Why Lance Gross is Betting Big on Virtual Assistants for Ultimate Freedom

Welcome back to the Willpower podcast in our special season of AI versus virtual Assistants. Our guest is Lance Gross and this episode, guys, is amazing. I would have killed to listen to this episode. 10 years ago, Lance just came back from a 10 day Bahamas vacation where he rented a boat with some friends and after 10 days, he didn't have a single call to return any work he had to do. He's either a wizard or he has mastered something the rest of us want to learn. Spoiler alert. It's both. Lance and his wife own 25 plus locations and a small empire of businesses. And somehow this guy is more relaxed than a koala on Melatonin. We talk about how he scaled his private practice without losing his mind or his spouse, and how he was able to benefit his team with small $8 sonic drink investments that sometimes were the best investments he made. Oh, and his VAs. Not only does he have a small team of VAs, but he's got virtual assistants hiring virtual assistants. So buckle up. We're diving into a masterclass on freedom, chill leadership, and how to build a business that runs while you're on a boat somewhere in the world. Let's roll. What's one thing you wish you had stopped doing way sooner in your business?

I'm treating patients like I do that every day. So, like, I probably need to stop doing that as much. And I probably should have stopped doing that a little while back to be hon.

Well, Lance, thank you so much for being a part of the Willpower podcast special season via VAS vs AI. I want you to first just set the table for your audience a little bit here. Tell us about your. Your businesses, you know, the size of your organization, and then I'd love for you to explain afterwards your purpose and path. Like, why did you choose the thing that you're doing right now?

Okay. Thanks for. Thanks for having me first. Good to see you again. So my name is Lance Gross. I'm a physical therapist. My wife's also a physical therapist. We're from North Arkansas. Been a therapist for 28 years. Had my own business that whole time. Have only been in the outpatient business for about seven years. We currently have 24 outpatient locations opening our 25th August 1st. So we're over 25 locations across North Arkansas and one in Southern Missouri. Also own a. I'm half owner of a DME company, half owner of an assisted living retirement community, half owner of a residential care facility, half owner of our home care business, half owner of some real commercial real estates, and all those Things. So yeah, that's a lot you have.

Before you go into the why, it sounds like you have your private practice with the multiple locations and you're expanding rapidly that you own as the primary owner and then you have partners in all these other businesses.

Right. So my wife and I are the only owners of the therapy business. We're the primary 100 owners of that. And then the other business, I have a partner in the others. So yeah.

And then let me, let me. Before we get into the why of it, I do want people to hear this. Tell me how many business calls you had in that 10 day period.

Oh, when I was. Okay, so as we were talking before this came on, I was, I was actually gone last week on vacation for 10 days and I had zero business calls Dilton based and came back and everything was just still on keel, running smooth.

So yeah, remember, freedom isn't just possible, it's kind of the point. If this episode helped you laugh, learn, or at least cancel one meeting, go ahead and hit subscribe, share it with your overworked friend and leave a review. I read every single one, usually while avoiding emails. Want more behind the scenes stuff? Then hit us up on the socials. Now go delegate something and take a nap. You've earned it. Yeah. Guys, Rockstars, are you catching the vibe now of the new season? You heard the first episode last week, that short introduction about the mindset. So now we're talking about results. Do you want that? Rockstars? Then buckle up. Like we're getting into this freedom growth mindset. We're going to talk about the latest trends and everything. But first let's go back to the mindset with Lance. Lance, tell me about your why. Like what was the purpose that got you into this space and why you're doing all these things? What's your driving force behind it?

Well, well that's, that's changed over the years, of course. So you know at first when you're the first sole owner of a business and the sole proprietor and you're the only one ever, then your idea there and my demand was, you know, to make a good living to make money or to have your own place so you can be the boss and in charge. As that's evolved now to where I've gotten way more people on my team, my passion now is honestly for them to have a great place to work. So like for those people to have a great place to go to work every day, that they can be that forever for like a lifetime career that we're setting up a place for them to be able to do that. And that's honestly what I like doing. And it's to that we're getting to that point. I think we're really close to that precipice where people that are on our team, like, feel like this is the home place they're going to be forever and they're going to stay here and work for our company forever and ever. So. And then now, later on in my career at 54 years old today, not today, but my birthday is worth a while. Back it up as we're speaking. Right.

I'm looking at, you know, not stopping, of course, the winding down to where I'm stepping away. Kind of like I did last week when I was able to vacation, not. Not be the one running the business. The business kind of rent itself. So that's. That's where. That's. I guess that's where. If that makes sense, I would. Yeah.

You have the two sides of it.

I mean, from being the chief cook and bottle washer to now I'm just like setting up, charting the course.

Yeah. It's amazing to think about how your purpose is twofold and one of them is deeply personal. The first one is the team. And that, that's a big thing for people listening. And it was a big shift for me was when I realized that the team that I was building was the greatest gift that I could build. And ironically, that's when my freedom and money increased. But I love that you're being really direct, Lance, around this thing called like, yeah, I'm 54. I don't want to be working crazy hours anymore. So it's the other side of the same coin. And it's your purpose. Your purpose is to live life and love what you're doing and to be able to leave for 10 days and not have all these messages pop up.

Yep. Yes, it was pretty enjoyable on vacation.

Yeah, I'm super jealous. So listen, I want people to relate to you. Can you share a time where you do. Where you can explain how you can relate and connect to people's story strife like the pain of building these things because there are a time in your life where you experience that.

Right, Right. So, you know, painting the picture here where I'm, you know, just sitting back with all these businesses doing crazy. I'm doing nothing. Well, that's not really the case. It's never been. This hasn't been the way from the start.

You're hyper optrepreneurial.

Right. So there was the. For 25, 28 years, it was me doing everything. You know, working just around the clock is so. So start early in the morning, six, do notes until midnight, work weekends, try to, you know, fill in. So that was the way it was for years and years and years and strife. That was some of the strife and then. Or hardships. Probably the biggest time, I would say, was when we. We made a decision. So our history of our business, we were, we were a contract company for years where I've been contracted therapists with home health agencies, hospitals, schools, nursing homes, whoever. So we had a bunch of staff for team members that we contracted out. And there came a point in time seven years ago now where I was thinking, man, I'm getting close to 50. My business is just all based on these contracts, the whole thing. And if someone else comes in and takes my contracts or someone decides just hire their own therapist, my business is gone overnight. So I said, well, what can I do? So when we decided to go into our just kind of a brick and mortar type private practice setting, so I announced to our staff or team at our Christmas party, I say, you guys ever thought about having our own clinics? Anybody want their own therapy clinic? And like, they're all like, yeah, let's do that. So we opened five clinics in like, four months. So we went from a December meeting to open our first clinic in March. And by I think May or June, we had five clinics open. And at the same time, we were building a house, my wife and I building a house. And our kids were in high school at the time and all kinds of athletic sports. So I, my, I had my head zero hours in every day and zero dollars. Because if you go from a pretty nice, profitable contract business where there's really no overhead whatsoever other than paying salaries, and all of a sudden now you're opening five new practices with buildings and equipment and all those things, and there's no revenue coming because you have no patience yet. It was pretty stressful. Pretty stressful time for me and my wife. And if you. I'm a little even keel on things. Like, things don't really upset me too much. And my wife is the same way.

Oh, is she the same way? Because I've always been jealous about how you're, you know, hey, you owe a million dollars. You. You won a million dollars. You're like, cool.

Either one, right? Same protection. Yeah. And we're the same way. I'm a little more even than she is. She's a little. She. She studies me a little more. She's like, hey, you must have painted in here, because we're bleeding over here. We should look at this. And I'm like, oh, okay. It'll be okay. It'll stop eventually.

Correct. So it's amazing. I will say, especially having had high schoolers, how difficult that is. In addition, there's, like, a financial and emotional bankruptcy that's occurring there in that journey. And the other things. Rock stars, I want you to hear as Lance is talking is that he's only owned this PT practice for seven years.

Right.

You were in your late 40s when you started, right?

Yeah. I wish I would have done this when I was 25. Would have been a lot better. Yeah.

So, rock stars, no matter where you are, remember this rule. It's not your age, it's the stage. It's not your age, it's a stage. Don't look around, say, oh, I'm too old, or I'm. It's too late for me to get on social media or to figure this crap out. Like, this is. This is legitimately an example. This is why I'm starting the season with Lance. He is an example of what's possible. And I love Lance, that you've. You've put yourself in this position in your. In your stage of life where you're, like, really accelerating and recognizing, like, hey, what do I want? Like, you're not a victim to the. That piece of it where you're just, like, feeling overwhelmed. So, you know, what I would love to know is from that place where you were going through a great deal of strife to where you. And by the way, before we get any further into how you got from there to here, tell people what you do with your time now.

Oh, so during the daytime time.

Yeah, like we were talking about. Yeah.

So I treat patients. So I'd still treat patients throughout the week. So this week. Today's Friday, as we're filming this, and it's noonish. Noonish where I'm at. Um, I've already done three evals this morning. I've got three more scheduled this afternoon. It'll make. I'll have 23 evaluations done this week. So I do. I do typically anywhere from 15 to 25 evaluations in the outpatient clinics per week and then everything else. But. But I like doing that. I enjoy. I enjoy seeing patients. I enjoy being around. I enjoy being around my team. Yeah.

Do you have to treat?

No. No.

I could.

I don't have to.

No. See, so, rock stars, I want. I want Lance and say that to you, because I want you to hear that like treating isn't bad, but there is such a. Between building a company that runs on its own and choosing to go in and Lance and I were talking before that we hit record that like one of the main reasons you're doing this is to really just to show your people that you're willing to walk the walk and talk the talk that, that you set as the leader. You don't have to, but you choose to.

I do choose to. Yeah. I could, I mean at this point I could stay home every day and, and do something different. But used to, I've always treated so used to, you know, four years ago or three or probably three years ago now, I would treat all day and then go home and like manage the business all night. So go home and then like work on books, payroll and all those things. Well, now we have other folks in place to do most of that stuff, so I don't. I have to really do that. I still, obviously I still do some looking at numbers and financials and making sure things are on track, but as far as the day to day operations, I don't really have a whole lot to do with that.

You know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but as you're talking I'm hearing Dan Sullivan in my head about who, not how.

Spray book.

Yeah.

How.

How much did that concept play into that transformation of where you were doing everything to where you are now.

Right. So actually read that book first time. I think you gave it to me to be truthful.

Sure.

Yep. And that's what prompted us to hire our director of operations. They might call her a CEO, whatever, but she's our director of operations. Hired her almost three years ago, I believe now. And that's been huge burden off of myself and off my wife. So just running a day to day operations of everything. She oversees the whole business. Um, from, from hiring, firing, credentialing, payroll. She does all those, oversees all those things. And there's other people that blow her on her team that you know, do that should do those tasks. But she makes sure they're being done. And her and I obviously talk every day a report at the end of the day kind of what's. Summation of what's going on, what do I need to. What do I need to address myself? Those things.

Yeah. Rockstars. I want you to hear how he's describing what freedom looks like. It's. It's his passion. Going back to your team, Lance of like you're really passionate about creating a place where people are so thrilled to get up and go to work, to be a part of things. And that's one of the reasons that you're driven to treat. It's not just because you still like to treat. It's because you like to be with your people and then, you know, but in a way that serves you. But yet Lance is still free and able to take these big breaks if he needs to. And I just, again, that's what a CEO, I always tell people, I think the most important roles that CEOs need to remember that they have is first as visionary, second is cultural leader, and then third is team development. If they can be in that space, they can have ultimate, you know, ultimate profit and freedom to be able to do what they want. So, Lance, let's get into some of these things that you've. I want to ask you some really specific questions for our audience around some of the freedom helpers that you've had. Can you tell me what is something that you've implemented in your practice that has freed you up outside of hiring people?

Outside of hiring people would just free this up, huh? So. Well, hiring people.

People. People free us up. I mean, people that take things off of us. So we do put in systems, obviously, we have systems in place that do things. So we have a teams of people that do different stuff. So just from. In a physical therapy practice, I'm assuming most people watch this or some kind of physical therapist practice owners?

Most of our audience, yeah.

So. So most everybody understands what I'm talking about. When you're worried about credentialing and revenue cycle management and referrals coming in and marketing and all those things. And if you're. If you're the. A lot of you guys may be sole practice owners where you have your own practice where you're doing all those things. So we have people that do each one of those things. We have a whole marketing crew that just says takes care of that. We have a whole credentialing crew that takes care of just credentialing. We have a whole team that just takes care of new referrals coming in and insurance author verifications. We have a whole team of people that take care of authorizations. So each one of those things are done individually and they all report to one person, and it comes back to this.

Anyway, so the leadership thing, you hit kind of hard. It's hard because I said without people to challenge you, because I know that people is the main way that you've grown. But it sounds like what you did Say it was systems. I heard like you've implemented like some processes and then leadership. So let's talk about systems really quick. Like what do you do you use Google Docs. Like how when you say systems, what does that look like in your company?

So systems are. Well, funny enough, a lot of ours are on paper.

So, so straight up old school paper system.

Literally like right now, here's what we do, here's our outline of what we're going to do and we do that. So it's hard to explain that there's so many. We have, you know, weekly meetings, weekly things people check in. So if you're on a team of, let's say you're on the verification insurance. Verification team. Yeah, there was a person that's over that and they oversee the whole thing and those, all those people on that team report to that person. They've got tasks they got to complete and once they're completed, everything's good. If they're not completed, they're marked in red and they report back to her. And if she can't figure it out, then she goes to our director for operations. If she can't get a problem solved, then it comes to me. So it's like three tier thing before it comes to me. It probably knows how it ever gets to me, honestly. That's. Everything is done.

It's already organized in that way.

So.

Rock stars. Let me, let me summarize this because Lance is living it so, so well. I'm going to take a step back and give you a little bit of perspective because these, you know, these things that Lance is doing is like gravity and sometimes we get worked up in terms of like, should I use an online training platform, Should I do a paper? Look, you can't deny Lance's results with pen and paper systems in some of, in some of the cases that he's built it out. But here are the things that are universal for anyone who gets totally freed up. That Lance is demonstrating that first piece is having accountability meetings. Meetings are a huge part of culture and in those meetings, Matt isn't just or sorry, Lance is looking at, looking at the statistics as well as green, yellow, red. And then he's got leadership and then you have layers of leadership so that it's almost protective of you and only comes certain things come to you. So let me ask you this, Lance. What are the things that do come to you? Like you've got layers of people handling most things. So what are the types of things that you do want to come to you?

Things I want to come to me. Like if we're seeing a. Obviously any kind of HR issues which we hardly ever have, those usually come to me quick. Like this comes down to having them having to have a crucial conversation with someone that's usually me that has to have that like the end all be all. If there's someone's not pulling their weight, someone doing a thing, you know, they need to be kind of put back on.

I'm guessing they've been coached already to a degree. But you're coming in more like you're not having the first conversation as much as like the last.

Yeah, yeah, right. I'm. Yeah, I'm. Dad's coming home. They don't want me. You know, they want, they don't want to talk to me. That's me. I'm us. That's that. And anything that's. Anything that's going to be a, like a financial leech or problem, I need to, I need to address that. So anything that's. That looks like there's a, something here is, you know, costing us money more than it's make bringing in. So we don't want to make millions of dollars in everything we do, but we want to make at least something. We don't want to lose money on anything we do. So we got to monitor all that. So if we see a profit leak somewhere, we gotta, I gotta figure that out. And that usually comes to me to figure out what's happening with that. And I'm pretty, pretty good at finding out where the, where the issue is on that. So. Yeah.

Okay. Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. Those things have really added up over time and we could do podcasts upon podcast about all those things and I'm tempted to like dive in there. But let me ask you this last question. What's the best business purchase that you've made under a hundred dollars that, that, that has impacted your business?

Under $100?

Yeah.

Wow.

What can you get for $100?

I don't know. It may not even be a question that we use moving forward, but I'm curious to see.

I don't know. I mean, let's honestly, I.

I don't know assume anything. I could invest in my team honestly with that so that just by you know, buying them, buying them things to work with doesn't really affect them, but investing in them so, you know, it could be a simple thing is stopping a Sonic and pick up some sorry drinks to take to them on the way to.

Oh my gosh. That's such a good answer. I Didn't know if we were going to come up with anything, but that's a great answer. So, like a small treat for your team member.

That's it? Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah. I mean, we. We can do a whole other. Other podcast about building teams and then staff retention and all those things because we have. I don't know how many employees we have. I don't know, honestly. At the moment. Hundred and hundreds, counting all the businesses. But we've had. We've only lost one therapist in the past seven years. That's left us.

You guys, listen to what just happened. He's got hundreds of employees. He's lost one therapist in how long?

Oh, seven. Seven years.

Okay, so listen, we. Hey, rock stars, will you put in the comments if you want episodes on that if we'll like. Cause I'm building this. Is this next season for Q4. I'm trying to piece that together. So, rock stars, I need your feedback to know. Is that what you want to learn more about? I would love to go into that, but right now I want to pivot, Lance, because as you know, the theme of this season is a artificial intelligence versus virtual assistants. And you have how many virtual assistants?

Seven altogether. Seven across. Seven across the board can. Between the two. So I use five in my PT practice and we have two in our DME business at the moment, and we're getting ready to add a third in our DME business just. Just right next week, be looking for an interview for a third one. So if you're talking about freeing up time and freeing up labor. So that. So you mentioned earlier about. Can I. You mind if I talk for a minute?

Always. Always.

Yeah. Okay. So. So you asked earlier, like, what strife is. I. I kind of mentioned the big thing, you know, open the clinics. That was strife to me. But daily daily worries or things are. Are staff or team turnover. So I mentioned we haven't lost a therap. We haven't lost a therapist in se. One therapist in seven years. But ancillary staff members, those are the hardest to keep. Front desk people, insurance verification people, authorization people that just don't work behind the scenes. And you can't pay them enough to keep them. I mean, you can't. You can't afford to pay them enough to keep them because someone else offers them $0.50 more to go do the same kind of job or work from home. They. They jump at that.

Yeah.

So when you have. Even though we have fantastic benefits, fantastic culture, all those things, people that make those kind of wages for 50 cents more they're gonna think they might leave for that. So that makes sense. I mean, I'm just being honest.

Yeah.

So after you spent, you spent months or weeks or years training them to get to do the things you want to do, whether it's authorizations or verifications or those things that they have to do, and they do them well, and then they leave you for another $2 to work for a dentist somewhere.

I mean, we've all been in that position. Lance. I used to tell my wife, she'd go, how was your day? I'm like, everyone at the front desk showed up. It went great.

Yes, exactly. So, so that's what I'm saying. So, so, so those were the things we were having issues with. Like, we, we, we obviously have seen some growth. So we've seen tremendous growth from one clinic to 25 clinics in seven years. So with that comes adding multitudes of people to try to keep up with all these things we have to do every day. Verifications, authorizations, denials, all that stuff. And we just, we having trouble keeping up with that. Even though we had great people, they couldn't do it all by themselves. So we have basically one person trying to do authorizations for 20 something clinics. Well, that's an impossible task. So we, the virtual assistant option came up, came along and we added one we thought we'll give, you know, let's give this a try, see how this goes. Hired one.

Came on board, had some experience with authorizations, which, which we're having for, was able to step in the role and help that out. We're like, okay, that's, that's taking a significant load off of this one person that's been doing it for a long time. So we had hired another one and then another one and another. Anyway, so now at this point, we used to have someone stateside that did authorizations and overseed that team. Well, now our virtual assistants, we have one there, his name is Archie. He is in charge of the PS4 that worked for him. So he's in charge of it. We give him promotion. He's totally in charge of all our authorizations, all our verifications. The last virtual assistant we hired, he did the hiring we'd interviewed. He actually hired them, picked them out who he wanted. We just sat back and listened to him talk. And now he trains them all and he oversees everything they do. So he gives us a report each week of what's going on, and we essentially don't have to worry about them. They, it's literally seamless. So we Get a referral that comes into us. We send this up to them. They verify the insurance. They do authorization part. They just take care of it. And it's very organized. And they, they actually, they, you know, they live in the Philippines. Some people may not know that. They all live in the Philippines. The virtual assistants do. So they, they do their. Their training. They speak like Archer can train. They listen to him more because he's Filipino. So when he's training them, they like, they buy into it. And they're all. They're all a team. So it's. That has been giant, both mentally not having to worry about those things anymore, not even to work. So if our authorization person didn't show up to work that day, who's going to do all. Who's going to check authorizations? I don't know. I have no idea. I wouldn't even know where to start. So we'll be dead in the water when nothing's getting authorized, because I would not even know where to start that. But now we are at a point where that's. I mean, that's. It's covered and it's a. It's a worry off. Totally off of all our plates.

That's amazing. And you know, again, I think what's great is that you have a company with systems that have really supported that. And as you've grown and as you've implemented that, it's so obviously refreshing to hear that there are solutions, because that was so hard for me. And that's one of the reasons I'm passionate about the virtual assistant side, as you know, is that like, that was. I remember hiring people and they'd show up like they were doing me a favor versus the virtual assistants now who honestly will cry when they get hired. And this is like, life changing, I think for the audience. I think what they would want to know is, you know, how does your team communicate with your VAs? Like, how do you. How do you work with your VAs remotely? That would be different than how you'd work with somebody, you know, stateside.

Great. So. So we, our VAs are. They're part of our team like anybody else. Like, they're literally part of. They get every single correspondence we get every email we send out, every talk. We do a weekly meeting, like a weekly zoom meeting. Every Tuesday morning we have. We call it our back office meeting, which is our authorization credentialing marketing team. All those people come together for a zoom meeting. And I'm on that meeting every Tuesday morning. We spent an hour and a Half or so going over topics of the last week, topics of the next week coming up. And the VAs are on there every time. So they're just. Just like everybody else on the team.

As far as our communication with a daily, we set them up on a zoom. So we're on international zoom with them. And the zoom is essentially open all day long. So it's basically like they're in the office. They're just literally a monitor sitting to the side of someone's desk. And if the VA has a question, they just say, hey, Steve. And they're, oh, what do you.

What do you need?

Anyways, they just ask the question. And that literally is just. It's just open all day long. So it's an open communication. They're just on a screen. If you ever watch Big Bang Theory and you see them on. Gilden has the. He's like the screen. He walks around the house. That's kind of what it's like. They're just right there.

That's so funny, because I've never thought of that.

So they're right there at easy access all day long. And they. We give them. They all get their own company email address. So they have their own company email. The international zoom, they actually use that. They can use that to call with. So they can actually use that system to make phone calls to the States with. And we have them set up with a local number. So if they have to call a doctor's office or an insurance company, it looks like a local number showing up. And they just talk to them. Just like there's, like they're living here in the States. Wow. And we go through some VPN stuff for security and things like that for. For all them. But the communication is really pretty easy. Like, once you're used to talking on a zoom with someone, I mean, it's. It's just like they're in the room with you. It's not. It's not. And they work our same hours, you know, 8 to 5, Monday through Friday.

Yeah, it's. I always tell people it's not a hard muscle to learn, it's just a little bit different. But once they. Once you get in the rhythm of it. I think the key thing Lance and I want to really highlight you for this is that the. The power of. Of, like, bringing them into your culture is the key thing that has to be done. But. But medical private practice owners do that so well, especially PTO, TS and SLPs. You know, your whole focus is building your team. I wonder what that's like, for the Filipinos, you know, you're what you're. Because you're benefiting all these amazing Americans who are blessed to live in the greatest country on the earth. But then you have Filipinos who are coming from also a great country, but they don't have the same financial opportunities that we have. I just wonder what that's like for them to be able to work for you. And I don't really have a question here as much as just like, a statement that I think it's really neat that your focus is on your. Your culture and that it's actually becoming global. Like, you're impacting people. But that's what's good.

When we do what we do, we do us, you know, with all of our new hires come on board. We do us. I mean, look like a welcome package. Yeah, they just get a welcome package from us. But I know this is working the team. And, you know, a couple of or 3T shirts and some, like, swag, you know, this has our blunt logos on it, some cups and tumblers and all this thing. Well, the Filipinos get them, too. So we send them.

You ship it to the Philippines?

I do. So they all get one, too. So they all get a box with their own, like, all their T shirts. And so they're just like. They're just. We treat them like. Like anybody else on our team.

What does that. What have they said when they got those packages? Because I know they don't get that.

Oh, yeah, they love that. So it's. So they're. They're no different than anybody else that works stateside, so no difference to us.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And how was that when you were first adopting that? How did your American team respond to, like, oh, because there's, like, a total stigma, right, about, like, being outsourced overseas and not understanding the English. Like, how did your team respond?

Yep, there was definite. I wouldn't say pushback, but definite skepticism going into that. Like, how's this going to work? This is not going to work. I don't see how this is going to work. I said, let's just try it. Let's just be the pilot program. Let's just see how this goes. Let's just give it a whirl. It doesn't work out easy enough. We can cut it loose after a month and just let's go. So. But after that, now it's like, so now, funny thing, everybody that works like, any states, how they're like, hey, can I get a va? Do I need a va? Everybody Everybody wants someone of their own, like their own little. Their own VA to help them do stuff. I'm like, hang on.

So, yeah, yeah. I think the idea is that VAs are going to replace Americans, which they can to some degree, but like the positions that already are harder to fill, but the people who are great, they're seeing them as like a, a personal value add. It's like, oh, you're taking care of me if I get a va. You know, Lance, just telling you from personal experience, like, my personal VA was a big shift for me, just having someone to go through my emails and stuff, because that was a big shift. And where's your vision for you with. The last thing I'll ask you on the VAS is where's your vision at this point with VAs? Do you have any thoughts on next steps for you?

Yeah, we're gonna, we'll keep adding more and more to do that. Those, those things. So those things that are like we mentioned earlier, authorizations, verifications, we do for our DME cab, they do billing. So we have two that do billing for our DME company.

Wow.

Well, PT practically outsourced to billing, so we don't do any in house. If we. In house, that we would probably use some VAS or. But we outsource that. But our DME company is billing and we adding more for there. So probably anything. We talk about it internally quite a bit in our meetings weekly. Anything that, that we could. That we need someone to be very dependable, very reliable and that's going to stay with us. We're probably going to put them in that role that they can do that they can do. Anybody that can work from home, we can use a VA to do with. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

If you can work from home and do this job, then a VA can do it. Okay. And the VA's that come, I mean, so many people don't realize this. They're. They're pretty educated. So two of ours are actually physical therapists. Two of our VAs actually have a PT license. They're actually licensed physical therapists in the Philippines. So they already speak our language. They can read notes, they can read diagnosis codes. They already know how to do all that. Archie came from a billing background. He actually worked for Ivy, worked for you and your billing company. So. Yeah, right. He had a billing background. So billing and coding is. He knows all that stuff. So they. It's not like you have to train them. You'd have to train them here. All you had to train them on is Your systems really you have to train them in your. On your EMR platform and kind of the way you'd like things done because they kind of have a good knowledge base of everything else. So. And they're. And they're repert. They can learn and like anybody else, if you hire someone stateside, they're not going to know what to do. You have to train them. So it's no different.

Yeah. Lance, such a powerful summary there of the VAs. Thank you for that. Now let's shift over to artificial intelligence. Are you guys implementing any AI tools right now?

I have none.

Interesting. And how come, how come at this point what's the. Is it just the lack of knowledge of what's out there or have you looked at things you're like and not for me? Like where are you at with that? Yeah, but looked.

I looked at stuff several things over the years, last few years and just nothing. I'm kind of waiting a little bit to I guess till things get. I mean things are great now it looks like, but just a little more. A little smoother I guess. Our EMR that we had currently used doesn't use any AI tools in it.

Who do you use right now?

We use stratapt.

Stratapt?

Yeah. They don't have any AI tools in their software at the moment or that we can access. So we just don't. We just don't do that. I'm not opposed to it. I mean I think it'd be great, but we just don't. We just haven't yet. Yet.

It sounds like. Yeah, it sounds like to me, you know it's coming but you're, you're in a position where you're, what you're doing is working so well. You're kind of letting the bigger. Because when I think about big names, I know a number of AI softwares but like that's part of this season is probably on the AI side is going to be more about discovering for the audience like what is even out there. Because I don't think you know the two fastest growing trends in healthcare, not just in PT or ot, slp, but like globally hospitals is AI and virtual assistants. And there's products that are popping up but they're early stage adapting. So some of them are working well, some of them aren't. And so I really wanted to know cause I respect you like where your perspective is. So you're really far down the road with the VAs. You're open to AI. You're just waiting to see what's going to Be the ones that are adapting again.

We're definitely going to use you. Definitely utilize AI. There's no doubt. We're going to. Everybody's going to. We're going to. But right now, I mean, if, if you have. I'm sure you have and I have, and a lot of folks have. It's overwhelming a little bit with so many. There's so many new AI companies out there and they all have these things they say they're going to do or can do, and you're like, can they really, can they really do that? I'm not sure they can really do what they're saying for, but because they all, they all sound so amazing and they're going to save you. Like, you're going to get time back. You're going to be a time traveler. If you start using AI, you're going to like have hours back in your day, like extra hour. You know, I get 27 a day instead of 24. Because you're using our AI tool. I don't. Yeah, I just. I just don't know which one to pick. It'd be like, wa. It'd be like you like go into a. Go to the dance. Look over there. There's like 12 pretty girls. You're like, okay, which one do I pick? One. I may be a psychopath. You don't want to pick her, right?

You'll pick the one that chooses you. And I think that's true for AI as well. It's funny because, like, look at just your chat GPTs, right? There's. There's Gemini, there's Perplexity, there's all these different chat or I don't even know what to call them. They're AI solutions, long language model solutions that you can use as a resource. In my world, Lance, just to share for the audience, I have this network that has not a single healthcare company in it and two of them are tech companies that are very like cutting edge. And so they're teaching me a lot about it. And it is even still overwhelming because they'll tell me Perplexity is good for this, whereas ChatGPT is good for that. And then you have Google's Gemini. And this is the thing I'll just kind of hit kind for the audience and maybe for you as well. Gemini. Google got into it late, but Google has such a powerhouse engine that just last week, this is. We're filming this in the first full week of June. Last week, Gemini came out with these video producing. I think it's VO3 or something. It's it's a. You can start putting prompts in and it will create actual live video. All artificial, but it looks real of people talking and saying things. And so Google, because of their resources and power they have, they have caught up to and in some ways starting to pass. And then people are projecting that will be there. So I just for personal use for the audience because I don't know how much we're going to get into AI. I use ChatGPT non stop. I don't communicate without it. I am going to, for example, I don't have a meeting without that on in the background like an AI note taker in the background. Just because at the end of that meeting I can like download the transcript, throw it into ChatGPT and say please create an email for all the delegations with due dates and identify anything that was missed that we can put into an email. So there's lots of ways that I think are going to be used. But Lance, like you, I'm kind of sitting back a little bit and partly excited about this season going what is the AI solutions that people are going to bring up? So yeah, we'll see, we'll see what comes up over time. But I respect the fact that like you're leading the charge when it comes to the second fastest growing trend, which is very VAs. I think that's awesome. All right, man, let's do some rapid fire questions. You ready?

Ready. Let's go.

Number one. What is a top book that you have read that has blown your mind?

Yeah. Who not how?

Who Not How. Love it.

It's a great book. I've yeah. Read quite a few books recently. But who Know how is probably the one that's has had the biggest impact on me lately, lately being in the last three years. So it prompted me to, prompted me to hire our director of operations. Took a huge burden off my plate and then now it's got me thinking about hiring other people to do other things that I, I do. So I mean, I mean, simply enough you read that book, it's like you need to hire someone to like mow your yard. I mean that's like that could be the person. I mean, to be honest. So I still my own yard, but I should, maybe I should hire someone to do that to buy myself back a couple hours a week of time.

But you know what's so funny about that? I, Nathan Shields told me about that book. The great Nathan Shields who owns the PT Owners podcast. He was telling me about that book and I went, yeah, I Got the. I got the message from the title. I think I'm good. But then later, I was on vacation and I was reading it, and I'm like, oh, it's a mindset shifter. And even our conversation as you and I are talking, Lance, right now, I'm thinking about people. Like, oh, I need to hire people. I want to hire people to go do some things that I'm doing right now. Because that's a big book.

Yeah. So that. So normally I listen to books on there. I listen audio versions of books. So I'd listen to books, but who know how I want to actually carry. I carry it with me in my. Like, wherever I go. And I just. Like in the airport, or I can sit down in a car and read, like, a half a chapter. Just. It's tattered and worn, but it stays in my backpack all the time with me. So it just. It's just my travel book. So I've read. I've read the whole thing its entirety. Never, like, all the way through, but I've read the whole thing's entirety probably five times. Just little snips and piece here and there, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And rockstars. Listen to this. Like, you heard at the beginning of this episode what Lance has got going on and the freedom that he is protecting. And what does he have tattered in his bag? Who, not how. And I will. I will throw. And I get it sounds like we're salesmen for this book, but I will tell you, we get nothing for that. That book was such an easy read. That was the weirdest thing. It wasn't like, this book where I felt like I had to grind through. This was like an entertaining, like, oh, I'm done. So I love that you mentioned that. Let's get to the second question. What's one of your top timesaver hacks?

For me, time saver hacks. I got. I mean, I'm. Wow. I don't know. I guess just delegating things to other people. I hate to say, but I don't like the word delegate. I really like that word too much.

But, you know, empowering other people to take on some responsibility, that's way better way.

That's a way more like a way to say around, like. So wait more.

Dillard.

Yes.

This is such a fun episode. Lance, I just got to tell you, like, this has been such a blast because, like, if I had heard this episode 10 years ago in my career, it would have changed everything. So, number three, what's one thing you wish you would Stop doing way sooner.

In your business that I would have stopped doing way sooner. Now. I mean, honestly, I mentioned we just. Now I'm treating patients. Like I do that every day. So like I probably need to stop doing that as much. And I probably should have stopped doing that a little while back, to be honest, so I could have more time to work on the business that I'm in the business, so to speak, and probably would have been. Probably would have been way more successful quicker if I'd have done that years ago. And. But I, I didn't. And that's. But now somehow, somehow I managed to muddle through that and still get to treat patients. And now it kind of. The business kind of runs itself without me having to be on the phone all day or worried about things happening because I have such a good team in place that they take care of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. So even though you wish you had done that a little bit sooner and you're looking at it now, it's. It's more of a. It's more of an optimization than a judgment. Okay, number four. What's the most time consuming task that you secretly enjoy?

Oh, so my. I. I'm still you. You know, I still use pen and paper for a lot of stuff, a lot of things. So I really just like enjoy sitting back down and looking at like going through numbers, like end of month numbers or in a week numbers for each comparisons. I love comparing trends for, for flows, for percentage, for growth percentage or whatever and ebbs and flows and how things go. And I compare those month over month. Like I know, I know the last week of May is coming. We're going to see a downtrend of 12% because I know that's coming because it happens every year statistically. So I just like doing that. I do that almost every night. I do some sort of statistic looking at our business just to make sure. I could do a quick look at our REMR setup and just how things are training. Okay, everything's good here. And if I see a blip on the radar, something's not right. I can go, we can go address that.

You love the power of you inspect what you expect and the way that gives you the information to make decisions. That might be why you're so even keel, because you have knowledge, maybe. All right, so what's the latest thing you delegated?

What did I build? What have I delegated? What have I empowered someone else to do for me?

There we go. What's the latest thing you've empowered someone else to take off your plate. I'm going to put that in my notes. That's a great way of phrasing that.

Yes. Yeah.

Probably. Honestly, the last thing was kind of the biggest thing was the last. Virtual last VA we hired. I usually would sit in on those. On those interviews and goes to that and make the decision.

And we.

We put that off to Archie. The other VA let him do that this last time. Like on it empowered him to do that. Like you're. This person is going to work for you anyway. So why, why, why? I'm waiting in my input. You don't need that. I was there. I. On the call with them, I introduced myself and told them good luck in the interview, and then, you know, let them go and then let Archie pick it out.

So Archie picked the next VA. Yeah, yeah.

100.

Your VA picked your next VA.

Right.

By the way, Archie, I hope you're listening to this. We miss you over at in the Black, but we're so grateful that you're with Lance because, you know, you're growing in a way that is just how you're meant to be. So love that. What an inspiring way. Okay, last question. This is the big question for the season. In your opinion, which is it? AI or virtual assistants?

Wow. So I. I'm gonna have to, you know, you. You. You know, you vote for the home team. I guess so you gotta say, since it's. It's virtual assistants. But I probably AI. I mean, in the long term, 10 years from now, we're gonna. AI. AI is going to be. I mean, not even 10 years. Probably less than that's going to take over every. Our whole life. I mean, you talk about the stuff Google's doing where you can just create a video like you're not gonna. We already don't know. I mean, you probably don't know what's real and what's not. I mean, it's coming. Pops up on your phone or a TV or movie or anything that's you'd like. Is that real or not? I have no idea. There's no way to even tell.

I agree. You know, it's interesting and this is true, because the owner of a VA company, as we know, in 10 years, we're dead in the water if we don't start integrating AI aggressively. So. I agree. I think. But guys at home, listen, this isn't even an exciting episode. So Seth, the amazing podcast editor. That's not his title, by the way. He's our creative specialist who's behind the scenes, super big shout out to Seth, who we can't do any of this without. If you would, for the people who are watching on YouTube or any of the video platforms, let's see the score. It's episode one. So, yep, that's one for AI and zero for VAs. But Lance, thank you so much for being on the show, man. It has been such a gift to be with you. And truly thank you for embodying everything that I am trying to help other people see in terms of what's possible. Any parting words?

I think anybody is capable of doing great things if they really set their mind to it. Not that I've done great things, but I've done good things and continue to get better every day. And I think empowering your team or your people around you, whether it's, whether your team is your wife or your husband or whether your team is your people that you work with every day at work, like empower them to do things and lead them and get them the training they need and get them to buy into to you, to be part of you and want to be around you or part of your part of your organization. That's, that's the key. They have to. So if they don't want to come to work with you every day, nothing's going to work because you can't do it yourself. No way.

Awesome, Lance. All right, guys, well, thank you for tuning in to the Willpower podcast. As always, this is Will Humphreys reminding you to lead with love, live on purpose, and above all, never give up. Until next time. Thanks for tuning into the Willpower podcast. As always, this is Will Humphreys reminding you to lead with love, live on purpose, and never give up your freedom. Until next time.