Who Determined What a Successful Practitioner Looks Like Anyways? [Ep #169]

Hello Everyone! Welcome to another fabulous episode of the Profitable Practice Podcast. We are episode 169, we’re getting so close to 200, it is crazy! And a lot of kind of exciting things have been going down in my world and that’s what prompted this episode is that the feeling you get when everything you have wanted to happen in your business, is happening. And I talked about this I think last year that I had brought on an employee ND to take over my Caledonia Practice and that I wanted to extend that to my second location. But there’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of worries that comes on with doing it again that rinse and repeat approach. And the other thing that I’m worried about was would it be for just a year they would kind of get the skills that they needed to, understand how the systems work, understand how business can run solid, and then leave because independent contractors, employees, they can pick up and go whenever they want to and of course that is a huge fear especially from an employee perspective where the expenses are higher, it’s not a percentage split, it’s a salary that you pay out every by weekly, or semi-monthly, and then of course all the expenses involved with the government and employees. But anyway, I am so thankful that the universe literally brought in this alignment in a 48-hour period where I wasn’t even thinking about it, I wasn’t even looking for it, and then I just made that decision, you know what I am not working at my best. I am designed, I am so designed to be the business manager, I don’t get the fulfillment from doing the one on ones as much as I used to, I think I’ve always known that I wasn’t destined to continually do one on one visits but more create the marketing, create the messaging, be the face of the company and then help other practitioners make continuous income, make a secured income while being mentored by working underneath me and doing one on ones which a lot of practitioners are amazing at, like that is their real house, that is what they love, they love to research, they love going to the conferences, they love learning about the new techniques and tools and the new ways of treating certain conditions and quite frankly that isn’t just my real house is.

And so when this all happened almost a month ago, where everything just kind of aligned now I’m at that place where I’m just like “Oh my Goodness” what I have been telling people what I wanted to do, how I wanted to show up in my business is actually happening, and it’s all about manifestation and you just never know when the universe is going to show you the signs and open the doors and I was ready, and it just so happened that we found a really amazing fit to now take over my second and final brick and mortar location and it’s my

job now to fill up their schedule and get potential patients invested in our Gut Protocol and Maximized health method. And in a way, I’m also thankful that I get to support these practitioners with mentorship, financial security, and all that. So why this episode was so important for me to talk about is the more I think about being an employee, being a practitioner who’s an employee, how saddened it makes me feel that this type of business model for practitioners is not really talked about in school, it’s almost assumed that when you graduate either you’re going to be an independent sole proprietor, working at somebody else’s practice, or you’re the business owner and you own the building, those are the only two options that people really talk about at least at the school that I graduated from. And it is such an unfortunate conversation to lead out, is that being an employee, is not a failure, it is not the worst position that you could be and it is no way mean that you couldn’t kick it as a business owner on your own, I think a lot of the struggles that you’re probably having are because you’re forcing yourself into two molds that seem to be the two molds to exist.

As a new graduate, as a licensed practitioner, and you are not born with entrepreneurial skills, it is not your wheelhouse you don’t want the pressure of spending 30 hours seeing patients virtually or in the office and then spending another 60 hours outside the business just trying to make the business run, trying to learn how to do the marketing and the emailing and the social media posting and the videos and all of those things, that I would say take way more time to do than the actual money that makes or the actual time that makes direct money in my office. And so the question I asked, is if being an employee was equally as accepted in air quotes, equally accepted amongst our profession as being an independent contractor or a business owner would it have made you change the approach you took to start out your career as a practitioner, as a health and wellness practitioner. If you knew that by being an employee you would get that inherent mentorship, that you would literally be able to show up, do your works with the hours that are allotted go home, and enjoy your life at home because the marketing, the messaging, the admin, the direct billing, the chasing after the outstanding payments are all being taken care of because that isn’t your job, how would that change your directory. So often, I think people are forcing themselves into that entrepreneurial role, because that is what success looks like or that’s what it perceivably looks like if you are running your business, running your practice, therefore you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing as a practitioner, but if that were true wouldn’t that mean that every independent contractor would be successful. If it were true that running a business running like actually owning the building and

being the clinic owner was the true measure of absolute success that they are just rolling a dough, that they have all the free time in the world, that they are crushing it, if that were true wouldn’t you think that every single business owner, every single brick and mortar owner would be millionaires by now, that isn’t true. I know a ton of brick and mortar owners that are probably making less than their independent contractors. So what is it about employeeship that makes it seem such a bad choice? And especially if you are a graduate and you are listening to this I think if you can get an employee job where you are guaranteed to make 20 or 30k in that first year plus get all the mentorship you get to observe how the clinic is being run, you still have autonomy on how you treat your patients but everything else is being taken care of, I mean I was in debt for the first four years of my career and massively in debt, like 15 thousand dollars every single month in debt that if somebody offered me guaranteed money for even part time work and I could do what I wanted to for the rest of the week to make more money on my own, there is no way I would’ve turned that down but here are some of the automatic beliefs that come up whenever your bring up employees is when now there’s an hourly rate associated with it and you know in let’s say 1 hour of seeing a new patient you would make 200 but as an employee, you’d make 25 well there’s the automatic Math that doesn’t compute right? But, what you’re not factoring in is all of the time to make the 1-hour appointment happen, the amount it cost to make the clinic open in that hour, there are so many expenses that are involved in running a business as a sole proprietor and especially as a brick and mortar owner that don’t get factored into this hourly wage that people just scoff at and I think it really really is unfortunate and the other thing is I believe that all contracts for employees should have areas where they can make more money, whether that be incentives, or we have an online program that they automatically get an affiliate fee for 50%, there’s always going to be ways where they can make more money.

And usually, the employee contracts will have your continuing education paid for, they might even include some health insurance or health stipend, there are so many more guarantees and expenses that are taken care of that I just don’t think people are thinking about. And when you actually do your profit in loss, I would love to see what people are actually bringing home because I know when I talk to practitioners the biggest thing that they struggle with is that, one; getting more people into their office, two; doing that consistently and having consistent flow of money and having that steady flow of money, and three; being profitable. And if you decide that you are not good at running a business, if you acknowledge that you are not good at being an

entrepreneur but you are an amazing practitioner then why try to fit as square peg into a round hole? Why try to force something that is just not where you are good at, and if you are willing to learn? Amazing! If you are willing to invest in what it takes to become a great entrepreneur? That’s awesome! Then you obviously have some entrepreneurial spirit in you, otherwise, you wouldn’t entertain that idea. But if you feel like you’re pushing this massive boulder up a hill and where that boulder’s coming from is the admin, the marketing the messaging, and all of the stuff that isn’t really involved in the healthcare side of things, then maybe it’s time to look out for a position that will actually suit your wheelhouse, that will suit the magic that you can bring to it and get rid of the headaches because this is the only life we are going to get and while taking on another employee is scary because I even said to my husband why do I keep making more expenses for myself, but at the very next breath I know I don’t want my life to be about doing what I should be doing, I don’t want it to be about staying safe, I don’t want to feel like I’m not meeting my potential, and I also want to get only one chance at this life, at this particular time with my girls while they are little, while they still want to be around mommy, they want to snuggle mommy on the couch, I only get one chance at this. And so, I just wanted to kind of debate this a little bit, and I know this is a total debate of one but please DM me and tell me what you would prefer, do you think employeeship is so bad? Would you prefer to be an independent contractor or a clinic owner and why, and I also love to post this question to you is how do you know what success actually looks like when it comes to being a health and wellness practitioner, who defines what success looks like when we graduate? What is the absolute metric that is somewhere imprinted on the wall to be the absolute god-given the truth of what success in a health and wellness practitioner looks like? And what their role is and what it is that they’re doing.  I have yet to find anywhere where there’s a clear quantifiable definition of what success is as a health and wellness practitioner and so that is the final question that I’m going to leave you with and I just want you to think of it, and I want you to think about am I forcing myself into a position because my belief was that this was the position that I need to be in to prove to myself, to prove to my family, to prove to my friends that I am doing all of the right things, or is it that if you’re being too honest with yourself, you know that you’re not doing what you are most gifted at what you’re doing, you can be good at being an entrepreneur but I bet you are greater at being a health and wellness healer, you could be good at doing one on one consultations at making people amazing and connecting more people, but you could also be great as business manager. There is no fixed puzzle to what this journey is going to look like for you and I don’t want you to be forcing the pieces together just because you

think in the end you know the picture will appear, if I can force these pieces together the force will appear, so DM me with regards to are you working in your wheelhouse, tell me what a successful health and wellness practitioner looks like and what stream you think you would best fit in either brick and mortar owner, independent contractor, or employee. And guess what guys, you can actually merge a bunch of those together, both of my employees are part-time and they’re both working as an independent contractor in a separate office, that’s okay, I have no problems with that.

So again, there’s just no fixed way to prove to me what the truth is, when it comes to what success is for a practitioner and what that looks like and what the journey has to be and what the job title has to be, so don’t pigeonhole yourself because of what our community thinks is successful. If you do want to kind of pick my brain a little bit more, I am inviting you to book a 30- minute game plan call with me, the link is in the show notes we can talk about this, and we can talk about how we can restructure your business to suit your particular needs and in the meantime I want you to download our brand new 29 page maximized practitioner handbook, it’s an entire handbook breaking down all of the things I have learned and the exact way I have put together our multi six-figure business and you can download that right now, the link is in the show notes it’s also on my link tree in Instagram @andreamaximnd I really look forward to hearing from you, hit me up once you listen to an episode and let me know what you thought, let me know where you’re standing, perhaps it changed your belief system around and what it looks like to be successful and of course let me know how I can help you, I’m Andrea Maxim and I’m out!