158: Chiropractic Leadership - Motivation and Inspiration
Jan 28, 2024158 Chiropractic Leadership: Motivation and Inspiration in Chiropractic
Attendees
Dr Michael Perusich: Chiropractors, are you having trouble managing and leading your staff? Hi everybody. Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast brought to you by Kats Consultants helping doctors. Keep their pulse on success. I’m Michael Perusich joined my good friend, Dr. Troy Fox. We are your host today as most days so welcome everybody. We were just talking about golf before we jumped on camera. And in that funny…
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: how you can have that one club in your bag. you said it's a six iron for me. It's the driver. I can hit my three wood about twice as far and…
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: as much straighter than I can my driver which makes no sense. But the kind of reminds me of trying to inspire and manage your team, sometimes you've got all these different people that work for you may just have one person or multiple people but everybody's different personality. It's kind of like the golf clubs in our golf bag every one of them does something really really good and every one of them if we don't handle it just right it can kind of flub up the whole team it throws up the entire score. So
Troy Fox: Right, right. Yeah, so don't be a six iron.
Dr Michael Perusich: so, how do we Don't be a six iron in your practice.
Troy Fox: That's right.
Troy Fox: That's right.
Dr Michael Perusich: And I apparently need somebody else to take over the driving of mine. but I think this is one place where I think we all can really work on our practices a lot and that's taking the time to be inspirational and to really manage our teams because when we do that You hear me? Say this all the time. We create success Partners around us when we create success partners. We parlay what we can do on our own into something much much bigger and much more successful. And I know Troy over the years you've been graded leading and managing your teams.
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: I know some of the reasons why but let's talk about that.
Troy Fox: Yeah, so I think I want to talk about right at the very beginning because let's point the finger at you first doctors because here's the problem. a lot of folks say hey, I'm gonna go in and motivate my staff because I'm totally unmotivated and I'm burnt out I'm tired. I don't want to do this. I want my staff to pull all the way. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go in and motivate my staff to do this.
Troy Fox: Doesn't work that way. it's never gonna work that way.
Dr Michael Perusich: No.
Troy Fox: Here's the thing. You have to be the motivated leader. So pull yourself up by the bootstraps. If you are burnt out right now take a break do whatever you need to do. If you need to take time off call us. We'll tell you what to do, but take that time If you're just a little bit worn down around the edges take a day take an extra day and do a staycation stay at home. Do what I'm doing. you can hang out at home. I'm hanging out at home right now. I've Got A Wildcats sweater on today because he's freezing cold here today. So I've got it over my scrubs just because I feel like I'm running around in my swimsuit and zero degree weather in my scrubs. so I got this thing on but,…
Dr Michael Perusich: It is gold.
Troy Fox: take a little time for yourself. And then what you've got to do to motivate your staff is you have to lead by example, so
Troy Fox: In other words, you got to get your head space right first before we step into the head space of all your staff. Then I think the second step for me is and Dr. Perushio unpack some of this here in a second. You'll be like, I love this. So the second thing I would recommend that you do and…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Troy Fox: I think this is very important we do this with every staff member we find out what their personality traits are. There's little tests that you do. I've got one that's an app on my phone that we can actually have the person take it. It kind of gives me just a basic rundown of who this person is. Are they a driver are Are they somebody that follows everything to the detail would they be a good detail organized person in this area so I want to know where they fit into my team before I start trying to go in and motivate people to do jobs that they don't have a strength then so that's really my starting point. And then I will tell you that 100% no different than with my patients. what I tell my staff. Let's love on our
Troy Fox: Questions to the rest will fall into place. I believe the same thing with our staff. Let's love our staff and the rest of the things will fall into place because if they feel appreciated and needed and we can talk about what staff need to feel appreciated needed. But if they feel appreciated and needed they're going to help you reach your goals and that's important because then you become a team rather than a doctor with support staff.
00:05:00
Dr Michael Perusich: Sent all that. Yeah, there's several things. I want to go through there and unpack you mentioned the inspired leader.
Troy Fox: Mm- Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: I think that is so true. If we come in Dragon guess what our team's gonna be dragging because they're gonna emulate us…
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Everybody's gonna be in a bad mood if we come in fired up and ready to see patients and just ready to be the leader. Guess what they're all gonna step up, too. So, how do we keep ourselves inspired? Because okay, let's face it. While we all love what we do, and Putting on our professional at all. You guys know, I love this profession. But what we do can get a little monotonous at times. patients coming in they lay down the table you adjust them. They get up you talk for a minute they leave.
Dr Michael Perusich: And it does get kind of repetitive so we have to really make sure that we step off that chiropractic Mouse wheel once in a while and do some things to keep ourselves motivated and that's not by going in and driving the practice every day. You have to literally step away. I love your staycation idea because I do those all the time. You've got to literally step away to get recharged and reenergize. So what are some ways to do that? it depends on you. It might be reading it might be exercising. It might be taking a vacation with your wife whether that's going to Mexico or that's just having an extra long weekend sometime. And just not even thinking or…
Troy Fox: Or it could be ax throwing or…
Dr Michael Perusich: talking about the practice.
Troy Fox: other dangerous activities.
Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely one of my favorites. Yep.
Troy Fox: I've never done the ax throwing thing, but I'm thinking if you want to get rid of some excess energy. either go out and play really bad golf because that'll wear me out pretty quick or go through some axes, you…
Dr Michael Perusich: okay, so funny story about that over the holidays our whole family went and…
Troy Fox: the Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: did ax throwing and It was way more fun than I realized. It was going to be so anyway.
Troy Fox: Really? Okay, we got to go.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Troy Fox: I got to take my staff and…
Dr Michael Perusich: We got to go do it so we had a blast.
Troy Fox: go do it then. Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: You've got to put yourself. In front of some motivation, maybe it's go to a John Maxwell seminar. Maybe it's some other motivational seminar, maybe it's watching some videos on YouTube. Maybe it's just going to a peer event in the profession. we put on Live Events all the time come check us out, going back to homecoming whatever it might be whatever floats your boat. you got to do it and you've got to put it on your list of things to do often. so
Troy Fox: Yeah, I think that's very important, but I wouldn't go do anything with John Maxwell though because he never allows me to achieve mastery. I'm always working to reach Mastery and I'm never there. So I'm gonna go with somebody like Charlie Brown that says you have arrived. So no John Maxwell's great, but I tell you what, John Maxwell stuff keeps me on my toes because every time I think that I'm doing good, I'll reread the Five Pillars and then I'm like Yeah,…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Troy Fox: I'm not even close. I'm Two-thirds of the way up the ladder at this point. So it is a great learning experience to do Maxwell. I think that is one way to help and I think getting your staff engaged down the road once you become proficient with Maxwell is a really good thing to add in as well.
Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely, and you've got to bring your team right along with you. You can't be the only one doing that kind of training and personal development. You need to immerse your staff in it too. And I know you're all sitting out there thinking We don't have time you got to make time and…
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: I'm telling you there is time. I can come into every one of your practices and I can help you find the time. And if you think that's a problem for you, give us a call. We'll help you with that, but You've got to get your staff immersed in those same principles because if they're not staying motivated,…
Troy Fox: Mm-hmm
Dr Michael Perusich: I mean it's one thing. Yes that if you come in and motivated good mood every day rated a ready to the fight. They will step up a little bit. But if they're not getting that personal development as well. Telling you it's well worth the time energy money to get them those same tools. That's part of inspiring is you've got to get them immersed in some of those things. You said one other thing in there and it's like my mind because we talked about ax throwing which is a great team development.
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: Idea, just make sure you have the proper insurance for all your team before you go.
00:10:00
Troy Fox: Yeah, and make sure you're not doing it at home. You might want to go do an official ax throwing site. There you go.
Dr Michael Perusich: I would recommend it. yes, and pay attention to the instructions when they give them to
Troy Fox: Right, right. I got you.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah, highly important. So, when we talk about leadership in the Chiropractic practice, it's not just our staff that we're leading. Our patients are coming to us expecting us to lead them to Good Health to some outcome restoration of function that they're looking for. And so we're their leaders as well. So we've got to remember that it's not about what we want when we're with the patient. It's about what they need. And they need us to lead them. So make good treatment plans. How patients understand the value of staying on that treatment plan and being committed to it and what the outcome is going to be in the end and how worth it. It's going to be.
Troy Fox: It's celebrate this successes. So not only with your staff you're gonna give your staff maybe an extra day off or maybe you're gonna take him out for a special dinner because of a goal that they reached or you're gonna incentivize them financially because of a goal that you've reached but your staff and wants to be involved in this process and when they do and they get the reward it just blossoms now same thing goes through your patience. So it goes all the way down the line if I come into the office in a great mood excited to create healing and patience and lay hands on people with intent today. My staff is gonna be excited about me laying hands on people with intent and they're gonna follow right
Troy Fox: Behind me with that support role of…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Troy Fox: what they do with intent and guess what patients are then going to be happy about what they're doing, but do this as well because patients are now on board for this ride. So this isn't just about staff. I want to include patients in this too celebrate their successes when they reach milestones in there in their treatment. Do you celebrate that and let other staff members know do you give them a coffee mug? Do you give them? we have these Fox Chiropractic bags, ladies take when they go to the store carry something in and out of the house. They love these things. It's a great gift. Some of them got a coffee mug and a bag but we just started randomly giving gifts away when people reach a lot got a Milestones, we're like, hey, guess what? We're so excited that you finished four weeks of treatment with us or two weeks or whatever or you're graduated to maintenance or Wellness care have a coffee mug or have a bag or have both, and we celebrate that success and…
Dr Michael Perusich: I love that.
Troy Fox: our staff comes out and
Troy Fox: And the crazy thing is my staff will pop their heads around the corner Hey great job. I mean our patients know that we're excited for them. So I think it goes down the line when you do that. That's how you create a system. But it all starts with you walking through the back door. Guess what when you go in with patients. even when you're having a bad day, do you have a great attitude with your patient? how you doing? Mike good to see you today in my mind. I'm thinking my dog just died and my son just got kicked out of school. But I'm okay Mike go ahead and lay down the table. How you doing today? my intent to heal maybe a little bit impaired at that point, but I'm gonna put on a pretty good show. can you not do the same thing with your staff when you walk in the morning get people ready to go…
Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely.
Dr Michael Perusich: You bet.
Troy Fox: but by faking it until you make it right? I think it's a great way.
Dr Michael Perusich: That's exactly right. So hey I want.
Troy Fox: Great way to work with our people.
Dr Michael Perusich: Exactly. We need to take a little break here for a word from our sponsor, but I want to come back and I want to talk about the happy patient and what that means for your practice and…
Troy Fox: Mm-hmm
Dr Michael Perusich: your success. So we're talking about Chiropractic leadership inspiring and managing your team and part of your team of your patients. So when we come back, we'll all have a really pointed question for Dr. Troy as well when we come back so we'll be right back.
SPONSORSHIP BREAK
Dr Michael Perusich: All right everybody. Welcome back to the KC Carol pulse podcast brought to you by Kat's Consultants. We are talking about Chiropractic leadership inspiring and managing your team. And I promise to question for Dr. Troy right before we took a break and…
Troy Fox: I'm so nervous.
Dr Michael Perusich: here's my question.
Dr Michael Perusich: How come I never got a coffee cup?
Troy Fox: That's easy. All right, I can send you a coffee cup. I was nervous. I thought you were gonna ask me something highly intellectual that I probably wouldn't be able to answer. I can sit.
Dr Michael Perusich: that way I think of you every morning when I have my coffee.
Troy Fox: Hey, I'm gonna see you here in about three or four weeks. I may just bring you two because you can't just have one.
Dr Michael Perusich: Okay, perfect. Thank you. All right, so I wanted to come back and…
Troy Fox: There you go.
Dr Michael Perusich: talk about the happy patient that you mentioned because this is what being a good Chiropractic leader in your practice. Does it creates not only happy staff not only happy doctor but it creates happy patience. And what do happy patients do They refer other great people to your practice. And I know we're always looking for new patients. I it. we need a certain level of new patients every month. and yet so oftentimes we're trying to go find the hardest patient out there to bring in the door and then expect them to everything we tell them immediately and want to be involved in our big treatment plan and so forth and yet the easiest new patients to bring in the door are the ones that are referred from other. Happy patients, right?
00:15:00
Troy Fox: Yeah, they're already aware that they're probably gonna be on a treatment schedule. They're probably already aware that you're gonna do an exam on them. They know the ins and outs of your office procedures because they're friends already told them whereas the guy that comes in off the ad that I get in.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Troy Fox: I get one of these every day through my Gmail account at least one if not two or three. Hey, Doc looks like your practice is doing really well You have no idea…
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Troy Fox: how my practice is doing and as a result of that or do you need new patients because
Troy Fox: Gonna send you 25 qualified new patients a month and you don't pay us anything until they come in and see us and I'm like, that sounds like a great idea and then I look at the bottom for what word I'm supposed to use for them. Never to message me again, unsubscribe. No, The one last night was nope. Nope. And so I hit nope.
Dr Michael Perusich: I love it.
Troy Fox: You later because here's the thing. I know that type of patient if I get 25, I'm gonna have one that's quality and the other 24 are gonna damage their reputation of my practice.
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep.
Troy Fox: how hard does it get for me to create excitement and motivation of my practice when everybody coming through the door is hard on my staff and hard on me and hard on Chiropractic instead of going. I'm excited to be here because I already know that you get great results and I understand how chiropractic works and I can't wait. That's the kind of patient that I want. So there is a way that you can actually within your motivational profile also seek certain types of patients. Like you just said that happy patient because I don't want to fight with you the whole time you're here. I don't want to drag you to the adjusting table. I want you to come willingly.
Dr Michael Perusich: right Exactly. And so those happy patients who go tell other people about you have already gotten them That's not really a good word.
Troy Fox: gotten
Dr Michael Perusich: They've already Helped those people reach a level of excitement about your practice before they ever show up and when they get there, they got the smile on their face. Hey DACA for such great things about you and…
Troy Fox: Mm-hmm
Dr Michael Perusich: guess what? That person then starts as a happy patient. So now the other patient that took six or…
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: eight visits to be happy because they're seeing results. They've referred somebody in that's now happy on day one. They're just happy to be there. So to me the greatest new patient marketing program ever is the referral.
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: And it's so simple to do and that's a topic for another time. But that's part of being a leader. And when you start getting all these referrals and you got all these happy people coming in. It's three degrees of separation. It's the LinkedIn idea. Where do What do they do at work? can that open up some other avenues? How can that person help me get into the community a little bit more. I had a patient one time. I came in he was president of Boys and Girls Club. He had a great experience in the practice. We went to lunch one day. He said hey. Why don't you come check out what we're doing with the boys and girls club? a year later. I was president. So, that's how you get your foot in the door and of stuff like that which along with that came a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun too, but
Troy Fox: Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: and then that just parlayed even more so now people are seeing me out in the community. I'm standing up at the podium at the Boys and Girls Club Auction, doing all the speeches and announcements. and now I got a thousand people in front of me that now want to be my patient because of just those little connections so that's being a leader in your community.
Troy Fox: right can you say gun? Shy and the reason as you said that I went because I don't know how many times that I'm sure many of you as well have been invited to come speak at something Qantas is a really great example. Hey, will you come speak at Kiwanis next thing,…
Dr Michael Perusich: Yeah.
Troy Fox: literally within an hour of you speaking at Kiwanis, you get the membership paperwork in front of you and they're already promoting you to be president next year.
Dr Michael Perusich: right
Troy Fox: I've done that with being a deacon in our church. I've done that with Kawana.
Dr Michael Perusich: yeah. yeah.
Troy Fox: I mean all these different if you even say yes, I'll make cookies through the school bizarre. You could be the PTO president next year. And so I think it's funny but doesn't that tell you that the world is craving leadership and somebody meets you and
Troy Fox: I know that sometimes they just want warm shoes to fill a spot but when they meet somebody that's a real leader in their practice. They're whoa. This guy could be helpful for our cause that's why they're talking to you immediately.
00:20:00
Dr Michael Perusich: Yep, and then people see how effective you are in those positions and they want to be around you more people like to follow leaders.
Troy Fox: Mm- Yeah.
Dr Michael Perusich: So why not be the leader let people follow you.
Troy Fox: Yeah. I'm gonna give you a little tidbit today before you guys go. Here's where you start warming your staff up. when you go in and you're talking to staff don't tell them about what you got going on. Okay, here's what you do. You ask them what they've got going on. How was your weekend? you guys went out to this route. Even if it's a restaurant that you've never even been to. that sounds fantastic or if you've been there. my go I think we've visited that restaurant before but that is just phenomenal. I don't think you need to tell your story then about how you went there and spent more money than they did because you're the doctor or we also stayed at the Ritz Carlton next door to that restaurant. I think we listen to what our patient or our clients are saying.
Troy Fox: And I was actually saying our staff sorry, but our staff and our clients. So in other words, it's a great rule to do with both of them. But what happens when you get your staff talking about themselves and what they're up to and what's important to them. I think find you will very quickly pull yourself into a peer-to-peer position where you can then present that leadership proposal.
Dr Michael Perusich: Very quickly and back on that - good leaders empathetically listen And they ask questions. They don't talk about themselves.
Troy Fox: Yes. Yes. Mm-
Dr Michael Perusich: They empathetically less than an ask questions. So, that's a really great point. So if you want to become a great Chiropractic leader you want to be that inspiration and motivation and really manage your team well and your patience well and become a leader in the community, these are some great pillars. to lean on so develop your staff make them success Partners. If you're having trouble getting them plugged into things. We have all kinds of tools for your staff all kinds of development opportunities for you and them so that's one of the great things we do at Kats Consultants. We do a lot of team building for practices, which is well worth. the time and energy to do
Dr Michael Perusich: So if you haven't already jump over to Kats Consultants.
Troy Fox: Yes.
Dr Michael Perusich: Check us out. We've got a lot of free resources over there. We've got some great downloads, see what we're doing come visit us at one of our Live Events and if you just want to chat for a few minutes about your practice, we enjoy doing that too schedule a breakthrough call. We'd love to hear from No obligation. Let's just talk Troy anything else dad.
Troy Fox: No, I think this is fantastic quite frankly. If you don't get five or six nuggets out of this you can take into your practice tomorrow. I'll be shocked. If you don' it is what it is, not everyone can be as cool as me but no, I think really if you listen to this and write down a few things you'll be able to take these into your practice and use them right now. These are simple little things that you can do to transform your practice and put yourself in a position where you start to become the inspirational leader that you want to be and you get to see your staff be who you want them to be which is fantastic. It's really fun.
Dr Michael Perusich: Absolutely. It really isn't. my team's probably standing outside the studio door thinking. he's all fired up today. Get ready to be inspired. We're gonna have a great day.
Troy Fox: That's right.
Dr Michael Perusich: So, All right everybody. Thanks for tuning into the KC car reports podcast helping doctors keep their pulse on success. Let us know how we can help you because we're all about Chiropractic success for each and every one of you. We'll see you next time.
Troy Fox: ya.
Meeting ended after 00:23:41 👋