Dr. Allen Miner (00:01 .048)

Hi everyone, I'm Dr. Allen Miner here with the UAC Best Practices podcast. I'm without my usual partner, Dr. Brian Capra today, so I'm flying solo and we have a wonderful person who's been in and out and into UAC, Dr. Susan Mitchell, who I'll introduce in just a second. Before we get into that, I want to thank our sponsors who always make these shows possible and today's sponsorship is from Genesis Back and Neck.

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at GenesisBack.com. That's corporate at GenesisBack.com and let them know that you found out about them from UAC. All right, with that said, Dr. Susan Mitchell, who lives in Bloomington, Illinois, and you've practiced, you've had your own practice there for 20 years. You practiced for 28 years total. And, I remember Susan, you were in UAC and then I know everything got busy with the world and it's been great to have you back in and you brought your amazing kids to the last event in Boca that I saw you. But we were talking before we started recording and you also do a lot of coaching. You said primarily with women, but now that's evolved into coaching even associate doctors and CAs and really the whole team. And you really feel that's maybe been the secret behind the success of your

Dr. Allen Miner (01:50 .478)

clinic is the team and the bonus structure. So, I'd love to unpack that today because you know, this is a generalization, but generally speaking, a lot, you know, our, head of our chiropractic clinics is Dr. Shelby Loughridge, and I'm just going to be blunt. Females tend to be oftentimes better leaders. And I think there's an empathetic connection there that oftentimes gets lost with a lot of male leaders. Um, but Don't let me answer that for you. Why are you so good at building teams? What do you learn about building your teams and how you bonus people? How many associates do you have in your clinic?

Dr Susan Mitchell (02:27 .024)

My fifth one is starting on Monday.

Dr. Allen Miner (02:29 .495)

So that's awesome. And so, let's just start there. Obviously, you figured out something that's working or you wouldn't go to five associates. So, talk to us about it. What have you learned? What do you do? How have you made this work?

Dr Susan Mitchell (02:37 .538)

Yes, yes.

Dr Susan Mitchell (02:43 .437)

Yeah, so what I think I'm most grateful for is that all of my doctors have been with me, you so they are all are long term, and they want to continue to be long term. so, a few things in that and one, of course, being conscious of when you hire, you know, really looking at that personality. And I tell my clients, be really clear before you hire an associate, you know, so many doctors are, I need more hands. I need; I need help. I want freedom and

They just hire and hope for the best, really have no intention of training. You know, they just want to hire and go to the golf course. And it's like, well, that's cute, but that's not how it works. And yes. So yes, yes. Right. Right. Right. It never does. So, yeah. So, I think that's the first realization is that it's not just buy and freedom, but so hiring the right person, being very clear on what you want. Like, do you just need another.

Dr. Allen Miner (03:15 .728)

Yeah. Nope, never. I was guilty of that with my first couple of associates and it didn't work out well.

Dr Susan Mitchell (03:39 .277)

set of loving hands or do you want someone to help build the business? Because those are two very different people and being honest with them from the beginning. That's the other thing I think sometimes I'm super transparent on all of my interviews. I tell them all my flaws, and you know, because my job is not for everyone, that is for sure. So being really clear and then bonuses are huge because it puts the power in their hands. Like how successful do they want to be?

Dr Susan Mitchell (04:08 .823)

And, you know, I, the beginning, I had one doctor that didn't love it. You know, he wanted that security of just raise my base, right. And I'm like, no, you raise your base, you know, or raise your income by, by what you do. And so, and not in a snotty way, but it empowers them. And so it helps hold themselves accountable, but also my team holds each other accountable. You know, if somebody is really.

Dr Susan Mitchell (04:33 .135)

lagging behind, that affects their pay too. So, they're like, hey, what can we do here? You know, let's, let's fix this. So that's really what I love about the bonus systems. And again, being very clear on what do you want and then bonus them on that, you know, so sometimes I've had to change what I want to bonus. and, and from a freedom standpoint, I will say I took myself off the floor six months ago and I was only probably adjusting three to six hours a week anyway, but, and we've been seeing record numbers ever since. So.

Dr. Allen Miner (04:43 .724)

Yeah. Yup. Yup.

Dr Susan Mitchell (05:02 .347)

It's that whole, you know, button, the seat, but, but they were happy for me to be off the floor because now they have opportunity to work the same hours, make more money. And so everybody's happy. So it is, what do you want to grow and bonus that it really is that simple.

Dr. Allen Miner (05:19 .806)

That's brilliant. So, let's unpack all that. Let's start with I'm just curious when you talk about when you're hiring and you talk about your vulnerabilities and what you're not good at and the pros and cons maybe of working Do you mind sharing a little bit about that because I think a lot of owners have trouble being vulnerable and you wanted I Know early on I would oversell my jobs

And then it would always bite me because I'd paint the opportunity that was possible and if somebody fell short, they almost felt oversold by me. I've learned to, yeah, I think I take a little more of a self-deprecating, honest, transparent approach now because I don't want them to be shocked. I want them to know the reality of what they're stepping into. So do you mind sharing just some of your, what does that look like? What does that sound like when you're interviewing somebody? What do you share?

Dr Susan Mitchell (06:10 .702)

Sure. Yes. yes, I would, you know, why waste their time or mine? You know, and then that's the thing. There's all the research that I don't know the numbers on of how much time and money we spend onboarding a new person. And so, I'm not interested in that. You know, I want to be as I make them come and observe. So, because, you know, everybody says, I love to be busy. And it's like, you haven't seen this level of busy. I promise you, you know, you are just.

Maybe if you work at Starbucks, but other than that, you know, it's, just that, and I will say just side note, when I'm interviewing, you know, when I'm looking at indeed, which is not a fun thing to do for my CAs. I am looking for that Starbucks person, that waitress that I don't, I don't want them that they worked at a medical office. Like, no, that's not right. So, yes. So being very honest, like we're fast pace.

Dr Susan Mitchell (07:05 .878)

you will you have to be able to multitask you know you're going to be doing seven things with a baby on your hip and you have to keep smiling and all those things you might have quite likely you will be sped up on you will be pooped on like this is going to happen you know and they're like it's fine and I'm like no really so and we do see a lot of kids so it is loud in our office at times and all those things and so and then I have them come and observe so they can see and they always you know their eyes are this big and

Dr Susan Mitchell (07:34 .156)

like, you weren't kidding. And so, I would much rather have them like, are you sure? I always mentioned to you, like we talk about, in my practice, because we see so many families, we do talk about vaccination decisions and things like that. And of course that's not always, you know, I'm weird. And so, to the average public, so it's like, I want to be, and even with a lot of doctors, they don't have that same education or belief system that I do. So.

Dr. Allen Miner (07:54 .805)

Yeah.

Dr. Allen Miner (08:00 .761)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Susan Mitchell (08:01 .262)

I tell them, you don't have to believe the way I believe, but you have to at least be open to learning about it because I can't have someone at my front desk saying like, Dr. Mitchell's cuckoo, you know? So those, all those kinds of things. I try and be as honest if I'm a hundred percent transparent, I always tell them, you know, I also like the F word. So, if that, you know, if, if that's offensive to you and I did have one woman that didn't take the job and I'm like, thank goodness, because I'm not going to change, you know, um,

Dr. Allen Miner (08:20 .029)

I love it.

Dr. Allen Miner (08:28 .498)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Susan Mitchell (08:31 .413)

So yeah, so I just try and put them out there.

Dr. Allen Miner (08:32 .318)