[ALISON]:
Welcome to this special bonus episode of the Practice of the Practice podcast. This is a takeover with Whitney Owens and Alison Pidgeon. Today, Whitney and I are here talking all about a new program called Group Practice Boss, which we’ll tell you a little bit about in a second. But first, I want to say hi to Whitney. How’re you doing, Whitney?

[WHITNEY]:
I’m doing well. How are you, Alison?

[ALISON]:
I’m doing okay. I just had an interesting experience of locking myself out of the office. And then I had to climb through the window to get back in.

[WHITNEY]:
Oh, wow. That sounds like an exciting morning already.

[ALISON]:
It was. It was. And yeah, I’m sure it would have been hilarious if anybody saw me trying to climb through the window. But I got back in. That’s the important part.

[WHITNEY]:
These are the joys of being a group practice owner.

[ALISON]:
That’s right. That’s right. You just never know how your day is going to end up. So yeah, so I’m really excited to talk about Group Practice Boss. This is something that you and I have been talking about for quite a while. And do you want to kind of give us the overview of what it’s all about?

[WHITNEY]:
Yes. So Group Practice Boss is a membership community. It includes a Facebook community as well as a Teachable platform where you’re going to be able to access courses surrounding owning a group practice. We decided to create this because we felt there was a need for group practice owners to have a membership community. Through Practice of the Practice we have Next Level Practice, which is perfect for people who are starting their practice, looking to grow their practice. But as you start to add clinicians to your practice, we wanted to offer a next level for people. So this membership community though is for people who are kind of at that advanced stage of at least three clinicians or more grow in their practice.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, and I think what I’m really excited about, we talked at length about what kind of content to have. We really want to do what we’re calling a deep dive into different topics that have to do with owning a group practice. So there’s so much information that you could find on the internet for free, or listen to a webinar, or read a blog post. But if you really want to, like, dive into the nitty gritty of like, well, how do you actually implement this? Or what does this actually look like in somebody else’s practice? There’s not a lot of information about that. And so that is kind of the hole that we wanted to fill that we saw wasn’t kind of being offered to group practice owners.

So we’re going to be going through different topics, and each month is going to be different topics. So for example, we’re going to be talking about how do you manage people? Like, what’s your communication style, your leadership style? How do you have difficult conversations with staff members? We’re going to be talking about managing money. When it was you in a solo practice, it was probably pretty simple. But now there’s a lot more people, a lot more transactions coming in and out the practice. How do you budget your money? How do you lower expenses and save taxes?

We’re also going to be talking about delegation, which is huge when you start to scale up your practice, because you cannot do it all yourself. If you are doing it all, you’re probably burning yourself out. And that’s such a huge obstacle for a lot of practice owners. They have a hard time delegating, they feel like they’re never gonna find somebody who does it as well as them. They don’t trust other people to do it.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah.

[ALISON]:
And I’m here to tell you that I have delegated absolutely everything that I possibly can. And I still want to delegate even more things in my practice, and it is just such an amazing feeling to know that I don’t have to worry about those things anymore and they’re getting done. And my practice is growing and getting bigger and that’s not necessarily adding more time to my weekly work schedule. So that’s definitely something that we’re going to be talking a lot about.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah, I think the deep dives is one of my favorite things about what we’re doing because I feel like I attend all these webinars and I get great information, or I listen to a podcast and get great information, but then I struggled to find the time and energy, or just the know-how, to actually implement them in the practice. And so by doing a deep dive each month, we can really take one topic and spend significant amount of time on it, you know, thirty days instead of just kind of getting the information and then continuing on with our practice, but being able to have a community where we’re really encouraging one another to do the things that we’re working on in the deep dive. And then having a place to kind of throw questions out, hey, I’m struggling to, you know, what spreadsheet should I use for my finances or what percentages are you using for this? That you have a place to kind of go to and ask those questions between work that you’re doing. And so even within these deep dives, Alison and I are going to offer office hours and at least one webinar a week, live, where you are getting information about that deep dive and you’re really getting kind of more of a hands on approach on how do I actually implement this in my practice?

[ALISON]:
Yeah. And I think what’s so great about it too, is that you and I have different experiences in terms of managing our practice, like, you have a self-pay practice that’s faith-based and I have an insurance-based practice that’s secular, I guess you could call it. So we’ve had very different experiences. And I really like that you’re going to get both Whitney and I helping you because we have different perspectives on things. We’ve tried different things. Whitney has to market her practice in a different way than I do because they’re all cash pay. So I think that’ll be really great too, to get sort of that wide breadth of our collective knowledge.

[WHITNEY]:
I totally agree. I love working with you.

[ALISON]:
Aw, thank you.

[WHITNEY]:
Yeah. So some of the things we’re also going to do in the group is do an Ask the Expert. So once a month, we’ll bring someone else in on the topic that we’re reviewing. And they’re gonna be the expert in that area. So you can ask them questions and learn from them. And we’re also going to have these open office hours where you can just kind of jump in when you have questions about your practice, and you want to throw those out, you’ve got somebody available, either myself or Alison, to help with those. And like we said, each week we’ll take concepts within the deep dive, and we will teach on those in a live webinar, and give you practical steps. And then you’ll be able to use those steps between webinars within your practice.

[ALISON]:
The other thing I think is going to be really cool is just the community that’s going to be there, because everybody is going to be sort of in similar places, having an already established group practice. And I know for me, being in a group like that helps so much with accountability. And also, like, being inspired by what other people are doing. If I see all these practice owners are hiring people, and they’re, you know, meeting their income goals and doing all these amazing things then I’m like, oh, yeah, I can do it too. If they can do it, I can do it. And so I think that that type of community where everybody’s like cheering everybody on, and just being supportive, is so important. Because in your own town, it may be difficult to connect with other group practice owners. And then it’s also a little weird, because it’s sort of like you’re in competition with each other – I think some people view it that way – so it’s not necessarily like you want to go hang out and share all your business practices with the private practice owner down the street. And so I think it just will help so much for people not to feel as isolated and to realize that so much of what they’re going through is normal and common, which you may not realize if you’ve just been trying to do everything on your own.

[WHITNEY]:
I love that you’re making that point. I totally agree. And I know that even for me, I go to you and other group practice owners when I’m needing a little bit of direction or help in figuring something out. So it is like that.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so we’re gonna have a few other cool things besides the live events that Whitney and I are hosting. And we’re also gonna be bringing in other experts like Whitney was saying. We’re going to be having contests that will hopefully encourage you to try new things in your business. We’re gonna also have access to all of the content in the next level practice library. So all of the content, most of which Joe has created, like, if you want to watch a seven part series on blogging because you feel like that’s something you’re lacking, then you can have access to all of that material. And you’ll also have a discount for working with Sam, who’s our Director of Marketing, who does a lot of graphic design work and that type of thing. So just really cool, different types of support. And I think it’ll be really nice to have that sense of community and also, we’re gonna have our own Teachable… like Whitney said, we’re gonna have our own materials, and worksheets, and videos, and all kinds of things, specifically around the topics that we’re going to be talking about each month. So it’s not just going to be, you know, like, surface information or something that’s not going to be helpful or valuable to you. Like, we really want to walk you through step-by-step, and show up to a Q&A session already having seen some of the materials so that we can really do that deep dive, and ask those more nuanced questions that you may not know how to apply to your own practice.

[WHITNEY]:
So if you’re interested in joining the community, I want you to head on over to practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss. You’ll hear everything we just shared and more and check out that page for more information, and then you can register there. So the doors for registering are only open for two weeks. We opened up on October 6th, and so that will end on October 20th. And once you register, the price that you register at, you’ll be locked in for the time that you’re in the group. So once a month, it’s $149. And you’ll get all the things that we just included to be a part of that membership community. And then when we open the doors again, in the future, you’re already locked into that lower price, as opposed to when we open it again, if the price is going up.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I think for the level of support and the level of value you’re gonna get, I know for me, as a group practice owner, it’s like a total no brainer. Like, of course, I’d want to be a part of that community and have access to all of that information for $149 a month because where else am I going to get that kind of support? So if you’re interested, yeah, definitely check out the practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss, and if you have questions, you can email me, I’m [email protected] and Whitney is the same, [email protected]. Anything else you wanted to add, Whitney?

[WHITNEY]:
I think we covered it. I’m just looking forward to it and, you know, even though we’re opening the doors in October, it’ll be the first month that we are doing the live event. So we’re going to go ahead and kick off at killing it can’t which would have already happened by the time you’re hearing this recording. But those doors are already open and we’re already doing stuff in the group right now.

[ALISON]:
All right, sweet. All right. Well, thank you so much, everybody for listening to our bonus episode today. And hope to see you in the group.

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[JOE]:
Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music; we really like it. This podcast is designed to provide accurate, authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.