Advantages of business coaching in healthcare with Dr. Janice Hughes

Janice:

It was when I had a coach, a more business minded coach, that I was able to put some systems and policies and procedures in place that not only did it aid the practice, I want people listening to understand it increased the value of the practice.

Sliman:

Welcome to the Care Frontiers podcast, the show where we interview thought leaders in healthcare to share with us their expert knowledge and business branding and marketing if you’re a pracitioner or medical business owner or an executive. This is the place to be. I’m your host, Sliman Baghouri, and today, we’re going to discuss the unmatched advantage of business coaching and how it can overhaul the way you run your practice. Be sure to tune in all the way through for more details.

Sliman:

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Care Frontiers podcast, where we bring health care professionals to share with us their own experience running a successful medical business.

Sliman:

Today’s guest is a business coach, a former chiropractor consultant and an author of two books. She’s been director of investors for a biotech startup.

Sliman:

She also helped skyrocketed the value of the company from 20 million dollars to a valuation of over 150 billion dollars. Being a former practitioner herself, she helps other practitioners and business owners understand and embrace the business side of things in health care. If you’re wondering who’s this multidisciplinary person, she’s none other than Dr. Janice Hughes. Dr. Janice, welcome to our show.

Janice:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited about our conversation today.

Sliman:

And I’m pumped to start directly into the question. But before that, Dr. Janice, you’ve been a chiropractor. You run your own business, has been an executive and coached multiple practitioners.

Sliman:

And on top of that, you authored two books. What’s it like to be you? How you can you transition from one field to another so successfully?

Janice:

I think it’s interesting, there’s a there’s a quote that talks about if you want to double your business, triple your growth. And so my personality is that I’ve just searched out great mentors, coaches, guides. I just I’m a lifelong learner. And that has allowed me to add amazing things to the stages, my practice stage. I learned a lot. I grew a lot thanks to these other great people and influences and and even great books in my life. So, you know, it’s because of all what I’ve talked about as embracing continued learning and growth. That’s what’s allowed me to pivot and just play different roles. And it’s not actually all separate pieces. It’s almost like the learning all along the way is now what I also bring back to be able to help guide and mentor and coach other health care practitioners as well.

Sliman:

That’s really interesting. How can you continue learning while trying to stay on top within your role as as a practitioners or as a business owner?

Janice:

Well, let me share with all your listeners just a couple of things. From my perspective as a coach, it’s not it’s not just, oh, wow, we try to squeeze those things in or we run our day to day and then if we have time, we fit those things in your head. Really great coaches. Early in my practicing career, you know, that really reinforced for me. You build into your calendar the important things. So now I recognize, just like so many of you listening, I was running a practice raising family, you know, having kids. So as a female practitioner, I was having kids while I was in stages of practice, you know, and yet the importance of building in a little bit of growth and development time. Back then, I had a fabulous coach that had me not pay any attention to media. Now recognized there was no Facebook Instagram back then.

Sliman:

Yeah

Janice:

It’s not like you never did any, you just completely limited the time. So I even coached people to just get a lot more clear on where they are losing time. So it’s not that we don’t have time, we all have the same 24 hours. But look at the difference in the discipline of some people that just accomplish and create and do so many things. So scheduling in growth time I think is more important than anything. That is not only what helps you grow, you see from that quote, that’s also what helps you enhance your business.

Sliman:

OK, you touched on the process of having a business coach, and I really want to take that cloud of uncertainty because I think many practitioners don’t really get the meaning of business coaches and what they do exactly. So, what is the advantage of having a business coach and what is it mean in real life? What’s the what’s the practical stuff, the impact that might have when you have one in your practice or in your business?

Janice:

Yeah, that’s a really fabulous question, because you’re right. So much of it is just I know where people tend to look at it as an added expense. The best way I can describe it, it’s like hiring a partner, hiring a more experienced partner, hiring a consultant that grows your business bottom line that you don’t have to share the full profits with. And thinking in terms of that, it’s an investment and why coaches, mentors, guides all play different roles, many people have really great mentors. If you purchased a practice from someone else in the medical side, you usually through your residency through a lot of stages, you go into even group practices. So we take on the systems or the procedures of fabulous mentors.

Janice:

That’s not always the best fit for you. And more importantly, sometimes it’s like there’s blinders. Well, here’s what we’ve always done. I work with a lot of chiropractors. My background is as a chiropractor and even in my own practice, I describe that I ran a very personality-driven practice for a lot of years. Now that created a lot of success. And yet it was when I had a coach, a more business minded coach, that I was able to put some systems and policies and procedures in place that not only did it aid the practice, I want people listening to understand it increased the value of the practice. So for most practitioners in healthcare, your practice actually isn’t in many cases a valuable asset. And yet you’ve just spent how many hours and years of your life building that. It’s like the biggest asset. Gone are the days financially of thinking in terms of, oh, well, your house is the asset. You know, your practice is an incredible asset. And that’s what business minded coaches help with. You know, how to grow your business, how to grow you, how to grow your life. But from that perspective, that your practice is an incredible asset in your life.

Sliman:

So to go deeper into that, you have coached thousands of practitioner, many of whom are actually chiropractors. What do you say to the one thing that your coaching program did for one of your clients that you didn’t expect, but it had a tremendous positive impact or outcome on your client?

Janice:

Yeah, it’s I’m going to say multiple, multiple clients go through this where they start looking for help with their practice. How do I attract or or generate more new clients? How do I do this? How do I increase my billings in ninety nine percent of the cases? The majority of the biggest, I’m going to say alterations. The biggest impact or benefit is that it actually changes their life. You know, it’ll pivot or shift their relationships. Let me give you even the example of a young practitioner years ago that I coached and a lot of people were telling him he went to an area that he thought he wanted to practice, had been in practice over two years, grown a very, very nice chiropractic practice, and yet wasn’t meeting the kinds of people he really wanted to be around, spend time with, definitely hadn’t met a significant other, he was at that phase that he was recognizing the social aspects of his life were more important. And all these other people, mentors and people around him and coaches had been saying, well, you can’t sell now or it’s not worth anything. You know, I started working together with him. We recognized and put together all of his systems and listed that practice. It’s for sale and really ended up not only being able to pay off all of his student loans, but having an extra little bit of resources to go to a totally different area, which had more of the things he wanted, life, you know, sort of aspects, mountain biking, things easy access to outdoors, which he’d been in a city. And that was exactly why he wasn’t loving it. And so, of course, guess what happened? within a year, he not only had, established another thriving practice. Yes, it wasn’t quite yet to where the other one had been, but it was on track that it was going to far surpassed that. But more importantly, he’d met his significant other who now they’re married. Long story, obviously have three kids. I mean, you look at the trajectory of what that changed for him, all because of a better business coaching.

Sliman:

So the outcome, from what I understand, is not only the a positive impact on the business, but the real impact is takes on this ripple effect in your life also.

Janice::

Yes.

Janice:

So success leads to more success if you’re working on your systems and the success or the impact within the business. You know, I’ve seen people actually double and triple their business with more ease. I’ve also seen other people that then continue to now run their practice and take far less time to do it. You know, I have a husband and wife chiropractic team that have done work with and. Literally, instead of now working all week, both of them, including some Saturdays, they now, work three days a week in the practice, bill more and more importantly, have obviously more lifestyle.

Sliman:

It’s really eye opening, seeing the impact of the of this coaching programs and how can they take effect outside the business, not only the business itself.

Sliman:

So to transition a little bit more about the to on other aspects of the business, and that is a differentiation. In a competitive environment to many chiropractors find themselves in place where multiple offices offering the same services for the same price to the same patient.

Sliman:

And how can practitioners try to differentiate their practice from the rest of the pack?

Janice:

That’s a really important piece of business coaching, you know, learning what are your unique selling propositions? What does make you different? What skills do you have that are different? you know, instead of being very vanilla, here’s chiropractic and here’s what a chiropractor is, or in my practice is the same as other chiropractors. That’s just not true.

Janice:

You know, I think that we almost hide behind that because, again, particularly as a young practitioner, a lot of people come out and go, OK, well, you know, chiropractic, say within the community has a great reputation. But it’s learning to not be afraid of the uniquenesses or understand how to brand your business. How do you brand how do you target? Who’s your ideal patient? So those are all part of often that very early piece of coaching. A lot of times I work with people where I’ll take a look at their websites, their social media, their profiles, and a lot of times it’s just really vanilla.

Janice:

Verses what are the two or three unique selling pieces that you work with?. Have you focused on your brand? What is your brand? How do you clearly then market that brand? That’s why during this year, crazy year of a pandemic, we see all the way from people closing their doors, struggling, working double hours to see the same number of people that you compare that to, how and why are some of these practices thriving? I have a few private clients that I work with that they’re having record years. How is that? Well, that’s again, based on their branding and then the systems and procedures and protocols in the practice in the business to service that brand to deliver on that brand promise.

Sliman:

You touched on something I really want the listeners to know about because there is no one better than you who can explain it. And that is the unique selling proposition. And I think many practitioners, if they knew about what is this, it really can help them tremendously running their business in an in a competitive environment. Do you have any, like, examples or you want to dig a little bit deeper on the unique selling proposition for medical businesses?

Janice:

Yes. So let’s face it. We know it doesn’t matter whether we’re a chiropractor, an athletic therapist, a P.T, an M.D.. Yes, we’re trained to work with all patients, all cases, you know, particularly as primary diagnosing practitioners. You know, we know that we can assess and diagnose effectively.

Janice:

That’s very different, though, than, who do you work with and really love know is that that you really like functional neurology as an example, you know, digging a little deeper and understanding the brain neurology component to what’s going on for someone. Other practitioners are really excellent with nutrition. You know, someone maybe your ideal client is a child. You know, I used to tease years ago in practice, I had a fairly high pediatric practice. And it’s that children referred their parents because by specializing in working with newborns, young children, it’s not very long before, as parents see the changes, they become like a patient under care.

Janice:

So it’s recognizing that your unique selling proposition starts with what you really love. What’s your niches what are two or three niches for some people? But what are a couple of things that you really enjoy and you’ve researched? Or there’s that learning piece I talked about again, that you do continue to learn and grow. You know, I know practitioner is my husband’s a practitioner, and he threw the pandemic, took an entire course program and sat for a fellowship exam. Well, that’s totally transforming his practice. So recognizing that, you know, it’s OK to clearly define some of those niches. Now, that might not be your whole brand. You know, some people, I can show you some pediatric chiropractors who completely make that an aspect of their brand. But you walk in their clinic, they’re not only just adjusting children. You know that niches brings them the parents often. The grandparents. The girls. You know, so I think some of that is beginning to think about uniqueness is a lot about your training, your skill sets and or just your interests.

Janice:

Like if you love to ski and really build and embrace that instead of just being very vanilla, you know, almost think in terms of riding up on chairlifts, even if you’re out skiing, you know, right away you start to appeal or attract a group that is based on something you really love. Now, that doesn’t mean everybody just becomes, you know, a ski chiropractor working on with skiers, but you need to know that the national team has a unique chiropractor, that that’s all that he does.

Janice:

So recognizing that sometimes like beginning to unpack or unravel the things that you really like, lead into opportunities, very unique opportunities within your practice.

Sliman:

That’s a really good point, because when I work with my clients, when we start to focus in their brand and position it to serve specific kind of people, they think “why would we be specifically align with those people, Aren’t we limiting our profits by focusing on just one kind of people” But like what just pointed out that it’s not really about narrowing down your profit margin. It’s it’s the exact opposite because it attracts other kind of patients to to your business.

Janice:

That’s right. Sometimes you turn around, the clear you get and you develop a niche. Some people are offered contracts to go do just that niche and sell the main the main practice and put some associates in there. So some of it is recognizing, I tie back to where our conversation started, that learning and growing. You know, I had an amazing coach and mentor in my life that taught me that if you spend 30 minutes a day on a topic, let’s make this up, I wanted to learn or study astronomy. If I started spending 30 minutes a day learning, studying, investigating within three years, I would be one of the top experts in that field. So recognize that if you have a passion within your healthcare practice and you develop that, you work on that, you work with that, before you know it, people are traveling whatever distance. You know, people are also paying whatever price for that service.

Sliman:

It’s it’s really a tremendous weapon to have been a unique and specialized in something known for something.

Janice:

I liken it to there’s a saying that says you can be a jack of all trades and you end up being a master of none. Now, that’s not to say many of us run, I’ll call it like whole family or wellness practices or some people run acute care practices. So, you know, that kind of label is not saying an age or a certain athlete. So, you know, just recognize that part of the branding doesn’t have to narrow it down. If anything, it’s just how do you understand what you love and get very, very good at that.

Sliman:

Exactly. So to finish this off, I want to ask you one question.

Sliman:

It’s the last question we have here. And you’ve been a chiropractor before and you’re a very successful business in your chiropractor’s career, so, What do you wish you had first known when you first started your business and how did that change the way you do business?

Janice:

Oh, yeah, that’s a that’s a long laundry list. There are so many things I teach now. I coach a lot and say, well, I did all those things wrong so that I can now help guide other people.

Janice:

But the number one thing that I wish in hindsight, I knew earlier, and it’s something that I tend to even teach. I go to a few healthcare universities and teach this to students. And I know a lot of people think, well, yeah, it’s kind of nice, but that may be life altering. But once I learned some personality work, once I learned how to better understand personality profiles and identify the personality profile of a client. What happens is we tend to speak, teach, educate our patients the way that we’ve been taught to learn or speak to that old saying, “say and do unto others as you would want them to say and do on to you”, but that’ss kind of the that golden rule of communication. And I completely disagree with it. Once I learned to understand and quickly identify their personality profile, then I could educate them so they better heard and understood. So it’s a personality system called the Four Quadrants. And I work with a lot of practitioners, companies, universities, to better understand this for that better, stronger, cleaner, faster communication.

Janice:

And that once I learned that I innately alert people fairly, innately are good communicators, that what tends to happen is we’re educating patients in almost like a very rote mechanical way. And once I learned the system and taught my entire team, I literally doubled my practice.

Janice:

So I can look back and say, I wish I knew it sooner, “could have, should have”. I just think that that has so much impact. That’s one of the things and why I dedicate and donate some of my time to particularly younger practitioners helping them learn that system.

Sliman:

That’s really interesting. I think I from what I understand, what you said is that this system helps you better communicate in a deeper level with your ideal patients. Right?

Janice:

Right, and helps you just understand who’s in front of you and so an example, a lot of times a practitioner, if someone is quite analytical and does certain kinds of testing and starts to share that and all the data and the detail and the information with a client, and if that client is not another analytical type person, totally. It’s like they’re they’re in total overload or overwhelm and they walk away not knowing anything.

Janice:

And, you know, again, recognizing that, you know, who was in front of you and was there a different way to communicate and quickly explain that so that the patient was engaged. And some of that is called learning to communicate with the Socratic method to help patients better understand. And the pandemic has totally opened the playing field again for this, because the opportunity for chiropractors and people in the health field, you know, I like to explain that the best defense against coronavirus against illnesses is like literally people being very proactive, taking a great offensive approach to their health.

Janice:

More and more people want health, knowledge, information, guidance and help right now. But again, if we can’t communicate effectively to them, it’s almost like that’s how they drop. That’s how they’re not listening to you as the expert that you are.

Sliman:

Dr. Janice, thank you so much for being here and taking the time to record with us. It’s really a pleasure. If you’re listening right now and you’d like more from Dr. Janice. She has a free video money mindset series that you can opt in for. As well as her two books on Amazon. Or alternatively, if you’d like to get in contact with her, you can find all of her links on social media handles in the show notes below. Dr. Janice, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Janice:

Just thanks for the opportunity. Part of what I love to do now as well is know, mentor, guide, help. A lot of people, you know, it’s never been a better time to be a chiropractor, be in the health field, be a practitioner that really helps patients, helps the public, you know, so just recognize there’s no such thing as an unrealistic goal. You know, you want to double your practice. You want to practice that. You see the same number of people in half the time. There’s nothing unrealistic. There’s only often either unrealistic action steps or timelines. So that’s what talking to a coach or asking a coach for input or ideas helps you with. And so anything basically is achievable. And like I said, Sliman, that like I’ve learned from all my own mistakes. And so if I can do all these different things that I’ve done, really the bottom line is any of you listening can.

Sliman:

Ladies and gentlemen, that was Dr. Janice Hughes.