Making This Mistake Could Destroy Your Practice (Part 1 of 2)

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Hey everybody, Matt Scologli here with the Practice Profit System, and today I want to talk to you about the number one thing I discuss with new patients— or new clients, I should say— on their very first coaching call with me. And here's what's interesting: it's not about how to generate more new leads or the latest greatest tactic. I'll reveal it to you in just a moment, but first Thank you so much for attending. This is the Practice Profit System where we come to you every single week with all kinds of great new insights on how to grow or start your cash-based medical practice. And what's really cool is we've got a lot of improvements coming to the podcast. You'll be noticing that starting with this one, there is some new intros, some new professionalism. There'll be a new background for us here in a little bit. And we're just upping our game because we're getting a lot of great positive comments and reviews about the podcast. So thank you so much about it. I greatly appreciate it. So let's talk about this. What is the number one thing that your— that my clients want to talk to me about on our very first call? Well, they want to talk about— is they want to talk about everything that's going wrong in their practice. You know, rarely do people come to work with me when things are going fantastic. They generally come to work with me when things aren't going too well. In fact, a lot of— I would say well over 50% of the people who come to work with me are literally on the verge of closing their doors, which come a little bit earlier, but, you know, we can certainly work a little bit of magic and get them straightened out. Here's the first thing that I have everybody work on. It's the reason why their practice doesn't grow. And the reason why their practice doesn't grow is they are completely 100% rudderless. They are like a ship without steering capacity on rocking oceans, which means that whatever way the winds are blowing, the currents are going, the tides are going, is the direction that they're going to go. in. They are not able to chart their own course. And the reason why they can't chart their own course comes down to 3 very simple reasons, and I'm going to explain them to you on today's podcast. The first reason is the same word, but it's in 2 different ways. They don't have a clear vision for their practice, but most importantly, they don't have a clear vision for the role or the purpose of that practice in their life. Let me explain. Most doctors I know have a big heart. They're very altruistic. That's why you become a doctor, right? Because you want to help people. You want to help people feel better. And while that's great from a patient care standpoint, it can actually work against you a little bit when it comes to running a business. And so, what happens is that most doctors who own practices, in fact, most entrepreneurs in general, they Put themselves last. Now, if you've listened to this podcast, you've probably heard me talk about this a little bit, but this is a real foundational piece that I want to share with you. The big question I ask for people is, I go, why did you start this practice? And they generally go with, well, I wanted to serve people, I wanted to help people with this. And I said, no, no, no, I don't care about that. Why did you start this practice? Why? Well, you know, I wanted to help people. I said, no, no, no, no, this is about you. I don't care about you helping people. There's a reason why you did this, because if you wanted to help people, you would have stayed at Kaiser Permanente, or you would— well, okay, not Kaiser Permanente, no offense to Kaiser Permanente if there's anybody listening from Kaiser Permanente. But if you, if you wanted to help people, you could work in the ER. It may not be ideal, the insurance world may not be ideal, but at least you can help people. Why did you do this? And what it really comes down to is they did this because they wanted To make more money. They wanted to— they wanted to make more money, but they also wanted to have a better life. They felt that they could make more money for themselves personally and their family by working in their own practice and have more control over their life than they did if they worked for somebody else. Okay, now here's the cold, hard reality. That never becomes true. Okay? They don't in any way, shape, or form really get to a place where they're able to live the life that they want. So then the next question I always ask them is, well, how much money do you want to make? And they go, oh, well, you know, I'm not greedy. I don't need a big car. And I don't care about any of that. How much money do you want to make? You personally. I'm not talking about in the practice. How much do you want to make? And they'll hem and they'll haw and be like, well, how much are you making now? They're making $75,000, $60,000, $100,000. And I go, do you want to make a quarter of a million dollars a year? And you can immediately see their eyes light up. Yeah, that would be great. So would you like to make a quarter of a million dollars a year every single year for the next 10 years? Oh yeah, that'd be great. What could you do with that? And they usually have a different reason than all of that. So the first part of the vision is, why are you doing this? It can't just be for the good of your heart. You've got to be in alignment with you as to why you're doing this. And if you've got some issues with that, like if you've got a mental block with that, or you've got an emotional block with that, Then, you know, we need to probably, you know, talk a little bit, or maybe you need to take a look at working with me one-on-one, because that's a big block. See, if you have an issue with making money from off of patients, or you don't think that you're worthy enough, maybe you're like, oh, I have no problem making the money, but there's also this part of, well, do— am I worthy enough? Am I worthy to make that kind of money? So there's a whole process that you have to go through in that, and it really doesn't take long. I can ask you frankly a couple of questions and get you past that block. And the reason why the first thing is why your business is struggling is you don't have a really clear picture of what you want. You don't see the role or the purpose that company plays, your company plays, in providing for you and your life. Now, this doesn't make you a selfish person, okay? This doesn't make you a bad person. The reality is, is that I was having this conversation with a guy, and, you know, he's got a very strong faith, and, you know, he wanted this to fund Mission work. Well, the problem was, is it was funding mission work, but it wasn't paying him a dime. And the reality is, is that I said, well, you know, if this continues, not only will you stop funding the mission work, but you will have a bankruptcy on your hand. Okay. And so you've got to be clear about you first. It's got to be you first. The second thing is, is then what's the vision that you have for serving your marketplace. And it can't be that I want to offer functional medicine, regenerative medicine, and anti-aging and all this, and sexual health to everybody in Columbia, South Carolina. That's not it. You have to be focused on a very specific market. You, you can't be all things to everybody. You have to be someone to somebody. And you, you know, it's why my doctors that do their best, you know, they might start with 1 or 2 things or 3 things to kind of see what gains traction. You know, I got a doctor that thought they were going to be doing regenerative, and they started doing some campaigns for functional medicine, and that's working, and that's driven them to 6 figures a month. I've had another doctor that— another client, you know, that does women's laser lipo and noticed he had an opportunity for men's sexual health as well. So he opens up a second clinic under a different name doing just men's sexual health. He's not bleeding— blending the two. So you have to be clear about who you're going to serve, but you've got to be very specific. There is riches in niches. And the more you can focus in on who you're going to be serving, then you are going to do an outstanding job. I literally— she's not a client, but I know that I've got a regular listener and she works with African American women in an aesthetics— she has an aesthetics practice. That's her mission. That's her field. That's who she targets in on. Okay? You know, she has— there are different needs for African American women with regards to their skin, and that's her marketplace. And she lives in a market that— and where she is, it's absolutely perfect. Okay, so you've got to do these things. You've got to be really clear. And then the last thing is this, is that you've got to be really clear on your values. Now, you've probably heard me talk about this, and I'm kind of revisiting some of this because I'm actually laying some foundation for some of the calls or podcasts that we're going to be doing, the video podcasts. You've got to be really clear about who you are. So, I have another client of mine. He's out in Northern California. He's getting ready to open up a number of locations. And I have this actually with quite a few of my clients. I got another client in Southern California, some clients in the Florida Panhandle, and they want to grow. They have an opportunity to grow. And so, their question to me is usually, should I lease this location? You know, should I hire this person? I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to grow this. But Because they've got a clear vision on, on their personal and their business vision. But then the final component of this, the final building block to scaling your practice quickly, are what are your values? Okay, now there is not a correct set of values. The values have to be for you. I have a client, it's out on the West Coast, and he values competitiveness and intelligence and all of this, and his team reflects that. And as we were talking about who to hire. He's like, well, I've got this person over here I could hire that's a little bit more malleable, and then I've got this person over here, and I think that they're just really, you know, driven, and, you know, they're playing a little hard to get. And I go, you hire this guy. He goes, well, why? I said, because this guy fits with your values. You've got to be clear about your values. You've got to be clear about who you are. Okay? Values of my organization, some of them are grit, joy, learning. You have to be a learner. If you don't have that, you have to have humility. If you don't have that, you can't work in my organization. And quite frankly, you probably will not be a very good client of mine. Okay? So this— these values have to be clear because they have to— when you have all of these working together, and I see this time and time again, I have some clients, all they want to do is talk about all their problems, and I always stop them. How does this relate back to your values? How does this troubled doctor— how does this troubled employee— how does this troubled salesperson— why are they not performing? Well, they don't attach to your values. They haven't bought in, right? What do you hear from football coaches all the time? Our team's buying in. You know, when they're buying in and they buy into the process, when they buy into the values of the organization and then they start to live them, it's not just buying into them, but they have to live them. The team starts to win or they start to get being in a game where they can win, right? And that's the way it is with business. Your team, you have to buy into your vision for your life. You've got to have a clear vision in your life of what you want this to be, meaning how do you want this to serve you? Okay, you've got to have a clear vision of who you serve, right? And you've got to have clear values. In my company, people always ask, well, you know, why did you sell the practices and why don't you still own practices today? Well, I have pieces of some practices. I have some joint ventures that I do because— and here's why. I loved owning the practices. I did not like dealing with the compliance and the employees. And as the CEO of the company, I had to. And I didn't like all the time that it required me to be on the road. And so what I did is when I sold them is I decided to design my next company so that I could have a lot more flexibility about where I, where I was and where I live. Now I still live in Charlotte, but, you know, Katie and I keep talking about, you know, moving to the beach somewhere or something like that. But the thing is, is I've got to be able to have that flexibility that fits for my personality. Okay? I don't do well having to be in the same office every single day at 8:30. That's just not my skillset. I like a lot of flexibility. So this company, the vision that I have, and I love to serve doctors. So this vision is one, the company's going to enable me to be able to do this wherever I am, wherever I am in the country or maybe in the world once we get to some international travel again. But lastly, Also, it comes down to everything that I do, everybody on my team has to fit in with those values and those— every business that I take on and everything that I look at has to fit into the structure and the values of my organization. Okay, that's the first thing that I work with, with my clients. It is the most important thing, and they want to talk about should it be faceback or should I do radio or should I do print or should I do TV and what do you think about this machine. I don't care about any of that. What's most important? Is those visions and those values. Okay, a couple quick things.

In a moment you'll hear about our book offer.

If you haven't gotten a chance to get it, go ahead and get it. But I want to make a big announcement for you, and that is we're going to host a free 2-day event in Charlotte, October 22nd, 23rd, I believe. 23rd, 24th. It's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sorry. But anyway, we're still finalizing the date, but it is going to be that weekend. And it's going to be completely free, and it's going to be all about how to grow your practice, whether you're starting one, whether you have one that's existing, or you have one that's already doing 7 figures. You'll want to come into Charlotte for that. We are not going to be hosting it virtually. I know, I know some people are a little averse to traveling with the pandemic, but something that we wanted to do, and we have quite a bit of interest, so we're going to give it a shot. We're going to go for it. There is no charge, and there'll be more information coming out. I'll have a site up and available in the next week, so Check it out.

All right.

Have a great day, everybody. This is the Practice Profit System. Make sure you listen in next time. We'll talk about the second component of the vision and the values, and we call it the values oil change. That'll come out next week. Have a great day, everybody.

Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, take a moment and share it with your fellow medical professionals, or post a positive comment and rate it on wherever you just listened. Now don't forget, you can get a copy of my book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice, for free. Just pay $7.95 in shipping and handling. Plus, you'll get over $1,197 in free bonus material. Simply go to srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. That's srpmedicalmarketing.com/book. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next week.

Thank you.