[LATOYA SMITH] The Grow A Group Practice Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice Network, a network of podcast seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like the Practice of the Practice podcast, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. You are listening to the Grow A Group Practice Podcast, a podcast focused on helping people start, grow, and scale a group practice. Each week you’ll hear topics that are relevant to group practice owners. I’m LaToya Smith, a practice owner, and I love hearing about people’s stories and real-life experiences. So let’s get started. Welcome back to the Grow A Group Practice Podcast. I’m your host, LaToya Smith. Today we have a returning guest, and I’m just going to say like, I hope this person continues to return because I think, what she does is amazing. So she’s been on here before. Once again, we have Brandy Mabra and I’m excited to have her back on because today we’re going to talk about systems. I know, if you’ve been listening to the podcast last time she was on, I definitely called her that person that sweeps in, cleans up behind the scenes in the practice, helps you with that so that everybody who comes in the front door can see it’s spotless and she’s the one helping you do the dirty work behind the scenes. So she’s the person everybody needs with their practice to help clean up, set the structure, and to do what we’re talking about today, help us with the systems. I know a lot of times in consulting in our small groups, in our communities, we hear a lot about systems. What does it look like? How does it help to build? Even being a business owner working on systems is something that did not come naturally to me. Maybe I did it, and Brandy, you can help me with that in a second. I think everybody has a system and they don’t know if it’s not on paper it happens but even being a business owner, it teaches you more how to be intentional about developing systems. So I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but Brandy, I do want you to introduce yourself to some, but say hey, to those that I heard you before. Just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you’re located, and about your business. [BRANDY MABRA] Absolutely. So, hello, hello. I’m so excited to be here again. My name is Brandy Mabra. I’m the CEO of Savvy Clover Coaching and Consulting and I’m a CEO coach for private practice owners. So I help private practice owners to own their CEO status, to scale their practices for growth, sustainability, and profit, though my expertise really falls in line with teams, operations, understanding your financials from a CEO perspective in order to leverage your practice so that way you have a streamlined, efficient, effective practice that you can leverage essentially, too. So it’s all fun and I love what I get to do and I’m excited to be back. [LATOYA] Yeah, and I love your social media, like your Instagram page, I think that’s what I know. You’ll give out those handles like towards the end. But I do love those. Something that you just said, which I noticed is a lot of the work you do, the CEO mindset. So what happens when we begin to look at systems from that CEO mindset, which I imagine, go ahead. [BRANDY] Oh, no, I’m excited. So from a CEO perspective, you’re looking at it from a team perspective. So when you first start your practice, it’s you. You know where everything is the systems that you use you know where you store things, you know how to work your EHR, you know documents and all of those things. So as your practice gets bigger and you start to hire and your practice grows, you now have to take on that CEO mindset because there’s not just you anymore in the practice. Now you have to pay attention to where are you storing things, what systems are you setting up for what business activities, documenting how you do things, making sure your team knows how to do things. So a lot of the frustrations that can come into play from systems is lack of structure. When you are, the whole point of systems, whether if it’s for marketing, financials, even within operations, through systems, your team systems, how you function systems. So if there’s anything that is lacking when it comes to structurally or any chaos or there’s no clarity, then that’s where a lot of the frustrations can definitely come into play and that’s where chaos can happen, and that’s where overwhelm can happen. That’s where folks honestly can definitely lose money because the systems aren’t on point. I love today’s conversation. [LATOYA] Yeah, yeah. I have so many questions I’m trying to stay in line. I heard somebody say, this is a video, I don’t even know where I saw it anymore. I think I was scrolling somewhere on social media and I heard somebody ask, I think somebody asked this one business owner a question and they say, can your business run without you? The person was like, yeah, it can run without me. I don’t have to be there, and it can function. Then the next question is, can your business make money without you? Then he was like, oof, I don’t think it can if I’m not involved. That reminds me again, like what you just said, okay, if the systems are tight, everything would be able to slow. It will move and it will make money. So I just, I’m just reminded of that. But let’s go back to one of the first things you said, like, even before we start recording, you just said it again, it’s one way how I do things when it’s just me. I can, it can be in my head. I can have a posted here, posted there and whatever. It’s completely different now when I add people. So what are some first things first, when you have that solo practice owner that’s ready to build a group but wants to make sure their systems are tight? [BRANDY] Yeah, I think at that solo space, you’re still paying attention to how you’re doing things. One of the things I always say, it’s the details are in the how, not necessarily the what. So how you do things is where you need to pay attention to. You can go ahead and start to document, definitely start documenting, soo if you’re scheduling appointments, if you are, even your documentation, as you’re seeing clients and patients, if you are doing certain billing functions you can go ahead and document some of those things. However, once you hire those team members that might start to take on some of those tasks, you need to work with those team members as you’re starting to train them to refine some of those procedures that you’re doing or some of the actions that you’re taking or the workflow that you’re developing in order to make sure everyone’s on the same page. What I find is that sometimes people will document things in the beginning, or maybe they’ll record a video or they’ll have things and then they never go back into and review it. To be honest, like your policy and procedures, how you’re doing things should always be reviewed. You should always be asking the question, are we doing things the most efficient and effective way in order to save ourselves time, to make sure we’re productive, to make sure the team is happy, to make sure our client and patients are happy, to make sure that we’re making money, resources, all those things? Even going back to the point that you talked about, can your practice run without you? Absolutely. But you want to make sure that you’re setting yourself up for success for your practice to run with or without you. That’s truly the key and so once you start to pay attention to how you’re doing things, and that’s where the magic starts to happen. [LATOYA] Where’s this happen at, like when people say, okay, write it down. Is it, what do you recommend it? Can it, is it like a journal? Do I put this in like a Google Doc? Is it something that everybody can see? Like what’s the most effective way that we helpful for a CEO mindset in an entrepreneur, business owner? [BRANDY] A private practice owner, entrepreneur, the CEO, yeah, all the things, all the things. No, essentially it can start on a piece of paper. So even as you’re moving or you’re realizing like, oh, I took a step, write it down. Write it down at that point in time. And you can’t keep it on paper because again, your team at some point in time is going to have to see this, so what you can do is you can take that piece of paper, those steps that you wrote down, or maybe if you’re trying to get clarity around, well, how do I do this type of process, then you can take it and actually put it into a formalized document that talks about the purpose, the purpose of scheduling. The purpose of scheduling an appointment, why do we do that? We want to make sure that folks have time and space in order to talk about their care or to get their care done? So when you start to document, then it needs to be in some type of electronic format, is my recommendation. Then to add to that, you need to start to even think about, especially once you have a team creating some type of hub for where you can put these documents so that way you can make sure that your team has access, whether if it’s a Google drive, whether it fits in a project management system, something that is centralized, where your team can have access. I’ve seen where some of my clients might have like notebooks different pamphlet or manuals that they give out but then trying to keep up with that can sometimes be cumbersome. So every practice that I’ve ever been part of, we’ve always had some type of hub, whether it’s a SharePoint or where you can go to actually read what is the policy, what is the procedure for how I schedule somebody? What is the policy? What is the procedure for how I should document in the chart? What is the policy? What is the procedure for how maybe I should bill a code? What is the process, was the procedure for how I need to do marketing? Like all of those things are systems that can happen within a practice but it starts with, you need to have a system, again, for your operations and your system would be having some type of like Google drive or practice management or project management system in order for folks to know where to go to find the information that they need. [LATOYA] Is there any like, simplistic way other than just do it, and that may be the answer, for somebody who isn’t a person that can just sit and do that, a person that just isn’t, that’s not going to be their reflex, just write down and document? Like is there a way to say, hey, first thing’s first? Like, what would you tell that owner? Maybe because I know I’m more like way visionary, like, let’s just go do it and before I’m going to be like, here’s step 1, 2, 3. So is there something to help people like myself are those people like, okay other than shoving a pin or getting them in front of the computer, say, do it right now, is there a process? Like, what would you, how could you help that person? [BRANDY] I would say, if you’re not the type of person who wants to stop and think about those things, I’m going to refer back to the six pillars of business excellence. So if you are sitting there knowing I need to write down, or I need to document how our workflows are set up, or how our processes are set up. And I’m specifically using different types of words, because when you’re out in the space, you’ll see processes, procedures, systems, workflows, like all those things. However, what you’re doing is step 1, 2, 3, 4. So let’s say marketing. If you want to start in marketing, then you’re going to sit down and think about how do I market, whether if it’s social media, whether if it’s events, whether if it’s doing speaking engagements all those things. There are systems and procedures that you’re doing, whether you realize it or not, within each one of those business activities. So pick a pillar and you can concentrate on that pillar. If it is, so marketing, financial, so if you are doing specific billing functions or sending invoices or collecting money sit down and think about specifically financial. What are the processes that I use within financial? So you can make it easier on yourself if you don’t want to stop and do it. But some of what you said is true, you have to just do it. Nobody, including myself and operations is one of my passions, I love analyzing workflows and how you do things and finding the bottlenecks and being able to take a process and be able to make it more streamlined, but you have to do it. You have to stop and document it, because if not, what’s going to happen is when you hire, you’re creating chaos because your team is not going to know what to do. You’re going to have your team doing a bunch of different things, you’re going to get frustrated. Usually it happens when your team member starts to do something that you wouldn’t do, or isn’t using the same decision making that you would and it’s because there’s a lack of a policy and a lack of a procedure. So they’re just winging it and acting on their own accord and so then that owner wants things to look a certain way but it honestly started when you’re in this solo space. So you have to take the time to do it but do you have to be the one to document everything? No. The other thing is for you to think about when you hire, especially if you hire an admin, your admin person can help you document a lot of these policy and procedures, but you have to still have a good understanding for how you’re showing up. So even if it’s the pieces of paper, let’s say like worst case scenario, you’ve written everything down. As you’re hiring your admin, you can talk to them like, “Hey, we need to document policy procedures. Is this something that you’re able to do? Do you have experience in this?” If you’re working with even like a virtual assistant company, a lot of those folks come with policy procedures and you can use those to refine, to tweak. I mean, there’s all kinds of things. You just have to think outside the box and not put everything on yourself. [LATOYA] I like that. I like thinking outside the box. Then I like the way you laid it out specifically, again, going back to starting early and doing it, but there’s got to be steps to it. So when they’re not in place, that’s when the chaos comes. So any practice that you’re saying, okay, you swoop in, you’re feeling overwhelmed, you said this a little bit earlier. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re feeling be burnt out, there’s chaos, there’s even conflict amongst when communication. It seems like everything can be traced back to a system. Even knowing when, maybe even communication, when to approach an issue or basically if this was written out, something that I could follow. [BRANDY] I mean, there’s so many things that could be relieved if you just had the process. Even going back to the hiring process, a lot of the frustrations that folks have with teams that I see is not necessarily that team member. It was your hiring process, in your interview process, in that system that you have in place that wasn’t either thorough enough or more, or as in-depth as it needed to be. You’re just feeling the effects of it now. But truly that happened way prior because of the lack of system that you didn’t have or didn’t think to have or didn’t know to have. So a lot of it is you don’t know what you don’t know. [BLUEPRINT] Providing great therapy day after day can be challenging even for the best of us. 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All right, so there’s one thing you mentioned too, I think this is even before we started recording, that not only do I have a system here, but the systems built on each other. So I need to set a solid foundation with a great system here so that it builds, builds, builds, builds, and it’s effective. Can you talk a little bit more about that, about how our systems come together for a gigantic system? I don’t even know how to say that the right way. [BRANDY] Yes. Because of a business, if we think about a practice, there’s so many systems that can happen. When we think about a system, we’re thinking about all the different steps that can happen or business activities that can happen within that system. So you can have different folks that handle that system. You can have different softwares that are within that system. You can have different types of, even, I’m trying to even think of the right word to say within the system, but systems can come become very complex. However, if you just start with, like, for example, with marketing, if you start with your marketing system within that system, what are the business activities specifically that are happening within that system that need to be documented? So for, if we use social media, since I know that that’s like a really big thing, social media, so if you have a content plan within your marketing system, the procedure would be the content plan. So within step one, step two would be we post one to two, three times a day, we post on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we design a graphic. That’s where some of the complexities that can come into play within that marketing system. You could have a social media manager, you could have the practice owner, you could have different providers depending on how they contribute to social media. That’s where the complexity starts to be, so anytime that you’re thinking about the system, you’re thinking about the name of the system, so marketing system, the sub name of the system, so social media. Then you’re thinking about the people that are assigned within that system and making sure that you’re identifying that. Then you’re thinking about what technology or software is associated with that somebody might need to learn. For example, Instagram. If you have a team member who doesn’t know how to use Instagram, but that’s within the system that they’re assigned to, then that would be they need to train on that. Oftentimes, when we think about systems, it sounds or operations, there are, the main thing, again, going back to those six pillars of business excellence, marketing, financial operations, team, practice experience, and then even you as the owner, that’s one system. But what are the many systems or the many workflows, processes within those pillars that you need to identify that maybe there’s people that need to be assigned to it, a procedure that needs to be created, a software that maybe is part of it? And then you’re documenting those things to make sure everybody has what they need to be successful, if that makes sense. [LATOYA] No, it does make sense. It goes back to the working document and the idea that everything could be broken down and almost like break it down to the simple, I mean, one thing I have learned about systems is it should be so simple that anybody who needs to be able to see it can understand, read it and understand it. But then even what you just said, it’s okay to break every little bit down if it makes sense. Not to be too tedious, but if it makes sense. And I love, now, I got in my mind how I’m seeing it is like if the practice is a center bubble, you just branch out to describe like everything the practice does or needs to function and every piece has a system. You correct me if I’m wrong, if we’re talking about marketing and social media marketing and people that touch that, because the idea really opposed social media, we want, we want eyes on it, but those eyes on it, we want to come back to the practice or the website to call in to email to get you scheduled. [BRANDY] Exactly. [LATOYA] So in my mind, as you’re talking, I’m thinking, okay, so it’s not enough that my marketing’s amazing on social media, but I got to be able to catch you now either when you go to the website, when you email in, when the phone rings, does the person know what to say to you when it picks up? So now I’m, okay, these got to build on each other because I can have an amazing marketing plan, but if I don’t have a system for when the phone rings. Then that was almost a waste. [BRANDY] Exactly, exactly. They’re all connected and so ultimately you can have, and to your point, you can have a really great efficient process in one area of your business, and then you can have a process in another area that is a complete hot mess. Oftentimes, what happens is there’s something really great that you’re doing, and it’s something that needs to improve, which is why it’s a working document. So you might be great on social media, but when you get to the website, the link’s broken. So then there’s a process to even, not to confuse anybody, but there, then now there’s a process that you need to create. Well, how are you going to make sure that that link isn’t broken? One of my favorite examples of when you think about, and just getting down to like root cause analysis is there was a owner who drove past one of his buildings at night and the light was out. So the question wasn’t so much of the lights out because you could easily just call, have the light bulb changed and that would fix the problem. However, what he did was he didn’t say the lights out, he wanted to know why, why is the light out? What’s happening from the maintenance schedule? What’s happening from the checks and balances? What’s happening with the procedure at a deeper level to make sure that that light never goes out? So when you’re thinking about your operations, when you’re thinking about your team, when you’re thinking about your clients and patients, you want to know like, what is the root cause of what’s happening operationally and are things efficient? Are they connected? Are they talking to each other? The people who are responsible, do they understand? When they sit down, can they go from step one to step 10 and actually complete the task? All of this is very simple at the core of what it is but also too, once you grow a practice and it gets bigger, this is why operations become like so complicated. This is why folks start, start to lose money because it’s going through different things and now you’re going from one pillar. So what you’re saying is like, you’re going through marketing pillar, now you’re going into like the practice experience pillar, so what’s going to happen, you’re going to get a complaint. I tried to schedule my appointment and I wasn’t able to get through, or that link’s broken and so that’s where some of the things start to slip through the practice. [LATOYA] I wonder like practice with a practice owner with a CEO mindset, which would be every practice owner, do they have to be involved in every system that’s established for the practice? Like do they have to know every little one? [BRANDY] No, no, no, no. I mean, that’s like impossible. That’s where, when you start to think about your team at some, like, I have seven-figure practice owners, I have seven-figure practice owners that are scaling to eight. One of the things that we’ve done is they have a really strong office manager. They have an office manager that is eventually growing to be like a COO, the Chief Operating Officer, which means that they’re in charge of process, systems, workflows, making sure that one department is connected to another department, that everybody knows where to find the policy and procedures, that the team is supported, all of those things. So in the stages of business growth, I always say that you need to know enough to be dangerous, but as your practice grows, you’re going to get to a place where you don’t know what you don’t know. So you might have been able like, man, I could schedule an appointment real fast. Now you’re struggling. Like you used to be able to maybe check in somebody in, now you don’t even know how to, like what do I do? That’s a sign of the fact that your practice is growing and also too, a sign that you’re setting your team up for success. But you do need to recognize if there’s dysfunction, you need to recognize if there’s bottlenecks, you need to recognize if you’re getting complaints, you need to address those issues. But also as your practice is growing, you’re putting team in place to handle a lot of those things, so now you’re communicating with the team. Are our patients and clients happy? Is the workflow making sense? Do we need to, we used to have like an operations meeting specifically, and all we talked about was operations and that was making sure that everything was on point and if there was anything that needed to be fixed or changed or tweaked or refined all of those things happened in those meetings. [LATOYA] That’s good. Thank you for saying that the CEOs know every little. No, it’s like a, that’s a relief for, as I imagine as everybody continues to grow, grow, grow, and I don’t need to know every little, but I can trust that I’ve hired correctly that people are handling it on the level that they’re on. Another question before we wrap up, for those practices that okay, things aren’t moving well, I mean, again, do you start having, does the CEO or leadership, is it like systems party, like do we sit down to say, hey, this ain’t working with every little team. Do you gather the team and say, give me your input on what’s not working, let’s fix this together? Is that what you recommend? I know you’re going to, I know you come in and swoop in and you do it, but for those that — [BRANDY] Yes. Yeah, no, what you’re saying is true. So even with my clients, I’m advising them, if they know that there is chaos, I’m advising them, get your team together because it’s actually your team who’s the one doing a lot of the work and I guarantee you that they’re off having conversations about what’s not working, what is working, what they’re annoyed with, what they wish would change, all of those things. So you want to tap into that. You would tell them what’s the goal: we want our practice to be streamlined. We want our practice to be efficient, we want our practice to be effective. I want to focus on policy and procedures. So even if, like, I have clients who right now, as of 2024, Q1 they have different project initiatives that they’re working on. One of my clients is hiring, she wanted to revamp her hiring process so that’s what the focus is. That was the focus for February, hiring process. What does she do? She took it to her leadership team saying, “Hey, we need to rework her hiring process.” That was the initiative for the month. You want to make sure that all of this doesn’t follow on you, but you do want to gather the troops and get their insights and get opinions, and then you can formulate your action plan for what you’re going to focus on. Remember, this is ongoing work. This isn’t like a one and done like, oh, we had our one meeting, oh, we reworked this policy, we’re finished. No, it’s always, it should be always a topic of conversation, how is the practice running? Is it flowing? Is it chaotic? How do we feel? How do our clients feel? All those things. So when you start to look at that, now you have a team that is paying attention, literally coming to you. Like I’ve had team members come to me and say, “I think we should refine this. I think we need to map this out. Let’s look at things.” And especially when you’re within your EHR system. I could go on and on, like, I have lean certifications and training to map out workflows and so you can get as much in the weeds as you like with you and your team, but you definitely need to involve them. [LATOYA] Absolutely, one person shouldn’t be doing the systems by themselves because you want input or it’s basically like, this is what I think is best, but it’s different when you hear team, team that’s going to be their team that has buy-in, team that cares, understands the mission, the vision, the values. Like we should be doing this together. Because I see something that may not be working and you may see something, so I like it. You do a great job simplifying systems. [BRANDY] Thank you. I appreciate it. That was, that’s a lot. Sometimes I’m like, is it too much? Thank you so much. [LATOYA] Yeah, I like it. I like the way you broke it down too, again, like if it helps to break it down smaller, okay, quarter 1, 2023, this is what we’re working on as far as building the systems, but okay, I can project each quarter. These are the systems that I want to dive into. So it doesn’t all have to be done over one Friday lunch, like, that’s overwhelming. We can break it down and spread it out. That’s a system and we can plan to work on the systems. It’s a system. [BRANDY] Exactly, exactly. [LATOYA] Awesome. Brandy, tell people how they can find you, tell them what you have coming up, how to stay connected on your amazing social media pages, all that stuff. [BRANDY] Oh, thank you. Yes, you can find me on Instagram, that is my favorite platform at Savvy Clover Coaching, so S A V V Y, Cover, C L O V E R coaching, and also on Private Practice CEO as well. Some things that we have coming up is, every month we host a two-day free, two-day seminar called Scale Your Practice. Inside of that seminar we’re always talking about the nine principles to scale your practice for growth, sustainability, and profit. One of them is all about operation systems and processes. If you have questions, you can go to my website, www.savvyclover.com and register there. Or you can even register from the link in my bio on Instagram. [LATOYA] Awesome. And Savvy with two Vs. [BRANDY] Yes, two Vs, SAVVY. It’s great. [LATOYA] All, Brandy, thank you so much for coming back to be a guest. I’m certain we’ll have you again in the future. We just got to figure out when that’ll be. But I appreciate you. [BRANDY] Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I was excited to be here. Thanks [LATOYA] Thank you so much to Blueprint for sponsoring this episode. If you love this podcast, please be sure to rate and review. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.