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[JOE SANOK: I think it’s time that we speak about you and your goals for a minute. Hear me out. For a while now, We’ve been speaking about, about how to market your practice, how to grow your practice, and how to be a better boss and encourage a company culture but isn’t it time to start making it happen? I’m serious, I’m challenging you to just do it. Take that leap of faith, put yourself out there and level up in your practice. Think about it. You’re probably entering that phase where you start to set yourself up for 2023. You’re thinking about what your goals are going to be, what you’re not going to do and what you hope to achieve. But regardless of where you are within your private practice journey, I’m challenging you to make these last few months count to dig deep, to make next year the one for big changes within your business and more importantly within yourself. If you’ve been looking for a sign to either start your own private practice, grow from solo to group, or become a next level group practice boss, this is it. You’re certainly not alone because Practice of the Practice is doing something we’ve never done before. We’re so convinced that now is the time for you to grow, that we’re dedicating all our resources to help you do it. We’re all in every single one of us and we’re inviting you to go all in and level up. From September 12th to September 15th, we’ll be running level up week to help you decide what will work best for you in your private practice journey. There will be webinars, Q&As with experts and a chance for you to meet your accountability partners, facilitators, and community. If you’re ready to make a change and level up register at practiceofthepractice.com/levelup and follow our Facebook and Instagram pages at Practice of the Practice for live updates and event details. Lastly, before I jump back into this episode, I just want to say that I really hope to see you there, even if it’s just online. Remember that leveling up week isn’t about us. It’s not about me or about Practice of the Practice. It’s all about you and growing your practice, whether it be your first solo practice or growing you from group practice boss to reaching a national audience. Make September, 2022, the month that you start your journey and level up. [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. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grow A Group Practice podcast. We are doing part two of my interview with Brandy Mabra. The discussion was so good before that, I wanted to continue on with her. This time we’re going to spend this discussion talking about team building and hiring. Again, this is one of the many questions that I get when it comes to consulting work and even things that I have had to learn to work through for myself or in some sense it’s still learning. So I’m excited to have this discussion with Brandy because I’m trying to take away some nuggets as well from the discussion. Brandy, welcome back to the podcast. [BRANDY MABRA] Yes, thank you. Thank you. Super excited to be back. Hey. [LATOYA] Yes, and I wanted to make sure that we talked about this because I know we were flowing and it was such good stuff in part one, when you discussed, especially cleaning up those hot mess practices and I had this vision of you coming in, like I said, with trench coat, gloves, getting all in operations in the systems if they’re working or not, and really doing the cleanup work. Even when you mentioned the 50-point checklist, I got these chills, like nervousness. I feel like I started sweating and I’m like I don’t want to do it. But even in therapy, all clients, when that resistance come, okay, that’s something that we need to address. So I’m even thinking for myself, I need to get a hold of this checklist and just sweat it out and answer these questions. But today I want to talk about this team building and hiring because so many times, I mentioned it in part one, so many times you just need a therapist, you need somebody to come in. I think most practices are like, overflowing. The phones are ringing, listen, I’ll take who’s up next, let’s go. But if you take the wrong person, it ends up doing you more harm than good. So what are you telling group practice owners, especially about this hiring process? Like, what should we be looking for? Should we be taking anybody? What’s your take on that? [BRANDY] Yes, sometimes it’s patience. That’s one of the things that I find is that when you are at the place where you are, you’re booked, you’re busy, you need to hire, a lot of times you’re wanting to do things from a place of anxiousness. You’re tired, you’re doing all the things and so at that point in time, you want to catch yourself actually before you’re booked and busy and to be proactive. A lot of the clients that I’m working with, especially in the Private Practice CEO, is they’re at a place where now they need to hire their first provider. They need to hire their first admin. We’re doing it from a place of step one, step two, step three, step four, step five because a lot of times you want to jump to straight to step five and you’re not setting yourself up for success. So getting really clear on who do I need to hire? Who’s going to be a good fit for me? So understanding yourself as a leader is one of the most important things. Unmask your leadership is one of the things that I discuss in the Private Practice CEO. So what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What’s the business culture that you’re creating? Because ultimately when you hire, you want to make sure that you’re not only just hiring somebody who can see patients and clients, but you’re hiring the right fit and that takes time. As you’re building and as you’re seeing clients, what are some of the things that’s resonating with you? Step into the vision for what you’re creating. Sometimes it might be you need to hire therapist that’s maybe in a different specialty. Maybe you need to hire therapist that’s actually in the same specialty as you because, so just not just hiring a warm body. That’s the thing. Take your time first. That’s step one. Step two is once you are in a place of hiring and interviewing not hiring based on a vibe. A lot of times what I hear is, “Oh, I like that person. I could go out to dinner, we can hang out and we are going to go to the beach and on vacations, and all the things, and they’re going to be such a great fit.” They get them in and they’re like, wait a minute, I thought we were going to be hanging out and all these things. No, you cannot hire based on a vibe. Yes, there is a vibe if you can get along with the person, but you still need to pay attention to asking questions. So I always recommend asking behavioral-based type questions; can you describe a time, examples, not just close-ended questions of are you a good team player? If your schedule’s busy, are you going to see everybody? I mean, they’re not going to tell you something that that’s going to lose the job. One of the things too is understanding is this a position that might be a 1099 starting out, but you want them to move over to a W2. So if you hire somebody who has no intention on ever being full-time with your practice or part-time or being an employee with your practice then you need to know that in the beginning stages. So just having an understanding of what the person’s expectation is from the position during the interview process, what’s your expectation of the position is during the interview process, what the schedule is, pay, can you afford to pay them, all those things. Understanding your financial, so I recommend always having a conversation with your accountant before you even hire to establish like a pay range. What I find is a lot of times therapists, they hire at the top of the pay range and then when it’s time to either provide a raise or if they want to bring them on as a W2 the money piece starts to become a factor. So just doing your due diligence is important. Then once you do hire, making sure that there’s a sound onboarding process, that you’re orienting them. That’s where a lot of times the policy and procedures come into play, clinical policy and procedures. Especially as a therapist and if you’re hiring different skill sets we all have, I know providers I’ve worked with, so many have different ways that they practice. They have different things of how they look at different situations when it comes to patient care. That’s one thing. But if you have always come from a place of the eight figure practice, so if you have multiple providers, if you have this big practice, if you have multiple team members and you’re saying, this provider practices this way, this provider practices this way, this provider sees, this is how they like their schedule, this is how they like their schedule, this is the paperwork that they like, this is the paperwork that they like, that becomes chaotic and that takes up time and that loses money. So you want to make sure that you are thinking about things from a standardization. As you’re seeing clients how do you practice? What are some commonalities that for certain diagnoses, certain situations, best practices from a clinical standpoint because that way you can establish your own clinical guidelines to streamline things. [LATOYA] This is all good stuff, especially the don’t hire based on the vibe. I think that again, we’re back to the feelings part. I get along this person, it seems right. I got so many questions and that’s why — [BRANDY] Yes, put it above your desk. Don’t hire based on a vibe. [LATOYA] Yes. But also, and I just lost, see when I have too many thoughts in my head, they all go blank. The one thing you said is understanding yourself as a leader. A lot of times people may not see themselves as a leader or they don’t want to be looked at again, hear this as the bad person. They want everybody to get along. I know I had that in the beginning. Like, listen, this is a family, we’re a team. Somebody got to be the leader. [BRANDY] Yes. [LATOYA] I had to learn that the hard way. Somebody has to call the shots. So how do you pull a leader out, somebody who doesn’t even either want to be the leader, doesn’t see themselves as a leader? [BRANDY] The one thing I always say though is the fact that you’ve started a practice, because you had a choice. I mean, you had a choice really. You could have gone work for somebody else, but you chose to start a practice. So that’s leadership. You’re choosing to create something out of nothing. I always say where are you standing up as a leader? Even if it’s at home if you got kids, are you letting them run amok or are you letting your family run all over you? Or if in certain situations where you’re stepping up, identify those types of things. Then, so you’re already showing leadership capabilities. My job and part of your job is to understand yourself better as a leader. What are the strengths? What are the weaknesses? Where’s the opportunities for growth? Because at the end of the day, when you are the practice owner, everything starts and ends with you. That’s why I always say of the CEO, you are the chief executive officer of your practice. So you set the tone. If you are nonchalant about things, if you are not having the leadership skills that you need, or if you’re not saying this is what we need to do, not saying that you have to know all the answers. Part of being a leader is being authentic and vulnerable, and that’s okay, but you have to make sure that you are setting the tone. Everything starts and ends with you. But part of that is being okay with making mistakes. Part of that is being okay with asking for help. Part of that is being okay understanding like, I need to learn more about myself. I need to enhance my skills. But find where you are starting, where you are standing up as a leader and embrace that instead of just telling yourself, I’m not a leader. I’m not a leader. I didn’t go to school to be a leader. [LATOYA] Yes, I love that. If you started a practice, you’re already leading. But also, so don’t try to be like everybody else. Whatever makes you stand out, whatever you’re good at leading that point, enhance that. That’s how you’re leading. Then if you leave and then call you to help me with the others, I don’t, I just throw that in there too. Don’t leave the stuff out. Call me. But what I’ve heard about, because I hear this so much and I’ve heard it before. To me, it’s red flag. I talk to other people about it when we ask those questions in the interview process, hey, blah, blah, blah. The person says, yes, because I just want to learn as much as I can from you. To me it’s like, wait a minute, what I’ve heard that before. It’s usually like two or three years you’re trying to be out the door doing your own thing. So what are some hiring red flags or things that we should listen to from the beginning and be like, oh no, this person, sometimes I may do an interview and the person has, I mean, great, they’re very skilled a lot, but they got like four or five different businesses. I’m thinking, well, how invested are you going to be in this? So are there certain things where we’re like, ah-ah, not this one. [BRANDY] I actually, the first statement that you said, where if they’re saying, I just want to learn from you, I just want to grow, that’s actually from my experience, that’s a great hire because that’s a great hire and here is why. They’re going to come in. They’re going to be hungry, they’re going to come in, they’re going to give you ideas, they’re going to come in and they’re going to want to learn as much as possible, which is actually going to enhance the practice. The flip side of it is that you are only going to be able to keep them maybe one to three years, However, they are going to leave the practice in a better shape than what they found it in. And sometimes that’s worth it but part of that in interview process too, is understanding who is the hire that you’re hiring. So if you’re hiring somebody and they are saying that yes, recognize the fact that they’re going to come in, they’re going to want to learn that they’re going to move on. But one of the things, as a leader, you should be training and giving your team the resources that they need to be successful for them to grow. So if you were coming from a place of, I want to just hold onto this person forever and ever and ever, you’re not doing yourself justice. You’re not doing the practice justice, and you’re not doing that person justice too. So you want somebody to come in and say, I just want to learn, I want to grow, I want to do more. The goal would be to find out what does that mean? What does it mean when you say grow? What does it mean that you want to learn more? Because if you can create actually that within your practice, then that’s giving them an opportunity to grow within your practice and that’s going to allow for them to maybe stay longer because now it’s a growth. So it’s not just hiring for right now. It’s hiring based on what is going to happen with the position. Because one or two things happen with the position, either the practice outgrows the person or the person outgrows the practice. So the goal is that you want the person to grow with the practice, so thinking about how can, I might be hiring this person as a clinical position, but maybe they might become a clinical director. Maybe they might become your coo because they are now, they bring a clinical skill set and they love operations. I mean, just getting really creative about the position and not just hiring based on what you need now, but just thinking about what can this person become later on down the road. [HEARD] As a therapist, the last thing you probably want to think about is doing your own bookkeeping and taxes. Heard is here to help with that. Heard is the financial back office built specifically for therapists in private practice. 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[LATOYA] So when you’re talking like my wheels been, so that part down the road, we have the mission for the practice, but maybe is it like a subset, like, listen, I have a mission for my hires. My goal is to help you become the best therapist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That also means you may not be here forever. Yes, I don’t want to hire somebody then have them be gone a year later. That doesn’t really benefit me, but it’s for the understanding. I can see you not being here because I don’t need you to, that’s not in the mean way, I don’t want to but I want to make you great. I imagine when we lead with that, that’s going to want people to work hard [BRANDY] Exactly, exactly, exactly. So it’s all about, but again, it starts with you first and having that clarity, so not just hiring, hey, I need a therapist, or hey, I need an admin. No, it’s thinking about things from a bigger perspective, again and bringing back in that eight-figure practice. Those eight-figure practices have practice managers, they have CEOs, they have leadership, they have multiple layers of different types of skill sets that they’re bringing to the table. They have a clinical director, a clinical lead, they have an administrative lead. So when you’re thinking about those things, there’s a lot of opportunity inside of a practice that is growing. So when you talk to that, then yes, you need to have your mission and vision for the practice but yes, having a mission and vision for the position. Then also realizing when you are interviewing, you’re marketing the position to great candidates just like you’re marketing your practice to people who want to come and see you. So you want that experience to be the best experience that it can be, so that way you’re retaining people. So there is the fit, but it’s also just understanding what does the position entail right now and then what can the position be in the future? When you have somebody who says like, “Oh, I would love to be able to do this,” because we always have goals and aspirations for doing more. If you have somebody who says I just want to just come to work all day and just see people that’s, I just want to, that’s all I want to do or I want to come and be able to do my job and then go home and that’s it, those are red flags. You want someone to say, I want to grow. I love the fact that this is a growing practice. I love the fact that there’s opportunity here. I love the fact of what you’re doing when it comes to your mission and your vision. When you have people who are talking that way, those are really great things. Then you can dive in deeper. Like if you’re nervous that they might stay a year, then you would ask and well, what do you see for your growth plan? What do you see yourself envisioning to do after year one? I’m looking for somebody who is going to be with the practice past a year. I’m looking for someone who’s going to be with the practice to help me grow it. Who wants to be on board. Who wants to actually become, even if it’s a 1099, who wants to become a W2, who wants to actually be embedded. That’s when you’re able to get a really good feel on if it’s a good hire or if you’re just hiring someone right now. If that’s the case, it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t make the hire. It just means that you’re making the hire knowing this is what I need to do right now in order to get my practice to the next level. [LATOYA] Yes. That’s awesome. Thank you for clearing that part up for me, for us. But also like, and I’m hearing you, it’s like it takes this maturity, this maturation process, start practice and leadership to really see and put the pieces together. But I have two more questions for you and I’m going to try to limit to these two so we don’t have like part 52 of this. I could talk to you all day because this is good stuff. [BRANDY] I love it. I appreciate it. Thank you. [LATOYA] Two questions I want to ask you because I get these all the time too. I use the book, the Ideal Team Player and the questions that flow from that, what are some great questions, do you have a list of questions to ask people for hiring? [BRANDY] I do, I do based on leadership, because you always want to bring in leaders in your practice. Even from like the very beginning, are you a leader? Are you a leader? Because if you hire a team of leaders, then you’re going to be in a great place because you don’t always have to be the one. You’re going to be like the chief leader, but you don’t, but you have people who are helping you move things along and who can be resources for other people. So I have questions based on leadership. I have questions based on customer service, because that’s a really big thing, especially when it comes to the patient experience. I have questions based on conflict because when it comes to dealing with others and customer service and dealing with those types of things, and there’s questions about that too. I have a whole behavioral-based questions guide that comes as part of the program. Yes, it just starts with just can you describe a time when you had to handle a conflict? What did you do in order to resolve it, and what was the outcome? Can you describe a time when you had to go up against your boss and you didn’t agree with what maybe they said? What was the outcome of that and how did you handle it? Those are just some of the things right off the whim. But yes, I love that book that you mentioned too, but it’s ultimately, again, just looking at when you’re asking questions, not just asking basic questions, but digging deep into what the person wants. Then ultimately making sure that you’re asking well rounded questions when it comes to leadership, customer service, patient care, administrative duties, multi-tasking all of the things that can happen because building a practice is not just step 1, 2, 3. No, it’s very multifaceted, so you have to make sure that your team is able to handle that. [LATOYA] The last question, Brandy, maybe this is loaded, maybe this is a part three, I don’t know, but what’s the, a lot of times we hear too, okay, I put the ad up, I didn’t really get any responses. Where do you find people? I can’t find any therapists right now. What do you say to people to make, to get the draw in, whether it be a certain, because a lot of the job boards too, have changed their criteria. Now you got to pay a bunch of money and for this many days and you lose like, I don’t know, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Is there words in the ad that’s going to draw people in? Is it a certain place to go? [BRANDY] I like LinkedIn, or not LinkedIn, I do like LinkedIn, but I like Indeed I still think that there’s Indeed, but remember hiring is like marketing. So when you are talking about a growing position it might be where it is, benefits that are available even if it’s not virtual, virtual opportunities. Understanding what the mission is, listing what your mission is, who is a good fit, describing the day of what the position would be so that way as people are reading it, either they’ll be like, oh, that sounds like a really great day. I think I’d be a really great fit for that, or, I love that mission. The other thing too is professional organizations. I love that. I always say steer clear. What I know happens oftentimes in this space is steer clear of hiring your relatives unless if they specifically have the skillset that you need and the strengths that are bringing it, and then even when that happens, and making sure that it’s very clear. But yes, Indeed, LinkedIn, professional organizations but ultimately treating the position like you are posting for your business. So if you were trying, you put so much effort into marketing your practice, you need to put effort into marketing the position for your practice. When you do that and things are clearly laid out and you’ll attract the right candidate, you’ll have a better experience. Then it always dives into, whenever I hear, the person who is actually I’m interviewing isn’t a good fit, always ask, well, what’s the interview process and then what did the posting say? [LATOYA] Awesome. This is so good. Tell people how to find you to be able to work with you. [BRANDY] Yes. I have my website, www.savvyclover.com. There is a business health checklist that’s waiting for you. You can also find me on Instagram at Savvy Clover Coaching. But there you’ll find information where I host free workshops and I have my group program where my CEO school for private practice owners called the Private Practice CEO, where we dive into all things practice building. Yes, come find me, come hang out. [LATOYA] Awesome. Well, Brandy, thank you so much for doing part 2 with me. I appreciate this conversation. We can go on and on, but I thank you so much for your time. [BRANDY] Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. [LATOYA] Thank you once again to Heard for sponsoring this episode. When you sign up with Heard, you work directly with Financial Specialists to track your income and expenses, file taxes online, and grow your business plans. Begin at $149 per month. Sign up now at www.joinheard.com. 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.