Dr. Andrea Maxim’s Practice is Scaling Quickly Series 5 of 5 Five Fierce Females | PoP 282

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Five fierce females

Are you in the process of starting, growing, or scaling a practice? Do you have children to raise at the same time that you are trying to grow your business? Are you wondering what you can take off of your plate to allow you more time to scale your practice?

In this episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Dr. Andrea Maxim whose practice is scaling quickly.

Podcast Sponsor

We’ve created a lot of stuff, i.e.: opt ins, PDFs, e-books. At Practice of the Practice, we’re constantly developing things and making them accessible to you. But, sometimes, it’s hard to keep track of it all. So we’ve set up a landing page, practiceofthepractice.com/resources, where we have put all of our free stuff. We have five free e-books there: the ‘Practice of the Practice’ e-book; the ‘HIPAA and Security’ e-book that I wrote with Roy Huggins; the ‘Adding Insurance to Your Practice’ e-book; the ‘How to Start a Group Practice’ e-book that Alison and I created; and the ‘How to Start a Practice That Thrives’ e-book.

Also, we’ve got checklists there galore! We’ve got your ‘Website’ checklist, your ‘Pinterest’ checklist, your ’28-Step Checklist for Starting a Practice’, and your ‘Group Practice’ checklist. Also, we’ve got some guides there: there’s ‘A Guide to Creating a Website’, ‘Comprehensive Guide to a Kick-Ass Content Strategy’, ‘A Guide to Start a Private Practice’, and tons more infographics, and worksheets. We have over 20 different, free resources there for you! It’s over at practiceofthepractice.com/resources. Go grab them before we start charging!

 

Meet Dr. Andrea Maxim

Dr. Andrea Maxim is one of Southern Ontario’s leading naturopathic doctors and the creator of ‘The Maxim Movement’; a movement helping people move towards MAXIMizing their Digestion, MAXIMizing their Hormones, MAXIMizing their Weight Loss and of course MAXIMizing their Health!

Following the foundational needs of the body, Dr. Maxim offers a step-wise program of removing triggers (food sensitivities, heavy metals, stress, environmental toxins), detoxifying the body and then flooding the body with nutrients to get it functioning and healing properly. To support her vision, Andrea is currently completing her novel “MAXIMized Health: The New, Intelligent System for Optimal Digestion and Hormones” available for sale now.

Dr. Andrea Maxim’s Story

Dr. Andrea Maxim has always achieved what she’ put her mind to. She decided from a very young age that she would be involved in the health industry. Since then, she started private practice and has built her business up to the point where she owns three private practices and has expanded into a coaching business as well.

In This Podcast

Summary

Dr. Andrea Maxim owns three private practices and is now a coach, author, and speaker. She shares her journey on starting a private practice and how she scaled her business to where it is today. Andrea shares key things that she took off her plate to grow her business.

“Never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.”

What Did You Do To Scale Up?

  • Condensed sessions into a couple of days a week
  • Hired a receptionist (admin)
  • Hired a virtual assistant (website / blogs / Facebook ads)

What Are Your Habits to Pull Yourself Away From Your Business Ideas?

  • Don’t take work home
  • Look after your mental health
  • Don’t see patients back-to-back
  • Reel in your expectations

Things to Consider When Scaling Your Practice

  • Who is on your team?
  • Do you have the whole-hearted support of your family / partner, and are you able to ask them for what you need?
  • Who are you going to align yourself with who are going to help you get there?
  • What are you willing to put into the business in order to have it revenue to that extent?
  • What new strategies would you implement to take it to the next level?

 

Useful Links:

Meet Joe Sanok

private practice consultantJoe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

Podcast Transcription

File: PoP 282 Dr. Andrea Maxims Practice is Scaling Quickly_Fierce Females
Duration: 0:48:44:19
[START 00:00:00.02]
Joe Sanok: We’ve created a lot of stuff. I mean, opt-ins, PDFs, e-books. At Practice of the Practice, we’re constantly developing things and making them accessible to you. But sometimes it’s hard to keep track of it all. So we just set up the landing page – www.practiceofthepractice.com/resources where we have put all of our free stuff. We have five free e-books there: the “Practice of the practice e-book,” the HIPPA and security e-book that I wrote with Roy Huggins, the “Adding Insurance to Your Practice E-book,” the “How to Start a Group Practice E-book that Alison and I created, and the “How to Start a Practice That Thrives E-book.” Also we have got checklist there galore. We have got your website checklist, you Pinterest checklist, your 28-step checklist for starting a practice, and your group practice checklist. Also, we have got some guides there: “A Counselor’s Guide to Creating Websites,” “A comprehensive Guide to a Kick-Ass Content Strategy,” a guide to start a private practice, and tons more, info graphics, worksheets. We have over 20 different free resources there for you. So over at www.practiceofthepractice.com/resources, go grab them before we start charging.

[MUSIC]

Joe Sanok: This is the Practice of the Practice Podcast with Joe Sanok, session #282.

[MUSIC]

[INTRODUCTION]
Joe Sanok: I am Joe Sanok, your host and welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast. We are so close to hitting a 100,000 downloads and it’s just crazy to see how much we are growing. We are teaching people how to start, grow, and scale their private practices. If you are new here, I am so glad you are here. If your friend referred you, if you colleague referred you, you are in the right place. We are here to help you, support you, whatever phase of practice you are in. Well, this month we have been talking to five Fierce Female throughout the whole month of February and today we have Dr. Andrea Maxim. She is amazing, and I’m going to tell about her in a minute, but it’s so inspiring to see all of these amazing women that are disrupting markets, that are helping people get more health and are going after really big and innovative ideas. I hope you’ve been inspired and at the end of today’s podcast, I’m actually going to tell you about a bonus female that we are going to have next week that’s going to be teaching us about how to start a riot. So without any further ado, Dr. Andrea Maxim.

[MUSIC]

Joe Sanok: Well, today on the practice of the practice podcast we have Dr. Andrea Maxim. She knows first hand how difficult it can be to start out in a crowd of your competitors. Earlier in her career as a naturopathic doctor, she realizes what it takes to get ahead and get noticed. In her first year, she generated almost six figures in revenue and has grown her income ever since while being married and having two kids under three years old. She is a pit bull and has pit bull focus. She quickly developed a reputation with not only her patients, but people in her field as being successful and she now successfully runs three practices, as well she has her first published book, “MAXIMized Health: The New, Intelligent System for Optimal Digestion and Hormones” and also has a profitable practice podcast. Woo.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: It’s a tough one.

Joe Sanok: It’s a tough one. [00:03:35.08]. Welcome to the show. Dr. Andrea.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Thank you so much for having me on.

Joe Sanok: Oh man. I was on your podcast recently, and you know there is those that you meet that are in a different field, but you just feel like they are sisters from another [00:03:49.18]. It’s so… like we [00:03:51.16]. So it’s great talking to you again.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: I know it was like. As soon as I met you. as soon as you came up on my screen, I was like, man, this man is meant to be in my life in some way shape or form… like, you just have this wonderful presence and energy about you and I think the fact that you have created such a wonderful platform for other health care practitioners to learn from you, it’s so fantastic. So I’m so thrilled, that were like bouncing ideas off each other and we are kind of coming from a similar background. So this is like really cool for me too.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Well, I don’t know if you find this, but it seems like at least in our field, the kind of people like think like us are fairly rare. You have to kind of like hold those people close because it’s like I want people that will continue to push me and teach me and also they help me not feel crazy because there is not lot of people doing what we are doing.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Mm-hmm. Totally.

[PRACTICE – THE BEGINNING]
Joe Sanok: Well, why don’t we start with… so, you launch a practice and it does really well.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Mm-hmm.

Joe Sanok: What happened?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Okay. So, this is kind of me in a nutshell, is that I have always approached even my schooling, even like any dream that I had. It was just kind of there is no plan B. This is what I am doing. So even choosing medicine as a like a career, I chose that back when I was five, and I never detered from that.

Joe Sanok: No wonder we get along. In first grade, I wrote a paper about being a psychologist.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Well, there you go. So we were like you’re destined for this. Even picking my university, I applied to one. Even picking my naturopathic school, I applied to one. You know, like it was just one of those things where I just put my blinders on and went for it, and that is the exact same approach that I had with my practice is I got my license, I called my mentor who I was running just one day a week out of her practice while I was studying for NPELX and everything, and I called her and I said, “Joanne, I got my license.” And she was going through some pre series health stuff herself which turned out two years later to be Lyme disease, that she thought she was dying at the time and she just said, “So great, Andrea. I want you to buy my practice.” So I literally… I remember this moment as if it was yesterday and this was about 7 years ago. So September 23rd is my anniversary when I got my license and I feel to the floor and there wasn’t one ounce of my like nervous excitement that knew that it would be a bad decision. So I was like, obviously yes. I will do this. So I took on her practice and at the time that practice was open maybe 4 to 8 hours a week. In fact the first year, I had so many people come up to me and say, oh, you’re open. You know, like I had to constantly deal with that because it had been closed, it hadn’t been managed very well. So essentially starting it from scratch, but at least the bones were in place. And at the same time I had applied as an associate in a practice 40 minutes away, because I always wanted to be seeing as many patients that I possibly could in two different locations that wouldn’t overlap so much, so that I could kind of get a feel for city and small town. So my clinic that I own is in my small town. And I literally lived in that clinic for the first couple of years, because I was lucky or unlucky however you want to look at it to, only need to be responsible for me. So I was single at the time, I didn’t have any children, I just put all of my time and effort into growing my practice, getting the word out there, making connections, going to networking groups, going to seminars, and really like busting my ass every single day. And I would be at that office 7 days a week, you know, trying to rebuild it, create the forms, figure out what tech I needed to learn, make YouTube videos because YouTube videos were just starting to get traction back then because remember this was 7 years ago. And because of that grit that I put forward in that first year, it allowed the other years to get a little bit easier, and a little bit easier. And now, because I have done all that foundational work, I was able to incorporate family life without necessarily feeling incredibly divided by the two, or that I was sacrificing one in order to have the other because I always told myself when I am ready to have a family, I want to make sure I make time for the family, but still have my own life outside of my house. And still achieve the goals that I wanted to achieve. So for me it was that there is no other option. Like, this has to work and I will make it work. And I think a lot of us, you know, we don’t have that entrepreneurial background. We don’t have the business mindset, which I didn’t. I didn’t come from a business background at all. l listened to countless webinars and bought online courses. I just followed what people were doing. I just emulated them 100 percent to get my business off the ground. And there is that fear, there is that hesitancy of putting all your eggs in one basket. But if you don’t do that, then you’re constantly having a bit of backup plan. Like, okay, well, I’ll work my 9 to 5 job and I will try to build my practice on the side. And then you kind of always have a bit of a safety net. And you really, really need to approach it those first couple of years as if there is no safety net involved. It’s you have to make this work if you want to make it work. So that’s kind of how my story evolved.

[PRACTICE – SOME POINTS ON A BETTER PRACTICE]
Joe Sanok: Wow. So I don’t know if you ever feel this, but people don’t say directly, but does say something along the lines of, well, it must be nice to be at the point you are at. Yeah, you could take a 3-day weekend or 4-day weekend. But it really minimizes the hard work on the front. Do you ever get that or see that?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Oh, 100 percent and even when I interview people on my podcast, some naturopaths that I consider to be, you know, stages above me, when I listen to their story, I’m always reading between the lines. And I’m very, very aware of the words and their timeline. So when we are looking at someone who is 5, 10, 15, 20 years out, and they are just starting to get into like that golden period in their business, you have to remember that they are 5, 10, 15, 20 years out. When we look at people… like when I go to entrepreneurial conferences so to speak… so we had Daymond John, who is one of the Sharks, come and he has FUBU, [00:10:48.19] business and you’ll be looking him on TV and we put him on this huge pedestal and we’re like, man, like I need to launch a retail business because I can be the next FUBU. But his story was actually… he created his business, sold it twice and then finally the third time around got it right. So even that back story, like nobody pays attention to that. They just look at where the person is out right now. And one of my favorite quotes that I have on my fridge to this day is “Never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.” Because there is never an end. My business is constantly evolving. I am still working just as hard. I’m just doing it may be smarter because I have more techniques and systems set up in place that a young person who is just entering the field may not have. But these people that we also look at as huge successes, they are still busting their asses. No, they haven’t stopped…

Joe Sanok: Say the quote that’s on your fridge again.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Never compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle.

Joe Sanok: I love that.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: So my middle is my middle. It’s not my end. It’s not… you know, my journey isn’t over. And if you are just starting you can’t compare your journey to where I am at in the middle of my journey. So I [CROSSTALK]…

Joe Sanok: It’s really similar to this financial guy, Dave Ramsey, has a quote that helped me and Christina at the beginning of our marriage. And it was: Are you trying to live the life that it took your parents a lifetime to build? And I lived that whole idea of… you know, you look at whether it’s your parents or other people and you are like, wow, I want to have that life. And then people will go in debt or be doing really stupid things, rather than, hey, there is a time to bootstrap, there is a time to hustle, there is a time to do everything you can to make your business grow. You were practically sleeping at your business [00:12:45.19] at your business. But that’s the point [00:12:48.19] you have for yourself versus you know the people that have been in it [00:12:54.02] those systems and are able to now kind of do it a little bit differently.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Yeah, and I actually love that quote, because I look at my parents now and they are both self-made millionaires at this point. And they did it in the last decade. So they are both entering in their 60s if not early 60s and they made that money in the last decade of their life. So I think that is such a pivotal point to be making and I had another thought that I wanted to share on that, but I completely lost it, so [00:13:28.02]…

Joe Sanok: [LAUGH] That’s okay. As far as this conversational approach, you know. We interrupt each other and oh, there goes that thought.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Right.

Joe Sanok: So for a lot of people that listen, there is kind of three phases we talk about on the podcast, of starting a practice, growing a practice and scaling a practice. When you are passed that bootstrapping, wearing every single hat kind of part of your practice, which I think most people will have to go through, what were some of the things you started to shed, that you started to outsource, that you started to use to scale up because sleeping a practice and having no life, at some point, you say to yourself, I can’t do this forever. I can do it as a chapter, as a little sprint, you know, for a couple of years. But this isn’t my life I am going to live. So you get to that point you are doing way better than maybe you expected. What do you start taking off your plate at that point.

[PRACTICE – THINGS TO DO WHEN SCALING UP PRACTICE]
Dr. Andrea Maxim: You know what, I feel so guilty about this, but I waited until I gave birth to my first daughter to use her as an excuse, may mat leave as an excuse – [00:14:29.23] my mat leave is only 5 weeks to block my time. So I was seeing the same number of patients in a condensed amount of time and still making the same amount of money, which gave me more free time which I still regret to this day not doing sooner. But I felt I needed an “excuse.” And the other thing I had to do is I had to hire a receptionist. So for the first four years of my practice, I was doing everything. Like everything. Like, all the admin, all the calls, all the… like it was just me. The patient would greet me at the desk. We would go into the treatment room, come back [00:15:08.26] desk, I’d rebook them. I will do all of those things. And I knew I couldn’t do that anymore having a daughter that I had to take care of. And that was, that still is probably one of the best investments that I have ever made. Now, I refuse to hole punch a piece of paper, I refuse to staple, I refuse to make any patient calls unless it’s something personal. I refuse to do a lot of those administrative tasks because they are just so mundane and so below my hourly value, my value in general, that I am so thankful that I have that push and I really encourage everyone who is listening to think about what are you wasting all of your time on that you could be then putting towards marketing. And getting yourself out there and attracting those patients into your office or creating new systems to, like, bring back the old patients or clients because getting, using your time just to do the administration tasks was such a burden, when I look back at how many hours I spent doing a $15 an hour job and she kills it like… and I look back at my shift and I say she has been working the entire time that I have. So she just worked 5 or 6 hours all doing admin. I just worked 5 or 6 hours all seeing patients. That’s 12 hours total, but we just accomplished in half a day. So that was a big, big piece. Now, that my business is evolving more into the online space, I have hired a virtual assistant to help me manage my website and my blogs and my Facebook ads. Because again, I understand and I appreciate the value of my time. So I can go home and watch a movie, and I can go home and like literally just sit on the couch for the entire day, and my business is still running, you know.

Joe Sanok: That’s awesome. When you first hired that very first assistant, when you just had your baby, what were some of the results you saw pretty immediately.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: That I could walk away and the business is still open, that was probably my big… it was like a ball and chain effect where I spent my hours and I felt so guilty if I ever left the practice, even if I didn’t have patients in the evenings, that I had to stay there until the hours were closed. And so with her on that very first month like month or so if I was done an hour early, I would say, Okay, Emily. I am going to leave now. You stay open until an hour, close up, and it was like an immediate sense of freedom.

Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm. It seems like so I have been interviewing kind of some of the top practices and looking for kind of habits that those owners have and it seems like viewing an assistant as a multiplier or an invetment rather than an expense is really an important mindset. I heard you actually say investment early on. So it seems like that you view them as an investment, not an expense. Maybe talk a little bit about why you use that word “investment”?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: I use it now. I use it now, not at the time because of course when you have gone from bootstrapping to now needing to pay out this money to someone, it seems like an expense at the time. But this now 3 years out that I have had a receptionist and a office manager. And it is an investment because again I just look back and say, you know, shit, like she is getting all of this stuff done that I couldn’t even fathom wanting to do, like it’s that [00:18:52.10] frog that isn’t going to amount to anything in your business. It’s not going to help to make you money in, like a direct [00:18:59.18] effect but it does keep the business running. And so I look at it as investment and quite frankly it’s still a write off on your business expenses and we all need those. So yeah, you know, but it takes a while to find the right one. So even that’s a bit of an investment. Like you are investing in these people. And my biggest thing that I will say… and you and I have spoke about this prior was you know that seat does not generate you money. You know what, when that receptionist is sitting in the seat she is not making you money unless you train them in such a way to do that for you. So I work in another clinic where often I see the receptionist just kind of sitting up the desk and not doing anything. And I think that’s a huge waste of resources there because there is always something to be done. So find new ways to delegate. So right now I am going to be training her on how to post blogs onto my website and how to use my social media scheduling software to post for me. So they want to be challenged just as much as you do as a business owner. So never left them just sit in the chair and just pick up the phone and doing invoicing if you want to keep them long term. So that’s a big piece that we are coming into now.

Joe Sanok: I think that’s a key thing that I look for people that are trainable and interested beyond what their role is and so one thing I have taught a lot of people is to usually… you know there is some situations when you want someone to just physically be in your office, so if you do have a lot of paperwork or things like that. But to have them be people that you pay when the task is happening and so even though Emily… my Emily is answering the phones for Mental Wellness Counseling, she is doing the scheduling, she still can work virtually from her house. And so I only pay her for that time she is on the phone, doing the email. But she wants to work more. And so then we talked about what do you want to learn beyond just answering the phones.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Mm-hmm.

Joe Sanok: And so, you know, she is starting to do more blogs, just like what you were talking about. Same with Sam who is my now Chief Marketing Officer for Practice of the Practice. She started as just being a freelancer I brought on for images. And she slowly started doing some of the show notes for the podcast and then she started uploading the podcasts, and now she is making video and all those other stuff, and she is 35 hours a week for me. She is trainable in all these other areas well beyond just what she was hired for the front end and I think that also then creates a sense of hope in people where it looks like a skill set, that if they leave practice of the practice – which I hope they never do, – but I mean statistically they are going to leave. They are then a better person, but they are also able to get a higher wage and say, you know, it’s because of Practice of the Practice that took me from just being a phone person to now I know how to work SEO, I know how to do WordPress. I think they are spot on in saying that when you can train people to do those things and take it off your plate, it then helps them grow but also helps you grow.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Yeah, and you know, when I do the interview process, I am very strategic about how I do it. So I am kind of sneaky in how I do it because I have a certain level of the expectation of them before they even know it. So I don’t really look at their resume. What I do is I will see how quickly they respond to my emails. I will send them out a series of 10 questions that I want them to answer based on different levels of knowledge and skill set and what they want to achieve and I will look at how detailed they respond to those answers. And how quickly they respond to me. So I’m kind of prescreening them before we even have the interview and then when I interview them, typically I am looking at how they are answering the questions, how, like what is their mannerism. Do they see neek or do they see confident enough but they would listen but challenge me. But I needed to have a receptionist that also would stand up to me and tell me, you really need to start doing this or I don’t really like this how this is being done. Let’s try this. I needed to find that energy that would also kind of balance me out a little bit. Because I don’t do well being like the top dog person, just do what I say and that’s it. I really wanted someone who would create that dialogue. And so I am feeling all of this, so I could care less what their background was. It is more what type of a person, what type of a personality do they have and I would always ask them what is something you want to get out of this job.

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And that had some people say, well, I want to learn about health so this would really benefit me because I want to learn about more things that I can do at home. I’m like nope, that’s not the right answer.

Joe Sanok: [LAUGH].

Dr. Andrea Maxim: That’s great as a side effect, but you should be saying more things like what we were talking about. You know, “I would really like to learn how to help you grow.” “I would really like to learn how to do social media.” I would really like to learn how to do X, Y, or Z. And then you’re like okay. This person, you know, they are ready. They are ready to be mentored and that’s really what you need to be looking for.

[PRACTICE – HABITS TO PULL AWAY FROM BUSINESS IDEAS]
Joe Sanok: It’s interesting you ask that question. I think you are the second guest I have heard say that. Almost verbatim of how does this fit into your life path or like how would this help you grow. As part of the interview process, I was talking with Brian Canlis who is one of the owners of Canlis Restaurant out in Seattle. [00:24:36.27] have a really unique form of customer service, and they actually as well look for people who have no restaurant experience because they want people that have that kind of every person’s view of a restaurant, and then they are part of a team that wants to grow beyond just, “I’m just serving food,” but actually creating this amazing experience with people. So it is interesting that in two totally different industries, Brian Canlis says almost the exact same thing what you said. Well, I want to also pick your brain about what had to shift kind of after kids and as you started to scale the practice. So you mentioned sitting around, watching a movie. And I know that, that seems like a small thing. But for an entrepreneur, it’s not. Our brains are constantly growing. We have new ideas. We have new things we can work on. What are some of your habits to just emotionally play yourself away from your business ideas?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Yeah. Okay. So that’s kind of a tough one and that took me a really long time to get there because when I first got pregnant with [00:25:42.27], it was complete surprise. So that was number one. So that wasn’t planned at all. So my husband and I had just been dating for about five months when that happened. So a lot of things [CROSSTALK]…

Joe Sanok: Woh-ho. Hey, no [LAUGH].

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Yeah, yeah. A lot of things… happened very quickly. Like we, we had just… it was a couple of days after we moved into our house. So Scott and I knew, like we just knew. So that was a very good thing. We just bought our house and literally a couple of days later, you know, had a little fun on the green couch and here comes [00:26:13.16], right? So, I planned a wedding in 3 months. So I made sure that we were married before [00:26:21.00] was born so that we could have a wedding for us. I was very, very diligent about that. Like I wanted to have our wedding with us. I don’t want to wait years, years, and years to have our children in the wedding. So we had all these things happen and I released my book at that time too. So it was a crazy year. And because I had been so all about me, because as an entrepreneur we tend to be a little bit perhaps narcissistic and selfish, and you know this is my business. I mean [00:26:53.12] what takes to make it grow, having Arya was a huge mental struggle for me and I am going to be completely honest in that I did not form a bond with her until she was about 8 or 9 months. I felt like she was just constantly taking and that was a very, very difficult emotion, like relationship for me to understand as a new mother because I was like this kid just constantly, she just constantly needs something. She is like this bomb that’s about to explode and I never knew what’s going to happen. And so that was a huge mental shift for me because I knew I had to create mental boundaries. I knew I had to really prioritize my mental health in order to be a good mother and still run my business. So as I said, I only had five weeks mat leave with her, because I’m a little bit of a control freak, but [00:27:50.20] I knew I want to get back to my business quite quickly. But for me in doing so, it allowed me to create bit of an independence from mom and an entrepreneur. So when I was at work, I worked. And I would only show up at work when I had patients. I would come home and I would just shutter down. And I promised myself no matter how busy I got, I would always be in bed by 10 o’clock. I would never stay up late to get work done. I would always try to prioritize my sleep, because if I don’t sleep, I am just an absolute bitch to just about everybody. And that’s not good for business, that’s not good for a relationship. So that was [00:28:31.13] [CROSSTALK]…

Joe Sanok: I’m the same way. If I don’t get 8 hours of sleep, it’s cranky Joe time. So I am with you on the sleep thing.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And that was a huge promise I made to myself very early on, is that I was never going to sacr… there was nothing that would be big enough or worse than for me to lose sleep over. And the other piece was just that is I never took work home with me. I very rarely brought files home and I know a lot of practitioners do that. If I can get my files done at work, I would. If I didn’t, I would just do it the next day. I tried to minimize my emailing, but if I had a chance to I would. So at home I was doing more the fun stuff. The marketing, the social media, the blogging perhaps, but none of the patient work. I would only reserve that for work. And this is another big reason why I also don’t want to have a fully booked practice. So I know this is the ultimate goal for a lot of people – it’s to have a waiting list. Like that appears to be a success marker. For me, I would never want that. That’s too much pressure and it would also mean that if all I am doing is coming to work and seeing back to back to back patients, I am not able to get all of those other things done. All those other balls that haven’t any air while I am at work. And I used my work time as my like get shit done time, so that when I am at home, I am relived in the fact that I have done everything that I need to do for the day. So, you know I really reined in my expectations. You know if you are aiming for a million dollar a year practice, there is a huge infrastructure that’s involved in that and huge expenses that are involved in that and if you want to have multiple associates under you. There’s a huge stress involved with managing all those associates. So for me, I wanted to keep things very easy. You know, I’m comfortable with making, like this year we are due to revenue a quarter of a million. That’s good enough for me. And that still sounds like a huge number, but some people have this million dollar idea. And I’m just like, you know what, I know how much effort took me to get to this level. I’m pretty good with that and I’m just taking away those expectations that I have of getting bigger and bigger and bigger because I just can’t manage that right now. So I think that’s a huge piece that a lot of entrepreneurs don’t think about as they are like okay, you know making 50,000 this year was perfect for me which to other people might sound very small, but they were able to travel. They were able to maintain their marriage or their partnership. They were able to have kids and play with their kids when they are home. So that was another big piece of how I kind of managed my business in my life is that just you know what I just don’t need to hid it big. I just do not need to put in that effort. Well, I think that’s so important to know what do I want to achieve out of my practice and so to know how much is enough, because you can always put in more time. You can always scale, but what comes with scaling. I remember I got up to 11 associates here at mental wellness counseling. But the level of stress in having some people that weren’t as full as they wanted to be, and other people that were more full than they wanted to be. Just like the infrastructure side – I remember driving to work one day saying, I wanted just cut all the lowest performing people and just four or five people that I just could totally invest in, and it actually happened really naturally where one person moved to New Mexico or Arizona, another person moved out of town and just really naturally happened thankfully. I [00:32:19.29] didn’t have to let anybody go, I was prepared to do that because the financial side didn’t line up, but I could also tell that this wasn’t a priority for them. They had either full time or part time job [00:32:31.07] [CROSSTALK] it really was just kind of some extra income and that’s not the kind of spirit I want to have around mental illness counseling. I wanted people that were highly passionate about the work. They were ready to rock out private practice and so I love that idea of really defining what’s the success that you want in the content of the kind of life that you want. Right. And that was something that I am spoke with Laurie Kennedy about you is on my show and that has resonated with me ever since. I think I was almost a year ago she said that to me. And I was like that’s really the profound piece of I think of everybody’s… when they feel that they have achieved success. You know if you lower your expectations just a little bit, if you’re little bit more realistic about the effort you are putting in and the effort you are getting back, then I think it balances out a little bit more as opposed to this thought of well, you know I am doing all these Facebook videos and nobody is commenting on them or I am doing all of these work and nobody is doing anything about it or you know I really want to make a million dollars this year. But I don’t really feel like sending out emails or making videos or doing anything to create that revenue and then there just like well, this isn’t working, you know.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, over hiring a coach that does that all the time, I mean I hired Jaime Masters from eventual millionaire and I can tie back $50,000 to $60,000 of revenue to my investment of less than $10,000 in coaching. And so what a great investment of trading dimes for half dollars. But we often think when we are early on are we going to save money or everybody is out to get my money. And, yeah, there’s lot of slimeballs out there, but if you can trust someone, if you can get some good referrals from them if you can get some, you know, recommendations where you can interview people that have worked with them, it’s amazing how if you hire someone that’s done what you wanted to do, how fast you can speed up your progress.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Yeah massive point. Even I have been hiring business coaches in the past two years and just the confidence I approach my business with profoundly different.

Joe Sanok: The only thing the connections do, I mean they want to help you succeed. But if you’re out there on podcast or doing other things, there are going to make those social connections with you and other influencers in the way that you never could have done just by interviewing someone on your podcast or something like that whereas these people that are at that next level, say, hey, I want you to meet Andrea. She is amazing. That’s going to be way different than even having them on your podcast or just kind of reaching out to them over email.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you are investing in their knowledge or investing in their network too, and yeah a lot of people just don’t see it because it is a big dollar amount and that’s a worrisome part about entrepreneurship as well is nothing is guaranteed. Just like weight loss. Just like life. Nothing is guaranteed and because there is no guarantee, it’s an incredibly scare place for people to be and I can understand that but we also know if you put effort and you put time in and you make the right connections with people, it typically will always pay off, but it does start I think going full circle back to that no plan B approach.

[PRACTICE – THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN SCALING UP PRACTICE]
Joe Sanok: Yeah. So if you were to talk with someone that’s maybe right around that 6 figure mark, so they may be just hit the $100,000 or they are just below it, and they are like I want to double or triple up to that quarter million dollars, what would be the three to five bullet points that you would give them that they should focus in on?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: This is come off the top of my head, but the first thing I thought of is, okay, who is on your team. You know, are you doing it all alone or do you have a team. No team? Pretty much guaranteed that you’re either going to have to hustle day and night to do that or it’s just not going to happen. So you need to make sure that you have a team. Number two, what is the lifestyle like for this person, so I an picture them. Like, are they single and with married relationship?

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I mean, I would say most of them probably have, they are probably married and may have kids.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Okay. So for talking to someone who is married and may have kids, do you have their wholehearted support and are you comfortable in telling them what you need, because that’s another big piece of this. If you want to go big and you don’t have the support already, that’s tough. If you don’t have the confidence to ask your partner that this is what I need, like on Saturdays this needs to be my day to work and I can’t have the kids bother me. i can’t have you bother me. This is going to be your day with the kids get out of the house, give me some space. If you don’t have that, like tiger time, figure it out between you and your partner, that’s going to be a huge detriment to taking it the next level. So that would be number two. You know, who are you going to align yourself with, that’s going to help you get there. And this is coming back to our conversation of do you have people in your corner that are doing or have done what you’ve done. Are you willing to invest in coaching. Or you [00:37:57.06] an online course and actually go through the modules. Don’t just buy the course, but actually go through the modules and learn…

Joe Sanok: It’s so funny how many people will buy a course and and then like not finish. I have this one in a couple of years ago and have become a consultant. And you know looking at how many people actually completed it and like well, look the people who completed it are rocking out consulting and those that didn’t, wow, there aren’t [LAUGH].

Dr. Andrea Maxim: But it’s fun to buy them, you know, really fun to buy them…

Joe Sanok: It feels like [00:38:22.27] something.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: …but it’s not so fun to like sit and listen to them all the time, you know. So I am both sides.

Joe Sanok: Oh, I am with you.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And I have gone through the course and I’m like that was killer, but I really, really love hoarding of course.

Joe Sanok: Why, that’s why I have done is I have [00:38:37.19] Next Level Mastermind that I haven’t really released to the public. It has been invite only… I have kind of said I think they are having something that people have to attend as part of what I offer is what helps people succeed and they are kind of go beyond themselves. So our Next Level Mastermind is two times a month for a year and they have an accountability partner and they have to do a phone call with. So there is all these like in-person social pressure, that you can just fizzle. Like you have signed up for a year. And the people that already have been in that, it’s just amazing to see their results in just a couple of weeks versus any one that signed up for any sort of e-course or things like that that I have offered. It’s interesting how the human mind doesn’t want to let down other people, but it’s just hidden behind just like e-course. We’re [00:39:26.14] ourselves down in that way.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And I will never purchase a course that doesn’t involve some kind of coaching…

Joe Sanok: Yeah.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: …because of that reason. If it does a VIP level with coaching, I’ll buy that. If there is group coaching, I’ll buy. But if it’s just a straight [00:39:41.14] where there is no coaching, I don’t even go near it, but I need that individualized connection and like a scheduled call. So yes, so that’s number three… what was I thinking, I had a really good one in the back of my mind. Number four, oh yes, what are you willing to put into the business in order to have a revenue to that extent because I can promise you that typically as a business scales, usually the expenses also scale. So are you willing to put more money into whether it’s running Facebook ads to drive business, whether it’s [00:40:21.24] whether it’s marketing advancements, whether it’s webinar technology, like what are those things that you’re willing to invest in and then that would be leading into my fifth one is what new strategies would you implement to take it to the next level. What are you going to streamline so this becomes your model to get that extra revenue coming in. Because you’re doing right now has brought you to this level, but you’re going to have to either get more patients in or reignite all of your old patients or find or trade a program that people are … like has never been created yet. Something new is going to have to be developed here. So those would be my five points.

Joe Sanok: I love that final point because so often I’ll talk to people and they’ll say, so what’s it that you are [00:41:14.28] different this next year to get better results. And they have no idea. And they had no plan to do something different versus the person that says well, I’m going to invest in coaching or I’m going to take an hour a week to focus in on this. Or I am going to read this book or this podcast. Those people that take that time to learn and do things different are almost always the ones that scale so much quicker than everybody else.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And the big piece to that is I don’t want people to confuse, complexity with simplicity when it comes to making your business successful and this is another falter that I think a lot of people fall into is now they are like, okay, well, I’m going to do a podcast. I’m going to do YouTube channel. I am going to do Facebook lives. I am going to write a blog. I am going to do all of these things. And it’s not the number of platforms that you work on, it’s picking one and being consistent with it.

Joe Sanok: Yes.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: For programs, that’s another piece, right. Everyone wants to create this brand new program. Every year, I am going to launch this new program. Well, what about last year’s program? Have you tried to re-launch it in a different way? Have you tried to like tweak it or pivot it a different way so that would be more engaging to your patients. So often we’re really good at creating something once and then putting on the shelf and never looking at it again. And I…

Joe Sanok: Right. Because you need to totally build up like content or whatever you think it was, yeah.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Aha…

Joe Sanok: I was, yeah…

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And it’s so important I think to pick, okay, what are my three streams or my three bridges that I want to continue to either keep crossing back and forth over or I want to complete and keep, like, rehearsing. This is my streamline program or this is my streamline approach that I have with patients. A lot of the people that you see that are successful have picked one lane and just stayed in it.

Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: And we know if get the shiny object syndrome, the squirrel syndrome, and we get so like ignited by all these different ideas, but I strongly encourage everyone listening like, pick one. Pick one idea for the rest of Q4 and just have everything funnel to it. Have all of your patients know about it, continue to remind your clients and patients about it, and see what that does for your business. I thinks it takes a lot of pressure off of you as the owner. At least you are not constantly having to think of new things. And it gives your patients a better idea as to where you stand, what you really like? What’s your passion? What’s your kind of like thing that you’re really good at as an expert or as an authority. But having your feet in too many puddles is just not, just so not a good idea.

Joe Sanok: [00:44:01.17] it’s a preplanning. I was just on a consulting call with someone who… their goal is to get down to three days a week for their practice in regards to sessions. When I looked at how many sessions they had and how much they were working, I was like why [00:44:17.29] two days a week. They are taking this really long lunch. They are doing sessions that were 45 minutes long, but only scheduling on the hour, and [00:44:27.10] what if you did like 45 minute sessions, two of them or three of them back to back and then did a quick 15 minute, like bathroom break or go do something different, and it was just a [00:44:36.17] never thought of efficiency before. And I think for me one of those things I’ll say is, do I want to sit around my office for 15 minutes every hour or do I want to get back to my kids an hour and half earlier?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Mm-hmm.

[CONCLUSION]
Joe Sanok: They were like, I actually want to get out [NOISE]. So when we start to think about every minute that we spend in our business, is it giving us an ROI, is it helping us to multiplying what we are doing. The focus just helps us so much more. Well, Dr. Andrea, if every practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: I would want them to know that you are in this for the long haul. This is not something you are going to reach massive success at in the first two, three, four years. You have to really play this for the long game. And there is comfort in knowing that, there is comfort in knowing that everything you’re doing now, although it’s baby steps that you’re taking are going to pay off in dividends later on down the road. And that was something that I always said to myself. Every time I made an investment, I said okay, this piece of equipment I can easily pay this off in the next 30 years. Easily. This book that I invested in, I can easily pay that off in the next 30 years. I paid them off in like a year or two, but having that mindset of the long game and taking he pressure off of yourself to achieve massive success or what you consider to be massively successful in the first couple of years I think is insane. So the first couple of years are really there to lay the foundation work. Once you hit that fifth year, by that time you feel comfortable as a practitioner and you know who you want [00:46:17.19] you, don’t want to [00:46:18.22]. How you are kind of manage your business and being very comfortable with making those pivots. So what you decide you want to do now may not necessarily be what you are going to end up doing five years from now. So being comfortable with pivoting your business and you skill set based on the clientele that you are attracting. And again, you are in it for the long haul. This is your life long career in some way, shape or form.

Joe Sanok: That’s so awesome. Dr. Andrea Maxim, what’s the best way for people to connect with you if they want to follow more of your work?

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Well, the podcast is probably the best way. You’ll get the most value of that. That’s on the iTunes or Stitcher or whatever. That’s the Profitable Practice Podcast and although all those other resources and the show notes are on www.maximizedbusiness.ca.

Joe Sanok: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast.

Dr. Andrea Maxim: Mm-hmm. My pleasure.

[MUSIC]

Joe Sanok: What an awesome interview with Dr. Andrea Maxim. This is not the end of our Five Fierce Females in February Series. Well, it’s sort of this, because we are going to have our sixth Fierce Female in March. Next week, we have the one, the only Dr. Taunya Lowe. Here’s a clip from that interview.

[CLIP STARTS]

“What I say is start the right inning way for your life, your business, in your career, but most importantly your legacy. Most importantly, your legacy.”

[CLIP ENDS]’

Joe Sanok: So tune in next time for that interview and again if you want to get one of our resources, we have so many resources we have developed. Head on over to www.practiceofthepractice.com/resources and you can download one of those 20 resources. You can download all 20 if you want. It’s totally free over at www.practiceofthepractice.com/resources. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great week.

[MUSIC]

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for the intra music and this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It’s given with the understanding that neither the host, the guest, or the publisher is rendering any legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.

[MUSIC]

[END OF PODCAST 00:48:43.14]