[JOE SANOK]
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 610.

Well, I am Joe Sanok your host. I hope you are having an amazing day. Hope you’re getting some things done. Hopefully you are just rocking out your week. Doing a lot of the things that we have been covering. In the last few episodes we covered how to sell a private practice, we talked about brand strategy, life after being an athlete, and then public speaking, had another solo show I did, and then we had Ask the Expert with Lori Gottlieb. Lori was one of our experts with Next Level Practice that we bring in every single month. We’ve been bringing in top level people like pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman and Lori Gottlieb. So we’ve got some really exciting people coming up. Our Next Level Practice opens up in November. So if you want to be on that invite on that early list, that’s practiceofthepractice.com/invite.

That’s aimed at people from that moment that you say to yourself, “I think I want to start a practice,” all the way until you’re ready to make your first hire. That’s what Next Level Practice is for. We have an amazing group of small groups. We’ve got Dana, our accountability coach, and we’re just seeing people have amazing results from it. Within six months or so, they’re ready to level up and start hiring 1099’s or W2’s and making those hires, which is really great in regards to who we have on the show today.

We have Dr. Michael Neal on the show. Dr. Mike is an eye doctor and the founder of Build My Team, a company dedicated to helping healthcare professionals find the right superstar team members for their practices. And when Dr. Mike was in college, a doctor took a chance and hired him as a secretary at his optometry office, and that simple act led to him attending optometry school, meeting his wife, Dr. Amy Neal, who is also an optometrist and starting their own practice together. So Mike, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[DR. MIKE NEAL]
Hi Joe, thank you for having me. Really excited to talk with you today.
[JOE]
I think it was interesting as we were talking before we started rolling of how common, kind of the pain points that you had were to kind of the pain points that our audience often has as they grow and they scale. So take us back to you’re building this optometry practice and people are getting hired and fired and you’re cycling through, and you said right before we got rolling that you didn’t put the words business and fun together in a sentence. So take us back to that time. What did that look like?
[DR. MIKE]
Well, it wasn’t that long ago, a couple of years ago, my wife and I, we both practice together, husband, wife eye care practice in rural Pennsylvania and we live in an area where I wouldn’t describe the area as having a talent pool, I think more along the lines of a talent puddle and a shallow one at best. So it’s been just massively challenging trying to get qualified people into our practice. We have about anywhere around the 12 to 13 team members on the practice. So it’s a decent size and constant revolving door prior to our Build My Team approach. It was so stressful in fact that my wife and I we were just headed for doom, doom and gloom. I cannot begin to describe how bad it was, the main reason being is we were hiring in a completely wrong way. So I created the Build My Team process, not to start a company or honestly, to help others. It was just simply to get myself out of this horrendous mess that we were in, and I was able to do that and then grew it to the point where we’re now in most of the states in the US and Canada as well, provinces in Canada. And we’re in eight different healthcare professions.
[JOE]
You know, thinking about a husband and wife team before we get into some of the processes, tell me about that because I think it takes a unique couple, or maybe you just have a good approach to it. What does it take to run a business together?
[DR. MIKE]
Well, we’re terrific business partners. Amy is amazing with clinical care. Patients adore her. She’s been voted best eye doctor multiple times by our entire region and absolutely —
[JOE]
Wait, wait, how does that go down when you’re back home and she just won the best eye doctor and you didn’t?
[DR. MIKE]
I’m stoked for her. I’m completely excited. She’s just terrific with that. Now if there was a contest for best managed eye care practice, I might be in the running for that. I don’t know, but from her standpoint it’s really fantastic. And the key point is she’s excellent at what she does and I’m excellent at what I do and between the two of us, there’s very little overlap. That’s great and all, but what the second key to this whole thing is, is working on different days. That sure helps a lot. We did that early on where she would see patients and then different times I would see patients. So there really wasn’t overlap and that helps keep our team members saying I think more than anything.
[JOE]
Okay, take us through kind of your process. I’m sure there were some iterations throughout early on, how were you hiring before you really kind of landed on the Build My Team process?
[DR. MIKE]
So I wasn’t. My wife was, and that’s another key point. The better you are as a doctor or a clinician, the further you should stay away from hiring. And that’s so counterintuitive, but the more empathetic you are, the more you’re going to be manipulated in a new interview, the more you’re going to try and hire people to help them. So, for example, I love to tell the story about how Amy, as amazing as she is as a clinician, she loves to hire wounded puppies. What I mean by a wounded puppy is somebody who just doesn’t have their act together, they need help, they need assistance to get better and better. And the truth of the matter is that almost never works. What you’re looking for in healthcare in America is somebody who is virtually the opposite of that type of profile.

And when we were hiring people along those lines, the turnover was truly astounding. We just continuously brought the wrong people on board and what I did about that after just essentially doing a deep dive on why we were in this situation and why other businesses weren’t. So for example took a look at Disney, Four Seasons, the hotel and resort chain, Ritz Carlton, a couple of other companies. And when I found out is that they were essentially hiring in the exact opposite way that we were. So continued with that deep dive, so for example, they don’t look at resumes in a traditional hiring process like we were. What they do is they use scientific assessments to remove all of the people who couldn’t possibly do the job. So that’s how they start, and then once they remove as many as they can, where they know these people would not be a good fit for the position, that’s when they start looking at people and saying, “Well, we know these folks would be a decent fit. Let’s find the best people.” And that’s how they approach.
[JOE]
So when they do these assessments and then find the best people, they’re assuming they have lots and lots of applicants. You were talking about how you have a talent puddle, not a talent pool. So take us through how you then apply that in a smaller market with a smaller business that doesn’t have the credibility of Disney or something. What did you do to apply that to your own business?
[DR. MIKE]
Absolutely. That’s an astute observation. I’m pretty impressed there. Joe’s on the ball for all the listeners. What we did, going back to the talent puddle concept, what that tells you right off the bat is you’re not going to get people with any level of acceptable experience applying in your practice. It just doesn’t happen. So what we did as part of this new approach, with the Build My Team approach is we accepted that, took that as a fact, we will not be getting people in with any level of experience. And as it turns out, that was one of the most incredible discoveries that we could have made. Now, as part of the Build My Team process, we categorically look at experience as a potential red flag.
[JOE]
Wow. So why is it a red flag?
[DR. MIKE]
In order to bring you on with experience I have to undo all of the bad habits that you have. I have to teach you all of the new habits, hope that you’re able to undo bad habits, which is, as you know, from your clinical practices is darn near impossible and get you up and running on the new habits that we have in our practice. And when I say habits, I mean, systems and processes, the way we do things in our practice. What that translates to is a much longer learning curve. So I’ll give you an example. We used to take technicians, eye care technicians, folks who just come off of the street. We have to train them, they have no experience with any of this et cetera. It used to take about six months. Now we have it down to the point where we can bring somebody on with absolutely no experience, they have natural talents and strengths for the position, and we get them up and running in around the three week range at basic productivity and by about six weeks, they are completely productive. So we go from six months down to six weeks for an apples to apples comparison. And that’s based upon bringing in the right people, using our scientific approach.
[JOE]
So walk us through that, because I mean, that just sounds crazy to go from six months to six weeks. Thinking about the average person supporting a counseling practice, I mean that six month mark seems reasonable for when someone starts really clicking along. I mean, if any of us could get down to six weeks for an admin or director of details or therapists that’d be amazing. So what do you do on the front end? How do you train them? What does that look like?
[DR. MIKE]
Sure. So Build My Team is a completely done for you service. What I mean by that is like, even with our eyecare practice we are a client of Build My Team. So let’s say we have one of our technicians that moves, or I mean, through the COVID pandemic, all kinds of craziness has been happening to practices around the country. So let’s say you need a technician or you need a secretary or some type of admin position. What our practice would do is we would just reach out to bill my team and say, let’s say I need a secretary. What the process is, is that Build My Team has a quick consultation with the practice, find out exactly what the practice is looking for, and then they take and write the job description for the practice. And these aren’t normal job descriptions in a traditional sense. They are designed to elicit the type of candidate that we’re looking for in the first place. We take and publish those job descriptions to 23 different job boards to cast the widest possible net. That’s really one of the key points. We need to get many applicants as we can into the process because our process will eliminate approximately 97 to 98% of the applicants. So you think —
[JOE]
I’m going to pause you there. So say someone’s not going to work with Build My Team, which either way, like I want them to take something away from this. One of the big things is if you’re looking for say five or 10 people that finally get an interview or get to that next step, if you know you’re going to be eliminating 98% of them, I mean, you need to have a hundred or 200 applicants to even be able to like narrow it down. Is that what I’m hearing?
[DR. MIKE]
Exactly. And for example, for a secretarial position, when we posted it originally as a first position for the Build My Team process, we had 272 applicants for the position and we were able to get that many by casting that wide as possible net. So we take those applicants and in an automated fashion, they run through our scientific assessment process. We start off by measuring their mindset. And what we’re looking for specifically there is do these candidates possess a healthcare mindset. We have that defined, and this is a scientific approach to it. Are they team players, are they grateful and appreciative, do they have initiative? Do they believe in a first-class experience? Do they have honesty and integrity. A couple things that you wouldn’t think about. Do they have a helpful heart? You can’t assume that. All kinds of people apply to healthcare because they want a stable position, not necessarily because they love helping people. Something else, do they love to learn? If you’re bringing on people onto your team that don’t love to learn, they will not last, they cannot handle the tsunami of information that’s coming in every single day of healthcare. I mean, when is the last time your listeners had a day in their healthcare practice where absolutely nothing changed? Has that ever happened?
[JOE]
Things are always changing.
[DR. MIKE]
Exactly. And we also want it to be reliable. There’s something really important. We want them to have a no entitlement growth philosophy, meaning that if they’re God’s gift to your practice that is not going to work out. We’re here to serve our patients, clients, et cetera, not the other way around. So they have to pass our mindset assessment first, before they even move on within our process. And then the next thing, this probably isn’t a surprise to a lot of people, we measure how fast they learn, which is critical. If you’re bringing people in who are wonderful and they learn really slowly, then you’re not going to get that three to six week timeframe we talked about earlier. You’re going to get the three to six month timeframe and that just doesn’t work.

It doesn’t allow our practice to ever get up and running when you’re in that type of situation. So once they pass the speed of learning, we’re looking at some critical performance factors, things like, can they follow procedures and policies consistently. You really don’t want somebody in your practice that has to make something up every new patient that they see or every patient they see, I should say. We want to know how warm and friendly they are. And all of these things, remember we’re predicting before the candidate is even sent to the practice. So there’s an entire field of science called psychometrics that provides these types of capabilities. We’re also looking for things like, can they handle details and paperwork? Can they handle extended routine? Are they detail oriented? What’s their follow-up look like? You really don’t want somebody in your healthcare practice who has poor follow-up. I mean, when a clinician tells a team member that something needs to be done, the assumption is that it’s already on its way to being done, not that you’re going to have to check back.
[JOE]
Now, do you have some sort of either dashboard or key performance indicators that each role is judged by so that the owner or whoever the admin is that new person’s reporting to can quickly see those metrics?
[DR. MIKE]
Yes, absolutely. We call it our insight report and it’s unique for every individual that runs through our Build My Team process. So when we identify these really, really fantastic candidates, what we do is we send them over to the practice and the practice takes a look at the insight reports and works with our team members to decide who’s best for them. So I’ll give you an example. If you have a really laid back mellow practice, maybe it’s a little smaller, things are just nice and easy on a regular day, then that’s the type of practice that we could recommend somebody that maybe doesn’t handle stress extremely well. On the other hand, in a practice that’s higher volume, managed care based, all kinds of stressors in a practice, you’re going to need somebody who just routinely handles stress. Well, that’s just who they are. So those types of things vary by practice as do a lot of these factors. Can the person handle interruptions? Do they work best in an environment without interruptions? That depends on the practice and how the practice works. So we get all of that information about the individual candidates. And now the key thing here is you actually know more about these candidates than in most cases they know about themselves. And this is 100% before a resume is even opened.
[BRIGHTER VISION PROMO]
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[JOE]
Wow. So where does this fall apart for people? Like if they are hiring and doing all these analytics are there any downsides to starting to use this sort of process to apply for someone’s practice?
[DR. MIKE]
Downsides? That’s a good question. I can’t think of any off the top of my head. What I can tell you is that in my experience, we will never, ever, ever go back to the old way. In fact, in our hiring processes for our private practice, which is just regular healthcare practice in America, in so many different ways, we don’t even look at the resumes to start off with. We have to go through this process. Let’s say somebody comes in, they have all kinds of experience, they’re exactly what you’re looking for in a traditional resume approach. They still run through our assessment process and the reason being is because on paper, on a resume, they supposedly look like everything’s fantastic. However, what we really want to know is this the right type of person for our practice? All of those things that I previously mentioned, how do they respond on those types of continuums?

If they have fantastic experience, but they can’t handle stress at all, they’re not going to work out in our practice. If they don’t like details or can’t follow policies and procedures, it doesn’t matter what experience they have. They will not work out long-term. So for our clients, what we end up seeing is that when they bring somebody on the stickiness of that employee is tremendous. They tend to come on board, stay on board. It’s their very nature that the practice is asking them to do what they’re naturally talented and strong at. So everything just works out in a much, much, much better way. For our practice, this has been the most trap that we’ve been waiting for in order to build the team that can completely and utterly run with whatever we ask them to do.
[JOE]
So if someone wants to do this themselves, what are some of the tools that are some of your favorite tools to help with the assessment before the resume?
[DR. MIKE]
There are all kinds of assessment providers out there. It’s a whole industry, as we found out. Using an assessment is better than not using an assessment. However, there are some examples that I don’t agree with. One is just personality assessments. There’s a whole bunch of them out there. Some are free and otherwise I would completely recommend against those. There are some reasons why, well, there’s some reasons why from a legality standpoint, but the main ones are they’re not going to give you the results that you’re looking for. And that’s really the main thing. We’re not looking at personalities. For example, is the person bubbly or not. Whether they treat patients warmly or not is something we measure, but that’s it. We’re really looking for how they’re going to function within the role that you’re asking them to function in. So do you want a medical biller who is bubbly? Well, most people, I don’t think that would be on the top of the list. What you’re looking for are other criteria. The personality assessments don’t dive into those types of other assessment details. So translation, they’re misleading. They’re going to guide you down a path that will not provide the outcome you’re looking for.
[JOE]
Hmm. That makes sense. So what kind of tools should people use if they’re not going to use the personality assessments?
[DR. MIKE]
Well, I’d say one of the easiest things to do is to just take your job description, customize it, that talks about the contribution that the team members can make in your practice. And that’s really, really big. Most of the job descriptions that we see coming from the practices, they talk about nuts and bolts like ours, the name, the title of the job description, nothing about how the person’s going to contribute. I mean, what’s going to get this candidate up in the morning, day after day to enjoy their time and your practice? I think if you can’t answer that question, crystal clearly, then it’s time to ask for help plain and simply. Then once you have the job description that is performing, I mean, remember it’s an advertisement for your practice. So it needs to do exactly that. Once you have that, it needs to be published out to a lot of the different job boards. Putting it on one or two will not get the results that you’re looking for. And unfortunately that takes a rather tremendous amount of time in order to be able to do that and that’s something we’ve been able to simplify completely for the practice.
[JOE]
Oh, that’s so great. So the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[DR. MIKE]
The same thing that I found out that walking in in the morning, if it’s not enjoyable to you, you need to craft your environment so that it is enjoyable. You’re the boss. I mean, if you’re in a private practice, whether you like it or not, it all revolves around you. So grab the reins of that horse and just decide you want to ride it in a different direction. For me personally, I went through that. We had all kinds of turnover, as I said, we had embezzlement, you name it. We went through it and I just made a conscious decision one day that I had to change my mindset and change how I was approaching this because I no longer liked coming into the practice. It obviously didn’t happen overnight. It took a couple of years, created this entire process, and now I truly enjoy coming to work with my team members. They are consummate professionals. They do their job. I’m not a professional cat herder anymore, or kindergarten teacher. None of that stuff exists anymore. These folks do what they’re asked to do on their own without babysitting and it’s a terrific place to spend time.
[JOE]
That’s so awesome. I mean, isn’t that what we all want? So Mike, if people want to connect with you, if they want to hear more about your work, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
[DR. MIKE]
Just go to buildmyteam.com. So www.buildmyteam.com and schedule a consultation. It’s obviously free. There’s no commitment. We want to find out all about your practice so that we can determine if we can help you or not. If the answer is no, we cannot help you. We’ll do what we can to point you in the directions that will help you. And of course, if we can then we love long-term relationships with our clients, where you pick up the phone, you send an email, send a smoke signal saying, “I need a secretary, or I need a technician or a medical assistant,” or whatever it might be and then we’re off to the races. And the point is, you go back to what you were doing. You don’t have to sweat bullets. You’re not losing sleep on a Sunday night wondering what texts are coming into your cell phone Monday morning. We’ve all been there and it really is unnecessary and it doesn’t have to happen anymore.
[JOE]
Oh, that’s so awesome. Well, Dr. Mike, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[DR. MIKE]
Thank you, Joe. Terrific talking with you today.
[JOE]
Go take some action. So often I say that at the end of the show, but I want you, when you hear this show to get ideas, but then go do something with it. So whether it’s implementing what Mike was talking about, working with his team, in some way, even just brainstorming, “Hey, why am I still doing these things that are outside of my zone of genius?” Start thinking about what you can do best. There’s a saying, do what you do best and outsource the rest. I’ve lived that for years and it’s amazing to just start taking things off of my plate so that I can put it into the big things, like writing a book. That’s what I’m in the middle of right now, of launching this book through HarperCollins. Thursday is the New Friday, we didn’t even get into that with Mike where he and I actually were talking about how he does a four-day work week also.

So it’s amazing how when you start to really do what you do best and outsource the rest. You can level up so much faster in so many different ways. So take the tips that Mike gave us today. You’ll hire an amazing team or work with someone to help you hire an amazing team.

Also, you’re so excited that Brighter Vision is one of our sponsors this month. Brighter Vision makes the best websites for therapists. It’s so cheap. It’s $59 a month. They’ve got some deals going on right now over at brightervision.com/joe. Again, that brightervision.com/joe. When you use that link, they know that you heard about it from my podcast, that their dollars going into sponsorship are actually worth it. And the reason that I can do now 610 of these episodes is that we have sponsors. We have products that we sell through this. Yes, I would love to just do this for free and to help people, but there’s these things that we stand behind and Brighter Vision, they reach out to us when they’re looking for new partners or new connections and we give them feedback on those sorts of things too. So it really is a relationship that we’ve valued for years. So brightervision.com/joe i you need a website or you just want a better website.

Also don’t forget Thursday is the New Friday is in pre-release right now, October 5th, those will get shipped out. Our goal is to sell 10,000 copies by that first day so that we can most likely get New York Times bestselling status. The PR team is saying that we are on track, but we need to keep pushing that, keep sharing. It’s all about how the four-day work week is better for our productivity and our creativity. It’s bringing together a lot of my work and actually spotlighting some amazing people that I’ve worked with, like Dr. Jeremy Sharp, or Jessica Tappana, or all these people that you’ve heard on the podcast. So check that out over at Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

And thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing week.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.