The Smart Way to Bring On a Junior Partner To Run and Grow Your Clinic - Week 1 of The Challenge

We just finished our new patient secrets episode called

“The Smart Way To Bring On Junior Partner To Run and Grow Your Clinic."

This episode was a huge hit and we got a lot of great comments

I interviewed my good friend and business partner Paul Moon. He was the co-founder with me at PT health where we grew it to 127 locations.

He has hired more than 30 junior partners to run our 127 clinics. We’ve had great experiences with hiring junior partners and some nasty ones. We’ll teach you the costly mistakes we made so you don’t make the same.

Today I’m going to condense everything we shared on the live training in this blog post.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

✔ The 6 key qualities that make up a great junior partner (including the #1 quality that most don't think about).

✔ The 90 Day Challenge: How we test out a potential junior partner so we know they’re the right fit and avoid bringing on the wrong person.

✔ Should your junior partner be a clinician, business (MBA), or office manager?  We’ll share our experience from hiring partners to run our 127 clinics.

Check out this video:

So let’s get started. First, why should you bring on a Junior Partner?

For many clinic owners, it’s because they are planning for retirement, scaling to multiple locations, or they just want more freedom. They want their clinic to run and grow without it being dependent on them being there ever again. 

For us, it was because we were growing so fast that we didn't have enough time to do everything.

Another reason we wanted to bring on a Junior partner is that we were so scared that our superstar would leave us. So we decided to make them a junior partner to keep them. We did this for many clinics. However, not all of them worked out. So understanding what makes a great junior partner is key.

Check out this swipe post to learn more:

The 6 key qualities that make up a great junior partner (including the #1 quality that most don't think about).

The #1 quality is influence.

Success is dependent on changing people’s behaviors.

The ability to influence someone’s behavior is crucial. Like getting a clinician to improve their clinical skills, getting them to use their treatment plan, getting your front desk to use phone scripts, and more.

In the beginning, I used to think that as long as they are a great clinician they will be great at influencing but that's just not true. This was a huge and costly mistake that we made and see clinic owners make all the time.

The junior partner needs to not just be able to change one person’s behavior by 80% of the staff.

The ability to change people’s behavior is what the job is about so that’s why the #1 quality that makes up a great junior partner is influence.

The next one is loyalty.

You need someone you can trust. Not just with your financials but your secret sauce. How you market, your systems, relationships you've created, all the processes you’ve perfected over the years. The reason is if you lose them and they open up a clinic down the street it's devastating.

The next quality is execution. Do they have the ability to get things done on time?

Next is persistence and work effort.

You don't want someone with high anxiety where they cave under pressure. This is a high-pressure job so they must have the ability to handle it and not cave in. They have to be able to deal with adversity.

Next is intelligence - as long as they are average or a little above average I'm good with that.

And last is clinical skills. Because they will have to teach other people to do clinical work.

Now that you understand the 6 key qualities that make up a great Junior Partner…

Here's a video to learn more about How to Choose the BEST Junior Partner For Your Clinic:

Should Your Junior Partner Be a Clinician, Business (MBA), or Office Manager?

We’ve tried them all.

You see the #1 driver of your business is your clinicians.  So we recommend based on our experience of hiring more than 30 junior partners is to put a clinician as your junior partner. 

Here’s why. Clinicians don't like hearing from nonclinicians that they need to improve their clinical skills. It's hard for a non-clinician to influence a clinician. 

I know because I’m not a clinician and it was very difficult for me to influence clinicians. I had to bring on a junior partner who was a clinician to do this for me.

But what about an MBA?

The truth is they typically come entitled and try to run a clinic using a Starbucks-type model that doesn’t work in our industry.

We’ve hired MBAs and rarely seen someone with a strong business background be able to influence clinicians.

Now let's talk about the Junior Partner Journey.

I like to think of it as a tryout for a high-level basketball team.

So we have tryouts. This is where you test them. What we do is a 90-day challenge.  If they make the team they will be in the 3rd string like an assistant clinic director. If they start improving themselves they go to 2nd string. The clinic director. Then the highest level is the first string where they become a junior partner.

The 90 Day Challenge: How we test out a potential junior partner so we know they’re the right fit and avoid bringing on the wrong person.

Here’s how the 90-day challenge works. 

I give them a very specific task that doesn't overwhelm them.  But it's going to test certain things. It's going to test their ability to work with other teammates. Can they influence other people? Both clinicians and the front desk.  Can they actually get results?

Are they measuring the right things? What's their thought process of pivoting when things aren't going right.

During this 90-day challenge, you are really testing them out to see if they would be a good fit before you ever think about signing a contract. Also, it filters out people who don’t even like the job. So many people want the title but they don't like the job. Those are the most expensive mistakes.

Here are the key components that make up a successful 90 Day Challenge:

1.) Clearly define the Objectives of this project.

For example, say we want to get 3 google reviews per week. How many hours a week do they get away from their clinical job? What is the budget you will give them?

Who is the person on their team? Maybe assign a front desk person to them and see how well they work together.

And this is important. You want to see them raw with little help from you. However, they can always ask you for advice but you're not going to try to figure it out for them. In the real world, they will have to figure it out themselves.

Then you want to measure them.

Here are some examples of a good 90-day challenge.

• Say we are at 50 Google reviews and we want to get to 75 within 3 months.
• How do we get more plan of care completions? 
• How do we set up a scoreboard for the clinic?
• Test telehealth rehab in the clinic.  
• Discharge reports. 
• Work on one new doctor relationship during the 90 days.

It needs to be something small for them to do over 90 days. Not a massive project because it will scare them away.

Then after they prove themselves in the 90-day challenge.

The next phase is 1st string the Assistant clinic director.

This is about onboarding them and training them to become the junior partner that you really want. 

I hope you enjoyed the blog post. If you found this helpful then you might be interested in the FREE Mystery Caller Audit. It’s helped hundreds of clinic owners get an extra two new patients a week without spending a dime more on marketing. Before you head off to vacation it’s important to get your call tracking metrics optimized so you’re getting the maximum number of new patients from the calls you're already getting.  

Just click here to get your FREE Mystery Caller Audit. It’s a 100% free.

Who is Rick Lau and CallHero?