EPISODE 417: Utilizing Playbooks to Build Your Systems

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie, and today we're gonna dive into playbooks and we're gonna do that with Craig Huston, who has, uh, worked as you'll hear, uh, with many different types of businesses and leadership. And we're gonna dive into the idea of playbooks for your practice based off the book Pinnacle, and how this can be really helpful for your practice.

Not only in. Uh, onboarding new employees or, uh, following certain procedures appropriately, uh, even to the point of having increased profits and selling your practice at a, a better rate at some point down the future. And why playbooks? I. Are instrumental into your practice. And honestly, they don't have to be.

Uh, so daunting and it's something that we've helped out, uh, our practice and our clients a lot is trying to get together some playbooks to where, you know, whether it's a, a patient experience playbook or a marketing playbook or a front desk, you know, there's a handful [00:01:00] that you're gonna want to have. And we also in this episode, dive into how you can make it a little more digestible.

And how you can store this and, and document it, and certain softwares you can use. So, um, start taking your business serious. Doesn't have to happen overnight for you. It's a little daunting to say, I got, I'm out of the time to do, you know, 14 different playbooks. But you do, if you plan it over three years or a year or five years, whatever it is, uh, and, and you keep on making forward progress in this, in no time you will have a practice.

That is documented well, and ultimately, like what Strategic Coach would say is a self-managing business. So without further ado, here is my interview with Craig Huston. Alright, welcome to the show, Craig Huston. I'm really excited to have you on. We had a great coffee some months ago diving into all things, uh, uh, business, which, which was interesting. But before we dive into, uh, our topic t jour today, [00:02:00] uh, tell us a little bit about yourself personally and professionally.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. Thank you Kevin. Uh, that was a great coffee by the way. I thank you for the time. Absolutely. I enjoyed that. Yeah. So, uh, I come to the table as a pinnacle business guide, and I think that was what originally connected us. Yep. And, uh, before that I spent quite a bit of time. I'm not gonna say how old I was, but it was quite a bit of time and, uh, the corporate world, uh, in aviation mostly, uh, but always in leadership.

So running and leading companies, divisions of companies. And then, uh, left that space and started my own. Consulting company back in, uh, 1998, so a little clue to my age. Uh, from there, went into the nonprofit space, did that for quite a while, still in leadership, and then left nonprofit world to go back into aviation to help a friend of mine run his business while he was, uh, building a hospital in Africa.

Wow. So did that and once that wrapped up in 2016, uh, trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, I, uh mm-hmm. Started Summit [00:03:00] Achievers. The whole purpose of Summit Achievers is to help business owners maximize the value of their greatest wealth generating asset, which is their business, and especially that lower, lower middle market, um, companies that I have a real passion for companies that are struggling in that 1 million to $3 million range, sometimes even below a million dollars that, mm-hmm.

Have a tough time getting through that ceiling and figuring out how to do the next, next big thing for themselves.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And I think that's a big topic and it's something that I try to convey to chiropractors. And unfortunately, um, and too many of them, we have a saying that, you know, they die on the table there giving their last adjustment.

And, um, there really was no exit strategy or plan in place if that were to happen. And, and, you know, I was actually just, uh, a little bit of a sidebar topic, which we do often in this podcast, but, um, I was just in my strategic coach meeting, uh, last week and someone in our group had. Unfortunately passed away at, at, at a very young age, 50.[00:04:00]

Um, but we talked about how he built a self-managing company and his family is fine. Um, in regards to the financials, obviously they got a lot of grieving to handle. Sure. Um, but the money side is not an issue. And, uh, 'cause he had done a great job of building a self-managing, uh, business that can operate without him and then ultimately sell and not a, a fire sale.

Right. And obviously that's an extreme example, but, um, that happens. We know that happens often, unfortunately, as far as passing away too young. Uh, but then on the other side of it is, uh, you know, if you want to have a natural, normal exit strategy, you need to have a business that can sell for a, a fair amount and actually be a big part of your retirement.

And too many chiropractic practices are, are never really a substantial part of, of one's retirement. It's, it's definitely an issue.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. And you know, to your point, 80% of businesses, privately held businesses, [00:05:00] 80% of them will never sell.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh,

Craig Hutson: you used the analogy of dying on the table. Um, there there's a lot of reasons that, that, that happens.

Mm-hmm. Um, most of which are preventable. I mean, an early demise of somebody that's unpredictable, uh, can, you know, if they don't have stuff already in place, obviously it's, it's a little too late. What I find is people, once they get to a certain income level, tend to have financial managers around them, wealth managers, attorneys.

They start to get some good advice around estate planning, the thing that happens is they forget about doing it in their business. Mm-hmm. And the family side is okay financially, but the business side could be a train wreck. And so just, it's not that hard, uh, getting people to do some things. We found that there's really, you could boil it down to eight things that drive business value.

Mm-hmm. And if, and my goal is to get business. Owners to focus on those eight things. Mm-hmm. And, uh, when they do that, uh, we can put some other fences in place to [00:06:00] de-risk the business and, and help them protect themselves from exactly something like that. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, that, that's a, that's amazing. And I'm a, you know, one of the things that I'm always, you know, chiropractors always talk about systems and, and we, we kind of harp on it a lot and, and, uh, there's a, a term that we use in our profession when someone is trying to sell their practice and it's a turnkey Right.

And I'm sure everybody's heard that. Yeah. Where it's like, oh, I got a turnkey practice. And a lot of times those practices aren't really. Turnkey. Uh, but theoretically, uh, that's where you, you want to get it. And, um, you know, I, a little bit of backstory on how I came across, um, playbooks and, and, and Pinnacle.

Uh, I was actually like on a webinar and, and one of the person there, um, had the book in the background and then I asked about it and then they mentioned it and I was like, oh, I gotta buy that. And, and I read it and then, and that book is, uh, is, is Pinnacle. Can you give, uh, our audience a little bit of a.

30,000 foot overview on that book.

Craig Hutson: Sure, sure. So, [00:07:00] uh, pinnacle, we have, uh, 150 Pinnacle Business Guides, uh, around the country. Uh, one of the things that makes Pinnacle unique is it's invitation only. These are, all of us are people that have owned businesses, run businesses. Uh, many have exited businesses and exited them well.

Uh, many have exited them poorly and learned some valuable lessons. Mm-hmm. So we all have some, uh, interesting experiences, but Pinnacle is really a, uh. An organization that I would say is a little bit bespoke because we're, we are, uh, taking the best of what's out there and putting it into a framework, I like to say, the right tool for the right problem at the right time for that particular business.

Mm-hmm. Um, all business owners like to think they're a little bit different and, uh, in some ways they are. Uh, but at the end of the day, uh, we all do the same thing. We get work, we do work, and we get paid. And so if we can think a business that way, organize around that, uh, things happen to go much, [00:08:00] much better.

And, um, and we get there. So Pinnacle, uh, brings to bear over a hundred different tools. And again, it is a framework. We work on strategy and people, uh, people first we believe in, uh, purpose that you gotta have that culture and all these things, by the way. All tie into driving business value, right? Yeah. Uh, a great culture results in, in highly engaged employees, which results in highly satisfied customers, which results in a nicely performing organization.

Mm-hmm. Uh, we focus on playbooks, uh, which is what we're talking about today. That is a very significant piece of what truly makes a business turnkey, to use that phrase. Mm-hmm. Um, and then we focus on measuring performance. You know, what are the, the, the vital few KPIs that you need to have that, that drive your business.

And of course, we believe that results not only in better profits, but a better multiple if you decide to sell in the marketplace.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, it makes sense. And then if we could, um, spend a little bit of time on, on [00:09:00] playbooks, what exactly is a playbook? What, what's different between a playbook and maybe a, an SOPA standard operating procedure or, or a quote unquote system?

Same thing, different name or, or what are some of the nuances around what a playbook is?

Craig Hutson: Yeah, it's, it, it can be the same thing with a different name, that that's part of the problem. Uh, if I pulled you aside and I said, Hey, describe what an SOP is to you. Mm-hmm. And I grabbed another business owner and said, what's an SOP to you?

Uh, you might show me your 45 volumes of three ring binders down to very finite detail of every single thing that you do, and every possible task that that can be done. Uh, the other person's gonna gimme a checklist. And say, we just make sure we do these things for this function. Um mm-hmm. We don't really prescribe a specific how, but we know the whats and we know the order of the whats.

And if we get that done, we, we know we're doing well. So, uh, the biggest thing about a playbook is it's the thing that makes you consistent. It makes [00:10:00] it repeatable, it makes it scalable. Uh, it does everything good for a business regardless of how you do it. I, I would say the one cautionary note that I have, I lean more towards, um, just from a lot of experience, I lean more towards the checklist version than I do three or four levels of detailed SOPs.

Yeah. And for all of our Myers-Briggs and disc people. And, um mm-hmm. Performance index people out there, their personality index, there's uh, uh, those, those high Cs, those high, uh, compliance people kinda shutter at that, uh, because they wanna dot every I and cross every t. But the most important thing is that you're doing the right thing at the right time and order.

Yeah. And that it's, it's repeatable and that itself is something that buyers look for. Mm-hmm. Uh, think of McDonald's and Hamburger University. You know, highly scalable. There's a process. They repeat that [00:11:00] process every time they open up a McDonald's. The whether you like McDonald's or not, I'm not advocating McDonald's.

You can use Chick-fil-A, you can use whatever your favorite one is. But any franchise organization has a standard playbook and they're able to replicate that in any geographical area.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, it makes sense. And I think what happens to, and I'll speak to chiropractors, but I guess business owners in general, is they hear standard operating procedures or, or manuals or, or, uh, you know, systems and, and they do think, oh my God, like I don't want to write a 500 page book on our standard operating procedures.

Right? Like, it's just so daunting. They never. Kind of cross that chasm. And I think what's great about the playbook is it, it, it really takes it down to a digestible way of actually having. This for your business. And, and I'll give an example. It's like you could have a, a patient experience playbook, you know, and it, it doesn't have to be this 20 page document out writing out a, a, a novel on what your [00:12:00] patient experience is.

It could be, you know, here's, uh, when patient calls the office, this is our, how we answer the phone, uh, when Pat, you know, then we send them the online forms and like just kind of boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, going down that list and then, okay. And you would have maybe. Different phases of that patient experience.

Like, okay, when they're scheduling their appointment versus okay, their first visit, what's the playbook on that first visit? And again, it doesn't have to be this long thing, but it could say, okay, stand up and greet the patient by their first name and get their insurance card and driver's license. You know, just really nice concise thing that a person could, could follow.

And that's what I. I took from reading about the playbook and then obviously mm-hmm. Um, getting a note a little bit. Is that accurate when I say it? Kind of like on a, if, if you were to apply this to say a patient experience Yeah.

Craig Hutson: Right. On the money there, there's the, the two most important playbooks, I think are exactly that client or customer experience and employee experience.

So what's that employee experience from the time they apply for a [00:13:00] job? They go through an interview process. Mm-hmm. They're accepted. An offer's made, they say yes. What happens, what does it look like on my first day of work? Uh, is it, here's your desk. Have a nice day, uh, figure this out. Or do you have a really nice robust onboarding process that makes it easy for them to get, uh, integrated into the culture, introduced to people, feel like they're part of the team, and be a highly engaged, uh, participant in the organization?

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. I love that. And I think it's, um, I think the other thing that I've noticed in our profession is people get concerned about cookie cutter systems, right? It's like, and I, and there's been some coaching programs out there historically where it's like, okay, you sign up for their program and you get this massive, like eight binder volume set of, of all of.

Their systems that they're saying, you should just do this. Right? And it's, it's a little bit too cookie cutter. Um, you see that happening often in, in companies and it's, and it's just really almost there. They're, they're kind of going through the motions, but they're not really [00:14:00] applying any of it. But then they're saying, oh, I've got, I've got these binders of systems, but they're, they're like 400 other dry cleaning offices are using the same one, right?

Craig Hutson: Yeah. We call that bookshelf jewelry. Um, so it just kinda sits there. I, I think there's two aspects of that. There's, uh, there is that overzealous person. That creates the, like you said, you know, it's this 500 page document, um, and you're really creating failure for yourself. You become your own worst enemy because one, nobody can find anything in that document.

It's usually not well indexed, um, not well organized typically. I mean, there's somebody out there always that can say, wait, wait, wait, look at mine. Uh, but that is the exception, right? That's not the rule. And in addition to that, um, people just don't look at it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Craig Hutson: It's like, I don't have time for that. So Kevin, tell me what I'm supposed to do.

Mm-hmm. And you and I work together and you tell me what to do.

That may not be right. Uh, but it's the way you learned it and you learned it from somebody else who learned it from somebody [00:15:00] else. And so that's the system that gets put in place. And what is, what gets perpetuated by, uh, just proximity mm-hmm. To somebody else in the office that you asked the question to.

Nobody's looking at. A big SOP binder set of binders. Mm-hmm. Um, the other aspect of it when it comes to the program or the toolbox, I'll say

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: Is that there, there are some really good systems that are out there. Um, and every one of them has some really good traits. Every one of them has some flaws as well.

Mm-hmm. Um, the, the downside comes when you have a limited set of tools. You're trying to force yourself through a tool because you have a tool.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Craig Hutson: Or because you have something that somebody showed you to do, but it doesn't quite fit and it doesn't quite work. So you're trying to push the proverbial, you know, square peg through a round hole.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: Um, and it doesn't work without a lot of damage to the square peg, um, or [00:16:00] to the whole in the, in the board. So, uh, being able to customize

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: Every single client's needs, um, and meet them where they are, I think is the most powerful thing anybody can do.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, I think that's, that's great. And I know one of the things that, that I've done, I've, I've, um, built out some playbooks, you know, like say a front desk playbook and, and you can, you can tell me if I'm wrong and, and how we've done this, but, um, you know, we've used say a Google document and then, um.

If something says, you know, reference X, y, z, it would link to maybe a little training video on there. Mm-hmm. So if, uh, you know, front desk playbook and let's say we Okay, reference the how to, how to answer the phone appropriately, then it could go to an audio of that or, or a video of it, or even just a written out script to it to where you're not making that playbook really dense and confusing.

But if someone does need to. Reference something. You have it there. Is, is that a, a [00:17:00] decent way of doing it?

Craig Hutson: It is, it is. And I'm a big fan of video as well. Mm-hmm. Um, in addition to documents, with links, like you said, could be to a video, uh, there's some great platforms out there. I happen to personally use one called Vid Guide, uh, because it integrates to anything that you have with Chrome or, uh, any other web browser.

Um, and it's very situational specific. So if you have somebody in bookkeeping that needs to send an invoice out mm-hmm. And for, as an example, with a lot of smaller companies, they might use QuickBooks. So I'm, I'm not choosing any one over the other, just using that as a common example. Mm-hmm. Um, how do I issue an invoice in QuickBooks?

Well, with a vid guide, you actually video that particular activity. You could do voiceover, you could do just screenshots, however you wanna do it. Uh, but it comes up when the person is on that page in that, um, application. Mm-hmm. So it's very specific. To that particular action. In other words, that video never [00:18:00] shows up anywhere else to confuse people and they don't have to worry about where to go find it.

It pops up when they need it. They watch a two minute video and Oh, I got it. Mm-hmm. The reason I like that is I could describe to you what to do. Yeah. And I'm gonna invariably leave something out.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: And when you watch the video, you're gonna see me check a box that I didn't mention. And you go, oh my gosh, I forgot to check the box.

I didn't even know that box was there. You never said anything about that box. But in the video I see it and I see you do it. Uh, so it just really accelerates everything. And then, then what you wanna do is have your team start creating those videos. Anytime there's, there's a change for the other team. So the best way to learn something is to teach it to somebody else.

And now they have full ownership. And again, this is owner independence, right? This is you separating yourself from having to do the day-to-day stuff. And your team's taking ownership. No, I love it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And I think an, another tool that may be a very similar one is Loom. LOOM might be like that. Um, yeah, [00:19:00] we've used that.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. Very similar. The, um, the, again, I, I'm just, I'm not pushing vid guide, I'm just saying No. Yeah. I'm just getting the, the reason I use that, I like that, and I've, I've had my clients just create nightmares based on my recommendation mm-hmm. Of videotaping stuff, because then it's, where do I put the files?

How do I index the files? How do people find them when they need them? Mm-hmm. And, um, you can create Frankenstein if you're not careful. So, uh, using something like Vid Guide, again, I, there's other platforms out there, uh mm-hmm. That you can Google and check out Yeah. That do these things. And so it's already indexed for you.

You don't have to worry about that. And nobody has to worry about where they go find it. That the, anything that you can do to make it easy on your team. Mm-hmm. Uh, I think is a win.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It is. And, uh, another resource for people is, uh, you can go to Scribe how, uh, mm-hmm. I think it's dot com. I don't think it's dot org.

I think it's dot com. And it's pretty interesting. Uh, if you were doing [00:20:00] what you just mentioned, let's say you're on your computer screen and you, you click through all these different things showing how to, to do payroll or whatever, um, it actually generates a PDF. Uh, in other documents, but A PDF with, uh, written and then screenshots of you, like, okay, clicking that button.

And so now you also have a PDF version of exactly what you did on your computer screen to pair with that video. And then you could obviously have that Yeah. Uh, stored. Now is there a particular, um, platform you use to. To store all these things or do you, I know there's certain things out there, or do you use Google Drive or anything?

Any uh, words of wisdom there?

Craig Hutson: Yeah, there's so many, so many different things. So many, right. There's, uh, uh, and so again, without overly disrupting an organization mm-hmm. Use what works for them. So if they're Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive, use that. Mm-hmm. If they're OneDrive and Microsoft and teams use that.

Mm-hmm. [00:21:00] You know, if you're a Dropbox, use that. Uh, there's so many things that are out there. Train is, uh. Is an organization that has a place for playbooks and all the things we've just talked about. They consolidate, that, have training, and have a platform. So there's, there's again, so many different ways to do it.

It's finding the thing that is the path of least resistance for your team, and oftentimes that's the least amount of change. Possible. Uh, so that adaptability is high. Yeah. Or yeah. I think that's, that's,

Dr. Kevin Christie: that's such a good wisdom there. And because I think sometimes we go into things with best intentions and we, we sign up for Process Street Orran or something, and then mm-hmm.

You know, you're paying X amount of money a month, but you, you just don't ever really. You know, put the time into really using it. What, for what it's worth, it's kind of like if you were a, uh, you know, a $500,000 a year business, signing up for Salesforce may not be the, the wisest thing for [00:22:00] you, because you just may not have the bandwidth to actually learn how to use it.

For what it costs, right? Yeah. I've talked to organizations that have rolled out, uh, a platform like Salesforce and it's amazing, but you better be willing to invest some time and money and coaching almost on just that thing alone, right? Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. It's sometimes you gotta have. What's the least resistance?

And if, you know, if you're a smaller or a moderate size chiropractic practice, you know, Google Drive might be good. I mean, even on our, on our, uh, coaching side of things, we've, um, you know, we have a lot of content, a lot of, uh, coaching calls and we, I. I put together these little lesson packs for our clients.

Like, look, tell me what, what's your biggest problem? Is it, uh, burnout right now? Okay. I got a little pack I put together of four lessons or things we've done in the past that, uh, that tackle that thing, and then they, it's a document they get click on. It goes right to the video or the lessons within. It's all done in Google Drive and it's, it's kind of amazing what you can do with that.

And I, I envision [00:23:00] that with chiropractic practices and, and playbooks.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. And the, the nice thing about any of those, those platforms like that Google Drive or, or Dropbox or anything like that, is their platform independent. So if somebody's on Mac in one place and somebody's on PCs in another place, it doesn't matter.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and you can collaborate there. There's some, you can, you can control access to documents if somebody can edit or just view and, uh, it, it's a, it's a really powerful. Yeah. Powerful place, uh, to collaborate for sure. Yeah. So I think, you know, first of all, uh, why playbooks? I mean mm-hmm. Some people out there are probably listening to this going, I hate playbooks.

I've tried it before, it didn't work. Mm-hmm. Why do I even care about this? I mean, number one, especially for smaller companies, is they need to understand that the playbooks are gonna fuel growth for them. Uh, and it's like, well, Craig, how does a playbook fuel growth? Well, number one, uh, you have consistency and we [00:24:00] know mm-hmm.

Things done over time consistently compound, right? Yeah. So you get repeatability. Repeatability leads to scalability. Much faster onboarding and training. Mm-hmm. Uh, there's not a business owner out there that hasn't spent a ton of time and effort, sometimes a lot of money training an employee. Mm-hmm. And, um, and, and this turns into a key employee that you're relying on and that employee leaves.

You're like, oh my gosh, I gotta do this all over again. That's a very painful experience. It's not just expensive dollar wise.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah.

Craig Hutson: Uh, but just the time and the investment and the loss of productivity in the office is incredible. Uh, but if you have playbooks, it's super easy to onboard the next person because it's easy for them if the playbooks are well done to figure out exactly what to do.

So it speeds that process up. Well, and by the way, um, a lot of people will say, well, why train them? You know, what happens if you train them and they leave? And well, what happens if you don't train them and they stay? Yes. That's one of my favorite. That's, [00:25:00] that's even worse, right? It's way worse. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, so we do wanna train them, but this, this makes it, um mm-hmm.

Good. And then it's a way of replicating success. Right? How, how do the big companies do it? Right? The Fortune 500 companies and people like this, if, you know, they'll hire a large consulting house mm-hmm. And that, and they'll say, Hey, we need to improve productivity in an area or whatever. One of the things that most consulting houses will do is they'll come in and say, well, who are your best people?

And you'll say, oh, you know, Kevin's amazing. Okay, well, let's go look at Kevin and we're gonna watch what Kevin does, and we're gonna sit with Kevin. We're gonna interview Kevin. We're gonna see what his process is, and basically I'm oversimplifying it. So if you're out there and you're a consultant, just don't take this deal.

My name is Craig and I'm your friend. Uh, but what they're gonna do is they're gonna say, here's what Kevin does. Go have everybody else do what Kevin does.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: Uh, but they'll have documented it and they'll [00:26:00] have written up a profile. And this is what. What it looks like to be Kevin. And you're not trying to create clones.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: Right? You're, you're trying to create, uh, repeatable excellence and, and staff your team with a players. Mm-hmm. Uh, I like to say that a players are free. Because one A players can outperform three B players every single time, and their, their increase in productivity is gonna more than make up for the salary that you're paying them.

Uh, so sometimes you do pay more. Mm-hmm. But, but you need fewer of those people when you're hiring the very best people that are out there or training up the best people. Um, the second thing it does is this has a direct tie to your business value.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yes.

Craig Hutson: Right. So first it fuels growth and success, but the second thing it does, it helps you maximize your business value.

So back to our initial discussion, you know, how much is a business worth and, um, it could be worth, especially a smaller [00:27:00] company. Mm-hmm. Uh, it's gonna be some multiple of. Probably a smaller company that talk about sellers discretionary earnings. Mm-hmm. As opposed to ebitda. They're gonna be maybe a, a small multiple on revenue.

Uh, but some numbers, somebody's usually buying that business to expand their reach in a demographic market. Right. Or, or they're hiring your staff. Right. They, they want access to your staff and, and to your customers. Uh, so that would be a reason to do that. But it's transferable knowledge. Mm-hmm. It's owner independence.

Um, not that the owner is independent financially. Mm-hmm. Which is what we want, but the business is independent of the owner. Yeah. Uh, in other words, if you're out for three months, the business continues to run without, without interruption. Mm-hmm. Um, it reduces over dependency on that key employee, right?

Yes. So one person who has a secret sauce in their head mm-hmm. And they've never shared it with anybody and nobody knows what they do, nobody knows how they do it, and something happens to that person or that [00:28:00] person leaves. Mm-hmm. Um. Everybody's left scratching their head, trying to figure out how do we get there.

So that's important. And then, mm-hmm. Efficiency, right? It's operational efficiency. Again, you're just, it's repeatable, it's scalable. Um, and one thing about that is, um, which ties to the next point, which is improving cus or employee engagement, is a lot of people think. That. Uh, and here's this is entrepreneurs, right?

So most of us entrepreneurs live by the phrase, you are not the boss of me, right? Mm-hmm. So we don't wanna work for somebody else. We wanna have our own business, and there's a certain freedom in that. And we feel like this could sound a lot like rules and constraints and. This, this, I don't like this feeling.

It's kinda like making me feel claustrophobic. Uh, but the reality is, uh, in a way it's a lot like ai. If AI is used properly, what it does is it frees people up [00:29:00] to focus more on revenue generating activities mm-hmm. Than doing stupid administrative things. Right, and trying to figure stuff out because there is no clear process and I'm wasting so much time.

And if only I had known that all I had to do is X, Y, Z, I could have been done with this an hour and a half ago. Mm-hmm. And then that hour and a half gets freed up to focus on those revenue generating activities, which could include client experience. I can spend, instead of having my head down, typing away at my computer when somebody walks into the reception area mm-hmm.

I've got time to stand up, greet them by name with a smile. Ask them if they want a glass of water, a cup of coffee. You know, make them feel really welcome. Make them feel really special. Like I see you, I acknowledge you. Uh, you're not an interruption to my day as I'm typing away at my computer and barely noticing you out of the corner of my eye.

Uh, so it does really have a positive effect on the business by freeing people up instead of constraining people. So just throwing that out [00:30:00] there. For all the entrepreneurs out there that feel like rules are a bad thing, it, it's not about that. Yep. When employees have clarity and confidence, it frees them up and empowers them in their decision making.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: In, in crazy ways. Uh, it's, it's really amazing to see what people can do when they step up into. A more productive space because they're not bogged down with all this other stuff. The second thing is it empowers 'em, which we just said, and it's an opportunity for professional development. If I have playbooks, uh, throughout my organization, I can begin to rotate those people that I see as emerging leaders.

Uh, somebody that's gonna rise up, I can start to move them from place to place, and they can get a broader experience. Uh, in your case, they might get a broader experience of the practice. What, what does it look like? Not just to do this one job in a practice, but what does it look like overall to run a practice?

And maybe you're developing an office manager all of a sudden. Mm-hmm. Uh, who could take a huge burden [00:31:00] off of you to free you up to do the things that, that you wanna do and that you do best. And then lastly, it reduces turnover. One of the biggest things is, uh, your onboarding success. You know, what does that experience look like?

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: I, it's one of the things that companies do very poorly, especially small companies. 'cause everybody's busy. Mm-hmm. And nobody has time. So we, we throw you into the mix. You're in the deep end of the pool. We hope you survive. We don't really spend a lot of time with you. Uh, maybe we do lunch with you the first day.

Uh, maybe we walk you around the office, introduce you to everybody. Uh, but we don't really get to know you. We don't spend a lot of time with you because, hey, you know what? The building's on fire. It's crazy. We need your help. Just jump in and do this. Uh, we'll talk next week and next week never comes, right?

Mm-hmm. So, uh, that's a big one, the cultural alignment. Uh, there's a old phrase from Peter Drucker. Um, culture eats strategy for lunch. Uh, and it really [00:32:00] does, right? So we wanna be intentional about the culture that we have in our office, which our clients feel. Mm-hmm. Right? Part of that client experience.

They understand what it, what does it look like when I walk into your reception area? Yeah. Is everything cluttered? Is it messy? Are the floors dirty? You know, are the restrooms dirty? Is is, is it dead quiet? There's no music playing. Um, you know, just. The smells, the, the paint colors that like, like there's this whole experience that, that you're in and that's part of culture.

Mm-hmm. How people treat each other is part of culture, how we show up, do we dress professionally? Um, how do we work, how do we support each other? Mm-hmm. Do we collaborate? Are we a bunch of independent people? So it really helps cultural alignment. And I think one of the biggest things is, uh, ties, it kind of weaves through this whole thing, is it really reduces frustration.

Yeah. And, um. If I'm not frustrated and I enjoy coming to work and it's a great place to be, mm-hmm. Then I'm highly engaged. And we know from Gallup and decades of [00:33:00] research that highly engaged employees, those businesses perform in the top quartile of all businesses. And there's huge differences in profitability and revenue and growth and satisfaction and client satisfaction.

Like all the dials go the right direction. Uh, when you have an engaged team.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Well, yeah, there's a few touch things I wanna touch on there and, and I'll start right, what you just talked about hiring. It's, it's fascinating 'cause a lot of people will complain. It's like, oh, I, you know, I, I keep on hiring the wrong people.

And, and that could be, you know, if you don't have a playbook for hiring, that could be a, a legitimate thing. Uh, maybe your talent acquisition is off. I, I, I kind of look at it four phases of, of really having an a. Player, and obviously talent acquisition is one. I think hiring a really good hiring process is two and onboarding is three, and then a continual training is, is four.

But a lot of times people might have hired the right person. It wasn't a hiring problem, they just had a severe onboarding issue and, and mm-hmm. Like you just said, and, and so you had no strategy to onboard this person. And they came [00:34:00] into a in chaos and said like, I don't wanna work here. Some of these.

Especially these chiropractic clinics can be really busy and, and, uh, if they just get thrown into the fire, you might burn them out quickly and say they can't imagine being there for a year, five years. Yeah. Let alone another week. Uh, so people gotta, gotta really get clear on, on that part of it. The other thing I wanted to mention is we had a couple.

We had a kinda a real life scenario with how important a PLA playbook can be. Is, is our front desk slash practice manager. She went on, uh, maternity leave for her first, uh, child. And, but you know, obviously the good thing about, uh. Maternity leave is, you have quite a few months to prepare for it, right?

Mm-hmm. It's not like someone leaving, uh, putting in their two weeks notice. Like we, you know, we had a good six months and, and over that six months we built out a really good playbook for that front desk and all the tasks, and we were during her few months of, of not being with us. Um. And we, we had two to three interns [00:35:00] with us during that period of time, and they kind of covered doing the front desk and they had this, um, playbook on, on all the things to do and 'cause it was really important to us, uh, especially the first, uh, couple months of her maternity leave was not to reach out to her about work related stuff.

Right. Really wanted to, um. You know, protect her, her, her maternity leave there in that, in that regard. Yeah. And, and it really worked out. And so you might have situations like that where, um, it's important and you may not always have, 'cause I, I'll be honest, we didn't have an updated playbook for the front desk until that, but we were blessed with the, you know, six months of, uh, or maybe even seven months before she was on maternity leave.

So that was pretty cool to see how that did work.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. Yeah. That, and that is a great point. And, you know, um. And even now with paternity leave too, right? So mm-hmm. Uh, it's not always the the person you expect to be gone. It's other people that are gone and now Yeah. Uh, having, [00:36:00] again, you get some notice, which is great.

Mm-hmm. Uh, but you have to do something as you did proactively with that notice. Yeah. What a lot of people do is say, oh good, I've got time. Uh, and they forget about it until that person walks out the door and it's like, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? Uh, write down everything that you're doing. Uh, you know, and, and oftentimes they will.

I mean, a conscientious, uh, employee's gonna write everything. Here's what I'm doing, here's what needs to be done, and all that kinda stuff. But sometimes it's very clear in their mind.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: What they wrote down. But somebody reading it for the first time doesn't understand it. Yeah. And so that person's gonna get a lot of calls at home.

Mm-hmm. Uh, hey, I know you're on maternity leave. I'm really sorry we're, you know, I just have a couple quick questions for you. Is it okay? You know, uh, but having that time ahead and being intentional about it mm-hmm. And documenting what they're doing. And,

Dr. Kevin Christie: and it can be simple too, right? Like an, an example, like one thing that might be on our particular front desk [00:37:00] is, um, is we use a, a software called cash practice Systems for our merchant processing and, and such.

And, uh, on there just needs to be, okay, here's a, a tutorial on that and here's our main contact person from that company. 'cause most of these types of, whether it's your EHR or whatever, has a a point of contact. And so yeah, that's our resources, if any, if. If shit, it's the fan. We have someone to, to talk to.

Outsource there, right? Yeah. Uh, ed, I I wanted to touch on one more thing. You mentioned about like, obviously the sellability of a practice and the value of a practice, and that's one thing that we've tried to also convey to chiropractors is, is, is our company, m mc m if we've developed like a playbook of marketing that we actually do for chiropractors and, um, and I've actually, I've actually asked that question to, uh, crystal Meisenheimer, uh, she owns a.

A, a practice sales company, uh, for chiropractors, uh, particularly, and, and asked her that question. I was like, look, does a practice that has consistent and historical marketing being done over time, does it increase the [00:38:00] value? She said, of course, yes. You know, people want to buy something that has had marketing being done consistently for, for a long time.

And, and so marketing would be a playbook that your practice needs to have. Mm-hmm. And if you can have that done consistently, not only is it gonna. Uh, drive practice, it's going to increase the value because it's like you are now a practice as fully developed marketing and been going on for some time, and it's been, um, adding value to your practice.

And so that's another example of a playbook that would be need to be done consistently for a practice that would obviously drive results currently while you own it, but also again, make it more, um, sellable.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. Ab a hundred percent. And, uh, you know, and what is the process? What's the sales playbook? So marketing generates the interest, generates the lead that turns into a contact with the, with the practice.

How does that practice turn that into an actual visit? Mm-hmm. Um, and then how do you turn that visit into hopefully a, a long-term [00:39:00] client, right? Yeah. So, uh, that, that's all the kind of things people are gonna look at is what is your, you know, what's your customer demographic? Um. And I don't mean that financially or anything else, but how many clients do you have?

What percentage of of your revenue is tied to a smaller portion of clients versus more? Obviously, the more diverse you you are, the more valuable the company is. Um, anybody that's tied to one particular client, right. You you'd like to say that? Uh, a, a person who's in the, uh, process of looking for a company to buy.

Never wants to see customer concentration greater than 15%. Um, now in, in a medical practice or a chiropractic practice or mm-hmm. Some of these others, uh, that are, that are B2C directly, you know, going to a customer, you have a bunch of individual clients, right. You might have a hundred clients. I don't know how much the average practice has, but

Dr. Kevin Christie: mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: You have a lot of different ones, so you don't have to worry about that. Um, only [00:40:00] when you're small and starting out. You know, don't get over reliant on mm-hmm. One or two key people, but also on suppliers, you know, key suppliers. We learned the hard way. A lot of companies learned the hard way through covid.

That when the supply chain is disrupted significantly, and you're overreliant on one or two key suppliers that can have tragic consequences for your business. Yep. Yep. Right? Abs and then they're, they're looking for overreliance on one or two key employees. Right? So this whole overreliance thing, uh, is a, is a big deterrent.

Well. I'll give you an

Dr. Kevin Christie: example of over reliance on, on a chiropractic practices. Some practices are over reliant on that owner doctor's relationship, like personality and, and some of the referrals to that particular doctor. And it's not a diversified, uh, referral source of new patients. And so if you go to sell, too much of that business is gonna leave and that can decrease the, the value.

And that's something that we, we always know of for sure.

Craig Hutson: [00:41:00] Absolutely. And, uh, having, you know, having, uh, that culture mm-hmm. That client experience mm-hmm. Yeah. Having a, a client experience that is top shelf independent of the doctor.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Mm-hmm.

Craig Hutson: Yeah. Right. Or doctors. Right. Um, and, and even slowly bringing additional doctors on.

Yep. So that. There's less and less and you're able to hand off patients over time. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And we could do a whole part two on that.

A lot of chiropractors, I try to explain why it's so important to have really good profit margins and be able to hire other team members is because ultimately that's how you're gonna have something that is, is sellable. Um, but, uh, Craig, this has been fantastic. Uh, I really appreciate the wisdom on, on playbooks.

Uh, I hope, um, this kind of kick starts some folks and realize they need to build a, an actual business and they can still be a great doctor. Uh, there's always a misconception. It's you can't be a great doctor and a great business person. That is false, and there's certain things you can do that [00:42:00] are, uh, going to help you in that.

But how can they find out more about what you do and, and your coaching and different things that you offer?

Craig Hutson: Yeah. Thank you Kevin. I would say, uh, the easiest thing to do is to, to visit, uh, my website, which is summit achievers plural, summit achievers.com, or they can, uh, look for me on LinkedIn and it's just Craig Huston, H-U-S-T-O-N.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. And I'll put that in the show notes, and I really appreciate your time today.

Craig Hutson: All right. Thank you so much.