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You want to hire an associate, but maybe you’ve had a bad experience before. And it left a bad taste in your mouth, or this is your first time hiring and you’re nervous about it. So you’re nervous if it you’ll find the right fit or if especially someone who would be. Upholding the reputation of your practice or how could you actually afford them?
These are some of your concerns and this is Chen Yen, six and seven figure practice make-over mentor@introvertedvisionary.com. Your host of the ChiroSecure show today. And when you’ve reached this level of success in your practice, it’s natural to then only be able to have to pass your face.
One is working longer hours just to be able to fit patients in. Two is to have a different way of helping people beyond just yourself. Meaning that you’re not the only one treating patients. You’re not the only one doing admin kinds of things, because you’re wearing too many hats in the practice.
When it be nice. If you were able to reach more people, help more people know that your patients are taken care of, and then you also have money coming in when you’re not there. So let’s talk today about hiring the right associate in this job market. I’m going to talk about the two types of associates that you may not have really thought of before.
We’re also going to look at the biggest mistakes. A lot of chiropractors make. Looking for and hiring an associate, also answering some of your biggest questions related to pay, and then help you take this further as well with being able to attract and find the right. For your practice so that you’re able to take some of the load off your shoulders and help people.
So in terms of what are the two types of associates, this ties in to one of the biggest mistakes, a lot of chiropractors make when wanting to hire an associate is to mainly just think of perhaps what. You are used to wanting, which is the entrepreneurial mindset and hoping that someone will just show up, they will also be able to market for you.
And and then they see patients for you too when not just the amazing, and so the thing is that is actually one type of an associates. It’s the type of associate who is entrepreneurial minded and they are go getters in the sense that they also have a desire to share more about the practice with other people, maybe even doing, do some different kind of outreach for your practice.
And but the drawback of that is that for one you when I say drawback, I need a mistake that a lot of chiropractors make is just hoping for that, to be the case. When the large majority of chiropractors out there who are associates aren’t in that entrepreneurial type category.
So there’s this much smaller percentage, maybe about like 15%, right? All chiropractors who want to be associates are in the entrepreneurial hat. Situation. The other type of an associate is someone who just wants to see patients and who just wants to show up and be the doctor. And so that kind of a chiropractor just wants to be busy consistently.
Ideally they just want to be able to show up and then see patients. I think they don’t, that’s part of the attraction of coming to your practice because otherwise they might as well just open up a practice to themselves. And and so the reason I bring up these two types of associates is that when you are clear that there, for example, this is really, I would say at least over 85% of most chiropractic associates are in this bucket.
So when you’re clear that there are these two types of associates, Then when you assess the candidates, you are able to make decisions about how best to, for example, structure their pay. Cause that’s another big question I often get and also motivate them because they’re motivated by very different things.
And so let’s talk a little bit about the three steps to. Being able to hire the right associate in this job market. And step one is to attract. And in this particular job I get right now, I would say that there are there are certainly docs who are out there and don’t want to have the burden of Paying rent owning their own practice, having to pay other people, having to find patients themselves.
So it’s actually a good kind of a scenario, especially with what’s happened in the last couple of years then too. Attract chiropractors who might have more of an interest in that than before, or some chiropractors are also have had experiences, tough experiences with having had their own practice in, and then it tanked during whatever happened, was happening in the last couple of years.
And so now there’s even more of a pool of those chiropractors to choose from as associates. So that’s a really great news. The but then how do you actually attract the right one for your practice is the question. And so there are three steps. So first step is to attract. The second step is to screen.
So cause, cause in terms of attracting, right? It’s like one of the questions that I often get as well. How do I actually Find the right person for my practice that I can really trust. And then as it relates to, and especially someone who will stay and who won’t just take my patients and leave.
Have you ever had that concern before if you’ve had that concern go ahead and type in the chat? Yes or no. And then The, so what can you do about this? So here are a couple of things to keep in mind. One is that if you’re afraid of that, The truth is you can never really guarantee anything. Can you?
So when can open up down the streets and they, they can end up being your competitor, but then if you were so afraid of that then it could hold you back from growing. You can you’re, you might, you’ll be continued to be limited by the number of hours you have in a day. And there’s only so much of you to go around and only so much time.
And then I, if you are actually not adding on other associates or help, you’re going to get burnt out or you’re just going to hit a plateau and then you have to turn people away. But there are a lot of people right now who could benefit from your practice. So then another thing is to look at well, how could you create a culture in your practice that people would just want to come to your clinic so that it doesn’t even matter if one of your chiropractor associates goes down the street and opens up a practice, their own patients, like the culture of your practice, what are you doing to differentiate your.
Aside from other chiropractic practices. I know one very common kind of thing that chiropractors might say is oh but I, he says, do this technique or I’m this kind of practice but how is that truly that much more unique than a practice down the street. And how are you clearly communicating that?
So people just feel like this is a place I want to go to now one way to. Navigate, what if the, like to decrease the chances of at the level of impact, if a chiropractor ends up working with you and then leaving is also in addition to it? Yeah it would be that’s it’s to have the culture in your clinic of where patients don’t expect to just see.
One particular chiropractor and that’s it. For example, the chiropractic practice that I go to there are two chiropractors there and they, the expectations were set very early on, even with the first visit and even with the first phone call that you’ll end up seeing who is available within the practice during the time of when your schedule is and when the doctor’s in there that they’re both great.
So for myself, for example, I, although I’ve only seen one of the chiropractors there, I have that in the back of my mind as an expectation and it doesn’t bother me. So what kind of expectations are you setting for the practice? And of course, that is tied into your own practice philosophy of how.
The practice to run because one, one positive aspect of that is also the team approach of treating a patient where maybe another doc in the practice will see something about clinically about that patient, that another doctor didn’t really notice as much or, so it’s actually a nice thing for the patients too.
And so that’s one, one way to lessen the impact. Also have a a, an assessment. Perhaps leading down the road. So circling back to this with attracting, right? So the, we talked about the two types of associates and how important it is to know that what type of associate that if you’re interviewing what kind of a candidate they might actually be, because they will say different things, they will have different motivators.
And one mistake is. Mainly only like wanting to attract the entrepreneurial type, but then I, not really thinking about how a lot of the chiropractors, it prefer more of wanting to be just seeing patients. And so then there’s this disconnect of expectations and then and disappointment, perhaps even from both sides.
So the first step is to get really clear about what you prefer. And in terms of what kind of a doctor are you looking for? What are the qualities that are important to you? What are their values? They’re all kinds of things to think about that many times. I see a lot of chiropractors who are hiring end up doing this from a place of just, oh, I really need some help.
And even if they write up a job description it isn’t thought through in the way that that can really make a difference in attracting. Higher for your practice. So that’s the step one is getting crystal clear about that. And then the other piece tied to the attract step as well, is that the, you might be wondering about the.
So I promised I would talk about the case today. So the pay also is something that depends on what type of an associate doctor that person is, whether they’re entrepreneurial or whether they just want to show up and see patients. Because they, someone who just wants to show up and see patients typically likes stability.
And so they just want consistent income so that the compensation structure for someone like that is very different than someone who is more entrepreneurial mindset. Why is it what I’m talking about is you may want, just want to give a set salary, for example, when maybe with some kind of bonuses, but it’s like the most of their salary is based on.
Just so that they would feel secure with that kind of a pay in, and then the entrepreneurial kind of a mindset type of candidate you’re looking at, then you could be looking at perhaps giving where the base is lower, but then there is a bigger incentive for and involvement with bring on patients and new patients as well.
That informs how you would make the decision with the pay. And it’s one of those things where it’s not always totally equal who the people are motivated in different ways. And in terms of just how much pay exactly. In terms of within the profession, it would be nice to be paying your doctors.
For example, if it’s a salary like 80,000 a year, or even a hundred thousand a year, And in the practice when you might think about that, you may think, oh my gosh, how can I afford that? But what, and why, w what I’ve heard in that, why don’t we just start them off more like 50,000 a year base, and then such and such the thing about it?
Is that, again it’s just this fine balance because. If you were a chiropractor and you were looking for a job, which one would you be more interested in? One that made you feel like you were respected and valued for your knowledge and expertise and where you was stable or one where you felt like you had to, you weren’t even sure if you could really.
As, especially as a doctor, right? Like you didn’t feel like you were really making the money that you should be for a doctor and then feeling a little resentful and that kind of thing. Who would you rather. Which one would get you. So situation would get you more excited about showing up for work everyday.
Probably the one where you’re getting paid more and you’re getting feeling secure and you like working at the place. But then, you think, oh my gosh, how am I going to pay that much money to an associate when I’m not sure if I can even bring in the number of patients to keep my associates.
So that is where it, it becomes helpful to have a system in place. Do you actually have a system in place that supports getting busy with patients beyond just people seeing you? And if you don’t, that might need to be the first thing you figure out before you look for an associate, you don’t have to be At that point where you are totally wiped out and burnt out, and then it’s too, then you want to hire an associate because then you’re in a position where you are desperate.
And when you’re desperate, it’s very tough to hire with with clear thinking and you may not actually attract the right. So those are a couple of considerations. And if you would like the couple of things in terms of if you need help with attracting the right patients, you can actually go to introverted, visionary.com and there, and then see how it can help you with that.
But I would also want it to give you a a. Free hiring talk kit. That ends up. Cause remember we talked about first step is attract. Second step is to screen because even if you attract hires, then you’re now you’re faced with screening. And that’s very important. Part of the process and many chiropractors makes a lot of mistakes in that part of the process.
And then end up with having a hire that is a bit of a headache or you feel like you’re not able to keep. You’re not able to. Yeah. Or maybe they, if they’re not a headache and you like them, but then you’re not able to keep them. That ties into the screen. It also ties into the onboarding side of things, which is the third step.
The third step is onboarding and keeping the Chiropractic associates. There are some key things, for example, what kinds of questions to ask that most chiropractors don’t ask in, in an initial screening process to be able to basically cut your hiring time. And. Imagine having the time it takes to hire.
And and then, so I’m going to give you the link to that. You can click on the link below in, in the, that you see right now and get that free tore kit with those exact, swipe questions that you can use to help you be able to screen the right hire. Also give you. They, what exactly you need, like the seven foot six and seven figure hiring system in terms of, I’m going to give you the framework of that.
And then also there’s a frame masterclass that I’m gonna give you access to so that you could really. No about some things that, that you just, they just don’t teach you in school. And that even a lot of chiropractic practice management trainings and things like that, don’t talk about. And yet when you have the experience of when you actually understand these things in.
When you have these structures and systems in place that support growth and support you attracting and finding the right hire, then it’s going to be a load off your shoulders. And you’re going to be so happy that you could just take off and go on vacation or spend time with your kids, or just take a break because you’ve been working so hard and then have someone be able to see patients for you.
Even when you’re not there. So with that the other thing that another question I am, so I see a question that I’m getting about the, you hire a new grad or do you hire someone more experienced? So that’s something that, that I see. And it’s also something that I get asked a lot. Like what are some considerations?
One thing to consider is that. There, if you hire a new grad, there are advantages and disadvantages and vice versa. If you end up hiring somebody who’s more experienced. So whenever you look at hiring someone who has is less experienced, one advantage is maybe you might think, oh, I’ll be able to mold them.
And another is that the. Another advantage might be that, that they have, they come with a lot of enthusiasm, right? Like fresh out of school. And of course I’m having making generalities the moment, but that’s typically what I’ve heard from chiropractors about the attraction to hire a new grad. But the disadvantages are that you might also think about what is it that it, it will take.
Likely more time to potentially train them on certain things because they just simply haven’t had that experience. So it’s just something to keep in mind. Another thing that’s tied to the new grad and experience thing too, and just reminds me of something else as you’re looking at who to attract and how to attract the right hire.
Have you ever thought about what your exit strategy. Have you ever thought about what your exit strategy is? Meaning once you are finished with a practice, are you planning on selling it? Are you planning on just shutting it down or what are you finding on undo? And how is that going to look? Have you ever thought about that?
Because that could also, and how many years are you until you plan to retire? Because that could also inform your decision about who you’re wanting to attract and hire, for example, in and pay them. For example, are they someone who can end up being a, like coming in. As an associate first, but with the intention of buying you out in the practice or buying, buying the practice out.
And so these are some of the considerations to be, to think about that most chiropractors don’t really think about when it feels like it’s just, okay. I just need someone to help me and make my life easier here a bit more. So hope that helps. Then I look forward to. Hearing you hearing how this goes for you.
And again, you can go to introverted visionary.com. If you’re needing help with attracting new patients, there are also some free trainings and also practical tips and templates and things like that are there that you can use to benefit your practice right away or click on the link below.
Get your free half your hiring time toolkits, save time and stress and headaches of turnover, and also hop on the free masterclass. Then I’m going to include for you so that you have the edge when you are hiring that will help you be successful with it and have a good experience and bring back more free time into your.
Imagine, bring another 20 hours back in your life. And per week, how would that feel? So with that click on the link and we’ll see you next time.