Choosing the Right Business Partner with Michelle Demarchi

A good clinician does not necessarily make a good clinic director or a good partner. Right? They might think they, they might think they're going to be good at it. They might try it and they might realize they hate it.

Right?

Because everything, the grass is always greener on the other side. Nobody can appreciate how difficult, challenging it can be.

How to get smarter in business and in life. This is the question and I'm on a journey to get you that answer. I'm going to interview the world's top entrepreneur and deconstruct their winning secrets. Going to talk about everything from marketing, money and living a bucket list life. I'm Rick Lau, healthcare entrepreneur. I grew and exited my 127 locations in my 30s. Welcome to the Clinic Boss show. All right, we are live. Welcome to the Clinic Boss show. I am Rick Lau and I'm your host today. And I grew and exit127 locations. So I'm on a journey to learn from the top healthcare entrepreneurs in the world on how to get smarter in business and in life. And if this sounds like you, welcome to the show. And today we got a special special guest who has a super incredible awesome story. Her name is Michelle. She's the owner of a multi million dollar practice in Toronto, physio plus and a team of 35, roughly. Michelle is that like you got surgeons, you got doctors, you got Cairos, you got massage and, and, and you're also one of our business coaches within clinic accelerator. So did I describe that right, Michelle?

You did. Pretty close. Yeah, yeah, I don't know that we have 35 people that have to count, but we're probably pretty close to, I don't know, 30.

I wanted your website. I was like, oh my gosh, your team totally expanded.

Okay, so maybe we do. I've lost count. Lost count.

Wow. Okay. And so you do have a super, super interesting story and that's why I want you to get on the show. And, and so, you know, I know a few years ago like I think it was during COVID you know, like your business was struggling and you even had to shut down a clinic. Right. You know, and now like you're just on top of the world, you know, so, you know, and you just crush it in. So I'm just, I just want to like, you know, maybe talk about the story a bit more like, you know, maybe like what happened, you know, maybe you could share a bit of your experience and your journey on that.

Yeah, happy to. So, so yes, we did, we had originally a clinic in one just outside of the downtown core of Toronto. We opened up a second clinic downtown, but we had to shut that clinic down. When Covid hit, it was a relatively new clinic. It had only been there for a couple of years, and so it really wasn't established. And when Covid hit and the downtown core just evacuated, we realized pretty early on that it was going to be a really long time before the downtown core recovered. And so we decided to just shut that clinic down, and we ended up subleasing the space. So we were very lucky. But it was. It was a very stressful time, you know, and it was stressful for a few reasons. Not just having to shut the clinic down, but, you know, Covid a business partner. We weren't necessarily, you know, aligned in terms of what we wanted out of the business. And so that created a lot of frustration on both sides, I'm sure. Sure. And so we did shut down the clinic, and, you know, long story short, we found a sublease. A subleaser, and then we were able to buy our way out of that lease, and we're completely free of that space now. And that really sort of allowed me to just focus my attention on the original location. And I think that's, you know, in part, there's a lot of things that have kind of happened around that, but being able to focus on one location and make that location grow and put all my time and energy into that has really made a big difference over the last three years.

Yeah. I think your business, like, totally took off, you know. Right. You know, like, what type of growth did you think you experienced since, you know, in the last couple years? Right.

In the last couple of years. I would say probably I'd have to go back and look. I don't know the percentage off the top of my head, but it's probably pretty close to 40% over the last couple years.

Wow. That's insane. And then I think, and this is interesting, is that, like, we were talking about this a little earlier, Is that, like, a lot of. A lot of, like, clinical owners who own one clinic, you know, and. And I see this a lot where, like, they. They hit their. They get to a point where they feel a bit confident, you know, and, like, they're usually, like, breaking even or making a bit of money, and then they feel like the next natural step is to open up a second location, you know?

Yeah.

And so I just want to hear from your perspective. Is that, like, you know, what are your. Like, what was your lesson learned from having multiple locations versus, like, just, like, you Know, like, just focus on one and just doing really well with it versus trying to, you know, like, spread yourself across two clinics. Or I know some people that want to own five or ten clinics, and when I hear them, like, dude, you want to be in, like, an Uber driver, like, drive to 10 different locations, 10 different, like, meetings, dropping off supplies.

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a bit of a nightmare, for sure. I mean, I think. I think it can be done, but I think the way I did it was just not the right way. I think the key is really to have you need a partner in that second location that is really, you know, that you're in alignment with and that you work together with, and you're, you know, on board with the same systems and structures that you can implement into the clinic to make it successful. And that's where, for me, it fell apart. You know, I had a business partner, so my thinking was, okay, great, you know, one of us will run one clinic, the other will run the other clinic. Divide and conquer kind of thing. Right. And that's, you know, it's just not what ended up happening for different reasons. But I think, you know, if you can have that dedicated partner and with a vested interest in the business at the other location, it does make a big difference, because the alternative is, like, what you were saying. It's, you know, me running around to all the different locations trying to make it all work, and you just can't. There's just too much to do. You cannot do it on your own. You need. You need someone.

Yeah, yeah. It's also like, your focus, too, right?

For sure. For sure. Having the one clinic and then, you know, being able to, like, sort of have a bit of a plan and a strategy. Right. Like, it. I was able to. And it was a lot of. The clinic accelerator, for sure, has helped me. Like, I've done coaching with Karen for the last couple of years, and she really helps me sort of organize my thoughts and kind of pick off pieces one bit at a time. But you really do need to have, you know, a good foundation laid out and. And sort of a bit of a plan to kind of take you through that bit by bit and. And then you can. It allows you to kind of put all of your focus into one place and you're not pulled in a million different directions. You can focus. You. You know, you get stuff done and. And you see the results, which is nice.

Yeah. So. So you mentioned, you know, you had a business partner breakdown. You know, and I'm curious, you know, like, when you think about if you were to have a business partner again, what would you say are, like, the must haves? Like, like what type of alignment would you have to have with your business partner? Right. And then the reason I bring this up is I see a lot of people who usually start up a clinic, they usually partner with someone, like, they know. Like, maybe it's like another therapist I used to work with. Right. You know, and, and to me, like, when you partner with someone, it's like, it's like a marriage, you know. You know, so it could get very expensive, like in a divorce, you know, and it's also very stressful, like, like having, like a divorce. And, and so I, I just want to hear from you, Michelle, because you've gone through having a business partner, now you don't have one, you know, you had a breakdown. Like, you know, so what are like, must haves, you know, or maybe even like takeaways or lessons learned from people who are considering having a business partner.

So I think one of the things that helps a partnership is if you can find a partner that has different geniuses or different strengths than you do, it helps make you a more rounded, a well rounded team. Right. So I think that's one thing to kind of think about, but the other thing, and I, I didn't do this because I, you know, I wasn't sort of involved in clinic accelerator back then, but just sort of the idea of bringing somebody and not just going from being a clinician to a partner, but being a clinician to maybe, you know, having a smaller leadership role within the clinic that allows you as a clinic owner to be able to work with that individual on that leadership basis so that you can get a sense of, you know, are they able to do what you need them to do? Do you work well together? Are they able to follow through on, you know, what needs to be done? Those kinds of things are. I think that's crucial. And if I was to go back and do it again, I would definitely do that. And then the other thing that I would consider is when you, you know, you bring somebody on, think about the role that they're going to play. And so, you know, I brought my partner on as a 50, 50 partner, thinking that it would be really helpful because she brought a lot of really, really great things. And together, you know, we would sort of be equally vested and we'd get in there and work really hard and, and we'd both be, you know, working equally, the other. So I would think about it in terms of, you know, what role is that person going to fit? And maybe it's a smaller role within the clinic. Maybe you just want them to run the marketing or run the mentorship or I don't know, run, you know, the administrative side of the front desk, the operations. And if it's that kind of role, it doesn't necessarily need to be 50, 50. It can be a smaller, like a junior partner type of role that allows them to like bite off a smaller chunk so that it's, you know, it's easier for them to kind of get up to speed and feel comfortable and confident in that role.

Yeah. So Michelle, like let's talk about you. So what would you say is your zone of genius? You know? Okay, like, like you're saying like you want to match up like a partner with someone to have skill sets, that doesn't matter. Zone of genius. So let's, in your case, like, what is your zone of genius? Right.

So I'll tell you what my zone isn't. It's, it's getting. It's not, I hate getting into like the nitty gritty and the, like the day to day details that operations. Yeah. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it.

So the visionary. You're the vintage. The visionary. The strategy. Right. You know, Right.

Yeah. I love to think about, come up with new ideas, think about new programs, new services, things that we can do to help grow the business in different areas.

Marketing, business. Dev. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that, love that. And I love, I love looking at something and thinking, okay, how can, okay, this is good, but how can we make it better?

Okay. Okay. Wow. And so if you, and so then what, what would be an ideal business partner for you? Right. I guess it would be dealing with all the operations, like the hiring, like is it the, the mentorship of the clinicians to, so that they could like, you know, implement the treatment plan and all that other stuff? Right? Is that, is that kind of what I mean?

Sure, that would definitely compliment me. But I do think it's important for any business owner to a clinic owner to have a little bit of that sort of, you know, vision and invention, like being able to look at things and even if it's within only a small area of the clinic to say, oh gosh, like, you know, this, this is great, this is good. But you know what? We should do this and it'll make it even better. So be able to kind of have vision even if it's within only a small part of the clinic. I, I do think that's important for any clinic owner.

Yes, 100%. And I think that almost sounds like, you know, there needs to be a good alignment with like, the vision of the business too. Because I see a lot of business partners, like, kind of fall apart when, like, they want to go different ways, you know, like the vision of the business. Very different. Right.

You know, so for sure, you have to be on the same page. You have to want the same thing out of the business. You want to be able to, you know, you want to have a vision with where you want to take it. And also, like, being clear on what, what are you able to put into the business. Right. Because different people are at different stages of life. And, you know, some partners may have lots of time to devote to this and some may not because they have a lot of other things going on. So having that kind of conversation before you get into a partnership is a great thing too.

Yeah. And something you brought up that was really awesome earlier was that, like, you should test people before you want to decide you want to sleep with them. In this case, like, them be your business partner. Right. And so I love this idea where, like, hey, if you actually want to have like a business partner for your. Maybe your second or third location, I would actually test this person out to do a project to see how they would work, pay them to do it, you know. Right. And if they do well within that project, maybe the next, like the next part of their, their, like the roadmap, you know, care roadmap is like they could be an assistant clinic director or maybe a clinic director to actually see, hey, can they actually influence the clinician? You know, can they actually influence up front desk for changes to do all those like, operational stuff that maybe like the visionary in this case, Michelle, that you don't want to do. If they actually could do all that and, and, and make significant changes with like the P And l, like 100%, I would consider them to actually maybe, you know, be a business partner, you know, and then.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And then, and you know, it's, it's. It's hard to sort of pigeonhole and be specific, but you, you really, you need to have somebody that has that sort of ability to look at the bigger picture and have that vision, but they need to be able to sort of, you know, get their hands dirty and get in there and, and get the job done. And, and you, you don't necessarily know that a good clinician be a clinic owner, but yeah, I think, I think it's it's the only way you can really get a sense of whether it's going to be a good fit on both sides. Right. Like, is, you know, are you. Is it a good fit for both people?

Yeah, I love it. I love it. And so if you had to do it all over again, you know, like, actually, actually let me back up. So I wanted, you know, you know, like, I want you to reflect, like, your journey. Like, you've been a clinic owner for how many years, Michelle?

Oh, my goodness. 15 years in this location.

Okay. Yeah, so the last 15 years. Right. So, you know, like, if I was to, like, ask you, like, if you do it all over again when you're at that startup stage, right. You know, where you just started off, like, you know, like, you're like, yep, I finished school a couple years and I want to open up a clinic. Right. You know, and, and, and like, what would you. What, knowing, you know now, like, what would you do differently?

You know, So, I mean, one thing I would say, I didn't do this. I. So I. I opened my clinic after I'd already been working for. Jeez, I can't remember. It might have been seven years. It was a few years. So one thing I would say is don't open a clinic until you've had at least four or five years under your belt of clinical experience.

Right?

Clinical experience. Yeah. Get that experience first because you can't then bump into. Well, because when you open up a business, you're the clinic owner and you have to know all the administrative stuff, but you also still have to play the clinical side. Right. You can't.

You still have, you know, everything. You're the sole preneur. Right. You know, you're a true.

Yeah.

And. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, if you have people working with you, they're going to expect mentorship. Well, how can you mentor someone if you're a new grad?

You.

Not as a new grad, you're often struggling in those first, you know, one or two years to just learn how to be a clinician. So if you have to, on top of that, add the stress of learning how to run a business, I think you're going to kill yourself. So I think don't do it too early on.

Well, the other good thing, too, if you start, if you work for like, like you said, four or five years, you're going to actually build a clientele of people that will follow you. Right. So that if you just do decide to open up a clinic, you know, a good chunk of your caseload and other people that you see in the, over the past four or five years should, over time, search for your name in that area. And if you open up a clinic area, like your word of mouth should like, would you agree, Michelle?

Oh, 100%. For sure. For sure.

So that's another reason, right? Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing I would say is if I was to go back and do it again, there are a lot of systems, processes like structure to the clinic that I have now that I didn't have even five years ago. And so if I was to go back and do it to me like that, that those systems and processes that I've put in place in the last.

Three years, what's essential? Actually, before we talk about that, like, we should talk about like the mindset that most people earn when they start up because the thing they worry about is like, I can't, like I don't have a caseload. Right. So what would you do from a marketing side, you know, to. Because you're a great marketer, by the way. When I look at everything that you do for market, I know you've done all these programs and we'll talk a little more later. But like, what you, what would you do as a startup, a solopreneur, you know, in terms of prior, what type of marketing would you prioritize to get yourself, like busy, you know, to the point where you start thinking about operations and some of the other stuff, you know, because that's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How do you get the ball rolling kind of thing? I think community outreach and physician outreach is key. It's a lot of hard work, but it's super important. Right. Like building those relationships in your community with other business owners, with people that you might be able to establish some kind of collaboration with.

Will you mean by that? Like you're talking about content collaboration or doing like workshops with them?

You know, could be workshops could be a, you know, you offer some kind of mutual discount on clients or like an added, you know, value add thing for each of your clients.

Right. Or service.

Yeah. Even be, you know, I'll promote you in my clinic and you promote me in your gym or whatever it is. Right. You go in and do, you know, workshops for their, for their staff, for their trainers, or you collaborate on a workshop to the public. So those kinds of things will help you just get your name out in the community. Physician outreach is a great one, I found. It's hard, period. It's a little bit easier for physio because doctors are More open to physio in general. So it's harder for massage therapists and chiropractors to go to doctors. Not all doctors will refer to Cairo or massage. But it is an important piece. It's hard, but I still recommend you do it because once you do that.

As a startup or you do it later, you know, like, is that the low hanging fruit? It's just a doctor's like, it takes so long to like win their relationship with one. And if they're going to refer to you, that means that they like you more than the other physio that refer to. Right?

Yeah, yeah. It is hard. It is a, it is a slow burn.

But you would still start that right away. Like.

I would. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely would.

Immunity, physician outreach, you know, like, what else?

So if there's the budget or I would try to make the budget because I've, I'm a little shocked at or surprised at how good this has been is Google Ads, I think that has helped bring us new assessments. So I'd say try to, you know, earmark a little bit of your budget for Google Ads and find someone that can help you design those ads so they're targeted to the right people.

Okay. And how much emphasis would you put, like on SEO? Because SEO is like a lot of work. It's not really free free because you got to spend money on it, you know, Is that something you do, like, later? Would you start now, like as a startup when you only have so much like dollars in front of you? Right.

Yeah, I probably.

It's a long game.

That is a tough one. Yeah. Because like, if you don't start it, it, like, it's. It's a good, you know, few months before whatever you do takes effect. So I think.

Let me ask you a question different. Would you start it now or you started when you start breaking even as a business?

Oh, I think I would start it now. I wouldn't wait till you break.

So you would take the loss now, right?

I would for sure.

Because I've seen entrepreneurial. I think most of the soulpreneurs, like, they just want to like, like make how much they made. Like, you know, when they were a therapist. Right. You know.

Oh, God, no. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna, it's not gonna happen in the first year.

Maybe.

Maybe a little longer if you're not, you know, if you're lucky the first year.

Okay, so you would start SEO. That's. That's interesting. Okay, cool.

Yeah, I would. Because I've seen, you know, I didn't, I didn't put a lot of time into that until, I don't know, three years ago, ish, four years ago maybe. And I've seen how much of a difference it has made, so I would definitely try to do some of it. For sure, for sure.

Michelle, you see this? I pulled up your. I was looking at your SEO, right? Like SEMrush. I don't know what you did, but like, your traffic is insane. Like, you know, like in the, like since like Q4, you know, like it skyrocketed, you know, like, you know, like to once again, like this. Like it says like, you know, 8,9000, like unique sessions a month, you know? Right. You know what's interesting, Michelle, is that like, remember like back like maybe two years ago, you were in my 30 day challenge where we're pumping up block blogs, right?

Yeah.

When I look at here, it's like one of your top performing pages that get the most backlinks, you know, Remember like the knee brace one and the tennis elbow one. Look at the number of backlinks you have. Like these two backlinks we did on the 30 day challenge for our blogs, like, generated like 5, 600. Like it generates. It represents 30 of your backlinks, which is insane.

I know, it's so funny. I don't know why that one is so much better than the other ones, but it is for some reason because.

You did the challenge and you. And you follow the template and you actually, you actually put the effort doing it, you know?

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it was good.

But yeah, that is. Yeah, good job there. Like, that was insane, you know. Okay, let's talk about operations. So you got, you got patience, you got patient coming the door. Actually, actually, before I talk about that, one thing I, I want to share was that like, you know, I spoke with a soulpreneur who was in our community, I think a month ago, and he literally quit his practice. Like in. He quit, you know, he started a claim from scratch as a sole pointer in the busiest intersection in Vancouver. Right. You know, and within two months, he was getting seven assessments a week. Right. And I asked him, I was like, what did you do? He just did three things. One was a community outreach. You know, he was focusing massage therapist. And then the massage therapist was referring to him. It was amazing. Right. The second thing he did was that he started attacking the Facebook groups. Right. So all the Facebook neighborhood groups, you know, and he's into running and basketball. So you also focused on the Facebook groups in that local Area for basketball and for that, like, whatever, like the other activity, like the running group and all, he just went in there and just started adding value and just helping people. And then, like, once you figure out, like, someone's pain point, he would actually create a blog article around this and just driving it back to his, like, website saying, like, that's all he did to actually just get that five to seven assessments a week, you know? Right.

Yeah. That is pretty amazing. And you do bring up a good point. The Facebook groups are amazing. The only thing you have to be careful of, like, it works well for him because he's a member and he's a runner, and so he gets in there and contributes, right?

Yes.

So for us, as a bigger clinic, I have a marketing coordinator that does what she can on Facebook groups, but we don't have as great a success with it because, you know, it's not me in there, you know, giving advice and doing this and doing that. It's just the marketing coordinator kind of going in and posting what she can when she can. But you have to be careful that you're not trying to sell in these groups. So if you're.

You can't promote, you have to go in there to actually. You know what, you bring up a good point because, like, I was, I was at a chat with Nicole. She's like a pelvic floor coach. Like, she's a pretty big coach in the US and she's a big proponent of actually paying therapists to actually go and, you know, do call it community, like outreach within these Facebook groups on activities they like. Right. You know, so that's something you may want to consider is that, like, if one of your therapists are really into, like, pickleball or this other one is really into public floor, maybe you can allocate that budget where, hey, once a week I just want to go in there and just add value and find out what type of content we should create on our blog, you know, based on, like, their paid points. And then if you're going to offer anything, you're going to offer, like, you know, once again, drive it back to, like, your blog or, or, or gets to a point where you develop relationships where, like, people start DMing you. Right. You know? Yeah.

No, that is awesome. It's such a good, a good source of referrals. That's so great. What a great idea.

Yeah. So, okay. Operations. Okay. So what would you do from an operational side? You're. You're still at that startup, right? What are. Once again, what's the what's. Yeah, what would you do given the fact that it's just you and you're overwhelmed and you're still treating patients as well. Right. So I'm just barely paying for like, rent, you know, like, actually, no, you're probably paying more than right now, you know, so.

So it's me running the clinic, seeing patients.

You're doing community. What's that?

Do I have somebody at the front desk?

No.

Oh, God. Like, it's really me by myself.

It's just you by yourself, right.

Oh, geez. That's a tough one. No other clinicians? Just me.

It's just you. Okay. Yeah. This was 15 years ago when you started. You probably forget.

I do. I honestly do. It's like so long ago and I'm old now.

So this is you. It's just you. And you're treating, but you have ambitions to actually get to where you're at right now. 15. 15 years later. But you want to do it maybe in five years. Right?

Yeah, now.

Right. Like, what would you do differently?

What would I do differently?

Or like, what operational. Like, what would. Like, yeah, like what would you do differently? So in terms. So we talked about marketing, what you would prioritize. What would you do from a systems operations time? Or you would Wait.

Sorry, say the last thing again, I didn't hear.

What would you prioritize from a systems or operations standpoint? Or would you wait because you're just barely getting by.

Wait until we start to break even, like, as opposed to right away.

Or you wait until you do your first hire.

Yeah. Get a bit of a caseload of your own going. Be solid yourself with a good caseload and maybe even bring a second clinician in under you that can help you with some of the overflow. Or a complimentary clinician. Like if you're a physio, bring in a massage therapist because then that.

So you're. So. So there you go. So you're. You would actually bring in rmt, right? You know.

Yeah. Or, you know, any other complementary. Depends on who you are as a clinician. But physio and RMT go together really, really well. But at the very least, I would.

Say, would that be your first hire or you would hire front desk first? I.

If you can hire part time front desk, that would be ideal because it's a huge expense. So the longer you can wait to hold to. To hire front desk, the better. But there comes a point where you can't do, like, you're too overloaded. So I would say do it as long as you can. But maybe look at some other, you know, different strategies like a virtual receptionist. There are companies there that do that and that can be a really good sort of stepping stone to going from you by yourself to having a full time admin person.

Yeah. You wouldn't take the bullet and just hire a full time front desk initially.

No, I don't think I would. I would wait. Yeah.

Pay yourself first. Right. Type of deal versus take a big loss. Yeah.

I mean, because that adds up so quickly and it takes so long.

Expensive too, right?

You know, it's expensive and it takes a while for some of your, you know, marketing initiatives to kind of take hold. So I might wait.

So you would rather reinvest other money in the marketing. Get it full. Like let's get the RMT full. Let's get the maybe that second clinician part time full. You know, maybe hire a virtual reception in the meantime, you know, like which is a fraction of the cost. And then once, once like the numbers make sense, hire that front desk. That would be your sequence of hire?

I think so. And I don't know that I would have, like, I don't think I would go as far as having two full time clinicians before I get an admin. Once you start bringing clinicians on, they will expect, you know, front desk help. No, you have to have some kind of solution there for them. If you don't have that person sitting there.

Okay. And you'll start with the part time. But here's the thing. Start with the part time. Is that you spend some more time training them and they part time with you in the part of another job. Like you lost all that training in six months now. Right?

You're right.

Someone full time or like, or you would still stick with the part time.

I think, I think I might wait actually now that you say that, I think I'd probably wait and wait until I can hire full time.

Okay.

I do without until I can hire full time.

So if your goal it's either go all in or go like all in, all out. Like don't do this half because I agree with you. Because I think the biggest mistake that people will make is when you hire a part timer, you're like you, you're going to likely lose this person to, for like another job because they're going to take another job elsewhere. And so you spend all this time training them, doing it like, you know, like, like it's just like.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I take it all back. I agree.

Okay. Interesting, isn't it kind of interesting when you kind of like start from the very beginning again to like, you know, to where you're at right now, like. Yeah, because maybe like you could have hit these type of like numbers like in five years versus like where you're at like 10, 15. Right?

So yeah, for sure. And I mean my, my situation was even slightly different because I wasn't in this big space when I initially, I initially had a three room clinic with no receptionist and it was really, really low rent because it was located inside a yoga studio. And so that allowed me to build a bit of a caseload for four clinicians before we moved into this big space.

Okay, cool. All right, so let's just say you got your, your, you got, you got an rmt, you got a pt, and let's just say you got a front desk. What is, what is the operational stuff you would implement as essential? Weekly scoreboard.

Weekly scoreboard, for sure.

What else?

Treatment plans. For sure.

Yes.

A fall off process and wellness check in process. Because that's the low hanging fruit, right? Like you gotta, when that patient walks in the door, you have to make sure that they are committed to their plan of care. And if they fall off their plan of care, there needs to be a system in place to get them back on track.

Okay, Fall off, Fall off slash reactivation. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Anything else?

A regular meeting rhythm. So this is assuming you now have a front desk person. So clear job description with clear expectations and a very regular meeting rhythm with your front desk person.

So that what's regular? Like every day? Like every five minutes, you know, every.

Once a week.

Once a week, yeah. And once again, I think this is important where you do block and meet with your leadership team like once a week. Where you could go deep, not like, hey, like, you know, like passing by and like, can you do this, can you do that? Like blah, blah, blah. Because that's not effective, right? You know, so.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Okay, cool. All right, so that's at the startup stage. Let's just say, you know, like everything's going well and you're finally breaking even. You hit your first like, you know, $400,000. Okay, $400,000. You know, it might take you three years, right, to two, three years to hit here and you're, you're breaking even. Right. What would your next hire be?

Right, in terms of administrative, you're talking or clinical?

Anything that's not clinical, obviously. Like, you would hide clinical like based on like how many assessments you have in your pva Right. But like what would your next hire be?

Right, so I would probably hire another front desk person that can do a bit of a hybrid job.

Where full time or part time?

Full time.

Okay.

Where they can do a bit of a hybrid. Right. They can help at the front desk because now there's more patient volume, they need more help. Maybe the hours are a bit more extended because we've got more clinicians working more hours. So part time they were help at the front desk. Yeah, part time they can help with either some of the operations or maybe some of the marketing.

Okay, okay, I love that you said that. So you would actually have a front desk where they're kind of like a hybrid role where they are backing up the front desk, but they're also kind of that marketing coordinator role.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I did that for a long, not a long time, but for a while I had someone who played that kind of dual role.

Okay, yeah. And so if you had. Okay, that's it. And then at this stage, what marketing would you prioritize it? Like, what would you do next?

I would start tapping into the existing patients because now you've got, you've been established for a bit, you've got three or four clinicians, there's lots of people coming in and out of the clinic. I would look at newsletters and emails to patients. Check in emails. Basically just a system of regularly reach out, reaching out to your existing and past patients so that you keep that relationship so that when they have a problem, they'll come back to you. Or their family member has a problem, they're going to remember you and come back.

Okay, what about social media? Is this when you do social media or you do it at the startup stage?

Because, you know, so I'll tell you, I mean, this is my experience with social media. I don't know if other people can, you know, speak differently, but for us, social media is really, we don't get a lot of patience from social media. Yeah, it's more of a, a recruiting tool. So it's good to have it out there for people who are thinking about coming to work with you. It shows your culture, it shows clinic, it shows the team. So yeah, it's important for recruiting, but it's not important for getting more patients in the clinic.

I want, I 100% agree with you. Right. You know, is that like social media in the long game is kind of like SEO. It's going to take time for you to build. Like, you know, people will follow you and they trust you and then maybe one day they'll fall. One day they might like, you know, click the call.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a long funnel. All right.

It is a long funnel. For sure, for sure, for sure.

So at this stage, this is like, what would you get your marketing coordinator to do? 20, like 15, 20 hours a week. So you would get them to do the email newsletters and you get them to do social media because. And at this stage now, like you're gonna start recruiting like really good talent now, right?

Yeah. So I don't know that I would do. And we did. I didn't for sure. And I going back, I'm not sure I would do it differently. But we didn't really spend much time on social media with a part time marketing coordinator. It was more the emails, newsletters, posters in the clinic, like, use the real estate you have in your clinic.

Okay.

What you can in the clinic. So I would have her do those things before social media.

Okay. And any more would you get them involved with doing more of your physician and community marketing as well? That's what you would double down.

Yeah, if they have the bandwidth. Absolutely. Workshops are great. So, you know, if, if you can run workshops and that's a great, you know, great thing you can do at any point in time at the beginning of the business, mid, middle, like later, as it grows. Because it's a great way to expose yourself in the community, get people to know you and see you, you establish yourself as an. And you will get assessments from it. So, you know, that's another thing that I'd probably add in earlier had I, if I was to go back.

Yeah, interesting. Okay. And then you talked about email marketing. Right? Like, so what specific types of email marketing would you like? Would you send out at that stage? Like, you got the monthly newsletters, you got the check ins. I assume these are like reactivations. Is that, is that.

Yeah, like a reactivation email.

Exactly. Okay.

So yeah, monthly newsletter that's a little bit more, you know, with pictures and sort of what you think of when you think of a typical newsletter reactivation. Emails that might go out, you know, six months after they graduated to just check in to see how they're doing. Because a lot of those people will say, oh, my back is acting up again, I need to come back in. And so you do get assessment from it.

And who sends that? Is it your front desk sending in marketing coordinator or is it the clinician sending it?

Yeah, it's the marketing coordinator, the clinicians. As much as we try to get the clinicians to do it. And we have a whole structure and system with support from a administrative person, but they just never have time.

Yeah.

So it's. It's the marketing person.

Okay, interesting. Michelle, I'm a marketing first person, you know, like, like, to me, like marketing and sales cures all. So when I think about this, I actually would hire that marketing coordinator in the very beginning and get them to like, do. Do this backup role, you know? Does it make sense?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's all. It's all about how risk averse you are. Right. Like, if you want to.

Yes.

Know. And you have to have confidence in what you're doing. So, you know, if I think back to before I started doing all of this stuff, before I took your challenges and did all of this accelerator stuff. Right. I had. I did not have the confidence to be able to know what to do and to know that if I did this, I would have this outcome.

Well, here's the thing, is that as a, as a therapist, you could probably make like, I don't know, like 100 bucks an hour. Right. And I see all these people, like, when a lot of these sopreneurs who start off or even these people break even, they're spending like 10 hours a week doing social media, which is like a 25 job. You might as well just spend that time treating and pay someone at 25 bucks, you know? Right.

For sure. For sure.

And in between, get them to answer the phone calls at which there isn't a lot of. Right. You know, I mean, yeah, absolutely. And then do all the, like, drive the. Drive the referral so that, like, it makes it super easy for you to just hire the rmt and like, you're just like, you're like, if the demand is there's very easy for you to like, fulfill the. Fulfill the demand with the supply. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I mean, if, if you're willing to kind of take that risk and jump in and do it, I think that's a great investment to get it going quickly. We. We have a virtual marketing coordinator who doesn't even live in Canada. And so she works with us full time. And that has been a huge money saver for us because it's.

And you find that virtual receptionist for you or the virtual.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. And it's still the same one that we've had for. Gosh, I think she's been with us for three years now, and she's unbelievable. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, she has like six marketing coordinators, like, working oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah. We're not quite at the stage where my marketing coordinator needs an assistant, but.

Cool. Operationally, is there anything you would implement now, like, now that like, you're at break even, you're doing that half a million dollar mark, you know, is there anything operationally you would, you would add.

You know, like, other than what we've just said, like the fall offs and wellness. Oh, geez. Someone in the clinic. And it could be, again, one of these hybrid roles. One of the things that's been really successful for us is having one of the admin people provide support to the clinicians from a caseload management perspective. So scanning the schedule, are patients booked optimally or are, you know, patients booked in a way where there's a 20 minute useless gap in between and so we lose an assessment?

We could have, you know, schedule optimization. Right?

Yeah, schedule optimization. So someone that can sort of do that but also support the clinicians with their fall off. So follow up. Clinicians are doing their own fall offs, but if they run out of time, have someone dedicated to getting that done. Because if the clinician, like, so would.

This be the marketing coordinator or the front desk?

It could, it could. I mean, it's a small clinic, so you wear many hats, right? It could be the one. Yeah, it could be the one.

So this is like your backup plan. If the clinician doesn't do because you want the clinician to do, because it's their caseload, but they're not one to do it, then your backup plan should do it. Right?

Exactly. That's exactly it.

Okay, cool. What about a clinical lead?

Yes, definitely.

Would you start now or like, you know, like you want to get that rhythm going where you're doing like clinical leads, you're doing like case reviews, you know, like you're doing like clinical rounds and it's all tied back into.

Yeah. How many clinicians do I have now? Like three or four.

Yeah, three or four. Yeah, yeah. Each person bills like, you know, 100, 150. Right.

Okay. So yeah, if we're that big, then for sure you would definitely. Mentorship is super important to people these days. Right. So I think to be competitive, you have to have some kind of mentorship. And as a clinic owner, if you really love to do it and you want to keep doing it, well, that's great. But if you're wearing too many hats and you're not doing a good job of the, the many hats you're wearing, then having a clinical lead, someone that you've worked with that Likes, you know, teaching that has that passion for teaching, that wants to take on that role. And it could be, you know, as, as small as a couple hours a week where they're there to run rounds, maybe do some one on ones with the junior clinicians and just be there to answer questions for them.

Okay. Yeah. Which is important because if you want your PVAs to go up, which means you gotta do caseload reviews, which you have to like, you need someone to do it unless like the only owner does it.

Right. So 100% the, the younger clinicians need that support and, and they want it.

Okay. Schedule optimizations, clinical leads, clinical rounds, you know. Right. Anything else?

Staff meetings. I mean, that's super important. Some kind of regular time for the entire staff, clinicians and admin to get together.

And once a month, every two weeks.

Yeah, once a month is usually pretty good. I would start doing that at that point. What else do we do? I think that's. Oh, so we. Providing some kind of like caseload management workshop as part of the mentorship is a great thing too. So you're teaching them clinical skills, but you're teaching caseload management skills as well. And then bringing the admin into that, into that discussion is a great thing because it's a, it's a team. Right. You can't, you can't be alone and work alone as a clinician and not rely on your admin team. So I think teaching the admin, the importance of working with the clinicians and the clinicians, the importance of working with the admin is super important at that stage.

I love it. So Michelle, when you were doing your first half a million dollars, right, which is kind of like a break even clinic. Right. You know, like it's breaking even, you know, or maybe. Yeah, just breaking or making a little bit of money. Right. When you were doing it, how many hours a week were you still treating? Were you still treating? Oh my God, like 80%.

Yeah. Like probably 35 hours a week still.

Okay, so if you redo it again at half a million, what would you do? Would you still. Would you change that or no?

Yeah, no, I would for sure. I would hire a clinical lead because I could have offloaded that. It's something I don't like to do. I could have given it to somebody who was way better than me and it would have happened because it never really happened as regularly as it, as it was supposed to because I didn't have the time. So I would definitely hire that clinical lead and get the marketing person get, you know, Those systems in place, I for sure would have done it back then.

Okay, so, so then how many hours, like a week would you be treating patients? And in this scenario, if I was.

To get those people in.

Yeah.

So if it went, let's say, it freed up, I don't know, a day, a week. So I was treating, you know, me three and a half, four days, but then working on the business one to one and a half days.

Okay, so maybe like, like you, you treat 25 hours a week. 20, 20 hours a week, right?

Yeah, maybe 25. Yeah.

Here's the thing. I think this part is really important because I think a lot of people can't give up treating. Right. Because they want to make the money. Right. But then like so much people get stuck at that half a million that break even point for like 10, 15 years, right. Because they don't have time to actually grow their teams and implement their systems and, and do everything that we just talked about. Right?

Yeah.

So then it makes you kind of realize, like, you know, like when I, when I reflect, the people, when I look at their peniles and they're stuck like 10, 15 years, I'm like, you know, like, this is not the outcome they wanted, but it was because they weren't able to take that risk, you know, or make that move where they actually made sure they had time to actually work on the business. Right. They couldn't let it go.

Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of them don't know. Like, I certainly didn't know. Right. I was just trying to do what I thought I knew, do my best with what I knew. Right. So I think having the confidence to be able to do it, because it's scary, you know, stepping away from treating patients, that's your, you know, you're going to get money, you're going to earn money. That's how you pay bills. Right. But if you, you know, have laid the foundation so that you've got people around you that can help you and you have a plan and you're confident, you know, confident as you can be, it's still scary. I mean, I even remember when I took that leap of hiring the marketing coordinator. I was like years into my practice, but it was a, oh, gosh, I'm spending all this money, it better work. And it is a, it's a leap of faith. But I think if you, but that's.

Why you got into entrepreneurship. No, it is where, like, if you want to multiply your impact, you have to take that chance. You can't hold it on. Do both.

Yeah. 100. And the other thing to remember is that it doesn't have to happen overnight. Right. You don't have to go from treating 35 patients in a week, 35 hours a week, to 25 in one day. In, like, overnight. You can scale that back. You can just carve out smaller chunks of time to work on the business. And as it grows, you peel back another three or four hours, let it grow, and then peel back another three or four hours.

Okay, cool. I love this. Like, that was, like, that was great because I, like, I think what you're talking about right now is the missing ingredient for someone to actually, you know, like, hit that their first million. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I've seen too many P. Ls like Michelle over the years, like, so much. People are stuck at that 500 to 700, 000 mark. They can't get over that hump. But it's because they're still treating 30, 40 hours a week, and then they want to grow the business, you know?

Yeah. It's just not possible. Like, there's not enough hours in the day. You don't have enough energy. Like, it's just not possible.

Then you have to question yourself, like, how many. Like, why. Why did you start the business? Why'd you want to become a clinical owner?

Yeah, yeah.

Because if you were going to treat 40 hours a week, you might as well treat 40 hours a week and not have the stress, for sure, of managing people and making no money at half a million bucks. Right.

You know, and work fewer hours. Right. Like, how many clinic owners in that stage are working, like, what, I don't know, 60, 70 hours a week between clinic and clinical and administrative hour.

Yeah, that's like. That's a tough. And how many hours a week do you work right now? Like a treating. Treating.

Oh, three.

Okay. Is it because you still love it because you don't really need to do it? Right?

I don't need to do it. I. I do like it. It's kind of like I have a, you know, a few of my, like, patients that I've seen for a long time that kind of come and go. Excuse me. So I. I kind of like doing that. I'm involved with our Pilates instructor, and we do, like, a supervised exerc. It's hard for me to pull away from that. But the other piece of it is.

That.

I've still got a ton of patients that can't get in to see me. I'd really love to be able to have someone to give those patients to. That's been a bit of a barrier for me. That's what I'm hanging in for the last little bit.

When are you going to cut the umbilical cord?

Hopefully next year. I've got a plan in place.

Should you talk to Kate and Evan? It took them many years to cut it.

Yeah, I mean, I, I do like that idea. I just need to get somebody to replace me and then I can.

Okay, cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And is there any other, like, experience, shares of or, you know, like, or advice you would give to someone that wants to, you know, like, build a, like a multi million dollar practice? Like, what are the kind of the essential ingredients in place?

You know, I would say like.

Learn.

How to get the foundation built before you start building the rest of the house. Right. Like, some of these key systems and processes that I now have in place, had I put them into place 12 years ago, 15 years ago, I think the trajectory of the clinic and the way the clinic grew would have been way different. So I would say look at that stuff early and get it into place from day one.

Yeah, yeah, I think so too. If you don't have that in play and you build out your team and then you got to make all those changes.

Yeah.

Your, your existing team gets very frustrated and it's very likely you'll lose some of like, you'll get turned over your staff because they're like, oh my gosh, like, you know, I used to get the best shifts and now you're saying I have to work in the morning shift or after, like, or working the afternoon shift. You know, like, we don't have two shifts a day. Like, we're just like with a one shift a day, you know?

Yeah, yeah. They. People don't like change. So the less change you can introduce, the better for sure.

Cool. One thing I, I preach a lot is that like, I think, you know, there's four things for clinic owners to be, you know, if you want to be successful, run your clin. There's four things that you have to do. One is like, I think like in this world you have to be really good at marketing. Right. You'll be able to generate leads so that they call your clinic, you know, so you could get your clinicians full. The second thing that needs to happen is that your front desk has to be called great at sales. Can they convert those like incoming phone calls or those leads into appointments book? Can they help that clinician schedule those like entire plans of care when they're still in the, in the clinic. Right, you know? Right.

Oh, so important.

Yeah. And the third is like, you know, it's obviously you can have amazing patient experience, you know, and the fourth thing, especially in this like, world of like labor shortages and everyone quite crazy quitting, is that you gotta build on an outstanding staff experience. You know, this is where your leadership and all that stuff kind of like is super important, right?

Yeah, it's so important. I mean, people looking to work at a clinic, it's not just about the patients they're going to see and the location. It's about the people that are in the clinic and the culture of the team around them. When I, when I interview people and ask them, what are you looking for? What's important to you? That is one of the things at the top of everybody's list. They want to have a fun environment where, you know, everybody's, you work together, but maybe you're friends and you go out and do stuff or the team has a fence. It has to be fun. You spend a lot of time here, so they, they look for that super important.

And that's why your social media needs to reflect that. You know, that's what we're saying. Like, social media, if it's done right, it's going to be an amazing recruitment tool for all those young people that will look at your social media before they apply for a job or even decide to accept your job, you know? Right.

Yeah, for sure they're going to look there. And I, I do have people that I interview that will say they checked out our Instagram page and, and they do. They look there. They want to see who we are online.

Yeah, okay. Super, super awesome. Hey, I just pulled out your Call Hero dashboard forward and I just want to say, like, your team's crushing it. Eh? You know, in the last 30 days, you guys are getting like 90 answer rates and 81 like booking rates, you know, and I think your win backs are almost like 6,000 bucks, like a month, you know, like what's, what's your, what's your secret sauce with getting your, like your front desk staff to get these type of like, you know, like. Yeah, these type of numbers, you know, and conversion rates.

So having Call Hero helped a lot because it allowed us to measure and is it, you know, what are, how many calls are they actually answering? But the thing that made a big difference was I, I've actually incentivized them. I have a bonus system in place.

So if, tell me more, like, how does that work? How does it work.

So the way it works is there's a target for the booking rate and a target for the answer rate. Answer rate I think is 95% target and booking rate.

Love.

It might be 88. I can't remember. I have to go back and look. So if they hit their target, if they hit one target, they each get $50 a month bonus for that month. If they hit both targets, they each get a hundred dollar bonus for the month.

Okay. And it's paid a monthly and it's like the entire like front desk team gets it right, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. And when you implement that, when you align their comp with like their metrics, did you at that point, did you start seeing the numbers move?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was.

I looked at your numbers. Like I was like. Because you're getting like, it's, you're getting like, wow, you're getting like 16. Yeah. Like almost 1500 calls a month, you know. And so. Yeah, like, you guys are like, you guys are nailing it. You know, I was like, oh, I want to ask Michelle like, what, what is it that she's doing?

The other thing that we do that has made a difference is I have one person in charge for all win backs. So call hero win backs. If somebody emailed in an inquiry, she's responsible for those win backs. Somebody who. An assessment that cancels. She's got a whole list of all different types of win back calls that she makes every week. So that has made a big difference too. So we're, we have a system of sort of keeping track of all of those names and she's regularly reaching out to them.

Wow, that's amazing. And so is there, is there an incentive plan for that one as well or just part of that, Their day to day job.

That is part of their day to day job for now. I mean that role has kind of evolved into one where she's helping build some of our special programs and she is doing a great job. She's doing a lot of the physician outreach to physician outreach and we've seen some really positive growth in three months that she's been doing that. So I think that her role will probably have to be incentivized, very connected to driving revenue and growing assessments.

100, you know.

Yeah.

So it's like business development, you know, it's, it's, it's. Yeah. You know.

Yeah.

Amazing. Wow. That, that's, that's super, super cool. And so, yeah, the last question I had was like, you're, you know, like you're crushing on the marketing side. Like, when I look at your marketing and what you're doing, like, I'm always like, oh my gosh, like, Michelle's like on top of it. Right. You know, and, and I think over the years you probably taken every single marketing course out there, you know, Like, I think you've done the Chad Madden stuff. Like, did you do the Paul Golf stuff as well? I don't know. But you seem like you've done everyone's like, marketing course, right? So I'm, I'm super curious, like, what would you say is like the top performing marketing campaigns that like, is working for you right now? That's driving, like calls and leads.

Oh, that's a good question. So right now, I think because it's this time of year, right? End of the year wellness calls. So like these reactivation calls and emails to patients, just sending emails, checking in emails to patients to see how they're doing. Because we've got a ton of people that kind of want to get in before the end of the year to use their benefits. So granted that's sort of very time sensitive, but that's what we're spending a lot of our time on right now.

And that stuff doesn't cost you money too, right? So.

No, it doesn't. It's really, it's easy to do. It's fast, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And then it sounds like Google Ads has been working for you as well, right?

Yeah. So one of the reasons why you see that sort of spike in our numbers there when you look, we're looking at our, our metrics is that I, I increased our Google Ads budget for physiotherapy, one of our campaigns in October.

Okay.

So that, that has worked. And we've been spending, we've just devoted more budget to it and it's been, it's been good.

Awesome.

And then the other thing is content marketing, just spending time on writing blogs and updating our existing pages with like keyword rich text. Try to help us with our.

It's not like Shada right now.

I learned from her. So, you know, this is good.

Yeah, yeah. And are you still doing workshops, Michelle? Like, you were a big like, like workshop. Like, you know, are you still doing workshops and like, has that been a good, like, channel for you as well?

It's been amazing. So initially it was unbelievable because we launched them during COVID so we had like 120 people show up to our, our workshops and because they were virtual. Right. Since COVID has, you know, settled down and people are back to work. We don't get that kind of turnout. You know, we typically get about 40 or 50 people that sign up for a workshop.

So this is, this is virtual. It's not in person. You're not doing in person workshops, right?

We're not doing no. And. And it's, it's too hard for us in person. We don't have dedicated space, so I would have to shut down the clinic and it's just not worth it. And the virtual seems to be okay. We actually, you know, what we did in a hybrid last spring, and, and it, and it, and it wasn't as though everybody was like flocking to be in person, so we thought we'd try it just to see if people did want to be in person. And it wasn't. People did, but it wasn't like huge. So we decided to just keep it virtual. And we're happy if like 40 or 50 people sign up and we get 20 or 25 people or even 15 people showing up, like in the event, because a lot of people will sign up but not attend. But we're still collecting those people's emails. We're following up with a phone call and it's, you know, results in. In assessments. So. Yeah.

What type of conversion rates do we get off the 40, you think with your process?

If we get. If we get 40 people that sign up, 20, 50% show up, we'll show up. We might get like five assessments from that.

Yeah.

But the thing is. Yeah, the thing is too, that we notice is that like six months later, somebody will come in and say, oh, yeah, I was at that workshop.

Yeah.

So it's, you know, it's what happens in the minute. But it will, it will, you know, it'll pay down the road as well.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. 100. That's exactly. That's actually how we. We build our business too. Right. You know, it's all the content marketing, the workshops, the emails, and you just kind of nurture them. Right. Amazing.

Yeah.

And then what's the best. What's the best performing workshop for John? It's been shoulders. Right. You know.

Yeah. So shoulder doesn't do it for us. It's so funny.

Is it pelvic floor or.

No, no, no, It's. It's knee. And knee is probably number one and back.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I thought in pelvic floor, because you got a. You got a fair amount of pelvic floor therapist at your glass clinic, right?

We do, but it's. It's a small part of our clinic still. Okay. And we're trying to grow it so it's still sort of a smaller area within the clinic.

Okay. Super, super cool. Awesome. Well, thanks for your time, Michelle. That was a super amazing. And so how do people find out more about you, you know, and, and you know, if they want to work for you or maybe they want to be coached by you? Like, how do people find out more about you, Michelle?

Oh, so they can go to my website, physioplushealth.com if they're a part of the clinic accelerator community. I'm on slack, so you can message me there. I'm on LinkedIn, Michelle Demarkey. You can find me there. Yeah. So hopefully that works.

And you're going to be coming to Florida as well?

I am, yeah.

Yes. We're going to have a blast. So if any one of you are still thinking of coming to Florida, like for our annual clinic Boss summit, I think we're going to have roughly about 200 people there this year. And so it's. Yeah, Michelle's gonna be there, we're gonna all hang out and, and it's gonna have a really good time. Right. So. And we'll see you everyone, next week. All right. Awesome. Michelle, I really enjoyed chatting with you. You know, like, it's super cool to kind of go through your journey. Right?

You know. Oh gosh, it's so hard to remember some of that stuff.

I always like this type of reflection, you know, like, you know, like, hey, now that you know what, you know what would you is done differently, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's a great question. I had to like dig it out from my deep down buried memories.

Yeah, yeah. Geez. And, and how are you enjoying the. Did you start your first pod yet, Michelle, or.

I'm just so I just had my first early meeting two days ago. It was a lot of fun. But it's so funny because we. She had it's two hours. Right. But I didn't do a good job of kind of keeping it on track because there was a few things I had to ask her before we kind of dug dove into it. So I have to like, I have to, I have another 15 minute meeting with her to finish. But I've already learned, right. I've got in those meet and greets. I've realized, okay, I've got to ask certain questions in the meet and greet that's going to help me for the quarterly so I can dive right in.

Are you enjoying it?

Yeah, it was fun. Now it's so Early. Right. Like, I've only done one, but it was really kind of cool to be, like, sitting here looking at someone else's stuff.

Yeah.

Talking about someone else's stuff and because I'm worried, like, I hope I'm going to be good. I don't know. And you kind of think, oh, God, what if I don't know the answer?

But you don't need to know the answer, right?

Yeah, exactly. You just kind of have to know how to help guide them and where to find and whatever.

So here's the thing, is that, like, I think, you know, I think a lot of people go out there and take, like, you know, coaching programs and blah, blah, blah. But I actually think that when it comes to this type of work, your business experience is like, what you need to be able to, like, if you had, if this was your business partner, your clinic director, like, this is, like, how you would, like, work with them anyways.

Yeah.

So actually, this whole process will just level you up to even be a. Even better, like, you know, like, entrepreneur, you know, with your business.

Yeah. I'm super excited. I'm like, so, so excited to do it. And first one was so much fun, so I can't wait for the next one.

Cool, Cool. I'm excited to catch up with you. Maybe in Florida you could let me know how the first couple months go with your first thought.

Yeah, yeah, I will for sure.

Okay, well, thanks for your time. That was super awesome. And yeah, we'll catch up in Florida and have a good time in New York.

Yeah. Enjoy the rest of your time in in Italy and have fun in England.

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