Grow Your Clinic

Tony Beecroft: Successful Clinic Expansion, Strategic Marketing, and Team Retention Strategies | GYC Podcast E286

• Tony Beecroft • Season 5 • Episode 286

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Unlock the secrets to successful clinic expansion with seasoned expert Tony Beecroft. Discover the strategic nuances of lease negotiations, financial planning, and building a resilient leadership team. Tony shares invaluable insights into navigating logistical hurdles, ensuring a smooth transition, and the critical clauses that could save your clinic thousands. Whether you're an aspiring clinic owner or looking to expand, Tony equips you with the knowledge to scale your operations effectively.

Explore the art of launching a new clinic with impactful marketing strategies. Learn how to maximise visibility, build strong referral networks, and strategically allocate your marketing budget. Dive into the power of Google Ads and the value of cultivating high-quality relationships with community referrers. Tony emphasises the importance of understanding and meeting the needs of these partners, fostering reciprocal relationships that lead to lasting referral pathways and mutual success.

Navigate the complexities of team management with strategies for nurturing and retaining talent. From time blocking to encourage efficient responsibility management, to fostering open communication and collaborative problem-solving, Tony's insights are a goldmine for clinic owners. Discover the role of mentorship, feedback loops, and accountability in creating a harmonious workplace environment. By blending practical advice with real-world experiences, this episode provides a roadmap for achieving business goals while supporting personal development.

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Announcement:

This is the Grow your Clinic podcast from Clinic Mastery. We help progressive health professionals to lead inspired teams, transform client experiences and build clinics for good. Now it's time to grow your clinic.

Ben Lynch:

Welcome to the Grow your Clinic podcast. My name is Ben Lynch. If you're a clinic owner and you're looking to expand to new sites and locations, or perhaps you're looking to create a leadership team that reduces reliance on you and provides great, talented team members a pathway to progress with you as you grow, then this episode is for you. I'm in conversation with Tony Beecroft, a colleague, a friend here at Clinic Mastery, a mentor to so many other clinics around the country as they grow, and also a clinic owner in his own right with a team of 20 team members at Melbourne Sports Physio. That's in connection with podiatry and medicine clinic as well, spanning multiple professions and expanding to multiple sites.

Ben Lynch:

Tony's known amongst the team here as a doer and he brings the energy and just gets things done. But we uncover what are some of the elements to him being able to create productivity and progress for himself and his team as they've grown. Let's pick up the conversation from a recent expansion that they've had to a new site and some of the logistics and key factors in making that transition successful. All right, let's pick up the conversation with Tony. So you've just launched your fourth location. I bet there's a bit of brain damage that's been done over the last month or so.

Tony Beecroft:

Yeah, we jumped. Well, we had four and it was going to be five once we opened the new one, but we closed a little I'll call it a pop-up type clinic down, just that, a month earlier than we were thinking about. Um, so five for about a couple of hours and then it went back down to four, but it has been a a bit of a wild month or so. Uh, we've had plenty of support and help, which has been great, but it's it's. Uh's been fun, but it's been chaotic, but now in that kind of breathe out, relax. Okay, let's really change our focus now to the marketing side of things and making sure the team has got plenty of people to be treating and keeping them happy.

Ben Lynch:

So you've done it a couple of times now. I'm sure you've learned a few lessons along the way and probably even in this iteration learned some lessons. What have been some of the hardships or challenges in rolling out a new clinic that you've found have kind of been consistent time and time again, or the big things you kind of need to care about and get right for those that are listening in and looking to expand.

Tony Beecroft:

Well, it actually gets easier each time. You learn a lot, and in particular, around the financing side of it and how leases actually work and what's a good thing or a bad thing to be including in a lease and what you'd be looking out for. Initially we had help going back a number of years when we opened our biggest clinic. We got the lease negotiator involved to get some assistance on that front and, yes, it costs you a couple of thousand dollars but, my God, it could save you a hundred thousand dollars quite easily by not falling to some particular traps that pop up and going through those discussions and having those discussions within lease negotiator and future prospective landlords.

Tony Beecroft:

You learn a lot about how it all works. So when the next lease comes through for you, you know new premises, you're looking at you, you're hot on the things that are. These are the things that actually are important and we need to get nailed down properly and these little things don't really matter that much and we can kind of we can bend on that one, but this thing is locked in for us. Even learning about bank guarantees work from the first time many moons ago to now. It's quite easy. Maybe it's not easy, but you just know what's coming and there's no surprises, or less surprises that pop up.

Ben Lynch:

And what are some of those big things on the lease negotiations that you've picked up from the negotiator themselves and through your experience that are a key to pay attention to?

Tony Beecroft:

Yeah, well, the numbers matter and looking at how things extrapolate over 10, 15 years matter. So half a percent here or there can matter, is it? If someone's trying to get you at, say, three percent increases or four percent?

Tony Beecroft:

it may not look like a lot but it will add up over time yes also, I didn't know about a collar and cap where you can have at the end of your first term or second term, you know, five, six, seven, eight years down the track, the market review rate. You know that could really jump up by 30 if you're unlucky or go down by 30 if you're really lucky. But putting, say, a 10 limit on that, saying, yes, we're going to have a market review, we're happy to do so, but can we cap this at 10 up and so? No one. It's still a win-win situation to a degree, but no one's really getting really hard pressed or drilled into the ground, both from a landlord point of view or from a tenant point of view. So that was a good thing.

Tony Beecroft:

That popped up actually the second time when we changed locations it wasn't a conversation initially, but a different location. That one popped up because different landlords have different ways of doing things. So yeah, that was from the lease negotiator and otherwise it's really thinking about the entire package because it might be simple Say, let's say it's $100,000 rent, great. Say, oh, it's. Let's say it's a hundred thousand dollars rent, they're great. But if there's fifty thousand dollars of outgoings and insurances and elevator maintenance and aircon maintenance and things like that. It's not a hundred thousand, it's 150, 000, like it's coming out of your pocket at 150. So just piling them together and not getting hoodwinked by what may seem like a cheap lease initially, with this and other hidden things you may may not be aware of.

Ben Lynch:

And have you used a lease negotiator in each one of your locations or you've learnt through experience? No, yeah, this time around.

Tony Beecroft:

We didn't, because it was pretty straightforward. The landlord we've been dealing with seems like a legend, a really good person to operate with. He had an outcome and we worked with him to get that outcome and it was win-win for both of us. So we didn't need to. We asked them initially hey, would you like to get involved? He's like you don't need me. This one's straight down the line, cut and dry. You know what you're dealing with you. There's no real surprises. Um, it's not worth the money for me to get involved here. Lads, you go and work your own uh thing out with this, and there's just a couple little points to discuss, and that's about it.

Ben Lynch:

So and one of the biggest things in moving location that I've seen in the in the community is okay, we might get the lease uh, we might get the fit out sorted. Then we've got to fill the books uh, we've got to actually see patients. We've got to be able to provide value and generate value. Now it's context specific. You might just be moving down the road and most of your clients are following you and it's an easy transition, but maybe it's a totally new suburb, knowing your existing brand or clinic, and you're starting almost from scratch probably the harder one For your experience and for the advice you provide a lot of clinics. How do you encourage them to think about, say, the marketing side of things? Is that something you start super early? Is it something you wait till you launch, like, talk us through filling the books for a new location?

Tony Beecroft:

it's again easier with the new location when you've already got a couple of locations, even if you just have one, because you've already got a website and we view the websites as extremely powerful tools and if people aren't putting energy and effort and money into their website to make it absolutely, um, as polished as it can be, but also as as ranking as well as it can be, then they're going to struggle. But opening up a brand new clinic from going from zero to one, I think would be a bigger leap because you have to get the website humming and it can take months and months and months, whereas if you're just adding another location to an already successful website, you've got some great traction behind you. So you're off and racing Saying that getting google my business page up as soon as you've signed the lease, even prior. If you know this is going ahead. We're making this happen. I would get onto that.

Tony Beecroft:

I feel like bowing down to the google gods is super important and we have to do everything we possibly can to make sure that google sees us as an authoritative website that's got good content, that's answering people's questions well and delivering value, and the content is giving them what they actually want to find out the answer to, not just some fluff, so that can start whenever. That can start well and truly in advance. And really a blog on condition x can be suitable for 15 different suburbs if it has to be you spoke there about investment in the website and maybe perhaps more broadly marketing.

Ben Lynch:

How do you think about that? How do you allocate to marketing so that you attract more new clients in your clinic?

Tony Beecroft:

We put a lot of money into SEO. We pay a company to help us with that, where we think we're okay at it, and I've gone through different phases over the last dozen odd years where I've swung from oh I can do this, it's not that hard, it's just putting up a few blogs and cancelling our SEO contracts, and then crawling back a year or two later saying, actually, guys, I reckon you probably are a bit better than me at doing this, and it's also they are better at it. And I'm sure there's plenty of times I've been shocked by other companies' early days. So finding one that you trust that actually gets results that you want is really important. Um, but also the time it takes to do the things that a I know they do and b I don't know that they do. So there's some things out there like they don't show their cards. They. They do things that I don't know about and I'm sure I probably could do it, but it's the time like would I put all the energy and time into doing that, versus just paying someone who I know I can trust that they get it done.

Tony Beecroft:

So SEO is important. Having an editable website that we can do ourself is important. So we do a lot. I personally do a lot on the website as far as updating this and changing this and putting a new blog up and doing these bits and pieces, and I could easily get someone else to do it, but I quite like it for some weird reason and uh, I just know. Probably the reason is I just know it is if we get this absolutely right, it works and it's helped us get to where we are. Over the last dozen or so years. I've also put money into google Ads and again, same situation. I'd swung a lot between I can do this, it's not that hard to someone else doing it better than me and in a more timely manner and in a more effective manner, as in we're buying a click a good click cheaper than what I would do and we're getting more of them if I was doing it. So that's where the money tends to go from our point of view.

Ben Lynch:

Globally. When you look at that, say in your P&L, we often talk about different categories of expenses and how much you might be targeting to allocate any given month, quarter or year. How do you think about that specifically within the context of launching a new clinic, where maybe there needs to be more of a spend upfront? So how do you think about using marketing budget when launching a new clinic?

Tony Beecroft:

We look at it from a three-month window and say, all right, we just want this clinic working well within the first three months and we want to be easily hitting break-even by that point. And we're actually it's week two and we're nearly there.

Announcement:

So we're pretty happy about that yeah, so that's good.

Tony Beecroft:

uh, look, we're excluding the rent-free period, right, so uh, but as far as covering what we need to cover with all the other expenses obviously there's plenty of fit-out costs and these sorts of things we're getting close, but we're happily going hard and pushing to 5% on a P&L.

Ben Lynch:

as far as a marketing spend, 5% of your total income is added to marketing.

Tony Beecroft:

Yeah, yeah, and majority of that. So SEO budget doesn't change with the new clinic, because they're doing the same thing. We just say, hey, can you target your energies and focus towards this new location? But we'll crank the Google ads significantly, knowing that at the end of the three-month mark and hopefully we get to week four or week six and we can then dial it back down if things are going well and if not, we're happy to spend it for the first three months. But we'll have a base level that once we cross that threshold we're happy to be putting X amount of dollars per week or per month into Google Ads, knowing that we're happy to spend a bit extra at the start just to get things off and racing.

Ben Lynch:

And so you might go beyond that 5% in the first three months. Is that what you're saying?

Tony Beecroft:

Yeah, I wouldn't go past 10, but happy to push that hard at the start and you might get lucky, because I think a fair bit of it is luck. We don't know. We can look. And we look at suburbs and say, all right, this many people are searching for physio suburb term. Google Analytics is suggesting there's 1,000 here in this suburb, but 800 here but only 300 in that suburb. Is it the window of time you're looking at? That? That was apparent. Is it over a whole year? So you might get lucky in that and hit the jackpot and just let it roll. You might think this is really good, this is working. We're actually we're spending more than we're expecting, but it's returning more than we're expecting too.

Ben Lynch:

And what are your thoughts then on your team members creating networks, referral connections within the community, especially for a new site or location? Is that something that you expect of your team, or have any beliefs or practices around? The referral side of things Sounds like there's a reasonable paid and digital play. What about networks in creating sort of referral pathways for new clinics?

Tony Beecroft:

yeah, that definitely falls into the team element because, especially when we're starting out with this clinic, we haven't relocated, we've come from a base of zero, so they've got time at the start and they're they're pumped to do it because they don't need to talk to 55 different people. If they just have that half a dozen solid practitioners that are referring to them within their network, then they're there. It'll probably be 20 different conversations because there's plenty of knockbacks that come with it. But we already have a network out there that they also have uh clinics and offices in similar areas that they can go and lean on.

Tony Beecroft:

But it's not all on myself. I'm not treating at the moment, so I shouldn't be the person doing this. I don't think, because I'm not the one sustaining and continuing the conversation in the months and the years to come. So, getting current team to go and do this um, and that they embrace it as far as hey, I get to pick and choose the people that are going to send me my ideal clients and often it's reciprocal. So if we've got some surgeons or doctors, we're sending other clients back to them and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it might be the the gym owner sending someone. It's probably going to be more of a one way street this way than it is the other, and that's okay. But we're helping the gym owner knows we're helping them fix their customers or clients and get them back to go and do more sessions with them. So having the team pick and choose what they want to do and really leans on their ideal client avatar makes it a win-win for them to get out there and do it.

Tony Beecroft:

And yeah, there's time at the start, hopefully not for too long but definitely early days there's some white space in the diary, for sure.

Ben Lynch:

So identifying your ideal client and then identifying where they might be so in other businesses or other practices, and rather than doing a heap volume, you're looking at going deep with just a few, but maybe initially there's a few that you have to kind of screen through, but you're more of the approach that you know maybe have five to ten really good relationships and continue to nurture them rather than try and have, you know, 500 exactly yeah, because it just gets too hard to manage and you don't know, and you're not going to manage them.

Tony Beecroft:

Well, it's sometimes challenging enough to look after your five to ten. Uh, let alone try and manage 50.

Ben Lynch:

Well, yes and you spoke there to sort of solving the problem or challenge for that referral partner. Is that kind of like a key part of your philosophy or approach to working with referrers? Because plenty of folks have done the referrer stuff. You know we do coffee, we do lunch and then just get crickets. You know, no clients coming through the door. They're not being referred. So what have you found to be key elements in creating referral partnerships that generate new clients?

Tony Beecroft:

we're actually having this discussion yesterday within the team first date with the prospective referrer. We try not to tell them much about us unless they ask. The first port of call is hey, how are you going? Tell us about your dance academy, tell us about your karate studio, what goes on here? And just try and understand and get them talking about what they do. People like to talk about themselves. I reckon, ben. People like to tell others what they're doing. They're proud of it, which is great. So letting them tell us what they do, what their challenges are, and then sometimes that's it, the conversation finishes. You're like, okay, they don't really care about us, they don't want to know about us, they didn't ask about us, that's okay, we've spent an hour chatting to them. We'll move on to the next person. But often they'll say, oh, so what do you guys do? And yeah, we do this and that and the other They'll say, oh, cool, that could tie in, have these people that have this problem and it's just not working. So we could probably help them with that.

Announcement:

And off we go. That's how it seems to develop.

Tony Beecroft:

But the first date or conversation is really just sussing out what they do, what their problems are and just seeing if they're actually interested in us as well, because they might not care.

Ben Lynch:

Yes, that's a very good point. And you said, you don't perhaps do this particular function as much at the moment because you're not going to be the one seeing the patient, because you've made the transition from clinical to non-clinical just being a business owner. Yep, talk us through your journey of going from clinician to full-time business owner.

Tony Beecroft:

All right, it's winding back the clock a little bit. So I was back on the tools the last, say, four or five months when we had the little pop-up clinic, but prior to that I hadn't been treating, apart from a few little sports gigs for a, I'll say, two odd years. Before that I was a clinician for, I don't know, do the maths 16, 17 years, something like that. But I cracked it one day. I was overwhelmed, I was just burning the candle from all ends and I remember I was trying to do. I was basically consulting from eight till 6 30, with a half hour lunch break, which is really probably three minutes, then doing all. Going home, uh, then doing business, clinic admin, whatever you'd like to call it like working on the business till, say you know, from 7 30 to 11 and then going to bed, um, and it was just wearing thin.

Tony Beecroft:

We had a new, our first baby at the time and I came to the clinic one day and I sent I was playing in clinic apps and I wasn't having my best day and I sent a message to a couple of thousand people, um, saying hey, your appointment's been cancelled. Thanks for letting us know. I was trying to stop an automation and I pressed send and then I just walked I didn't realise walked out, went for a walk around the block and I came back in about probably only five minutes later and I'd been people at the desk staring at me going what have you done? What?

Ben Lynch:

What have I done?

Tony Beecroft:

Because the phone was going ballistic, the emails were coming through, all the responses were coming through, and I felt like a fool and, um, it was actually good because we basically contacted all those people, um, that hadn't had appointments for ages and and we ended up with, I think it was 43 or 47 new bookings from it saying, hey, I don't have an appointment. I haven't been to you guys for 12 odd months, but I'd actually like to make an appointment.

Announcement:

I was super.

Tony Beecroft:

I should do this every week, but yeah, that day I, I thought no, something's got to give here. And that's actually when I joined Clinic Mastery. I got in touch with Jack and said, mate I'm, I just can't do it all here, I need some help. And then he got me on the path of right. We need to focus the time and energy of your week. There's only so many hours you can do in a week without losing family life, losing fun life, that sort of thing and the social side of things. So it was really just a matter of them narrowing down. All right, we're going to pinch a day here and this is no patients, we're putting other people in place to see the patients and then I'm going to work it back from there. And then we just had a plan, so it could. It's working great, uh, revenues are stable. Let's cut another day down or two days down and put someone else in to help the patient flow, and just a gradual whittle down over.

Tony Beecroft:

I think it took me two odd years to get to that point. Um, I could have done it sooner. I think a lot of it was identity. Like I'm a physio, I want to keep being a physio, um, and I still struggle with that a little bit. So I haven't thrown in my registration or anything like that. I still do a few little side sports gigs, but over a few years to work out. A, I was struggling. B this is what needs to happen to actually get the clinic where I want it to be. And C have my social life, family life, everything else still intact. It did take a while to get there and there's still plenty to do and ample to do, but I feel like I have a lot more control over my week now, which is good. Does that answer your question, ben?

Ben Lynch:

It does.

Ben Lynch:

It's really and everyone's journey is different, but it so often comes back to that point of, like you said, I'm ready to just throw the towel in some people, so I want to sell the business. Or it's just a point where you're like enough is enough. I just cannot keep working at this sort of pace and volume. And you know sacrificing so many other things you know my own health, family, et cetera and getting support all those years ago obviously helps. What do you, now that you support other clinic owners going through the transition from, you know, a major clinic load through to coming off the tools and supporting their team? What do you see clinic owners get wrong when they make the transition from clinician to business owner? Oh, good question.

Tony Beecroft:

It varies between people, but I feel like people that don't commit and they don't put a time in their diary as in say, all right, on the 12th of October I'm going to drop my Friday afternoon from consulting and then take the next step and have that step one done. But then 1st of January, my Friday morning's going and then have the next step and then, okay, easter comes around, tuesday's gone and laying it out like that but then committing to it, or if there is a little hiccup, like if someone resigns or moves on, and the panic will be oh, I've got to get back and do all this to get the revenue in.

Tony Beecroft:

And they probably do but knowing that, okay, that's allowed and that's okay, but that doesn't mean we fall back into how we were for the last 10 years, when you've been battling with that or we wanted to change it. So, yeah, committing not going all in there I don't have to throw the towel and then drop 40 hours of consulting tomorrow but having a plan and actually sticking to that plan, and knowing that it's going to be a bit bumpy, it's going to be a bit wonky, there'll probably be some little financial hiccups along the way, but in the end it works out, because you kind of don't give yourself a choice. You have to make it work out.

Ben Lynch:

I was going to say making that transition. You just spoke to physio being so much part of your identity. This is who I am. I've studied for so long, I've honed my craft, done all these years, and then I'm making the transition to being a business owner. How did you reconcile making that change from therapist to business owner?

Tony Beecroft:

well, I kept it up my sleeve that I can still be a physio if I want to and if I got the business to a point and the clinic was ticking along nicely, um, that if, if I wanted to, I can go and work a day a week in the clinic, I could.

Tony Beecroft:

I don't half a day here, half a day there, um, but clearly my identity can't be that strong because I haven't really felt that need, but knowing that in the back of my mind, that I could do that and I don't have to stop being a physio and this might just be a moment in time, it might be forever or it might be I'm just going to do two or three years, four years, five years, uh, without consulting, and see where that gets the clinic and the team, see what the team can be doing in that regard. Still helping people. We're helping way more people now than when I was consulting. I could only help, you know, 50-odd people a week, but now we're seeing hundreds come through each week. So that changes the lens as well of how we're looking at things.

Ben Lynch:

And so today, as a full-time business owner, what does your role predominantly consist of?

Tony Beecroft:

There's a few focuses or foci main one being looking after the team is one and that's got multiple elements. So I'll put recruitment under that umbrella. So we've got to make sure we've got good team members on the team, because if we've got a bad egg then that's not looking after the team that are currently there. So my role will be around recruitment, my role is around marketing, and marketing fits under recruitment. Sorry, it fits under team nurturing in my mind, because if we don't have enough clients to be treating, then the team's probably not going to be as happy as they could be, and if we've got plenty of patients and clients to be seen, the team's generally a bit more pumped and enthusiastic about going about their day. So, yeah, recruitment, team nurturing by marketing, but also just team nurturing by checking in.

Tony Beecroft:

So I catch up with everyone every six weeks face-to-face. We just have a non-clinical discussion about how things are going, what's working well, what should we keep the same? Is there anything we need to change to make their day better, easier, more productive? Is there anything else they don't want to? Is there anything else they want to get off their chest? Basically? So, yeah, team nurturing, recruitment and marketing. Then there's all these other little spot, fires and things that still pop up and it takes up a fair bit of time, things you didn't think of, that just come up. Well, did not see that coming, but uh, so they're the main things. Then there's all these little side uh call them projects as far as new ideas, new tech, new toys for the clinicians, new clinic locations and working down those avenues that sometimes there's nothing to do on those fronts and sometimes there's a lot going on as well.

Ben Lynch:

How do you know what the right things are to do in your week?

Tony Beecroft:

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I waste a lot of time, and that's okay, and maybe it's not wasted time. Maybe it's time spent doing things and experimenting and tinkering and realise, oh. And realize, oh, no, no, that's not going to work. Let's leave that alone. Um, so a portion of the week which fluctuates from zero to, you know, 10 hours a week sometimes goes towards that. But I have become a time blocker.

Tony Beecroft:

I was really anti time blocking for the first few years of my business owner journey and I don't know why. I think it was more like no, no, I'll just do whatever the heck I want whenever I want, um, but I was finding that I was missing things. Uh, or I work better under pressure than if I have heaps of time, but I was finding that I didn't have to be under pressure all the time if I knew I could do these things um consistently. So I'm quite boring now in my week, like I'll have things lined up consistently repeating. So I'll have an hour on a Thursday to do blocks and sometimes I take the full hour, sometimes I'm up to date with everything. I don't need to do anything, but I'll have these things lined up.

Tony Beecroft:

I look after the team here. All our referrer sorry, our team nurturing sessions are built into my diary so we know that these things just happen. We don't have to think every week what are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? It's just, the main things that need to be done are in there and they get done and I tick them off and then I have extra time to go and tinker, work on the spot fires that pop up here and there and just play with other ideas that may take the clinic forward.

Ben Lynch:

We all need time for spot fires as business owners. You've spoken about team nurturing. I love that distinction of putting marketing underneath team nurturing. That's a really neat framing. I haven't actually heard that before, but it makes so much sense. And as part of that, nurturing is about creating sort of progressional pathways for team members to retain great talent. You do this work to recruit them. You want to be able to retain them. You've obviously been able to do that really well to build the size of the team that you have today. What do you think are some of the key things that help you retain great team members?

Tony Beecroft:

Oh, good question. Over time worked out that I should stop guessing what helps them and what they want and worked out more asking them hey, what's working, what's what do you like about being here? And then not changing that. The other month I, um, I thought there was an issue around someone because we don't have set treatment rooms. We're just kind of, hey, first in best dressed type thing, everyone changes around and someone had a more set room than other people and I thought, no, we need to fix this. And Owen fixed it. But I didn't. I broke it. I changed it. I created a bit of a roster for them. I said what is this? No, some people were in the room saying I don't like this room. The lighting annoys me for whatever reason, and I prefer the other room. It was fine. And I said, all right, good, got that one wrong. And sorry, guys, put my hand up, made I'll be a problem. Like no, nothing wrong there. And I told them that and they're like, yeah, you idiot, just leave it alone. Like cool will do.

Tony Beecroft:

But over time I've learned to stay away from things and try to only fix things when it's actually a problem, rather than I'm thinking this could be a problem, let's go and act on it. So that's probably helped. But I've made plenty of mistakes to get to that point and giving people the time to tell me or someone else on the team when they're not happy about something. I think simple Google form focus sheet we do every six weeks and I draw it into people like hey, you haven't done the form yet, can you just fill that one in? Like we're standing here next to each other. I still do it because it's great to have a nice little log to see what your happiness has been over the last, say, six odd weeks and how's that trending? Now? It's one of the questions. Well, if I go through the forms, we ask um, what's your health and fitness been like over the last month or so, can't you seven? Uh, what's your satisfaction and happiness in the clinic been like as well? I don't think that's one of my most important ones.

Ben Lynch:

And is that just a scale rating or they add some yeah?

Tony Beecroft:

that's a zero to 10. And then obviously, we discuss it. You know if it's sitting here and if it's a nine, like great. But what can we do to make that nine to 10? And I say, oh, you know what? I've actually just had a bit of a few quite a patient weeks or whatever. It's nothing we need to do, it's just I could rebook that bit better. Yeah, okay, cool, that's great. We're all on the same page here. Obviously, if you're getting fives or something like that, something else is going on we need to discuss.

Tony Beecroft:

And then there's a few other questions around what are they doing well? What could they have done a little bit better? Who do they want to thank? And then, what are we doing well? What should we continue to do well? What should we start and what should we stop?

Tony Beecroft:

And then the last one is is there anything you want to get off your chest, which is just a good way to open up conversations? I'm not happy with this. I need to do that. I need to do this like great at least we know, I think checking in and giving people the time of day or a space to vent any frustrations, but also celebrate the wins too, like they're doing a good job. It's a great chance to say, like you know, what I've done seven of these meetings today and three people have mentioned your name in the uh. This is the person I'd like to thank for doing xyz. Well done. You're a legend. Keep it up. We're noticing it. You're you're just on fire. Yeah, this is wonderful. Um, I want you to know that that other people think that you're a champion and they see the things you're doing, whether they're saying it or not to you.

Tony Beecroft:

This is what's happening and we're often getting that for our admin team and for our practice manager and also just across the practitioner team as well. So I think that helps. Just let people know that they're appreciated and what they're doing is good and other people like it.

Ben Lynch:

How do you get team members to give feedback and be part of solving problems, and that it just doesn't always rely on you?

Tony Beecroft:

Ah, yes, Well, something I'm still working on is not being that person to solve all the problems. It really is just flipping it back and saying, all right, so-and-so suggested, we need to do this. I'm like great, how do you reckon we could do it? What do you think we should do? Oh, I don't know. I said all right, why don't you spend the next week or two on that? And then we'll um and we'll catch up again this time, or I'll send you a message and, um, you can fill me in um. So there's still times like, oh, no, I'll just do it again quickly, like that. That's an easy one. But if it's a bigger project or implementing a new service or a new system, uh, I'm, uh, I'm getting better at flipping the conversation like awesome idea, how would you like to implement that? Or what would you do to start this off? And then a little bit of a handball back to their side of the court.

Ben Lynch:

And when they do give solutions, I imagine sometimes they're very reasonable and feasible. Other times maybe not so. And in a similar way, when you're asking questions about what do they want as part of their role, as part of their career, I imagine, if you haven't had this, you've heard about clinic owners where a team member has maybe some unreasonable things that they want in their work or career moving forward maybe don't seem feasible or reasonable, commercial, sustainable on the surface. How do you balance opening the conversation with practitioners about where do you want to go in your career and also then having some clarity about what the business needs and wants?

Tony Beecroft:

It's a challenge we pull it back to. Our North Star is good people providing excellence in sports medicine. So if someone's idea or plan or concept doesn't really fit into that, it's a simple question like does this align with where the clinic's going, what we want to achieve, and if it's a no, not really level, there we go. There's an answer pretty cut and dry, pretty simple. If it's a dollars and cents conversation, I'll ask them and I'll help them pull it together. Well, how do we afford this? How many people do we need to see? Is this realistic? Do you think we're going to see 100 people a week for this really niche condition when you've seen 10 this year? No, not really. Okay, we just can't do that.

Tony Beecroft:

I'll keep finding a way to make that happen. Maybe you have to build the marketing first, then we'll go and get the toys after and the tech after, or you hit this point. So, having a plan in place and say, hey, it's not a no, sometimes it is, and it's okay to say no, we don't need to agree with everything. We've had people wanting to put little, I suppose not side hustles. But outside of our sports niche there's other elements that, like this, doesn't really line up here. There's other people out there that can provide that service locally better than us. Are we the right people to get it off the ground, and does it fit with our excellence in sports medicine? Not really well.

Ben Lynch:

that conversation is closed down to and you call that your vision or your purpose yeah, purpose purpose.

Ben Lynch:

It's a really simple and significant filter to be able to run everything through. I really love how pragmatic it is as your anchor point for all of your conversations, Plus the rather than say no or say yes or feel like again you have to solve something that on the surface is like I'm not sure how we do that. You're kind of throwing it back and coaching them through. Well, how would you see it working and could we see a hundred clients in this? You know random niche kind of thing that you've picked? So, yeah, I think that's really um fantastic for those listening watching in to lean more into the kind of coach mindset when you're having these conversations with team members, rather than just always having to solve the problem, maybe in a more advisory, mentoring sort of capacity. And I had one other thing been around yeah mentioned about how.

Tony Beecroft:

How do we help nurture the team? Um, as an idea borrowed from, I think shane bennett mentioned originally from, move beyond around anonymous feedback. Say so, every six months, anonymous two-question Google form goes around to the team and it's a net promoter score. Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague to work here? Zero to 10. And then after that any comments you'd like to make. Just simple, open answers. And we've had some rippers. We don't know who sends them in, but we had some ripping feedback.

Ben Lynch:

Uh, on certain good, good, good feedback, bad both yeah, both, both.

Tony Beecroft:

I'm like do not ever change this. This is awesome, um, keep doing this. And it was something simple along the lines of love it how your roster or the team's roster is lined up, that we have a break at 10 o'clock, 12, 30 and four o'clock and everyone's doing that like wow, I didn't realize that was so important. Like it's so good to hang out with other people at the same time rather than being ships in the night. So like cool, we're not touching that. That's great, um, but we didn't know that. I didn't realise that was so important.

Tony Beecroft:

And then otherwise we've had some negative things that some were reasonable, some unreasonable, and just seeing it from different angles and work those out. So we kind of we'll then get these anonymous questions and say, hey, we don't know who put these in. We kind of have our ideas. But hey, we kind of have our ideas. But if anyone would like to keep talking about X, y, z, please send us a message and we'll keep the conversation going because we really value your input and we want to make sure we get somewhere rather than just leave this as a ranting opportunity. So we need some outcomes from this to see A, what can we do? B do we actually need to do anything? And C are you okay with that? And 90% of the time people have um come forward and sometimes left it like, oh, we can't do anything else, you don't know who said it.

Ben Lynch:

So as, as I've seen more clinics, I feel like they're always adding to their to-do list. You know more ideas, um, through conversations, books, podcasts like this. You know there's no shortage of really cool initiatives that you want to do, but you can often be busy without being effective, and so feedback loops, I think, are just such an important thing to establish in your clinic, whether that's team members, clients. You've got dashboards or analytics, right right, to be able to know well, how well is that thing going before we make any iterations or changes. Um, maybe, rather than just assuming, uh, we know how effective, like you said, the breaks, uh, you didn't realize, perhaps, the significance that that had to a number of the team members.

Ben Lynch:

So I love that sort of insight and I certainly encourage a lot of clinic owners rather than just keep adding to your to-do list things we want to change about the clinic, maybe do a bit of an audit, actually figure out how things are going, analyze, to the degree that you can, what's actually working and not working in various areas. So I really love that, that sort of feedback loop that you've got in terms of your own feedback. You obviously mentioned that sort of feedback loop that you've got In terms of your own feedback. You obviously mentioned that sort of breaking point for you, reaching out to Jack and getting some support. You've obviously hit some amazing goals, achieved some wonderful things and you're a hard worker, ambitious guy. Do you continue to get support and lean into peers, mentors, around you? Why do you continue to do that, given all the development you've done up until this point? So maybe you could talk to how do mentors help you today in your business journey.

Tony Beecroft:

Yeah, great question. Accountability is a huge part to it. Feeling like you've got someone kind of just looking over your shoulder saying all right, have you got that done. It just helps get it done and it's purely psychological. It's in my mind, right?

Ben Lynch:

You're one of the guys that like gets things done, so it's interesting to hear you say the accountability helps and maybe that's the reason you're so productive.

Tony Beecroft:

Yeah, it's always that, oh gee, you've got a coaching session coming up. Have I done all these things I was supposed to be doing and most of the time I do, but having that thought that someone's going to be cracking?

Tony Beecroft:

the ruler over my knuckles helps kick me along, but it's also other ideas. I only know what I know and I I generally think I'm one of the dumbest people in the room most of the time. So having other smarter people around me that have different ideas or even just a different way of looking at a situation, um, I can sometimes get bogged down in a particular spreadsheet when someone says why don't you just do that and that?

Tony Beecroft:

Like. Of course, that is so much more quicker, effective, simpler way to do it than having 15 formulas all importing to each other. So having just a different perspective of someone that's in a similar situation but has also done similar things to me in the past and achieve what I want to achieve is helpful, because otherwise it's just just kind of like the Tony way which is uh good to a point, um, but having just different sets of eyes and also people that don't have how to say, like sway or influence, particularly on our clinic, like an outsider's view, is really, really good.

Tony Beecroft:

So it's not all. They haven't been blinkered by our way of thinking that it's the Melbourne Sports Visio way. This is how we do it. It's someone else picking that apart and saying, yeah, hey, that's good, but this race you won't want to think of it from this angle, whereas you're winning this race. But this race you might want to think of it from this angle, whereas you're winning this race, but this race needs to be taken, or this path needs to be taken differently.

Ben Lynch:

So perspective and accountability. If we were to simplify and summarize the key elements, how, though, do you put a value on that? How do you substantiate the investment of time? Money, of course, but how do you know that that is truly valuable to you and your clinic? Uh?

Tony Beecroft:

past experience and the time saved. I can't put a number on it, but just knowing like, wow, I don't even know that was a thing as have popped up multiple times and it would have taken me three to six months to work out how to present it or implement it with the team, and then another six months for the team to get on board, whereas if we can, a discover the thing and then, b implement it within a month because someone else has done it and they've been able to show you these pitfalls ahead of time, the time saved alone is enough. And then you can look at it from a P&L point of view and say, hey, if we did this and it's put another $100,000 on our revenue, well, the advice has paid for itself. Or if we stop doing that or refine this, and it's saved $50,000 of expenses for whatever we were doing.

Tony Beecroft:

Or someone's just said, hey, your google ads is not performing well. Or you're paying this, but what are you actually getting for it? And you actually then go and look at it and think, well, no, that's not, that's not worth it. That might have saved you $40,000 for there. So there's elements and times that you can go wow, yeah, that's. That's a clear eighty thousand dollar win. Um, that's why I'm getting this advice, but I reckon time is the most important one, and sharing resources amongst the community has been so helpful that's really great insight.

Ben Lynch:

I think, as you alluded to, there's a number of different ways that you could uh look at that. Return time, money, obvious ones, you know, stress, emotion, joy, happiness. You know, if you audit, um, I guess, as a reflection of time, your week and what you do, your role, um out of it. But I think that's really good because so often, um, I mean, people are at different stages of their journey and, uh, you've achieved a lot and I'm sure there's a lot to come. We'll speak to that in a moment um, but it's great. I I agree, I love getting the mentorship and guidance, the advisory of people who are willing to pull your bluff.

Ben Lynch:

You call you out on stuff. Yes, highlight or spotlight your blind spots, make you see things Again. You might be learning the same thing. Just a different perspective totally changes your decision-making. And coming back to that feedback loop, presumably pretty much everything we're doing in business is stemming down from decisions, or even thinking, like you said, about the time blocking, sometimes procrastinating, or that's actually creative in the sense that it's thinking time, it's wandering time. Yes, really, it's like if we get better at thinking and having a model, like a mental model, for making decisions and we keep making better decisions over time and those decisions lead to quality actions, then those actions lead to you know, quality actions, then those actions lead to outcomes. We kind of have this kind of feedback loop and on balance, we make, you know, net more positive decisions, net more positive um actions.

Ben Lynch:

I think that's that kind of flywheel of making progress, um, and there's an element of humility in all of that. I think that is a willingness to be wrong, get the feedback and iterate fairly quickly or take action or course correct fairly quickly, which I find in a lot of health professionals because we're maybe taught, maybe it's our personality that we're attracted to the you know this, this field. Maybe it's also then trained into us to kind of know the answer. You know, it's evidence-based practice all the way through our units, like you got to know the answer. You can't be like half good um, that's. That's not going to cut it. But in business half good could be all right so long as you can quickly iterate and change.

Ben Lynch:

And that's like almost a mindset and cadence, rhythm, belief, paradigm that I think you get through experience. Hopefully you hear it enough from other people that you just embrace it and go all right, I'm going to have to learn on the go here, yeah, and have people that can call me out and feedback loops that help me highlight where to get better. As we wrap those that know you, and especially in the CM team, you're one of the most positive, optimistic team members. You get it done. You bring the energy. What makes you optimistic about the future of allied healthcare and specifically as well in your clinic as you look to the next three to five years? What are you excited about? What are you optimistic about?

Tony Beecroft:

personally my team. There just seems to be some really good practitioners coming through of late and I know they cop a bit on social media of the younger generation or I don't know what, what generation we're up to at the moment?

Tony Beecroft:

uh, but I don't. I don't buy into that. I think there's some extremely good practitioners out there that want to want to get better, want to help people and want to help people get better as quickly as they possibly can. So I've been really encouraged by, by the recent recruitment campaign we went on. I think we interviewed maybe 30-odd people and we were spoilt for choice. It was great. So the people coming behind us and the people ahead of us as well, that's exciting that they just want to keep doing bigger, better, faster things and keep progressing. The profession is what excites me.

Ben Lynch:

And I think that is just befitting of your mindset. It's so good, as you said, they get a bad rap, but it's almost like those people keep attracting the bad people, or are they bad? Or are they just perceiving and projecting a lot of their own biases and beliefs on this cohort? I think it's there for the taking, for those that show up with an optimistic framework and also have some good systems in place. So hit the nail on the head, I think your approach and how you go about it, which is really refreshing, really energising, really magnetizing for a lot of therapists but also business owners to say you know there's a lot to take out of your story. Thank you for sharing so openly with us here on the pod.

Ben Lynch:

For those that are listening in, most of you listen on Apple Podcasts. Could you take a moment just to give us a review? It would be so awesome to hear how this pod specifically and other pods have helped you in your clinic journey and also helps us attract more great guests to the podcast when they see all the wonderful reviews of the community. All the show notes are at clintmasterycom. You can head over there for all the previous episodes, all the guests that we've had and some free goodies, tb. Thank you so much for joining us.

Tony Beecroft:

Thank you Ben.

Ben Lynch:

Oh, my internet froze there.

Tony Beecroft:

Thanks for having me, ben, it's been great.

Ben Lynch:

Thanks so much for joining us.

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