out how to handle something that someone says, maybe that's like, wow, I've never even heard this, what do I do about it, right? So all that different stuff has a massive factor when it comes to your first hires and how to handle them. And I would say systems are key, but doesn't mean that you have to all the systems in place before you hire. I would have a couple major ones in place. That's it. And then build the systems when you are training the new hire. And then that's going to be your systems going forward. But you do not have to have everything ready to go. And if anyone has any questions about systems, it's what? I have tons of systems on the back end. I have a system on top of a system on top of a system. So everything gets double triple checked without me having to micromanage. You want more of my systems? DM me, send me a message. I'd be happy to talk about what I do for systems wise. Also, if you want more systems, we have an event coming up called Pelvibiz Retreat. It's in San Diego March 15th 17th. I think we have about 15 more spots left, so if you want your ticket, click the show notes below. There will be a spot right there that you can grab your spot and and hopefully this episode was very helpful to you to understand that it's not your fault. The first hire is probably going to be the worst. And that's okay. Bye guys.

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