From Clinician to Solopreneur with Brennan Chan

Is not uncommon for fee splits and commissions in Vancouver to be close to the 50% mark. For me to put the work in and just make 50%, I felt, you know, I think I could do a little bit better, reduce the amount of overhead, but also just have a bit more control over when I wanted to work and how much I was going to work.

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 entrepreneurs and deconstructor 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. Awesome.

Everyone.

Welcome to the Clinic Boss Show. So today we got two. Two special guests, you know, so we got Manju. She's our sole preneur startup coach. And we also got Brennan. You know, he's a solopreneur and also owner of Cadence Physio out in Vancouver. And you started your practice in 2023, right, Brennan?

Yeah, just at the end of the year.

Yeah, I remember that. And so I'm just gonna get the ball moving. I'm curious, what. What was your, like, moment like? What was the moment that made you say, like, that's it. I'm all in, you know, like, I'm going this journey from becoming initiation to saying, like, I want to be a solopreneur, I want to be a business owner.

Yeah, actually, I remember that distinctly because I had a conversation with Daryl about this. I was on the fence about whether or not to start my own practice or not. And this was actually the year prior to when I actually started it. But I wasn't sure. I was talking to Darrell and I was like, okay, do you think I'm going to be able to make the overhead and float this on my own? And I remember distinctly him telling me it wasn't super encouraging, but he told me the worst case scenario, you could sell your space as storage for doctors. But I think it helped a lot knowing that I had a team behind me and, like, your experience and Daryl's experience in Manju's as well. So, yeah, it was probably about a year before I knew that, you know, something's got to change. And I knew that something I wanted to create a future for myself that was allowing stability and also for me to grow and have the flexibility to treat patients the way I wanted and just that autonomy as well. I was Seeking.

So what was. I mean, like, a lot of people say, you know, when you're working for someone else, it's kind of like, oh, you have that stability. Right. Like, they're bringing the patients to you, you're good to go, you can clock in, clock out. You just mentioned stability. And so what was, like, the unstable factor and you felt like giving yourself a clinic would be more stable? Like, what was that differentiating factor to you in your mind?

Definitely, for, like, the income side of things. Like, it's not uncommon for fee splits and commissions in Vancouver to be close to the 50 mark. And I understand overhead is very large and that the clinics need a lot of that portion to be able to sustain their overhead. But at the same time, for me to put the work in and just make 50%, I felt, you know, I think I could do a little bit better and, you know, reduce the amount of overhead, but also just have a bit more control over when I wanted to work and how much I was going to work and how much time I wanted to spend with patients. So not only was it the financial just driven decision in the future for that to be able to just have a bigger growth potential than, say, 2% per year, which seemed like a nominal amount, but also more of the experience of treating. And just looking back, like, some of the biggest things that I've learned and that I've, I guess, really appreciated about the trajectory that I've been on is not only that financially is more stable, but as well, like, I've really enjoyed treating, and I think I've developed a much stronger relationship with my clients. And there's just this more sense of ownership that, like, I'm 100% invested, like, in everybody's care. Like, my reputation's on the line for every time I treat a client, and I'm going to do my best and go above and beyond. Of course, like, I was still doing my best working at other clinics before, but there's just a different sense of it when I'm completely involved.

Yeah.

So you had this mindset where, like, it sounded like, why am I paying my owner 50%? You know. Right. Is that. Was that a bit of that trigger or. Or is it more like, hey, like, I want to take time off and you won't let me?

Like, I think a little bit of both, mind you. Just starting out, I, Like, I didn't graduate. Like, it was just a few years ago that I graduated, in fact. And so early on, I knew that the time needed to be put in to be able to develop my skills as a clinician. And so I still haven't really gone on a vacation since. So time off wasn't a huge deal. But I could see that being a part of the picture in the future for sure.

So when you left, did you leave completely or did you do sort of like a lot of people will say, like, I still was employed part time and then I still did my, you know, started my own business on the side. What, what sort of like, where did you start off that way?

Yeah. So I was continuing to work at other clinics previously. And of course, when starting my own clinic, there was a lot of planning that was involved. Like, not only did I just need to move into a new location, I needed to find the location and do a lot of business planning and getting financing as well. And then from there trying to design the space and hire contractors and ensure that's running on time and going to fit the needs. And for me to be able to forecast, okay, how am I going to use the space? And so there was a lot of behind the scenes work that was being done just as I was continuing to treat full time. This would be all kind of like outside clinic hours and at the evening trying to fit things in. And so I did as much as I could there until things got to a point where, okay, I was ready to open my own space. And even then it's like, I'm never guaranteed clients in the door on day one. And it was a slow process of growing my caseload. But it did happen after a few months. And so at that point I knew that this was going to be stable enough and something that was actually going to work too.

So did you have to like going back to your financing? That's a question that a lot of, you know, people are really nervous about when they want to start their clinic. Is the financing part of it? Right? Like, where do I get the money? How much do I need? How did you go about figuring that out and how much did you actually need?

Yeah, so the interesting thing, I guess different than how many clinic owners might approach this is I actually looked for my space first and I got commercial financing for my space to actually purchase the space. And that from there, like typical loan to value for financing can be up to 85%. For physiotherapists, it's going to be higher, like closer to 95 to 100 for doctors and lawyers typically. But I talked to several banks and just looked at the numbers and see what made the most sense to be able to do that. And I also just did all my calculations too, to make the decision whether it was a good idea to own or was a good idea to rent. And on my calculations, I realized if I was paying a few more thousand per month to be able to own, that would actually make more sense in the long run just based on knowing how, you know, commercial rents can increase and there's no cap for that, unlike residential real estate. And at the same time, I didn't want this looming overhead continuing to increase as that was going to be the biggest thing that was going to tie me down potentially, or one of my biggest expenses. So from there, once the financing was in place for that, that kind of went more smoothly. And of course, there were upstart costs to hiring contractors as well. And I mean, I've always just done a lot of saving and investing as well. And so that's crazy.

You're really bold, a Brandon. Like most people don't think about buying their space, you know, so you bought your space, right? You know, and what's a square footage? Roughly?

Like it's like a thousand five, 500 square feet.

Okay. So you buy your space, 500 square feet, you know, and then you got like, it sounds like you got a loan on it as well. On top of that, was it. You said 85%, right?

Yes, for the commercial space. Okay.

Okay. So then you only had to put a 50% down on the space itself, right? That's what you're saying, Right.

I only needed actually 20% down.

Okay. Okay. Wow.

Amazing.

Yeah. And then the rest of it was just my own personal savings that I put into buying equipment, financing, or just like funding the. The renovation costs. And I knew, you know, these are things that are always going to happen, like it's necessary.

And so what do you think your all in cost is for your 500 square foot, like building it? You know, like, forget about like buying the space, because that's a completely different. Yeah, right. Yeah.

I was lucky that the space was already used for physiotherapy and previous to that it was a massage therapy clinic. So all the walls were built. We mainly had to do cosmetic work. So I think the estimate that came in for and what I ended up paying was about 50,000 for my renovations. And of course, I did my due diligence in getting a bunch of quotes and I was actually really pleased with the contractors that I worked with. They finished the job in three weeks. They came in a day early, and that's pretty unheard of to hear about. So, yeah, that was the Construction costs from there. There were also equipment costs as well. Or like sourcing the bed, the exercise equipment.

And how much extra was that? So 50,000. When you was your construction cost, if you add up all the equipment and all the other stuff, like, what do you think?

Probably like ballpark, maybe another 20k.

Okay, very good. Yeah, very good. And so with that, so what does your space look like with the 500 square feet? How have you divided it up?

Yeah, so we have two treatment rooms and one of the things that we did, we actually have skylights in our treatment rooms and there was some drop ceiling there before, so we took up the drop ceiling. Now we have these 17 foot high skylights. And so it's like a very open space in the treatment rooms. And they're fairly decent sized treatment rooms, like 12 by 9, approximately. And we also have exercise space that's outfitted with some clinical polarizers, Pilates equipment, some equipment on the wall, and the typical physical weights and bands and Bosu ball and things like that we don't actually have. So we do have like an open reception area, but we don't actually have any reception on site. So when clients come in, they all know just to, you know, have a seat and wait for their appointment.

And you've done that from the very beginning.

Costs as well, just like, you know, everything in house.

Okay. So you've done that from the very beginning. You, you never had any reception? No. Like not even a front desk area. Right. It was sort of part of the plan that it would be off site.

Exactly. And I think that was one of the things that I wasn't sure as a norm whether many clinics were doing that. But talking to other clinic owners, it's not uncommon for at least solopreneurs to have like, just like a one on one practice with the client and the client comes in without the receptionist out front. And I mean, with Gnapp as well, a lot of the billing and insurance can be done just on my own and it's pretty easy, just a few clicks. So yeah, it's worked out decently well.

And man, is this a common trend that you see with the other solopreneurs you kind of work with. Like most of them typically don't have. Like they want to start lean, you know, so they're going in, pulling a caseload and you know, and I want to reduce as much like overhead as possible.

Right.

You know, I'll even answer the phone calls, right?

Absolutely. Like, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, you know, at the very beginning Just like myself. It was, you know, you're the jack of all trades, right? Picking out the garbage, doing the reception. And when you know how to do all those things, it's almost easier to train or outsource because you know exactly sort of what's going on behind the scenes. But that is the trend now. Like one, two rooms, split shifts, get someone else in there. There's no need for front desk. You have a little kiosk going on. You have somebody that's, you know, taking the calls when you're not even there on the weekend. You can do very well and minimal expenses. And you want that at the beginning, right? I mean, Brennan, it's still working for you two years later. And what's your utilization now in terms of caseload?

I'm pretty booked, like, usually booking three weeks out in advance and minus some snow days that we've had recently and some illness, like, you know, utilization is in the high 90s, if not close to 100% on most weeks.

That's awesome. And so I know that you were saying, like, at the beginning, it was sort of a little bit tricky, and, you know, you had these upfront costs and, you know, you made this big decision to purchase. And so kind of walk us through that process. Like, how did you. Where did you start with your caseload, the utilization? And six months in, where were you at?

Yeah, I recall it's always very scary to know that you have bills to pay and you may not necessarily have clients to see. And so, of course, I took very detailed notes about how I was doing in the status of the business. And on the first few weeks that I was working, I probably sometimes saw, like, one client a day, at most four clients a day. And so it was, like, definitely negative for a month or two. But then I knew the trajectory of how things were going was always improving, and so that was good. I think the helpful thing was when I started, it was near the end of the year. So at that time, a lot of people in the area were looking to use their benefits, so I was able to take advantage of that swing of new client referrals and people that are coming in. It was probably about three months in that I was more steady, like, not superbooked always, but, you know, about 75% utilization at that point.

Wow.

Yeah. So I was pretty happy with that. And I think one of the things that helped a lot was building just good community connections with the people around the area as well. Like, luckily, and you can argue there's downsides to being in A medical building because you don't have any, like, front signage or people don't know you actually exist. But I think one of the things that worked well in my case was there were a lot of medical professionals in the actual building and a massage therapy clinic next door. And even before I had moved in, I was talking with them, and they were actually very excited that a physio was moving next door, that we were able to offer clinical Pilates. And they started to talk to their clients. And the clients were so excited about, oh, when are you. When, when are you opening? And so that, that brought a lot of, like, conversation and interest that helped fill the caseload.

Hey, Brandon, I'm curious how much, because you were working at other different practices, you know, before you, you, you start up your practice. Right. How much of that caseload kind of transferred over or like you went into it with a clean slate where, like, oh my gosh, like, you know, none of that transferred over.

Yeah. So the proximity of where I was, it wasn't super close to where I was treating before. I mean, some clients did find out where I was able, where I was practicing, so then they had followed me as well. But I feel a large majority of my clients were actually people that found me on Google and referrals from the massage therapist next door. I also reached out to friends and people in the area because, like, I'm treating, my practice is very close to vght. And so there's a lot of healthcare practitioners there. And I think one of the things that helped early on was finding out that VCH offers like a discount page for their employees and advertising there. And I think one thing that helped was I kept my rates pretty low, like super low, that it was very attractive to come. And my thought was, you know, I just wanted to treat people. It wasn't about necessarily how much money I was making initially, but just trying to get influx of new referrals and new clients. And then I knew I needed to build the brand awareness. And so the more people I would treat, the more they would tell their friends, and then the more new referrals and more people would just be aware that I exist in the area.

I love that.

And if we go back, like, if we go back to that caseload being transfer, what. It sounds like a very small percentage. Like, none of that. Like, it was a very small percentage there.

There was some people that found me, but it wasn't a huge percentage.

Okay, okay. And so, and then when you said they found you on Google, was it. They found you on Google because they were looking for Brandon or was it like they find you on Google because of some, some of the community marketing stuff that you were doing?

Yeah, I think there were a few cases where there were clients that I treated probably like a year before and then they had like this client particularly had referred one of their friends to see me and then tried to Google me and they couldn't find me at my previous location, but then found me at another location. And sometimes there's these like few years back, like I haven't really talked to these clients before or recently. They, they kind of trickle back as they have new needs. So that was a big part of it. But definitely for the people that I didn't have some sort of acquaintance or like personal connection with, that was all through Google. And that's where early on I prioritized working on the Google business listing, ensuring it looked healthy and there were like good pictures of me on the website and me.

You had reviews, right? You know, I think you have about 67 reviews now. Right, the last time I checked.

So you really prioritize like the community marketing. You had some digital presence. I know some clinic owners, like they'll go all in, you know, spend like five, $10,000 a month, do all the online stuff, but they don't even have a brand that's created. Right. So it sounds like you were doing a lot of this even before you started. It's almost like you were building momentum.

Yeah, well, I was looking at all the different possible sources that could be helpful for bringing awareness of my clinic in this new community especially. It's a fairly competitive community. I mean, it's very, a very dense area and there are very large clinics in the area that are well known. But so I did do some paid ads previously and luckily there was the CDAP grant that helped fund some of that as well. But as I was experimenting with all these different lead generation options, I found that the quality of the leads with Google Ads was actually not very good because these were people that didn't really know anything about the practice. And often these clients, they would come for a visit and then not come back or they just didn't seem like a super good fit in general. And I think at that time I was looking at like what the cost per lead was and it just didn't make sense. It was in the dollars.

Really.

Yeah.

Okay, so you found that was almost like not so great clients, whereas the community marketing was so much better. Probably lost less, you know, in terms of costs as well.

Definitely. And I think one thing that worked well with the community marketing was I'd often meet with business owners of other disciplines and would trade treatments and just like, try to get to know each other, how we practice, how we could be complementary and help one another. And from that, like, if they found a benefit in the treatments that they received from me, of course they would just talk about that with their clients and they would have a better sense of when it's appropriate to refer to the services that I was offering and vice versa as well.

Did you tap into any of, like the doctor referral methods and all that? Because you said you're in a medical building. Right. And so I know we've talked before you had a dentist across you and all that, but have you had it? Was that one of the avenues or what would you say is like the top one or two marketing strategies you did use that really brought people in at the beginning?

Yeah, it would actually be reaching out to other allied health professionals, less so doctors and dentists. And I know we've been working on developing those relationships with doctors in the building. And since it's a huge medical building, I think there's a lot of untapped potential still of people that I can reach out that I haven't to, and that includes those doctors and dentists. So it wasn't a huge, like a pool of referrals from those practices because I just didn't reach out to them. And partly I didn't know how to reach out to doctors. I felt more comfortable with other professionals that were doing.

Or just like Cairo rmt. That sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah.

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One thing is. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Go ahead, Manja.

Yeah, yeah. So with. And I find that surprising, right, because you go into these medical buildings and you think it's just going to be an easy referral source. And then you're sort of, you know, hit with this surprise, right? And then you off, and then it's sort of like, oh, now I'm here, so what do I do? So it looks like you've really sort of reeled it in with the community marketing. You know, you've tapped into those resources and along the journey, you know, you came to the Point where your utilization was so high that you were ready to recruit. So when did that come along the line? Because it's now been two years that you've been open. When did you decide that was the, like, you know, the right thing to do?

So it happened from a lot of the work that we did together, Manju, when you talked to me more about, like, treatment planning and, you know, building a wait list. And early on, I was booking clients week to week, and usually my next week would be full, but I wouldn't really have that much demand for clients. Further, in the previous weeks, like, looking forwards and when I made a shift to booking clients out for their entire treatment plan, or at least for a few more weeks in advance, that helped a lot in terms of not only making my caseload more stable, but also improving the outcomes for clients. And as well, because I was doing all the booking on my own, I would usually spend the last few minutes of the appointment and usually wine overtime to try to sort through people's schedules. And booking people out in advance helped cut that time. So once I had enough clients, like I was booked out at about three weeks to four weeks, it made sense that I had more initial assessments coming in that I actually couldn't service the need, and it worked out. At the same time, a friend of mine who I previously had worked with as well was looking for a place to work, and so that's when he joined the practice as well.

And he. He joined part time, Right. Three days a week, is it?

That's right.

Okay, okay. Okay. And how is he doing now? Like he. You said it was how many months in?

Sorry, I hired him. He joined probably about seven months in approximately.

Okay, and why did you decide another physio and not Cairo or rmt? Because that's always a burning question for people, like, what profession do I get referrals from?

Cairo.

That's also true. Yeah, that's. But then. But then you would want to just say to yourself, like, I'll just bring them into my own practice, like, why? Why do I need to, like, you know, get referrals or, like, you know, give it back to them? I just keep everything in house.

Yeah, I know. That's definitely a consideration because often in interdisciplinary clinics have an rmt, a practitioner there that serves as, like, bringing in new clients, which then they refer to physios, but actually at that time had a really strong relationship and still do with the rmts next door, and their practice was doing really well. And I thought it would just be disrespectful to hire another RMT next door. And like we were working so well together, I had clients being referred to them and vice versa that it made sense to stick with the practice that I knew the best. Also logistics, like I had two rooms and I, it's not a huge, it's not a big excuse, but I didn't have any like massage equipment or as well because I have skylights. It's. The light can be a little blinding which doesn't create a super, makes it therapeutic or relaxing environment like with dim lights.

So that I think that's valid because like, you know, if you have 500 square feet, like you know, just from a business standpoint, like, you know, like, you know, a physio could move, you know, could treat or move that room like two or three times in an hour.

Right, that is true.

Whereas like a massage, like, you know, you, you block that entire thing for an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. And also like I think also the, the, the, the compensation structure for massage is way higher as well. Right. Which makes like the economics difficult when you have a small space.

Right, Yeah, I agree as well that I think a lot of things came into play in terms of my decision to only hire physio and also mainly higher physio going forwards. Partly was our treatment style as well. Like one of the ways that I've differentiated my clinic compared to maybe other clinics is that that not only do we look like we see more chronic clients, people that have had issues for a really long time. And so we don't really treat locally very often because as people accumulate all these injuries and have an injury history, there's a complexity of how their injury has progressed that may involve treating other areas. So we took more of a whole body approach to look at what's the root cause. And I felt that I, based on my training was able to, I was able to work with another physio better and especially one that had a similar kind of approach as well.

So when you were recruiting, you know, you said your friend came on board and then you were also recruiting, like, you know, you're trying to find someone, you know, maybe if this person didn't work out, or your friend. Right. So what were some of the things that, you know, you had interviewed other people and you are currently interviewing as well, like what are some things that really stick to stand out besides the fact that, you know, people want a certain percentage or certain pay grade? Like what are you noticing now that's so different than maybe a year ago or Even when you first started?

Yeah, I haven't done a huge number, a huge amount of recruiting, so I think I'm not super experienced in this department. But of course, like, cost of living in Vancouver is pretty high, and so people are looking to be paid fairly and like a good wage as well. So there's definitely that. But I think what I've started to differentiate of some of the benefits that my clinic can offer people is that collaborative approach as well as I think one of the things I really like doing is like, encouraging people and building people up in their practice and really being there. And so what I can see in the future hires that I will be bringing on in the future is like, I really want to work with people to build their caseload and kind of get more of that support that I didn't really feel. I got as much from the business side. And of course, everything that I've learned from both you, Manju and Rick and clinic accelerator has given me a strong foundation to understand the clinic management side of things. But then also, I think one of the things that people really like is like, that they're looking for is good culture and a good environment to work in as well. And I think that's still developing for me because it's hard to have, like, a very clear sense of culture with just two practitioners right now. I mean, things are great, but, like, I think the culture emerges with more people as well. And so that's a work in progress.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, we talk about that quite a bit. Right. Because it's sort of like when you onboard someone, people are looking for a certain environment. Even just the fact that you said, oh, your room had skylights in it, and that's again, like, a patient will look for that. Like, that would be something that they would comment on. Right? Like, this is comfortable, this is cozy, this feels like this. And having that small environment, it's kind of nice, right? You feel like you have more control in that. Even that. Five hundred square feet. A thousand square feet, fifteen hundred square feet, whatever it is, the couple of rooms kind of gives you a little bit more control as to what the experience can be for your practitioners, but also for your patients. That's. That's a huge deal.

Yeah, no, that's a really good point as well. Like, even though the practice itself isn't a huge. It's like 500 square feet doesn't sound very big because the treatment rooms themselves are decently sized and have a very high ceiling. It creates more of an open environment that it doesn't feel like we're treating in this interior room with no windows. It's actually quite enjoyable and actually just as you were asking that I was reflecting on like what are some of the things that I really enjoy about my space that makes me look forward to treating. And that's one of the things that natural light, like being able to customize, have my own music running in the background and some of those small details make a huge difference that allow me to treat the best and you know, part of it as well as being a cleaning owner, I can buy the equipment that I would like, have it available in every room and just all the things that I've. I was thinking that would help me treat, I've tried to implement and I think all those little things just add to making the workday very enjoyable.

Hey Brandon, I'm curious. You know, so Your space is 500 square feet, you know, and you purchase a space which means like you're committed, you know. Yeah. And so are like, I'm just trying to understand your motivation of you like starting your practice. Like are you. Is the primary. I see two types of clinical owners. I have, I see one clinical owner is like, hey, I want to, I want a nice space. I want a small space where like I could build the type of practice that I want. And I. It's a good lifestyle business, like not a lot of overhead, like I'm going to make good money. I want to, you know, and, but it's not, I'm not thinking of building like, like a million dollar practice which is a complete different game, you know, where I need 2,000, 3,000 square feet. And so that's the other type of clinical. So is that kind of the tensions you have when you started this practice? Like, hey, I just want to build a really cool business that is like easy to run, sole preneur, high cash flow, low overhead.

Yeah, no, that's a good question. I've gone back and forth on thinking all the possible growth possibilities there are and of course there are clinics in Vancouver with multiple locations and at first I was like, oh, okay. I think, you know, the next thing is bigger and better, more, more locations. But at the same time I realized as I've been very heavily involved, not only on the clinical side but also of course developing the clinic and all the administration. You know, having more locations actually gives me more work and more of a job and more admin. Like it doesn't actually if I'm looking at the primary thing, which I'm now actually just more consciously Aware, like, I really value having more time in my day where I can do something else aside from working as well, and, you know, also live the lifestyle that I'm also preaching about, you know, in terms of getting good amount of physical activity and taking care of myself. Like, in order to do that, I think I need to, of course, have a good number of hours that I'm treating, but also that space to be able to do the things that I love outside of the clinic as well. And so I think I've gone back and forth and of course I'm open always to having more space. That would be. But whether I want to grow to multiple clinics, I think not really right now. At least this might change, you know, in a few years.

Well, I see this trend going on, Brennan, you know, because at the end of the day is that, like, you know, most people go into, you know, a private practice is like, they want to improve their lifestyle.

Right.

You know, and so you could improve your lifestyle with having time and money with, like, a small practice. Right. You know, that is really easy to run. Right. Like a sole premier practice, like kind of what I'm hearing that you have right now. Or you could struggle and try to build that, like, really big clinic, multiple locations, you know, and to achieve the same goal. Right. And I've seen, like, I've seen enough P. Ls over the years is that, like, I've seen a lot of people do very well in your situation, making way more money, having way more time than the other category. Right. So I just wanna. I just wanna. Yeah, I just wanna acknowledge that. Right.

Yeah, there's definitely a few options. And I've seen as people have opened, like, I've believed in always having just a little bit of overhead. And then as the clinic grows, then I'll take that next step if it becomes available. But I've also seen other clinic owners, like, they'll rent out or have a lease on a large space, like, you know, 1200 square feet, even larger. And then from there, it's their job to fill the rooms and fill it with practitioners. And sometimes they can scale faster, but at the same time, I would think that would be quite stressful and better to do, like, perhaps if they had a partner, which, like, for me, I'm just. I've opened this on my own and it's. It's a pretty small operation right now.

And I'm curious what you talked about, like, running a sopr, a SOAP in your practice with low overhead.

What.

What would you say are the. A Couple of things that you're doing to like, you know, be able to provide that patient experience but also have that little overhead. Like what are you doing differently from a typical, you know, practice.

Yeah. So definitely like not exactly right now in this interest rate planet, but in the future I know that when this space like each as I'm paying off the mortgage, some of that goes to principal and that is being reinvested in the business as well. So overall like over time I can see that that's going to reduce the amount of overhead that I'm paying to rent. That's not going anywhere. I think also just having like good software like jnapp has been really helpful. I have hired a virtual assistant who's working as my receptionist and she's been amazing.

She's helped so much that 40 hours a week or just like part time?

Part time, 20 hours a week.

Okay.

And so I knew going into it if I'm going to be treating I can't be on the phone and if I'm doing all this work to try to market and generate leads, if the bottleneck is at the phones that people can't contact us, that's going to be a waste. That like I did all this work for nothing because they can't reach us. And so I knew I was, I needed to have someone on the available to take calls while I'm treating and then that way actually that's been a huge investment. That as well as offering text messaging.

Okay.

I didn't offer that first but like me able to get back to people really quickly, which my receptionist does, helps a lot.

So it sounds like your virtual, your virtual assistant like overseas handles the phone calls, text messaging is there. Like do they also do the billing for you as well? Like what else have you trained them to do?

Yeah. So over time the amount of work that she does has definitely grown from helping me design like social media flyers or like you know, notices that we put up in the clinic, some of the marketing and sandwich boards that we've created over the years.

Okay.

So a lot of different things.

So it sounds like you're getting them to do pretty much what a local full time front desk would do in Vancouver. Right. You know, maybe a quarter of the cost. Right?

Yeah.

Okay. Wow. And then what is your communication rhythm with them? Like how like do you meet with them each week on Zoom and you go through like how do you manage them and like their to do's and like how do you measure them or you don't?

Yeah. So this has changed over the, the last year and a bit initially we would meet very regularly and we would communicate by slack. Recently I've devoted a certain part of my day for admin. We have a weekly meeting and that's where we'll touch base on like everything that needs to be discussed in the clinic. From an admin perspective as well as marketing, we can review different like design templates that we, that she's created and just it's a lot easier to do it over a video call. And so that rhythm's weekly right now. Awesome. And that's one of the new things that we implemented this year which I think helped us to, to be more organized and just stay on track of the goals that we had set. Because I think when there's so many different things going on in the clinic, it's easy to lose sight of a small project here or there. And I really feel like I want to be more organized to see everything. So yeah, the weekly rhythm has been really helpful.

So you've already from the very beginning steps taken that burden or like that and you know, like a lot of that administrative stuff that people get bogged down with and recognize that maybe this is not my forte and I don't have the time. And you've reallocated that from the very beginning. Right. And so even social media and all that kind of stuff is outsourced at this point. And you just do the check ins basically once a week. Right.

I would say like for a lot of the clinical content like that needs my input. So I do have someone helping me with it. But I wouldn't say it's completely outsourced. It's like a joint effort in doing it. So it does take still time and thought to plan. But yeah, it's not.

But it allows you sort of like that work life balance that you were looking for. Right. It kind of gives a little bit more of that and then more focus time towards your patients because you aren't thinking about that phone that's ringing and that patient that you're missing. Okay, amazing. So if you're looking back now at Brennan, like, you know, you're two years in, you're at that cusp, you're ready to hire maybe the next physio. What would, if you had to give advice to someone who were just about to start, what would be like the one cost or one expense that surprised you the most, that completely caught you off guard?

Do you mean in terms of like how big it was or like if.

There was how big or the fact that it existed even, right. Like something that you really didn't take account for.

I'm not sure if this is the answer that or I'm answering the question. But my advice for people that are in a similar situation, starting out and what's worth the expense is having a network of other practitioners and business owners to be a part of and like clinic accelerator. And I always believe like what gave me a lot of confidence in starting my own practice was knowing that I didn't have to do it alone and I didn't have to know all the answers. But. And there's been times like I've shown up to coaching calls with you Menju and I'm like, I'm not sure what to do and you always have an answer for me. And that's been super reassuring. And some weeks I'm like, okay, I think I already know what to do. Like, maybe I shouldn't have this coaching call. But then still there's something that I take away that helps redirect my attention and just make my work effort even more efficient in terms of helping the clinic to go in the direction that I want to. So I'd say definitely hiring and having some sort of coach or mentorship on the business side of things is really important. And the way I see it is like that cost and investment of that is going to be, it's going to, it's going to come back tenfold because like, you know, one mistake could cost you a large amount. And so to avoid the mistakes, I mean it just is a no brainer for me. And having that education and information for the future allows me to compound and get there where I want to go faster as well.

And Brandon, just on that, on that, just on that note, you know, what recommendation or what advice would you give to like a sole preneur, you know, on how to like deal with that mindset or that shift from getting a regular paycheck to risk getting unpredictable cash flow as an owner, you know. Yeah, because that's hard because over the years you've been getting whatever 10,000 or 12,000amonth to like, you know, going through this startup stage where you're also like not getting paid. Like how, what, what advice would you give to, to the, the. Yeah, to a solopreneur that's considering doing this.

Yeah, no, it's definitely scary for sure. And I think I look back at other people who have built this, built businesses before and I'm like, oh, they probably had it super easy. Like they were always cash flow positive. But going through it, it's like it's real, that company concern of not having any clients to see or. I honestly thought like on Sundays I would just be sitting there in the treatment room by myself for like the whole day and having no one to see. So that concern is real. I think like the financial aspect is going to be the barometer of how everything else is going though. So like if I'm seeing improvements and reaching out and seeing more, like meeting, having more meetings, meeting more practitioners, creating more ads or designing things, like it's just a matter of time before that's going to happen. And of course that's a risk and you know, to have enough of a amount of savings to know that, you know, I mean, still able to cover the overhead. And so what helped me.

So how many months of savings do you think they should, you know, allocate, you think, as a buffer to like start making positive cash flow, you think, so that you're not, you know, you can start paying yourself, you know, to.

Be safe, at least six months.

Okay, yeah, I love that.

Faster for me, but I honestly didn't think it was going to be that fast. So I was.

So are you saying that within six months you would make the same amount of money as you being a clinician, Is that what you're saying? Or, or, or, or just to start paying yourself?

I'm just curious that six months in my case, uh, I was doing actually better than working previously at that six month point and probably that occurred at about three months. Ish. Okay. And then break even probably came at where after expenses were paid, I made like zero dollars, was probably at like one and a half months.

Okay. Oh, that's interesting. And then, and then, and maybe for some like financial motivation is like how like what percent more do you think you're making right now than you were making as a clinician? Right when.

That's a, that's a good question.

The last, last three months of where you were working before, like how much more you think percentage wise you're making now? More.

I'm not sure what the exact number is.

Okay.

That's because I look at my expenses and they're always higher than I expect. So of course when I'm treating like the, the amount that I'm billing per client, like that all is collected, but that's not my take home pay. So it's actually very deceiving sometimes where I think, oh yeah, this is all coming in. But at the end of the day after expenses, I'm not sure what that's like. But I'd say maybe like 15% more right now.

Okay.

Okay. It's like not a huge. I mean, it's a decent amount, but I wouldn't say it's a super huge amount. Challenge.

Yeah.

Well, this is like the beginning of your journey as well. Right. And I just want to acknowledge that it takes a lot of risks and a lot of hard work to get where you're at, you know, and it. But I love that advice, you know, like, make sure you save at least six months of savings, you know, to make sure that you have enough cash flow so that you could weather that storm. Because it's going to happen. Right. You know? Right. Not all your caseload is going to transfer over. And then like instead of you sitting there twiddling your thumbs up waiting for patients to come and you gotta go and take Brendan's advice and go hustle. Go do some community marketing. Sure. You can test online, but like, your local relationship seems like, what. What's gonna work. Right?

So. Yeah, definitely. I would also add that having a good cash flow plan has been really helpful to forecast. Like, just being very specific on. Okay, these are my expenses. This is the number of clients that I would need to see to break even. And I had run previously and this was required in order for me to get business financing as well, was to run like 12 to 24 month simulations of. Okay, if I saw this number of clients based on the typical amount that I would collect, like, where would I be? And that was necessary in order to get financing because the banks want to know that you're able to pay the loans as well. So I needed to convince them that I could break even and do better by a certain amount of time.

Okay. That was awesome.

Yeah, so that's cool.

Massive gems and. And Brandon, I'm just curious if. How do people find out more about you or maybe if they're in the Vancouver area, they want to work for you. Like, how do they. How do they find out more about you? Brennan?

Yeah, no, absolutely. My clinic is called Cadence Physiotherapy and Rehab and our website is cadencephysiorehab CA and you can. If people have questions, feel free to reach out to me at brennanadencefio Physio Rehab Ca.

And thanks for coming on the show, Bryn.

Thank you so much.

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