The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer
Hello, everyone, and welcome again to the podcast. And I'm happy for you to get to know Paul. Right. And Paul is on the opposite side of the world for me. So, Paul, good morning to you.

Paul Wright
It's great. Great to be here. Go. I'm excited to speak to your to great audience.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes. And Paul and I met online. Paul had reached out to me to be on his his podcast, which I'll let him tell a little more about that. But Paul is I start with everyone. Why don't you tell folks a little bit about your journey and how you've landed where you landed?

Paul Wright
Kind of well, I'm small country town, Western New South Wales, Australia, was where I grew up. And in those towns, Gordon, there's no, there was no physios. There was no there was a doctor but there was a dentist. There's no one else. So what does the young kid in the country Australia in the outback, as you guys have talked about want to want to do he becomes a a physical education teacher, because I love sport and that was kind of all you did. So I went to Newcastle University and studied a physio Physical Education course. But I think like most people on this call, I think I realized pretty early, I had an entrepreneurial streak going on I didn't go and work for myself as a as a long term teacher. So I actually came across a physiotherapist at a party once and I didn't even know what a physio was going. And an old injuries, anatomy physiology, well, this is right up my alley. So I then I applied to Sydney Uni as a mature age student went to Sydney Uni, got my physio qualification. And then within the next three years I I'd really latched on to the entrepreneurial journey Gordon not open six practices in and around Sydney. My claim to fame that I got, it's interesting for you guys, I I was like most of you, I was starting early and finishing late running my practices. And there was a window Gordon, that opened onto the road. And then I could see the cars all day from my treatment cubicle. And I remember once the a basket going past, and on the side of the bus Gordon was was on the side of it was why most small businesses fail and what to do about written on the side of the bus. And I'm better now than I was then but but then the universe has Sharla told me that the universe kept sending me this message. And I was too stupid to sort of pick up the message. But now I'm getting better. So I followed the phone number that it said. And it led me to a Michael Gerber seminar, who wrote the E Myth, the read one of the original business Bibles, which then started me on my journey to get off the tools, run the businesses and run a business that generated the lifestyle that I wanted for my family. So that's how I end up with six locations. I didn't live in the same city as five of them. I visited them once every couple of weeks and just run them remotely. Then people that asked me, Gordon, how did I do it? How do you run a business like that in allied health. So then I started mentoring other business owners, which led to us creating the programs that we run now practice ology. And we then wrote the book, How to run a one minute practice, which was all the learnings that I got from that whole, that whole experience. And here we are, 20 years later, still doing it. So it's a great it's been a great ride. And I think my claim to fame that Gordon about everything was that I was able to spend so much time with my family. I got four daughters, and I, my beautiful wife, Helen, who is the love of my life for 30 years, we just, we didn't miss anything. We are in every sports, carnival every event. And I laugh with Helen sometimes my one time the my daughter's primary school teacher pulled me aside and he said, Paul, are you are you a drug dealer? Like he just wasn't sure what I was doing. So where are you at your everything. So that's the business I wanted to develop. I wanted to build a business that would give me the life that I wanted. Right? That's that's kind of how this how this journey all started from?

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes. And that that you're really speaking to kind of my philosophy as well, because I feel like most of us that go into any sort of private practice, regardless of you know, which which profession it is, whether it's physical therapy or mental health or, you know, any of the allied health fields. I think we do it for the reason of giving ourselves the autonomy, of being able to set our own schedule or being able to, to come goes we please and plus have much greater earning potential, I think, by doing it that way. But one of the things that I know that you have spent time on and developed, that I want us to try to get to today as a seven different mistakes that people will tend to make in their business, and how maybe a little bit about how to correct those.

Paul Wright
Having having been in business a long time, as you have, there could be several 100. Yes, but But I've there's there's seven that come to mind very clearly, I think we'll go through them in this session. But the one that I think we've already kind of touched on is, is why you start the business. The mistake mistake people make initially is failing to understand the true role of their business. And I went in, I think I went in just wanted to be an entrepreneur. And then I got, but I was I was doing what you guys are doing. I was starting early finishing late I was sucked into the business. And it was only when I stumbled across the the E Myth book by Gerber and then I started Systemising the business, I started to turn that around enough at hang on this job's businesses to serve me. So you think about why you went into business in the first place, as you said, you think well, I can pick my own diary, and I can I've got freedom. But that's really the case for most health business owners, because they are usually seeing all the clients and then doing all the other stuff that's involved in running the businesses, well, they have to have two jobs. Right before you know it then. And we talk about in our programs, the thing called the Freedom scoreboard. And the freedom score in practice ology world, and in one minute practice world is, is how many hours each week do you physically spend with clients? Like what's your client face to face hours, and, and if you're doing 30, or 40 hours a week face to face, there's not a lot of time left Gordon to run the business marketing, recruitment sales. And we see this all the time. So you wonder why owners are burnt out because they're doing this consulting plus the other. One of our main keys is to try and reduce your freedom score. So over time, and there's a thing we talk about in practice, I call it right, it's law years ago, as your number of team members increases, your number of personal consulting hours must decrease. If you've got 10 staff, and you're still doing a lot of clients do, you're gonna be tired, because then they'll drain you. So this idea of what is your what is your week look like? Are you freeing yourself from the business? And do you have freedom? Do you can you not get to work on Fridays, if you want to, like Helen and I we've had date day, every Friday for the last 30 years. Like we just we just would Fridays data, we got the movies, we do whatever you want your business that lets you do that. So so that mistake is going into the business not not understand the true role of it. And the true role is to give you more life, if it's not doing that it's taking it away from you, because you need to be rewarded for the stresses that come with being a business owner. Whether it's financial or time. Otherwise, you're gonna get you're gonna get burnt out. You've got it.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Yeah. So yeah, so say as as people hear from me on this podcast, you got to start with why really be grounded in that what are what are the other other things that you're that you've learned so far, not another big mistake. And this is a classic for allied health professionals. And regardless of what field, we're all the same whether we're psychologist, mental health practitioners, physios, we're always several the same, but

Paul Wright
we typically do another big mistake, we typically fall in love with our product. Meaning we fall in love with with the service we deliver, we fall in love with psychology, or physio, or we fall in love with the service that people don't really want. So, they might do it but but think about how you started, I wanted to be a physio. So I decided to be one. But at no time, Gordon did I think, is there a market for that? Is there a valuable need for that service? It was because I I wanted to do and I think what we have to understand in allied health or in in any business, the market doesn't care what you want to do. Your job is to find out what the market needs and then fill the void. That's that's your job because there's two drivers of any business any successful business. It's available market and available labor. So if you have those two things, you're going to have available market so there's got to be enough need for your service. But there also has to be enough available labor to provide that service. Think about the example say you've opened Mental health practice in the middle of Australia, big plays Australian. And there, there might be a few people out there that need that. So there might be market. But your chance of getting available labor to fill that is going to be difficult. So you've got a difficult business to fill there. These days, you can probably do more remotely, so there's an opportunity, but you're gonna have those two things. So don't fall in love with what you do fall in love with what the market needs. Right? I could have a passion Gordon for, for treating elbow pain in one arm golf. And that might be my passion. And because I love I'd love that program. I love that product. But if enough people that need that service, Gordon, I'm going to struggle. Yeah, so. So my point to you guys, don't fall in love with what you do. Try and find out what the market needs and marry those things up. Otherwise, you'll be pushing it pushing it uphill for a long time. My best example of that, I hope you guys are watch Shark Tank. Shark. Entrepreneurs love Shark Tank. This guy's the guy that came in. What do you have you had arm pads you had he had the sweat catching pads, you could stick under your arm to stop your shirt getting sweaty. That was this product. And this guy loved the product. He pitched it to the sharks. And they said how many have you sold or been doing this about six years I've sold a couple 100 The market tells me not only just the case. So the sharks say now we're not here. But the interview the guy at the back. And I said what are you going to do now? He said, Well, I'm going to stick with this because I believe in the product. See classic mistake he's fallen in love with with his product, he hasn't fought well the market doesn't want it. Right, I've got a better opportunity. So. So don't be that person. The market doesn't care what you want. Your job is to find what the market needs and satisfy it. And I think I got lucky with that Gordon in one minute practice and practice ology because I, there was a need for it. But when we started this business mentoring program 1020 years ago, there wasn't much around, you know, so I was good at it. So we satisfied the market. But I might have been great at it. But if the market didn't need it, it wouldn't have gone anywhere. So don't fall in love with your product fall in love with the market. That's right.

Gordon Brewer
That's great advice. Great advice. So what's number three for you?

Paul Wright
Let's read. We're classics. This is well Gordon. becoming a victim of perfectionism. It's a classic. And you're you're not your guy. That's the classic. Yes, yes. And and I think from our I think it's from our training, you know, you've got to be going to uni for a long time to be technically great. And you be peer reviewed. And you're, you want to be safe and everything else. So as a result, you want to be really good. And but that as a result of that it's sometimes holds us back from releasing programs or products, because we think they're not quite

Gordon Brewer
ready. Right?

Paul Wright
I don't know if you do this, but I was pretty lucky I'd put things out there and see how it flew. So I was a bit more relaxed on it. But I'm not a mindset, it's better, better to be 80% and out the door. Then 100% and in the drawer. Yes. So that starter is put something put it out there. Let's say you've got a no stress management program, for example, whatever you're creating in your world, but it's not you don't think it's ready yet. You don't want to put out there because you think oh, it's it's not quite perfect. But the time you tinker with it, muck around with it, get it the time might go, I'd suggest you get it out there put it what they call in marketing world and MVP, which is a minimal viable product. You put out a minimal viable product. And see if there's market for it, see if it gets traction, and then you can build on it. Don't don't make it perfect when you launch it. Reid Hoffman I believe one of the founders of LinkedIn, he said if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched to like it's and it's such a classic for health professionals. But But again, we worry about I can't talk about knee the knee program because there's a knee guy up the road who's a superstar or this person that they've written the book on and I can't do that because they wrote the book on it. You don't have to be the best in the world. Just be the best in their world. Right your clients will just be the best in their world. That's fine. Yeah, so be careful of perfection syndrome,

Gordon Brewer
right. It's better to have imperfect action than perfect inaction.

Paul Wright
Exactly. You guys and others put it out there. And some people say Well Paul, how do you know had enough your market if you if your product has got legs? How do you know that? Well, these days you can you can do a quick seminar you can put an online webinar on you can just see does anyone register for it? Yeah, you know, it's not that hard to test things these days. We've done this classically I've we've we've got multiple programs, we've got a referral program for health professionals. For example, with that one. I got together with a guy that was going to do it. And we did a one day seminar. And before we hired the video guy to come and create the product, we just made sure there's enough registrants for the live event, which gives us an idea that well there's there's people want this program. So if we had no unregistered, we wouldn't have done it. Right. You got it. You got it. Don't be don't fall victim to that. Right. Let's just put out there and see how it goes.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Right. Yeah. Another way I've heard it put is you'd have to sometimes just build the airplane as you fly.

Paul Wright
My plane to be sort of being trapped, but I get the idea. Yeah. What a minimal viable plane. Yeah. At least minimal viable,