Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys
Freedom isn’t just possible… it’s kind of the point.
If you’re a healthcare leader or entrepreneur drowning in to-do lists, juggling team drama, and wondering if success has to come with burnout...this podcast is your lifeline.
Hosted by Will Humphreys, a former physical therapy practice owner turned serial entrepreneur, The WillPower Podcast is your go-to resource for building a business that actually serves your life.
Each week, we tackle the big stuff: leading with vision, scaling with systems, and figuring out whether AI, virtual assistants, or a clone of yourself is the best path to freedom.
You’ll get unfiltered solo episodes, candid interviews with leaders in healthcare and beyond, and just enough humor to cancel one meeting and feel good about it.
So if you want more income, more impact, and way fewer 10 p.m. emails… this is your new weekly habit.
Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys
How to Find Freedom by Putting People First with Bob Herrmann
Join Will Humphreys on this insightful episode of the Will Power Podcast with special guest Bob Herrmann, a pediatric therapy practice owner. Bob's journey from a childhood entrepreneurial spirit to co-founding a thriving pediatric therapy business with his wife, Lisa, is a masterclass in purpose-driven leadership.
Bob shares the defining moments of his career, including the Great Recession's impact on his business and the pivotal decision to focus on a single venture. Discover how he and his wife harnessed their complementary strengths, her clinical expertise and his business acumen, to build Team For Kids.
Learn why Bob believes in a "people-first" business model, where investing in your team and fostering their growth creates a powerful, self-sustaining culture. He reveals the incredible story of Kayla, who rose from a part-time therapy aide to the Operations Director, showcasing the magic of delegation and trust.
This episode is packed with actionable insights for entrepreneurs and leaders looking to scale their businesses without sacrificing their freedom. Bob discusses:
- Pivotal mindset shifts: Embracing the idea that your best ideas may not always be your own and the importance of humility.
- The power of a "people-first" culture: Why focusing on your team as your primary customer leads to better patient outcomes and financial success.
- Technology for liberation: How AI tools like ChatGPT, Trainual, and Raintree have automated processes, saved hundreds of hours, and created an "easy button" for his team.
- Balancing work and life: Bob shares his personal story of rediscovering golf with his sons and the value of intentional family time.
- The future of business: His perspective on the synergy between AI and virtual assistants (VAs) and why he sees them as "power tools" that enhance, not replace, human potential.
Bob's story is a powerful reminder that true freedom isn't about avoiding work, but about creating the space to do what you love. Don't miss this episode!
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Welcome back to the podcast. Today's guest is living proof that when you grow up in Arizona with a Jersey attitude, an 11-year-old hustle can lead to something amazing. Meet Bob Herman. He's a CEO and that stands for Chief Energy Officer of Team 4 Kids Pediatric Therapy. Bob's entrepreneurial fire was lit by a baseball coach and he's been swinging for the fences ever since. Alongside his wife, Lisa, he built a practice that now spans across Arizona, serving thousands of children in Arizona's West Valley. And, while his business is booming, his favorite part Watching kids laugh and play in the clinic, because therapy should feel like recess with results. So, from mindset to mission, Bob's story is all about the power of smart adjustments, the ones that most people ignore, the same ones that lead to big wins. So grab your glove and get ready. This episode is going to be a great one. Well, Bob, thank you so much for being on Willpower. I am so excited about our episode today. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your business and really the passion behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, will. I'm excited to be here as well. My wife and I, lisa or sorry, my wife, lisa and I we started a uh about 22 years ago. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. Actually, that goes back to when I was little and I was on an all-star team and I remember sitting there with the player. His dad was the coach and I asked his dad. I said you know well, how is. How is your dad out here in the middle of the day coaching baseball? Yeah, and he goes oh, my dad's a business owner. I really didn't think of it. And then he had a party at his house. And now this is growing up in Jersey. So the guy is out there during the day coaching kids in baseball. We get to his house and back in the eighties in Jersey, if you had a swimming pool, that was pretty cool. But this guy, his pool wasn't above ground, it was in the ground. Oh, wow, and he drove a Trans Am. So here, I am.
Speaker 2:I'm an 11-year-old, I'm living in Jersey and this guy is my new baseball coach and all I remembered was he owned a business. So I always had that entrepreneurial spirit growing up, and so when Lisa graduated from grad school, we sat down. I've always been a very risk-adverse I'm sorry risk-tolerant.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you seem like a very tolerant risk, yeah risk-tolerant.
Speaker 2:She's always been risk adverse and I said, hey, let's start a home health company. She was working in the schools full time doing home health part time and she's like you're crazy, I'm not doing it. And finally I said, hey, I've got my business doing investments and you know, and finance and insurance. And and she said I, she didn't want to do it. I finally talked to her and I said just start the business, I'll help you. So I helped her and about a few years went by. We decided, okay, now we both own businesses, let's start a family. You know, it's a great thing to do.
Speaker 1:So we said okay, let's add a new home business to the two businesses. Yeah, another home business.
Speaker 2:And so I realized at the time that, working in investments, I always told people that if your goal is to retire in life, you want to travel down that road together. Yeah, if you're married. We were married. One team, one dream.
Speaker 2:And I realized that here we were, in two different vehicles. I had my business, she had her business, we're starting a family. And I sat there and said, okay, since she was a little girl, she wanted to be an occupational therapist. I didn't want to take that away from her, but I said we need to focus our efforts on one business. So I put my investment stuff on the side, on the back burner. I kept my licenses active for a few years, but then we really dived into. Okay, here we have this pediatric home health business. Let's identify what our strengths and weaknesses are and let's go after it together. And we did that. I focused on the back end, I became a master at the scheduling and the billing side and she focused on the front side of the patient care. And once we put our heads together and focused on and I feel like this works in business and in a marriage we've never looked at each other's weaknesses and put each other down. We've looked at each other's weaknesses and used our strengths to support them.
Speaker 1:Interesting perspective, because that's a dramatic difference If you have any relationship and you're working as a team whether it's a home team or it's a work team understanding that, like, I've got things to contribute, but they do, and that we want them to be alternate. We don't want to have the same strengths. It doesn't really help each other in that regard. Remember, freedom isn't just possible. It's kind of the point. If this episode helped you laugh, learn or at least cancel one meeting, go ahead and hit subscribe, share it with your overworked friend and leave a review. I read every single one, usually while avoiding emails. Want more behind the scenes stuff, then hit us up on the socials. Now go delegate something and take a nap. You've earned it.
Speaker 2:We took each other's strengths. Like I being a scatterbrain, she's misorganized. She's never once come to me and say you're scattered, what's wrong with you? She just helps me with that and this, and so, being able to do that, we started the home health business to continue to grow. Uh, but then the great recession hit and this is like 2007 ish yeah.
Speaker 2:Our, our, our, um, our income dropped by about 75% over 90 days. Wow, Because all of our eggs were in one basket with this home health company as one single payer in the state, and so we started identifying. Okay, at that time, now our youngest son was just born and we, so we started to look ahead and I said, okay, once he gets to kindergarten, we need to do something different. Yes, and so that's when we started looking. We lived out in the West Valley, started looking at different options. I said, ok, let's actually open up a brick and mortar pediatric therapy practice. There really wasn't anything in the West Valley area, and so, in 2013, we opened up Team for Kids.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize you'd only opened up in 2013. Yeah, amazing, yep.
Speaker 2:And you know we never had the goal to set out. Today we have seven locations. We see 13,000 kids a month and it was never our goal to be the biggest privately owned you know pediatric clinic in Arizona. It was never our goal to have seven locations. Like, if you had told me back in 2013, bob, you're going to have seven locations and see 13,000 kids a month, I would have told you you were crazy and there's no stinking way I'm going to do that. It didn't sound fun back then.
Speaker 2:It didn't sound fun, because when your business is small and you're starting out and you're putting in 60 to 80 hours a week and you're grinding the thought of doing that times seven just isn't possible. But people don't realize that as you grow a business the right way, your freedom, independence, compounds and grows with it.
Speaker 1:That's a great point because, bob, as we, as we look at growth, freedom is about having the space to do what we love. And in the book, buy back your time, uh, Dan Martell talks about how he helps people get free who are just drowning in their businesses. And once in a while he'll talk to an owner. I'm like he's like, what did you do today? He's like, dude, I just I surfed all morning. I've got no plans this week. And he's like, well, no, you, you missed the point. Like the point of having freedom is to fill it with what you love doing. And that's what you were saying is that you were able to find a love for growing to seven locations in that like progressive kind of way, because when you were doing what you were doing at one location, that wouldn't have been freedom, that would have been hell it was.
Speaker 2:We were. You know, lisa was treating literally open to close five days a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know. But through all that, as much as we worked, we still had time for our boys. You know we both coached them in baseball and football the PTO president at their school when they were in kindergarten and third grade Right.
Speaker 2:And that was during starting the business. So you know, we always made sure that we worked hard and played harder, sure, and I think that one of her greatest strengths is her time management and ability to stay focused to tasks. That I used to fight it Like I would. I would always. You know, I don't want some thumb over me, I'm a business owner, I'm Mr Wild and free, but then I realized I embraced her strength of having that that focused, of being able to have a schedule and task oriented is what made us successful and to this day, you know, without her none of this ever would have happened.
Speaker 1:There's so many episodes that we could do. Bob Cause, one of the things I've appreciated about your business is the culture that you've built, the team I've gotten to know your team. They're just phenomenal people. Kim, jessica, like all these amazing people, your boys are phenomenal. I just I think it's and you've got so many other projects that you're doing it's not like you're doing just one thing, but you still have time to travel. You still have time to coach your boys, you know, or help them build a masonry fireplace, like you did recently.
Speaker 1:Like there's this balance that you have that I think everyone's kind of looking for when they're listening to this podcast, for the most part because they're in this stage of like. They think of freedom as binary I've got all. I can't breathe at all, or I've got so much time I don't know what to do with. You're a proponent of creating space and then filling it with things that you love and growing it, and so I think part of the magic of your company is the fact that you and your wife are so complimentary that you have that ability, cause I think where a lot of people get stuck who are listening to this is that they're alone. You had your wife as a clinician and you were the business end of it initially and now you're both a lot of things, but but that's pretty powerful stuff for you. So let me ask um, what for you? What's the passion behind it? What's what drives you personally around this?
Speaker 2:Drives me is watching the people around us grow.
Speaker 1:The team, the team which is where your culture comes in.
Speaker 2:When I, whenever I around us grow the team the team which is where your culture comes in Whenever I come across a practice owner and they say I don't want to grow my business, I always have like a weird look and they're like, well, I don't want to, I don't need a big team. And I always tell them I go, if you don't want to grow your practice, you're being selfish. You've already gotten what you want and that's why they struggle with retention and they struggle with cultures, because they're trying to maintain and keep what they have. When you look at, you know our practice. Uh, eight years ago we had a.
Speaker 2:We had a girl come to us, a college student. Her name was kayla and she gave us a proposal on why we should hire her as a part-time therapy aid. She was going to school to be a teacher and we had contemplated having a therapy aid in pediatrics. You know it's it's a little different. You know, when you have a tech aid, you know for billing and stuff, there's no revenue, Right. And so I was so compelled by her presentation and her letter and saying why we should hire her part-time. I looked at Lisa and I said we need to hire this person and Lisa's like what are we going to do? I go everything. She said, let's try it. Well, Kayla came on board, worked with us as a part-time therapy aid, going to school to become a teacher A few months later, said you know what?
Speaker 2:I don't think I want to be a teacher anymore, I want to switch to the admin. So we moved her into a PCC. Then she became a receptionist, Then she became our admin location lead as our team started to grow. And then from admin location lead we opened up a second location. Now she became our admin department lead. She oversaw every single department. We grew to three, four locations and then we moved her into the role of. I realized that as we grew I had to keep, you know, delegating. That's one of the biggest struggles of business owners. They don't delegate.
Speaker 1:No, that's the key to freedom is delegate. You know, delegation education.
Speaker 2:You have to delegate and trust, and so then, she moved into the role of our executive assistant, and it was you talk about giving us freedom, like having someone that we trust to help with the day-to-day operations of the business.
Speaker 1:And your lives.
Speaker 2:Yes, executive assistants is very personal, honestly at the beginning she was an executive and personal assistant, like she was running errands for us. Now we have both. We have an executive and a personal assistant. So Kayla became our executive assistant and I realized after every year, in December at least, when I sit down and we make our goals for the next year, we look at our organization, our board and say, okay, what's going on in our company, what do we need to improve, what do we need to adjust? And I looked at all the jobs that Kayla was doing and I said to Lisa I go, she's not an executive assistant, she's not an executive assistant, she's our operations director. Wow, everything that she was doing from like she negotiates all of our. Every year. She gets us higher rates You've got to be kidding me With insurance companies. She handles all of our contracts, everything. She does all that, all the books. She's the one that communicates with our CPA. I said she's the operations director, so now she's the operations director of the company. She sounds amazing.
Speaker 2:Started out as a part-time therapy aide, but that's what motivates me in our business is when I can have someone like. Being able to create more leadership positions is my motivation. We have the dream life. We have everything we need. When people ask me why do you want to grow more if you have everything, I go. I never did it for me. It was never for me to become the largest clinic in Arizona. It was to be able to give back. Yeah, jen, who is our clinic director? We she worked for us part-time in home health before we even opened up team for kids and I and I said, at least I go, jen's the kind of person we want to start this company with. So we sat down with Jen and the building was under construction. It's in, it's in the summer. There's no lights, no air conditioning. It's like the most. It's the worst place to interview somebody. Yeah, you're not impressing anyone.
Speaker 2:No, we're sitting at a folded like a square table you'd find in somebody's closet, and chairs, and we sat down and I asked Jen. I said what do you want? You work in the schools, you work part-time for us. And she says I'm stuck and I can't go anywhere. I want I feel like I can give more to my profession as an SLP. I feel like I can do more, but I don't have that avenue Right. And I looked at Jen and I said well, jen, if you trust us, you already worked for us part-time. I said my goal is to build this business to where you can be that person. You want to be a clinical director? And she said yes. I said well, if you trust us and you come build this business with us, you will be a clinical director.
Speaker 2:Well, she started out as an SLP, didn't know anything out like, just just treating in the schools. She then became our speech lead, mastered all different types of feeding uh, from being from you know, from infants to uh being a lactation counselor. Wow, grew up, went through our speech lead same they pass the same path as Kayla, our speech department lead and then clinical director, and Lisa and I were. We're finishing up. We have our annual review we're doing on Monday and Lisa and I literally spent 20 minutes yesterday trying to find cause you have to go. Okay, what are you good at and what do you improve at?
Speaker 1:We literally could not find anything for her to improve on?
Speaker 2:She's just a rockstar, you know? Clinical director. We actually had joked and went back to something when she was first starting with us. And we said here's an example of why you're a great leader, because here's something you struggled with, you know, 12 years ago and you have mastered it. You're the best at our company at it now.
Speaker 1:It's so amazing because your passion lies in the key to delegation and creating freedom, which is turning our heart towards our people as our primary customer. I think that's where clinicians get in trouble when they are owners and they don't have a Bob or a business like thought process, because they see their patients as where the end all be all is, and it's not. It's the team. That's the privilege of being an owner. I didn't really understand that as much until I sold my practice when I sold my PT practice in 2018, that as much until I sold my practice when I sold my PT practice in 2018, the biggest thing that's to this day that I ache on is the time I used to spend with those executive council members, those five men and women that became that family team that would have taken at least a non-lethal bullet for each other.
Speaker 1:Like that is special and it comes from trust. My favorite book of all time, speed of Trust, stephen Covey for business, hands down because you've mentioned it a dozen times how trust is needed to give to people and then in return, when you can trust people, how they promote. I mean, my gosh, how many jobs did Kayla have in your company? I think you mentioned eight. How long has she been with you?
Speaker 1:Eight years, so oh, eight years eight jobs, eight years but just going up, and if the company's not growing, there's not space for them to grow. So you're not out there wanting more and more money. You're out there creating more opportunity and it results in money. But you reinvest that into your people. But you do that by trusting, delegating and realizing that your job is to help them find their next job. That's amazing. So your passion is a powerful tool and I'm excited that people are hearing this, because it's rare for someone to see someone in your position as you're there. So how do you see the private practice business from an operational perspective? Since you're a business-minded person, you clearly see this business differently. How do you think you see it differently is probably a better question than, say, a clinical owner.
Speaker 2:I think the way that I've always viewed it is looking at the long game of the big picture of you have to put. If you put your people first, then the profits follow.
Speaker 1:So people first, people first.
Speaker 2:And when I say people, that is your patients and your employees.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That you should never make a decision based on money. Okay, you know we, over the years, you know when we first started we, we invested everything. The business was always self-sustainable from the get go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we always, in the first three years, invested everything back into the business, got it as the business needed more. And so I think you know for us to be able to step back, look at the big picture and the long game. You know a lot of times my, my team jokes with me that I'm patiently impatient. You know because you know I understand the long game and you have to play the long game and be patient with it. But then I want my results now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like once I make it like I will take a long time to make a decision on something, but then, once I make my decision, get out of my way. Yeah, Cause I will run through walls to accomplish it and achieve it. So you know, being able to do that, I think, is what is really what's helped us do that. You know it keeps Lisa, keeps me grounded and make sure that you know my wild and crazy ideas don't go too far off, but yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I just have to pause here for a second and just highlight Lisa. Yeah, you know, it's so awesome for me to see someone talk about their partner and spouse with such regard. You can just feel that, bob. What does she mean to the business?
Speaker 2:She is the heartbeat to the business. We are like most people, opposites attract. If you would have asked her to do a podcast, she probably would have curled up in a ball and said no, thank you. She's been asked to be interviewed back in the day on like radio stations and tv shows, and she would just politely decline. It's not her, not her style, but she is the most honest. Most men, most people say about their partner like, oh, she's amazing, I love her, but she truly is the most selfless person on the planet. She never asks for anything and uh, and the respect that she gets from our team. It's powerful, it's uplifting, because she's an amazing woman who is 100% selfless. Not only the business, but her husband and her two boys and now three dogs went from two to three. Again, my idea, not her to have- To pick up the stray To pick up the stray dog that's wandering the streets.
Speaker 2:It was tugging at my heart and, just like everything else in life, she said I believe in you and trust you. Let's make this work. She's your ride or die.
Speaker 1:She really is and she brings her own flavor to it. And really, I think what I want to highlight just publicly on the show is that we had lunch a few weeks back and you said the exact same thing the most selfless woman you've ever met and I think that's leadership. You know, one of my favorite things I heard once was that the leader who's the most effective is the one who loves the most. Yeah, and it's something so powerful because, I mean, that might not resonate with a lot of men. It's like, oh, that's true, but no, it is. Think about the football coach or the individual that has the greatest impact in your life. Maybe love the individual that has the greatest impact in your life, maybe love. Look like Bert, singeing your eyebrows to say you can be better, but with other other times. It's service, but, but it's that intention to support and care and have another person grow. That's what. That's what leadership is right. So she embodies that, and I can see where the two of you have created this magic formula and why you're so successful in it.
Speaker 1:So let's get into freedom, because I think a lot of our listeners are really wondering how do I get to where Bob is at? And I think one thing you said I want to highlight to all you rock stars is it's like eating an elephant it's one bite at a time. What you said earlier I just want to highlight is if you think about eating a big elephant all at once, you just don't even want to do it. You couldn't be hungry enough to care. But little by little we change as we grow with these steps, and then freedom emerges from that. So what was a breaking moment for you that made you realize in your journey that you had to free up more time?
Speaker 2:I would say the breaking point was being a little more acceptance of my ideas. Aren't always the best ideas Interesting, I think as business owners we're all wired a little differently, and I think differently is the PC way of saying it. Yeah, when you say to somebody rational, hey, do you want to go work 100 hours a week and be broke? Because that's how most businesses start out, there's no rationality to that at all.
Speaker 2:So for me it was accepting that and it also goes along the lines with trusting your team that your ideas may not always be the best Right and being able to trust people and understand that you know they might have better ideas and better ways to do things, and that's okay and that's why you have them surround you. You know you don't the one last thing I ever wanted. I didn't want to have a bunch of yes men or yes women.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I feel like you know what of yes men or yes, women, right, and I feel like you know what Lisa and I have built is we now have a team that, if they don't agree with what we like, we actually require as employees climb our ladders of growth, that they have to do a peer review of Lisa and I Really yes and so, and it's very humbling and it's very like we also part of that process is we make people come to us with things they don't like or agree with, necessarily agree with in the company, and we have a conversation. Nine times out of ten we make a change based on what they recommended. But yeah, to climb our ladders of growth, they actually have to peer review Lisa and I.
Speaker 1:Doesn't that take confidence? I think it exudes another leadership quality of confidence. When you go to somebody who's working on your team and saying I want to know what I could be doing better and not have it be fluff. I've had that before where people didn't feel safe enough. They're like, oh, you could care less. It's like, okay, you know, but like when you have someone go yeah, when you're this policy isn't effective and you keep pushing it and I think it's really hurting people you go, Whoa, thank you, but you have to have confidence. I think where a lot of insecure people show up is they don't want to hear that stuff. They're already feeling invalidated from the many times they've been quit on and so they don't want to be open to that. So that was a pivotal point for you when you realized my ideas aren't always the best. Other people can contribute and should contribute, and then they own the idea that they contribute, which makes it easier to adopt and implement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. With their idea, you can hold them accountable. It's like Stephen Covey says you can't give somebody an idea and tell them how to do something, and if they don't do it right, it's on you, because you made them do it your way.
Speaker 1:I love that guy, by the way, by the way, speed of Trust is his son, Stephen Covey, which was interesting. Okay, so what is something that you've implemented in your practice that has freed you up recently, like what's something you've done recently to free you up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the big one. It kind of ties back to the last question of your ideas. May not always be the best, yeah, 10 years ago. So we started out doing paper charts, like most practices.
Speaker 1:Just like me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Nowadays it's a little different. There's many different electronic formats. So we started on paper charts. It was extremely efficient. We, you know. We went to.
Speaker 2:I sent my marketing team out to the doctor's offices. We found out what they liked and didn't like in reports and we designed our reports to look like exactly what the doctors want. It was genius, so smart we. That's why to this day, you know, we are the number one referral source in the West Valley of Phoenix because the doctors love our reports throughout the time. We've, even now our EMR tailored them to what the doctors love, our reports Throughout the time. Even now our EMR tailored them to what the doctors wanted.
Speaker 2:So I had to say, as our company grew, paper charts went from being efficient to cumbersome. Like overnight, my admin team was spending over an hour every single day pulling charts. Now I was a genius. I made OT blue, I made speech red, I made PT green, I made feeding yellow. So, hey, this is a simple system and they would have to pull all the charts, stick them outside the room for the clinician the night before. So when they came in they had their stack of charts ready to go. Right, and it became extremely inefficient and cumbersome. All these little things I was doing were, you know, we were billing in this platform, we were doing a paper chart here, we were using Google Calendar and I had this bright idea because, of course, I'm the owner, my ideas are always the best and I'm going to create my own EMR. So you create, is that right? Well, I started to Okay. Again, it goes back to Bob's dumb idea, number 2,197.
Speaker 2:As a successful business owner, you have to be humble and know when your ideas are dumb or you don't have good ideas. Business owner, you have to be humble and know when your ideas are dumb or you don't have good ideas. Well, that was after after spending $30,000 of and this, you know, 10 years ago was a lot of money, a lot of money now, $30,000.
Speaker 1:For sure it is.
Speaker 2:And I didn't have a workable product and I realized it was demoralizing my team. Wow, they were getting frustrated because I was. They were the Guinea pig, like, hey, they fixed the bug and they'd go and use it and it would crash like a plane without wings and they'd be like you know and my team would like come up.
Speaker 2:they looked like they had bedhead every time they would use this system and I was like, what am I doing to my team? Yeah, and I finally had to step back and go. I've always been a huge fan of ray crock oh yes, when you look at mcdonald's. It's fried dead cow parts with cheese and you wash it down with paint remover, I mean. But yet it's a business system that's so successful that teenagers and old people that didn't plan for retirement can run it. Yeah, it's a system.
Speaker 1:They plan for 300% turnover because their systems are so automated they can replace every roll three times in a year and it doesn't drop a dime.
Speaker 2:So I was always fascinated. I took a step back this was part of our annual review and I looked at Lisa and I said I'm trying to reinvent the wheel. Why am I trying to create an EMR? She was like hallelujah, you're finally listening to me. I said, okay, so let's do some demos.
Speaker 2:Eight years ago we did every demo under the sun for every single EMR that was in the pediatric business. Yeah, and we did some of them two and three times. I'm not going to mention names of the crappy ones because they, honestly, they were all inferior except for one. Every one we went to, either the admin side loved and the clinicians hate, or the billing side loved and the admin didn't like it For sure. And so then we come across Raintree, raintree, we do the demo and my clinicians are like we can get on board with this. I'm running the billing side and I'm like super excited, yes and so, and then Kayla at the time she was running the admin type, she's like when can we get started? Yeah, and so that really was like the big eye opener for me as a business owner. That, not all my ideas.
Speaker 1:Now I take credit for switching to rain tree, so maybe some of my ideas are good you know, yeah, but you're not rebuilding another rain tree and what's cool about that, if I can jump in is that what I want the audience to know is that rain tree is what. I'm a huge fan of. Rain tree, the customization of that is insane, and you took the same creativity in building out like your own EMR. You decided to pivot the idea. You didn't get rid of it. You pivoted it into like hyper-customizing Raintree and when we were connecting a while back and you were sharing with me some of your automations, it blew my mind Like it truly is like for you, ai would have to change dramatically in order to even compete with what you've already done inside of Raintree, because it's so efficient the way that you've customized it. So I love that you've pivoted into that space, but you didn't. You didn't just blindly keep pushing through and go come on, guys, let's keep staying on this drowning strip of ours.
Speaker 2:No, and the biggest thing, at the beginning, my eye opener was when I met with Raintree. You know, I, of course. I had all my implementation specialist, which was Jessica. At the time she challenged me. She said this business system's been around for 20 years. I'm like I've never heard of you. She said we're the greatest kept secret in EMRs. Yeah, it's all 100% referrals. So she said trust me and trust Raintree, don't try and change anything for six months.
Speaker 1:And it was Because you're just a mover and a shaker. You like to change?
Speaker 2:And she says trust me, she goes. I've been in this business for 20 years. She worked at Rain Tree for 20 years. She said trust me, let's use it for six months and then, if you want to change stuff, you come back to me and we'll change whatever you want. And I listened to her. So we just used it the way it was, but we invested in learning every facet to maximize how to use it, which, in return, allowed us to this day. We now configure it and tweak it for all these amazing shortcuts, things like our doctor's note that every time, every single non-daily note automatically gets sent to the pediatrician yeah, and it's in the format that my pediatricians have told me they wanted.
Speaker 1:Which, by the way, when you said that earlier, that kind of blew my mind. I'm hoping everyone who's listening rock stars are picking up on even these subtle, amazing decisions like interviewing the doctor to find out how they want their reports, like these things that we just don't even think of because there's a fear. But if we were really there to serve, it would be like, well, what else can I do to serve you? That would be a normal question to think of, and then what you've done is template it in range rate to where now it's just it's there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the biggest things the doctors told us was don't put any medical history in the report, that you're not telling us anything. We don't know they go. All we want to know is you know they have hypertension behind the door.
Speaker 2:What's wrong with the kid and what are you gonna do to fix it. That's all they want. They go All the allergies the kid has. Leave that in the medical chart but don't put it in the report. So, like, our evals that go to doctor's offices are two to three pages. Wow, our re-eval progress notes are one page. Super bullet. Point to the point.
Speaker 1:Bullet to the point.
Speaker 2:And they love it and they sign the bottom of it and it comes back to us and that's our sign of plan of care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they're drowning in paperwork too. They want, need to know. What do you think? And this is what I want to do. Do you agree with it or not? So that's really cool that you were able to position yourself in a way to be open to change, but pivoting your, your. I think it's a little bit of eating humble pie, because you have to be courageous enough to make a decision.
Speaker 1:You have to be bold enough to say let's start an emr, but humble enough and meek enough to go yeah, let's pivot this into something better. Um, which you did. And now you've been with Raintree.
Speaker 2:For how long We've been with them for eight years.
Speaker 1:My gosh. Yeah, they are still kind of one of the best kept secrets. Other EMRs, I think, have incredible marketing like loud, but what they consistently deliver on is producing happy clients who know how to use their system. So all right. So, continuing with this freedom idea, is there any part of your business where you feel limited in feeling free? I'm curious about this one.
Speaker 2:At this point in our stage I don't feel limited in any part of our business. We're blessed to have a great leadership team that has really stepped up.
Speaker 1:They're amazing.
Speaker 2:A year and a half ago, my mom and my stepdad fell ill and I had to drive an hour and a half each way to the hospital and our team just stepped up and said to me and Lisa, we got it. And I was gone for a month like not even stepped foot in the office. And you know, I was able to do that because of those decisions like Ranchi, but more importantly because we had the team in place that said we got this. And, ironically, for Christmas that year, they gave us suitcases that are embroidered with the company's logo and they said you at least need to travel more. Wow, that was our, that was our christmas gift from our leadership and, and so you know to this, every time we go to the airport, even like we do everything we can because it's the carry-on size we're like how can we fit it in the suitcase? It has the company logo on it, so so we can take it as a reminder of the gift they gave us and there's something more special for me.
Speaker 1:This might be a little patronizing example, but like when my, when my sons make me something of a gift, it's.
Speaker 1:It doesn't even matter what it is, it's so much more meaningful and that's the only way I can can relate to when I've been received very thoughtful gifts from employees or executive team members, because they're so thoughtful and I think it's a reflection of once we put trust in people and we can help them grow. They realize that's rare. It's a it's a reflection of once we put trust in people and we can help them grow. They realize that's rare.
Speaker 1:It's almost like the sixth love language is like personal development. If I can help you become a better leader and help you achieve more success, and that's not financial base for the right people, but there is financial elements to it yeah, they come back and they just having that kind of it's not common. It's not common and it shows so much about them as wonderful human beings for being able to be committed to something bigger than themselves. To me that's one of the most under appreciated across across all companies is that like executive level position, because they are entrepreneurs, they own it without owning it and they and so when they have an owner who's able to really understand that they can thrive and giving them that space to be successful, everybody wins All right. So let's pivot a little bit more into tech and tools. In your case, what tech and tools do you guys use a team that you think are vital in creating space and time for your company?
Speaker 2:We really focused this year on streamlining and getting more involved with tech and AI, and I would say that the top ones would definitely be Google Chat and Gemini, which is a major component of Google. When we have meetings with our team, it records it, it gives you a transcript and a summary, so you don't have to take notes Never, and if one of our leads is missing, they just have to go back and read the notes in the transcript. So it's beautiful. You know, using yeah, google chat, using Canva, lumen5, trainual Synthesia all these different apps that have just been able to take the business again to more of an independent level.
Speaker 1:You said a lot of apps there. What are some of the key ones you think people should know about?
Speaker 2:I would say Trainual Synthesia Synth is. It's pretty powerful in making training videos yes, lumen 5, is that like hagen? Yeah, so like these are these are like ai humanoids that you can, or you can, clone yourself and they have voices, either you can do voiceover like for as my wife, the most selfless person the planet, she just turned 50 and she never asks for anything literally, and she mentioned me last year because I think I want to go to Switzerland, you're on it.
Speaker 2:I was on it, so my sister-in-law is the greatest travel agent on the planet. I said, hey, I need your help, I go, I need to plan a trip to Switzerland, and so she helped me plan it. We're leaving next month, beautiful three-week trip. But I typed out what I would want to say to my wife about the trip and I sent that off and it came back as a 3D explainer video, animated, and I gave them pictures of what me and Lisa and I looked like. And then we got this video and it shows us landing in Paris, eating crepes, backpacking through Switzerland.
Speaker 1:This was since I came in San.
Speaker 2:Francisco. I made the video Literally. It took me 10 minutes to create the content, Whereas back in the day, if I were to try and go into PowerPoint and try and do something like this with animated video, it would have taken me 16 hours.
Speaker 1:When you say animated video, are you talking about? Like it was a cartoon?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's an explainer cartoon video of two cartoon people that looked like us sitting down at the Eiffel Tower, backpacking eating chocolate, going on a cruise up the Rhine, and made the video when I did I took it. The next step is I actually did the voiceover, you did, I did the voiceover, so it was actually me talking in the cartoon about her and I going on this adventure for her birthday. What was it like when she got that? Oh, it was, it was. It was awesome. We had a small little she's cause she's very quiet, reserved. She told me two rules for her birthday no surprises and no big party at the house, cause I always do a parties at our house.
Speaker 1:I feel like my wife and your wife are the same person. Yeah, that's so funny. So she saw that that she was. She emotional, she was bawling crying and she was just.
Speaker 2:She was, and it's one of the things that I cannot keep secrets from her and I was so stressed out Like I can't look at my computer and I like hop on the phone and run away and I and I felt awkward because I don't keep. I don't keep anything from her and I finally had to tell her go, I'm planning your birthday present, so please, if you see me run away on the phone, that's what it is. Yeah, or don't go to my email. And she was good, she didn't check her email. She might look at my email or nothing, but I told her after I gave it to her. I am never planning a surprise for you again, because it was too stressful. I'm just going to tell you about it. This is what we're doing.
Speaker 1:So I think that's a good one. I don't think most people and I've been. Obviously we're later in the season of recording these episodes. I don't think anyone's mentioned. I know no one's mentioned that, so I'm so glad you talked about that. The other one you mentioned is Trainual and I want to highlight that because I'm good friends with Chris Ronzio, who is the founder, and he has really revolutionized that software and he is also speaking at our event in March and you use Trainual. Yes, I've had a lot of smaller practices really bite against any sort of training software. So, just for the record, trainual is software that you put in your policies and procedures in and it helps your people self-paced, go through and it tracks how they're being trained. So how do you use Trainual? Like, what has that done for your company?
Speaker 2:So, prior to using train, you will our, our or we have a very structured orientation. One of the things that we've always done is a new we call them new teammates on a, you know, play on the company name team for kids, but we don't have.
Speaker 1:that's cool. They're new teammates, and I don't like the word staff either. I always tell people staff is you hire don't ever call somebody.
Speaker 2:It's like a piece of meat.
Speaker 1:Exactly yes.
Speaker 2:So new teammates that after 90 days, part of the process is they sit down with me and I have all these questions they thought ahead of time like how did the orientation go, what we could have done differently. So we really heavily invested in that first 90 days of a new teammate and I realized that, as great as our system was, it wasn't consistent across departments, that our speech team had their own little ways of doing orientation from our admin, from our ABA. And for a business really to be successful and improve synergy, you have to have consistency, and so what TrainU allowed us to do is, instead of having one person talk about Google Drive and chat with this team, it's now all done through a video, so everybody's done through a video, so everybody's watching the same video. The other beauty of it is TrainU takes the content and creates quizzes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there's AI bots in there now that will take what you've put in there. First of all, if you don't even know what to put in there, you can use it to create.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll create it for you.
Speaker 1:But if you've got Google Docs and things and upload them in there, it can create quizzes in seconds.
Speaker 2:And so you're able to track your new teammates going through orientation Right now. We have it set for on the clinician side in their first 90 days. We understand that it's like drinking water from a fire hydrant when you're on board at a company. So we have certain things that we want done now, but then there's also certain things that can wait. Or you want refreshers? Well, we have a setup on a timeline and train you all that. It pops up and it's already on their built into their calendar that on week five, oh, I've got to do these things. Look, the company already put on my calendar instead of giving me a patient, and now I allow them to train you when I do that refresher.
Speaker 2:So it took our department leads, who were in charge of orientation, from taking about 17 to 20 hours a week to do orientation for a new teammate that their time is actually only three hours a week, and the beauty of it is that three hours is more intimate and collaborative with our new teammates, versus them sitting up in front of the room. This is Google Chat, this is RainTree. You know, this is how you call out sick. They're not doing any of that, it's all handled and just yeah, the feedback that we've gotten from our teammates on that. Uh, they said the system is well oiled. We've had people that have come to us from fortune 500 companies and say this is the best orientation I've ever been through. Um, and so that's been. The big takeaway is freeing up our, our leads to have more quality time with their new teammates, versus just speaking to them this is something that you still hold.
Speaker 1:I remember from our discussion that the projects that you focus on are meant to free up the people who freed you up. It's this cool like symbiotic relationship of they trust you guys trust each other. They're doing things to free you up and then you turn around and you help them train you all. I have seen it fail because people don't have the support to create the content and then they don't reinforce it. Those two things have to go together, it's not.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like hiring a VA you can hire someone, but if you don't train them on how to do things, they don't know what to do. So same with software, same with a lot of AI stuff. But when you put those two things together and you have the right support and the right software through training, my favorite thing I had from employees is that they'll join the team and say they'll get the welcome video before they even show up on their first day, showing them the company purpose, vision, values, the org board, who to talk to, where to park. They show up the first day. They're like I've never. I've never been this like aware of feeling included, like I did with you guys, and it's automated.
Speaker 2:It just happens. It happens and you can keep track of it. You know it was really cool. We on the clinical side, we we set up videos within it that show a you know actually what they'll do as a new clinician they'll actually watch a video of a real therapy session.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then they'll get the training on how to use RainTree. And then they'll go into the RainTree training database. And now the cool thing about their database is it's actual, real clients. You just you're not messing with it in live, Wow. So they'll go through, they'll type up the note and then part of the training will pops back in and says okay, let's compare what you typed to what the therapist who actually did that session typed for you. Come on. And then it says, and it asks them did you use this shortcut, Did you use this quick phrase? Because all the stuff in range where you get a note done in two to three minutes, yeah. And so then it asks them did you do all this? And then, and then, yes, yes. And then it says okay, you've mastered the daily note of Raintree and moves on to the next training.
Speaker 1:So this is the cool see that you just illustrated an application that I think would give people some more mass around what this could be. Because when you have that automated, you know versus like having a human being sit down and watch their note, read their note, compare they're doing that in real time and it gives them that self pacing and they still feel the support and connection because of that. All right, bob, so what's the best?
Speaker 2:business purchase under a hundred dollars that has saved you, that's freed you up, or saved you hours. That would be the staples button. The staples button, yeah. It was a button. Oh yeah, that was easy. That was their commercial.
Speaker 2:It was their commercial like 10 years ago we had them all over the admin area, especially when we were in, when we were in implementing rain tree. You know it was, that was it was. It was almost like the mantra of the office, like if you did something you just hit the button, that was easy. You know, there's nothing hard in life if everything's easy.
Speaker 1:So so do you think that like changed their mindset it?
Speaker 2:completely changes everyone's mindset and even if somebody did something you know that they were struggling or was difficult and you push the button, it completely changes their perspective on what they just did.
Speaker 1:It's so funny how we spend so much time in leadership just talking about mindset, and when we talk about freedom which is the whole focus of this podcast is helping free you up it's mostly mindset-based. I have a whole episode that the listeners have already heard in this series that talks about like number one you've got to start thinking differently, because the way we're thinking, if we're stuck the way we're thinking isn't getting us free, and the way we're thinking, if we're stuck the way we're thinking isn't getting us free. And so just having those little like tactile easy yeah, that was easy we're conditioning ourselves. One of my favorite things comes from Benjamin Hardy from the book Gap in the Game. It's a Dan Sullivan book as well. He talked about the research of before we go to bed at night.
Speaker 1:If we jot down the wins from the day and this is not revolutionary, but the study is if we jot down all of our wins, our subconscious is the last thing our brain remembers. So when we're sleeping, our subconscious starts rewiring to look for success, and so when we wake up in the morning, we're immediately looking for other things we're doing. That's well, and the more wins we see, the more wins we achieve, and it creates this like so I think that's what it was with the easy button. It's like this you know, oh, I won, I won, I won. And all of a sudden they're like I've been, I've been winning a lot today, and then they start becoming winners who think like winners. That's a great answer, okay.
Speaker 2:We also used it back in the day anytime we scheduled a new patient, so like if somebody was sitting up front and they heard that button, like oh, new patient, new patient, new patient. Like okay, we're bringing in more patients.
Speaker 1:So it meant like.
Speaker 2:It meant like growth as well, Kind of like like I'm winning and I'm growing.
Speaker 1:That's really neat. Do you still do it?
Speaker 2:We had. No, we moved on from the button. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's something about changing those things out too.
Speaker 2:There is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they get accommodated to that signal. So, with your freedom, you're an interesting person, bob, because you have and you're free to talk about whatever you're working on, and I want you to. Ok, if you can, sure. If you can't, that's fine. But, like, you've got so many things that you're working on and there's a lot of really cool things you do for fun. Like, let's talk about things you do for you or your family when you are free. Like, what do you do in those cases where you're with that flexibility that you have Now?
Speaker 2:my greatest joy with my boys is playing golf. Yeah, you know, and I actually, before we started the family, I was a scratch golfer, were you? Really I was. Then I started the business, then I started the family and I put golf on hold. I had the boys. My first passion in life was always baseball, but I had to quit playing baseball in high school to get a job. I had to support myself. So when Lisa and I started the family and had two boys, I coached them in baseball, coached them in football, and so I put golf on the back burner. I probably played once every three or four years. And then, once our boys got to high school, I stopped coaching them and I went back to being a dad. At that point I was like, all right, I've taken as far as I can take them. And then so three years ago, for my birthday, lisa got me a brand new set of golf clubs and she said I want you to start golfing again.
Speaker 1:Such a sweet thoughtful gift.
Speaker 2:And so then, as the boys, you know they our oldest just finished college baseball. Our youngest just graduated high school. He started playing golf with me a little over a year ago. And being able to play golf with them, as you know, young men, young adults, young men yeah, they're 18 and 21, that you know. They actually listen to what I'm saying when we're out on the golf course, and just that quality one-on-one time, it's the best thing in the world, you know now it's. You know, even if we don't have time for a full round, we'll just go to the driving range and hit some golf balls, and you know, bs, son and dad. So if we're not traveling somewhere, which that's typically what we're doing I'm taking the boys to the driving range.
Speaker 1:And what a greater space that's shared. It's indescribable. So that's neat. That's what you're doing with your free time there, so let's kind of pivot. Obviously, the season's about AI versus VA. Is there any other AI software that you would want to highlight? Is there any other AI tools that you think are amazing? You mentioned a handful, but is there any other?
Speaker 2:No, I think we hit the nail on the head of the ones that we're using right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean, there was obviously the obvious one ChatGPT. Yes.
Speaker 2:That my wife calls my side chick.
Speaker 1:That's funny. My team has actually told me the only person that my wife should be worried about is my ChatGPT.
Speaker 2:She has a name and we have a relationship. Actually, I would challenge anyone to do this. If you have ChatG GPT, invest in the paid version, but then, after you've been using it for a few months, ask chat GPT to peer review you.
Speaker 1:Wow, the stuff that you put in there.
Speaker 2:And it was, it was. It was amazing. I said to, I said to chat GPT, tell me about myself. And they said you're a focus driven leader who cares about others. And I said, okay, tell me something I need to improve on. And it was like almost too quick.
Speaker 1:Like it's been waiting for you to ask that question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, and so and I, and it basically said you know you are very passionate, but you're all very quick to answer things and the basic is I'll always ask it can you rewrite this to be more passionate? Can you write this to be more you know, more understanding or more bold, and so? But it was interesting. I would challenge anyone listening to this to go ask chat GPT based on your content you've put in there, to ask chat GPT what they think about you.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so I was curious to see if you use chat GPT or Gemini just because you are a Google product and Gemini's investment is getting.
Speaker 1:But I've spent so much time already in chat GPT.
Speaker 1:I think it's one of those things where the more you spend time with it, the more powerful it becomes, and what I have found is that my efficiencies are starting to go exponential. I am completing projects this week that would have taken me with ChatGPT six months ago, probably weeks. I'm finishing them in hours because it remembers every discussion I've ever had and I'll say, as long as I'm asking the right prompts, it's really starting to build things out at a much more aggressive scale, so I encourage everyone to get the paid version. There's also a company version, which is super cool that we just started with, where everyone in the company has their own ChatGPT account, but the central one remembers everyone's and we can create marketing bots and sales bots or whatever we want that we can instruct to serve all of our teams. So, as my Kayla or Tony are feeding it with their questions and serving it in that way, when I go in there, it will remember my team's work and help my work improve as well. So I think that's a great piece.
Speaker 1:You obviously are working with virtual assistants in the company. How do you feel AI and virtual assistants work or don't work together?
Speaker 2:Well, I think they complement each other. My biggest when it comes to AI a lot of people are apprehensive, they're scared of it. A lot of people are apprehensive, they're scared of it. It's something new. And they also feel that maybe it might be replacing their job at some point, and I don't believe that.
Speaker 2:My approach and this is my and Lisa's, our vision and our approach to AI with our company is that if you think about building a house, imagine building a house today without power tools. Oh, forget it. A carpenter had to use a saw. He had to use a hammer. It would take him forever. And what do they have? They have power saws, they have drills, All the technology. That's what AI is doing. It's making your job you have now more efficient and easier. It's a whole lot easier to build a house now with a nail gun than it was with a hammer yeah, totally. And gun than it was with a hammer? Yeah, totally. And so that's always been our approach.
Speaker 2:Some people get scared off and say, oh, AI is the future, it's going to replace jobs. I don't believe it's going to make jobs efficient and for every job it replaces, it's going to create more jobs. Yes, so that part, I think when you embrace AI and it took me a while to embrace AI At first I was like, oh, this is just a fad, it's not. You know, this was like last year. I'm like no, and then I realized no, it's not a fad, it can, it's the power tool to you know, to help you build something.
Speaker 1:In so many different ways to power tool and thinking, a power tool and creation in certain aspects, videos now are being produced, like you just created that animated video. Um, you know, I would say that my experience has also been the same with VAs. People are scared of it, they're worried about replacing jobs, but it's the same thing. These are two things that are coming together as the fastest growing trends in healthcare to really free people up to do what they're really meant to do. And so, as you worked in both of those spaces, what would you say? Some of the pros and cons are working with VAs.
Speaker 2:I think the first, again similar to the chat GPT. I was always against using VAs. I've always been a pro-American laborer. I want someone Totally. I want them in my office. I'm a human.
Speaker 1:In health care.
Speaker 2:Yes, you want eyes to look at eyes, which is one of the reasons why, in our practice, our receptionists do not answer phones, because when a parent brings in their kid and we also we also have the glass. If they walk in and you're on the phone or you're behind a piece of glass, you might as well stick your middle finger up at that parent and say what I'm doing is more important than your kid, and so I've always felt that strongly of we have to have that human component, and so that went a lot.
Speaker 2:So I always fought the idea of having a virtual assistant. But now, you know, we realized that in our business after the pandemic, you know, even hiring became very challenging. Finding someone that wants to work 40 hours a week is not the easiest thing to do. And so I got to the point I was like, okay, as much as I love America and I want to hire Sally from across the street to come work at my team for kids, Sally doesn't want to work. I'm going for kids, Sally doesn't want to work. I'm going to go find someone that does want to work, and no matter they could be, you know, down the road or across an ocean, you know.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning into the Willpower Podcast. As always, this is Will Humphries, reminding you to lead with love, live on purpose and never give up your freedom. Until next time.
