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The Realities of Expanding Your Business Through Acquisition - It Ain’t All Sunshine and Rainbows! · No Appointment Necessary

• 0:00
  Michael: So welcome to another installment of the most incredible podcast in the world ever.
• 0:04
  Michael: No appointment necessary.
• 0:05
  Michael: Today we're with Uber, and I've just been told how to pronounce that name properly.
• 0:10
  Michael: It's like Uber, but Uber.
• 0:16
  Michael: So just so you know.
• 0:18
  Michael: And I have had uh questions about is this a female or a male?
• 0:21
  Michael: So um there we go.
• 0:22
  Michael: Anyway, Uber is uh one of our customers, bring on suffering customers, um, who owns Indegaard Physio, who actually owns more than Indigaard Physio now, because he's been running around and spending lots of money.
• 0:34
  Michael: Do you want to give us a a quick rundown on who you are and uh and all of the millions of clinics that you bought?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um one introduction.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, so my my name, you got it right finally.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's only taking a couple of years.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, my name is UV Indigaard.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a chartered physiotherapist of trade, and I run Indigaard Physiotherapy, which is based in Leeds.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: But over the last couple of years, I've been trying to focus on growing my business a little bit, and then decided to go down the MA route buying a clinic or two.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And now we are a group of four clinics, and two of them we've bought and developed, and one of them we've grown from from scratch as well.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So different challenges in different places, and each clinic has has proven to be um a new challenge, which is quite interesting.
• 1:20
  Michael: Let's start with something else actually, because it's quite interesting.
• 1:22
  Michael: Because we first met, I'd say about three years ago, and uh it was quite funny because we were on a call about marketing, and it was actually marketing in shockwave because you're a bit of a can we call you a shockwave guru?
• 1:35
  Michael: We'll say expert, a bit of a shockwave expert.
• 1:38
  Michael: And I remember at the time um he didn't like me very much because I rubbished your website.
• 1:42
  Michael: And but it was interesting because back in those days you weren't doing an awful lot of marketing, if any, at all.
• 1:47
  Michael: I think probably some internal, but you weren't really doing much marketing in the clinic.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, uh journey's been quite interesting reading, and it I've reflected a lot on it because I've had to.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've had to re-adjust my my kind of mindset around things.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when we first met, my website I thought was absolutely smashing.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was doing really well, and we were filling out books, and we were fully booked all of the time.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we were a bit of a smaller team than we are now, that's for sure.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think your memory doesn't serve you very well because uh it's probably close to five or six years, if not seven.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: That long.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's been a while since that first talking.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when you know, when you've started off and you've always been quite frank speaking, I guess, and you tell me that your website's shit, and uh you need to do something about that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at the time I uh you know was quite rightly it's a bit defensive.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that my website was good and my books were full, so there wasn't really a problem.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that I think um what happens then is as you grow and develop, your needs change.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think as I've gone from having, you know, two or three physics working with me in one clinic to five or six physics working in one clinic to then having multiple clinics, you realize that's as you scale, you have to rely on more than just your word of mouth.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your word of mouth can get you so far, but then to have that consistency of acquisition of new clients, you do need a more thorough approach to it.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess that's where we then met um a couple of years ago again.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we started off, well, it was probably like two and a half years ago now, um, where we started looking into what that strategy would look like.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think uh having worked with you over the last two and a half years, the amount that I've learned from it has been quite astounding, really, in terms of the marketing that we're doing, the marketing that we need to do and how they all fit together, which is quite an interesting thing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, even now, you know, we're needing to to fine-tune and hone and and you know, develop it further.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're learning more and more about each of our new sites and and what they need and and what journey they're which which part of their journey um they're on in the whole overall scheme of things.
• 3:43
  Michael: Yeah, it's interesting because I think a few things happen.
• 3:45
  Michael: One is you're right, scale.
• 3:47
  Michael: And the more you scale, um, your needs do change and and so on.
• 3:50
  Michael: But I think also I think competition is way higher than it ever used to be.
• 3:55
  Michael: I think that people or clinics have become much more digitally savvy over the years.
• 3:59
  Michael: So pre-COVID was a whole different ball game.
• 4:02
  Michael: You know, you might see two clinics in Leeds advertising.
• 4:05
  Michael: Now it's 30 clinics in Leeds advertising, and it's almost as if you're and we had this conversation literally a few days ago.
• 4:13
  Michael: It it's about almost now you have to do the marketing to almost keep up because if you don't, everybody else is is is getting ahead.
• 4:19
  Michael: So I think those two things happened, which has kind of been really interesting.
• 4:22
  Michael: We've seen it in the industry where I think we we found some stats, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like between 23 and 25, you had to increase your marketing spend by 30% just to stand still compared to where you were back in 23.
• 4:35
  Michael: So it's it's definitely come a long way.
• 4:37
  Michael: One interesting question, actually, just as a side topic, when you're looking at acquiring a clinic, how important is it that it has a marketing capacity already and a way of acquiring patients?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's there's many different things you look at when you when you you buy in a clinic, I guess.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: When I first started out, you know, I was full of enthusiasm and wanted just to buy anything that came across my way.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, it I guess there's positives and negatives to that.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The the enthusiasm can get you a long way.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I probably looked at maybe 15, 20 different clinics before I I got my first acquisition and you know, and and it seemed right at the time, and then two came by in very, very quick succession.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess one of the things that you're looking for is one, does it have a great team?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Does it two, has it got got the a similar culture to what you've what you've nurtured in your clinic?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then you you know, when you look into to see what you can do with that business, one, you need to see what kind of marketing are they doing now.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and the majority of what we looked at was that they didn't really have much marketing in place at all.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and so then you think, okay, well, I can make a an impact here by putting in in our you know kind of proven uh marketing strategy.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Although, you know, what we learn is that we need to to fine-tune that for each site based on locality, based on the the demographic that's there, um and and also then the availability of the team.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things that we found that was suddenly we were outstripping our the the kind of demand or rather the supply that we had in terms of the amount of hours we had available in the clinics um and then needed to start recruiting.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's always fun.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a couple of years ago, it was much harder than it seems to be these days.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it, you know, it's it's that's then a necessary thing.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we spoke about this lots in terms of um, you know, you can you can pile as much money into the advertising as you want, but if you don't have the capacity in the clinic, then it's kind of wasted money at the same time.
• 6:28
  Michael: Yeah, I I do remember uh I I can't remember which clinic it was, but it I wouldn't say it was struggling, but we're certainly looking at getting uh a lot more patients through we I won't say how much, but it was a a lot more than you were used to spending.
• 6:40
  Michael: And initially you were like, Jesus Christ.
• 6:43
  Michael: Ridiculous.
• 6:44
  Michael: But then within about and then obviously within two days making a decision, you're like, what's going on?
• 6:48
  Michael: Why have I not got a million bulletins?
• 6:50
  Michael: Um but then within about two weeks, I would say, you're like, okay, bloody busy now.
• 6:54
  Michael: Um and it it it actually worked quite quickly, didn't it?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is one of those things, and and um, you know, the the changeover from looking at marketing as a cost compared to marketing as a an investment um is a big one.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh that's a journey that's taken me probably a little bit longer than it should have done to to get used to, especially when you know, I think in one of the clinics, I think we increased the marketing because we were needing to at the time by 800 pounds, I think.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And but you know, we saw then over the next two or three weeks, maybe a month, that that was starting to kick in and quite quickly we got really busy and and the business, you know, the practice became fully booked within a sh you know a couple of months because of of that kind of marketing.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we've since scaled it back because we don't actually need that level anymore.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think that's the the best thing about you know you guys and and the team is that we can have a conversation about it all.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if I've got issues and I'm stressing about stuff that that feels outside of my control because marketing largely is because I don't have the the background in it, um, that can get some real advice, some helpful hints and tips.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm being told to, you know, calm down.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's nothing to to stress it like here.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've we've got this in hand, and this is what you know the kind of timescales we're looking at.
• 8:03
  Michael: That's really this sounds like a great advert for the HM H HM HMDG.
• 8:08
  Michael: Let's not do that.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's uh I guess it's it's been part of, you know, like as a business owner, especially when you've you're juggling four different clinics, there are lots of things that stress you out, and spend is one of them, especially when you've uh bought clinics, you've spent money, you're investing money in refurbs and new equipment and things like that, then it is quite important that you get the return on investment too.
• 8:30
  Michael: Yeah, that's it, that's let's focus on that, because it's quite interesting because you are, and we've become very good friends over the years, and you well, at least from my side, but you you are quite a risk-averse person.
• 8:40
  Michael: We talked about this the other day, that you're quite risk-averse.
• 8:42
  Michael: And and I think as a as a person who is, whether you're acquiring or opening multiple clinics, you can't be that risk-averse.
• 8:51
  Michael: You have to take those chances.
• 8:52
  Michael: And some of that is obviously, you know, from going from someone that never did marketing to I'll do a little bit of marketing to now thinking, shit, I've got to spend more money on marketing than I do on my children.
• 9:02
  Michael: That must have been a bit of a journey and a bit difficult as well.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, overall, um, I like to take calculated risks, but when you when you're dealing with buying clinics, there's a lot of uncertainty there.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when when you are buying it, even though you think it might be a good fit and that you've got a lot of value to add to that clinic, then you know th there are always things that can can scupper that a little bit or make it harder than you think it's going to be.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's been the real case scenario.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: For each clinic, it's been a little bit harder than I initially thought it would be.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that was naivety, but then at the same time it is also real world.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought I could change something in three to six months, and you know, my accountant was saying, well, you know, we deal a lot with these, and you look at it probably 12 to 18 months, and you know, I think my accountant was more correct than I was.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it it is part of that, I guess, naivety, which then you don't understand what the risk is fully.
• 9:51
  Michael: Let me ask a question on that.
• 9:52
  Michael: Would knowing what you do now and everything that's happened, would you do it again?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a difficult one.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because although it's had its challenges, there's also some positives into it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously the business has doubled in size and you know, things are things are going well.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's part of the challenge of of running a business, I guess.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Although I'm maybe risk averse as you call it, I'm also quite ambitious and I have put my money where my mouth is and pushed into it.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've we've gone through 12 months, 18 months worth of lots of investment into the business, and you know, we're hopefully going to be seeing that benefit over the next 18 months.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's kind of a delay in there.
• 10:29
  Michael: I think a lot of people romanticize the idea of acquiring new clinics or opening new uh spaces, and it's never as easy as as as it sounds.
• 10:38
  Michael: And I do sometimes wonder, and I know that there are cases of this, do sometimes wonder whether if instead of spending all of that time, energy, and money on clinics where you have to often change the culture completely, where you're having to invest a huge amount of money, whether you'd have been better off focusing on the core business that you already have and growing that instead of going on this tangent?
• 11:05
  Michael: Because I I and we're doing this big survey at the moment.
• 11:08
  Michael: I haven't seen the data yet, but I imagine everyone thinks that you will earn more money and have greater net profit the more things you own.
• 11:17
  Michael: I don't think there is a natural kind of yes, that will happen.
• 11:20
  Michael: I think often it's the other way around.
• 11:22
  Michael: And if you were to put any kind of balance of quality of life versus net profit, you're probably in a massive negative.
• 11:28
  Michael: So what what do you think?
• 11:30
  Michael: Do you think instead of because it's all successful now, it's going brilliantly for you.
• 11:34
  Michael: Um, and you've done a brilliant job.
• 11:36
  Michael: And and and like many people, you learnt on the job, right?
• 11:38
  Michael: I'm sure you fucked up on it.
• 11:40
  Michael: Well, I know you fucked up plenty of time.
• 11:41
  Michael: Well, it's been a big learning curve, put it that way.
• 11:44
  Michael: Of course, like everyone does.
• 11:45
  Michael: Even yeah, my first business went bust.
• 11:47
  Michael: I was like, I thought it was anyway.
• 11:49
  Michael: But do you think you could have got better results and and quicker results and easier results if you'd have just said, well, instead of going down this route of opening lots of different places, I'm just gonna focus on Indigoard?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, we've had this good discussion before, and I think there's there's two sides to it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it comes a little bit down to the geography and the kind of the the site where your clinic's at.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, uh Leeds Clinic is it's kind of uh grown to a size where we're we're pretty much maximized what we can do in that site, and moving has a a big cost to it, and finding the right locality nearby and things like that would be really, really difficult.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if we're gonna grow there, we'd either have to do more expensive services, which you know, we kind of do a lot of different things already in our clinic with, you know, shockwave and laser and gate analysis and all these things.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we've I felt that we were kind of maximizing a little bit what we were doing there.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and without being too inventive in terms of scheduling you know shifts and stuff like that with people, I felt like I needed to do something different.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the argument for staying small and making it more profitable is certainly there.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be a lot less to stress about.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then if you wanted to grow, two sides would be one, could you take the money that you're spending on this, acquiring this new clinic and actually investing it in a second clinic nearby where you have you know your word of mouth, you have a bit of a brand recognition and things like that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, that I would say there's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: You you are looking at you can do the same investment and probably within 12 to 18 months reach the same goal, depending on how well you do it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess the A side of things would be the speed that it can actually happen.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why most people tend to go the MA route.
• 13:29
  Michael: Do you think, and I don't know the answer to this, but I think most of us make decisions that are more emotional than rational many times, even when it comes to big money.
• 13:39
  Michael: Did you do this analysis before you went down this road?
• 13:43
  Michael: Or was it a bit of a case of, you know what, I want to be a big time clinic owner?
• 13:48
  Michael: I no, no, and I know that isn't you as a as a personality, but you know what I'm saying?
• 13:52
  Michael: I I want to grow, I want to have an empire.
• 13:55
  Michael: And it was it more of an emotional decision, or was it more of a you definitely were rational and you calculated everything out?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: The the underlying reason why I did it was because I I thought that in the way healthcare is going at the moment, where um there's much more competition out there and um you know there are bigger groups coming in and and buying up lots of clinics, I thought we would stand in a better place financially if we had a more diversified portfolio and the whole business would carry itself better.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't necessarily a megalomaniac going, I want to own the world, which it seems a bit silly and because physio is such a small industry anyway.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of lost my trade of thought there.
• 14:31
  Michael: Well, so the I it was a good answer without answering the question, which was how much of this was a rational decision, how much investment Yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it would it in my head I made a rational decision, but at the same time you get swept away with the the with the potential.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you kind of uh see that that that big step forward and you think, oh, well I can double or triple my business within the next couple of years.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like a I mean it's certainly possible, you know, it is but you would then have to be able to take on big risks as well.
• 14:57
  Michael: Can we put a word of warning out there, actually?
• 14:59
  Michael: Because I think one of the things that you found and and I've certainly found is that it's very easy for people to sell you the dream, right?
• 15:07
  Michael: You you you do this with your business and you 10 times it and you become a millionaire.
• 15:11
  Michael: And and the reality, and this isn't just me saying it, hopefully you back me up, the reality here is you ain't becoming a millionaire anytime soon, right?
• 15:18
  Michael: It is it is a hard slog, and and I've seen what you've been through and the stress and and everything else, and and you, unlike many others, already had a very stable, high-performing, well-run, well-profitable clinic that essentially could fund the fun and games, right?
• 15:35
  Michael: And many people don't have that and and have that backing.
• 15:38
  Michael: And I think there's such a lack of real advice out there from people.
• 15:42
  Michael: Uh, it's all too easy now to just say, oh, if I buy three clinics, they'll all be like my others, and then I'll be three times as rich.
• 15:48
  Michael: But that isn't the case, right?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I think, like you say, there's a lot of hard work.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Can it happen?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Will it take a long time?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of hardcraft that goes in there.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think um on the real side of things, if you come in, even me, you have to go and find money to go and do these acquisitions.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you really want to grow, then you have to either have a backer or have some way of gaining finance to make this happen.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that puts a lot of risk on you because the cash flow has to be there.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you if you're taking on finance and you know you're gonna be spending two or three hundred thousand pounds, and then you're looking at the repayments of that, that has to come from somewhere.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it either has to come from the existing business cash flow or it has to come from the new business cash flow.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and as with these things, often there's a you know, some form of um delayed deferment of the of the price to the to the to the seller, and you've got to make sure that you can cover that too.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So in realistic terms, two to three years down the line, you probably haven't made any profit from from your acquisition.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's that's real terms.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then the benefit that you might have then is you've got an asset in the future that will cash flow you quite positively.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But in those two or three years, things can be quite stressful, I think.
• 16:57
  Michael: And and not just in terms of the business, but I'm sure in terms of family, in terms of your what your wife's financial advisor.
• 17:03
  Michael: So, you know, she's probably looking at things more closely than others, but uh but probably very useful as well in terms of having some the head that does numbers.
• 17:11
  Michael: But you know, it I imagine it it's quite hard at home as well when you've got kids to pay for and and everything else.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I was quite lucky.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I structured some good deals and never really put myself too much under pressure, and that's probably where my risk adverseness came into it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I only took on a deal that I knew would be sound.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and if if I hadn't, then you know, I think things could have been a lot more stressful.
• 17:32
  Michael: Well, you say that, you say that, but uh you know, it it's even 10 grand here or there, or or 20 grand here or there can make a huge difference to a lot of people and even to you, but but beyond that, it's not like and we'll go into this in a second, but it's not like it was all smooth sailing.
• 17:48
  Michael: There were, I mean, I don't I don't know what I can mention, what I can't mention, but certainly there was one in particular that caused an awful lot of headaches, which could have gone down pretty early on, right?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, the business that we took on and and it was was a calculated risk.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I could manage it.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the business was struggling when I took it on and and knew it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: We we got some accounts that came back and they weren't very positive just before we we signed the deal.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had to renegotiate the deal very, very quickly, which meant less money up front.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it was much less risk for me.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, do you know what I can I can turn this around and and I can make the change.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it it it was uh an incredibly stressful 10-12 months after after signing up, but then you know, got some clarity on it and needed to then restructure it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the outcome of it is that we have a phenomenal clinic.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it took a long time to to get through that hard bit to get it.
• 18:45
  Michael: And 50-50 luck, right?
• 18:46
  Michael: I always say that in any business, 50-50 luck, it could have gone one way, it went the other, fortunately.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It could it could have gone the completely the other way.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think it's partially luck and and partially leaning into what I already knew.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there were certain things that happened that is definitely luck-based.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Getting the right clinician on board who then came and was really helpful in in rebuilding it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was certainly helpful.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, because I could then restructure it, I could then build it from more in my image or what we've done successfully in other clinics.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that seemed to also make a difference.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh there's a bit of this and a bit of that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, certainly that deal could have changed, um, changed it.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of put me off a little bit um in terms of buying another clinic.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I'd still be open to it to to this day.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'll probably just be a bit more discerning about what I would take on.
• 19:34
  Michael: You live and learn, right?
• 19:35
  Michael: You you learn.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Huge learning curve.
• 19:38
  Michael: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Michael: So so lots of clinic owners out there listening.
• 19:41
  Michael: One of the questions is going to be how do you finance it?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there's many ways of doing it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you could you could uh if you have cash flow in your business, you can usually get a loan.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, funding circle or something like that will lend you quite a bit based on your your cash flow.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that could then be um you know the the the kind of the deposit that you make on the business.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so often it's structured in a way where, you know, you will agree a sales sum, say 150,000 pounds or 200,000 pounds with the with the business owner, and you'll pay someone like 50 to 70% of that upfront.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's usually where you need to take the finance.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, if you've got money in your bank account just sat there doing nothing, and then you can do that too.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: One thing to remember is that you also have your solicitors' fees and accountancy fees on top of that, which can be quite significant.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um you're looking at probably close to 10 grand just in solicitor's fees.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that has to come from somewhere.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then you know then it comes down to the to the deferment.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And most business owners would like 100% of the money up front on day one.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it can be a bit of a hard negotiation to get um it deferred.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you know it's pretty standard to defer over two to three years based on on um on their accounts and and so you might find that you know on a 200,000 pound deal you'd pay 120 up front you'd have 80,000 pounds then so you have to find maybe 4000 in the next year and the 4000 in the year after.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I mean you have have the repayments of that 120,000 on top of then needing to save for that 40,000.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to make sure that you're done your due diligence on the financial stuff and you know the consistency of the accounts um month on month to know what the cash flow is.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then you know the last thing is you just need to make sure that there's some some money left in the bank as well.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know and often that's done from the previous owner where they have to leave what's called the working capital which covers you know like one cycle of insurance billing or something like that to make sure that you're not paying for the running of the business at the same time.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: That would that would be a standard kind of um sale or share purchase agreement.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: The other way you can do it is to to do an asset purchase which where you buy the goodwill and the trade but you don't actually buy the company which has a lot less risk for you as a as a buyer because you don't take on any historical problems.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: But then you usually have to pay the money um same deferred options usually but you also have to then fund the actual working of the clinic from day one.
• 22:04
  Michael: And as we know there may be tax implications further down the line when you do it that way.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is certainly one of those as well.
• 22:10
  Michael: We'll get into that we touched on it with with one of those clinics and uh I'm interested in sort of the big problems that you face.
• 22:18
  Michael: And before we get onto that you know what?
• 22:20
  Michael: I I know this is really interesting because I am constantly bombarded with people who say things like right I'm gonna stop working clinically I'm gonna focus on my business I'm gonna optimize it and then I'm gonna buy more clinics and I'm gonna expand etc etc and they're sat there they're doing 80% of the revenue within the business they stop working clinically they hire some sports therapists or some physios and then their business basically implodes I'm seeing it more and more and I think there's this idiotic trend for clinic owners to go oh I'm gonna sit back get out of clinical work and run the business and and I can't imagine if three years ago I'd have said that's it guys I'm gonna step back and I'm gonna run the business and not you know it's insane.
• 23:04
  Michael: But you did manage to do it and I'm really interested because you certainly couldn't be uh because this is another thing right you can't be buying businesses and acquiring businesses and building businesses if you're working a hundred hours clinically every week so how did you move from being the biggest earner within the clinic to now bring in very little I imagine less than 10% how did you how did you do that?
• 23:28
  Michael: How long did it take?
• 23:29
  Michael: Because this is another thing people think oh I'll do it within a three month period how long did it take and how did you do it?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know I I guess like everybody else I was trying to juggle everything at the at once even before I did any acquisitions and so when I then made my first acquisition I knew that I needed to free up some time and so I started off by cutting two days just immediately but at the same time I hired one other person.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he was already part-time in my business but he just increased full time so that kind of dovetailed it was a very gentle transition I guess between the two of us and so nothing really happened dramatically.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly wouldn't advise anybody do a big you know tomorrow I'm going to be stopped working and I've hired a physio to cover me because one your patients won't like it at all.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is a method of doing that obviously like there is a you have to have a strategy in place and that strategy might take you six months to 12 months to implement you know like it's it's not an overnight success.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: But as it turned out you know it just made me very busy on the days that I was working.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then within a short period of time I realized that because of the challenges I was facing in the clinic I needed even more time.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to free up another two days worth or day and a half worth of work quite quickly.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so that then became a little bit of a cash flow pinch because suddenly there was less money coming into the to the business and the other business wasn't really revenue generating at that stage.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So then that became an issue.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you know like it it only changed when I managed to solve the problems I guess and and we started then becoming quite cash positive straight away and then suddenly there was now money coming into the bank account again and that allowed us to then to for or less allowed me to relax a little bit more and stress a little bit less because you know at one point in time I was thinking oh my God why am I doing all this work um and I'm not seeing anything for it and in fact I'm actually starting to do some clinical hours in the the other clinic to try to cover the bills.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I kind of went you know what this is absolute madness.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah I mean it is quite possible to to to move from being full-time clinical and to grow your business but there's so many factors involved there and it takes time it does take time.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But interestingly that's exactly what happened to me this year because in February I fell over skiing and broke my hand.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so my two days became zero days quite quickly and I had to you know proper scurry to hire another physio.
• 25:56
  Michael: Yeah I I think uh it's also worth mentioning that if your physio is PAYE versus contract that makes a huge difference as well because if you're doing work and you're generating 100% of it um if you give it to PAYE you're still to some extent generating 100% other than their wage but if you're losing 50% 60% in some cases you're almost happening to get double the patience in just to make exactly the same net profit as you were when you were doing it yourself.
• 26:21
  Michael: I think people often forget that and um then run into trouble.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well often the soldier so you know it's going to be a little bit less money in the short term but better for the long term.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I still think that you know there are there is a way of doing that quite quite easily bringing somebody on board and and teaching them what you do with your patients so the transition becomes quite seamless and you can pass them on and things like that.
• 26:42
  Michael: It's interesting because that it's a good quote that it's Uva says half a day every three months that's that's your optimal and I think you're probably not far off maybe a day maybe you could get Yeah I mean you could probably do a day just just inform your patient that you know in three months' time I'm gonna be working four days a week um or in six months time I'm gonna be doing um you know three days a week you know what there's still the problem particularly when you've got your name above the door right in the guard physio it's not leads physio um people still want to come and see you so there is also a little loss of traction there or maybe difficulty where people want to see you.
• 27:16
  Michael: Now one thing you didn't do I don't think even though I told you to was put your price up did you end up doing that?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did in the end.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did I did you know it's it's something that I kind of battled for many many years because I kind of wanted my patients to come in and and think that seeing the other people was the same as seeing me.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So even if that potentially wasn't the case because they have a built-up relationship with me and they trust me a bit more then you know I didn't want them to feel like the other physics were lesser then.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was my philosophy behind it.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know I I think now that my prices are a bit bigger nobody really skipped a beat um people still want to book in and you know I I haven't really seen any problems with it.
• 27:52
  Michael: Yeah you were worried I remember at the time I was saying oh if I charge that much money no one would want to come see me and they'll probably want to see you more because the more you charge the more value they perceive value they have in that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I would I would think that is actually correct and you know I think um having that kind of two tier system can work for many clinics especially when you've been around for you know 10 years in your clinic you've got a built-up reputation you bring somebody on your time is always going to be a little bit more in demand and you know I think your experience and things like that comes into it too and and you know I think we we shouldn't be too scared about by charging a little bit extra for that.
• 28:26
  Michael: It's worth more yeah absolutely and it's no different to someone going getting a haircut right you can go and get your I always say it's get your haircut for 500 quid with a creative director or 50 quid with you know some junior person.
• 28:39
  Michael: I think um people are used to that we use it in all areas of our lives we can pay different amounts for different levels of skill even if sometimes the skill is you know pretty much the same we still perceive that a partner in a law firm is better than the junior in the law firm.
• 28:52
  Michael: It may not necessarily be true but point is we we're willing to pay more and I think um we've seen it m more and more now with with clinics doing um tier price but particularly for the owner if you're looking to get out of clinical work a little bit you know it's simple supply and demand.
• 29:06
  Michael: You have less supply you've got high demand you've got to put those prices up.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely and there there'll be you know 30-40% of your patients that will automatically just stick with you because they'd like you and the rest of them will go, you know, I'm quite happy seeing the the junior or the other physio um because I I'm I'm not really that bothered.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then new new people that come in they'll have a choice um if they perceive that they had there's more value in seeing the clinical director of the business then you know they can they they'll quite happy to pay for it but if they just want to book in next available appointment then then they'll do that too.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get on to the acquisition stuff again.
• 29:44
  Michael: You said to me the other day legacy of the old owner hangs over the clinic often culture is a massive thing.
• 29:50
  Michael: Let's get into some of the problems some of the real issues that you faced both expected unexpected things that were much bigger issues than you thought they were going to be so this is really for the clinic owner that's thinking I'm either going to expand through acquisition or I'm gonna build new clinic talk to me about the culture and the issues there.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean you know culture is is massive right so whether you like it or not you've nurtured a culture within your business over the years that you've been running it your way of doing it um your way of managing problems your way of celebrating success your way of dealing with wages and wage rises and all these things and your philosophy of treatment everything that you've built in the in your space so when somebody new comes in there's going to be some friction points.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so even though you think that on the surface of things like one of my clinics we we're super aligned but our management styles are very different.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you show up um in a different way often the friction will be um I guess uncertainty a bit of of being a little bit scared of of the new interaction and defensiveness for sure from from your new staff members because they don't know you.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: They you know they might have hangups from the previous owner in terms of how he was dealing with things or her and she was dealing with things and and then how how they respond to you based on on their previous interactions at the same time they're worried about you changing things, moving things around you know they might have been stuck in the way of doing it for 10 years and you're going well no no from tomorrow we're changing the operating system we're going to change the practice management systems your whole workflow is going to change you know then you go with a we're gonna make things more efficient we've got to automate things and things like that and they go to oh my God where's my job going and then so you know you you naturally well I got a lot of fired back in one of my businesses where they're you know I I at one point I thought are they actively working against me here?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking that's just bonkers because I'm paying all the wages and making sure that you know they've they've got a job to go to and things like that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: But you know if it it certainly felt that way and whether it was the case or not is difficult to know.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you know it it could have been easier and you know I guess I've learned a lot from that too you know like I I'd probably show up in a different way now than if I if I were to do it again if I were to do it again.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you know there are certain things that need to happen in a business too and they kind of need to be your new team members.
• 32:07
  Michael: Did did would you because I imagine knowing you you kind of walked in and said right guys this is going to be amazing with changing everything and it's going to be better.
• 32:15
  Michael: I imagine now you're a little bit more gentle with things and kind of maybe take the time a bit more.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually quite soft.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll go in and you know I like to empower people I like to to to get people's opinions on things I like people to be team members and you know like in one of the businesses there was uh certainly a being they've been told what to do and they all are always just followed the SOPs um and so they wouldn't step outside unless I've actually written it down.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah I mean you know I probably went in there with enthusiasm and trying to think well you know we're going to do things slightly differently now and I can see how that might have put people's backs up a little bit.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's only natural um and I think it's just the change the uncertainty of that change.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah probably a little bit more softly.
• 32:57
  Michael: I was wondering if you had a a strategy initially of kind of okay we've got Indergard physio it runs beautifully how is there a strategy to say okay I'm gonna get these other clinics and I'm gonna kind of homogenize them and everything's gonna be the same across those different clinics and we're gonna have the same whether it's systems i.e technology or whether it's policies for staff or whatever the case may be was that the initial strategy and is that still the strategy after learning what you've learned?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: The initial strategy was to try to combine everybody on the same systems just so that we can have oversight as a business.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know like you're trying to run four different businesses if you have different like we we had Microsoft in one camp and we had Google in the other camp go using Google workspace and the two there was friction.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: You had to deal with two different systems and two different ways of doing things and and so trying to homogenize that as much as possible but that you know that in itself was quite difficult to do.
• 33:50
  Michael: Well what about I'm thinking about maybe how um you do the CPD in the clinics or how you give your time to staff or maybe even HR policies, holiday policies, those sorts of things I I imagine initially because this would be my brain let's just do it all the same as this successful clinic but did that actually happen?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah to a certain extent um it did like it's uh you've got to take into account what they already have in place.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I don't you know I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to just swap and change contracts and things like that without you know speaking to people.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: But you know like it's it's that that's something that then takes a little time because you need to speak to people you need to explain what you're trying to do.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know CPD we you know we went from having individual stuff we now have combined things where we we do online sessions every month and the whole team actually gel together a bit more.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: They share with each other and so that's been an important thing and and bringing everybody onto the kind of the same communication platforms made a difference too like we use Slack uh a lot in the clinic for communication one between admin teams and two between clinicians as well and and it that's proven to be really helpful too because everybody starts to feel like they're part of something bigger and and I think that's quite important too is that is uh you know for them to realize that you know you you are looking after them but you also are part of much bigger so they they see that side of things too.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think that can be quite important for the for the culture side of things.
• 35:13
  Michael: It's amazing actually how few clinics use Slack.
• 35:15
  Michael: I'm I'm amazed so in the corporate world it's like if you're not on Slack you're not alive but um in the healthcare space very few clinics use Slack and I I I some will use WhatsApp groups or whatever which I think is it can work but it's never never quite as functional as Slack can be particularly the different channels.
• 35:31
  Michael: But I think that's right in in terms of getting everyone involved and we do little things like uh uh we had one this morning uh every Monday morning the first thing anyone sees is a geek bot automation that asks them a question it could be anything but today was who is your biggest mentor biggest impact on your life then it might be what's your favourite pizza it could be any kind of question but it kind of gets things that you sway on a Monday morning right yeah yeah yeah absolutely many cool things you can do with Slack and you're right I think culture just culture it works really nicely so do you do do your do this is an interesting one then so you've got your individual clinics but do you then get and I know they're in different locations but do the physios all feel like they're part of a greater Indigaard group or do they still feel like they're individuals within the individual clinics and then do you do socials or uh team events across everyone or by clinic?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So in terms of team events and and socials uh that's usually done by a clinic just because of geography.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know we're spread out from the Wivell all the way up to Leeds um so there's quite a geographical spread and that's difficult to coordinate.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that they I would like to think that they they feel like they're part of a bigger group but you know at the same time we were trying to um retain the identity of the clinic and so for instance we brand them um with their original names uh partially because marketing works better locally and two you know like they have a legacy within that area too so if I changed one of the clinics to Indigar physiotherapy in West Kirby for instance then you know people would go what's this and so it kind of fits a bit better.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know part of you know one of the things that you like to do is to carry on the legacy of the clinic when you buy it too so that you're not lost everything that's been built up not just in terms of brand recognition and stuff but also the feel of the clinic and the patients they have a relationship with the name of the clinic um you know and and that's important I think.
• 37:18
  Michael: Yeah and I when we saw the business I certainly didn't want them to change the name to something completely different you know help improved it or something.
• 37:24
  Michael: So I think uh yeah I I understand that but I'm interested because it would be interesting to kind of bring all of those clinicians together at some point maybe here's a here's an idea you should do an interclinic sports day and make them more compete against each other for a prize.
• 37:39
  Michael: That would get a confessive juices thing.
• 37:41
  Michael: So other than culture what are some of the other big problems that you faced what what should people look out for that are thinking going down this route?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I guess you know like um does it come under culture?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that can go into the culture.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: The culture is a little bit how they interact with each other.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know I I came into a clinic where they had a really established team they've been working together for years and years and years and and so I became the outsider and so breaking breaking down that barrier it was really really difficult.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you know the it it takes a lot out of you as a as a business owner I guess to to to go into that you know you're thinking that you're the big cheese because you now bought this clinic and and you own it and everything like that and they're going we don't really know who you are and you know for them to get to know you is is tricky especially if you're not in the location every single day.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things that would probably change now if I were to take on another clinic I'd probably want to be there more or less every day for the first three months just to be around have the conversations learn a bit more about the internal workings of the business and things like that.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that would certainly change things.
• 38:46
  Michael: I've heard that you know from a few people I just went to a restaurant called mention it uh Pump Royale who are this kind of Scandinavian restaurant they're it's very crazy restaurants if you get the chance to go in in London go.
• 38:56
  Michael: But I was chatting to the the the manager there and she said that whenever they open a new location she will spend the first six months there because she needs to get to know the staff she needs to kind of really teach them about the business and the culture of the business not about doing the work itself but who the business is and what they expect and and that kind of thing.
• 39:16
  Michael: And I same thing happened with strangely enough with a a hotel owner who he opens up various hotels and he sends a senior management team there to manage it for the first year because they're the only ones that really understand the the the full culture and so on.
• 39:30
  Michael: So I guess yeah spending time you didn't spend huge amounts of time there initially did you?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: No I didn't and um you know this is one of the things that you know you you learn as well is that if if you're gonna expand really quickly and you're gonna buy lots of clinics you better make sure that you have a team that's helping you with that.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so if it's not you then there has to be somebody in the business who can actually go and do that job.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you mean in the original clinic or do you mean in the new clinics?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: You probably need somebody from your original clinic or in your original team that understands your business and understands what Where you're trying to bring this new business into.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not to say that your your existing business can't help you.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Often you when you look at acquisitions, you're looking for talented team members.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you you can get some proper weapons of clinicians and admin people to really come in and help you on the operational side of things too.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think in terms of if you want to grow another two or three clinics a year, then there's got to be somebody in charge of actually integrating these clinics.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you're trying to think of running your business being that integrations person and being the person who mentors everybody and looks after the finances and speaks to the marketing team and everything like that, suddenly you will run out of time.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's one of the limitations, and certainly one of the limitations that I've met um in the fact that you know to get somebody involved like that, you have to have much higher margins than we do in physio.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: So and you either need some financial backing, I think, to to be able to take that next step or um or you've grown to a certain size that you have the the the cash flow in the business to be able to afford that too.
• 41:06
  Michael: Sure, there's just this there's this this this middle ground, isn't there, where you're you don't have enough cash flow, so you can't pay for some of the team that you really need, but you can't get to the next stage without doing that or killing yourself.
• 41:17
  Michael: It's one of the two.
• 41:18
  Michael: Yeah.
• 41:18
  Michael: Um and you know, uh when you're a six physio or whatever, you just throw money at it, who cares, you hire whatever you need.
• 41:25
  Michael: But it's difficult to do initially.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you know, like we we are a relatively small business.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, if if our turnover was twice as much as it was now, then yeah, we would be able to afford having one person whose role was to just integrate another acquisition.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, it comes a time I'd the goal was never to grow as big as possible.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: The goal was to grow a bit, but have it manageable, have a control over the service delivery, um, make sure that the quality was there and and and that we were still doing a really good job.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, the the bigger you are, the must must be much so much harder to maintain the quality within the clinics.
• 42:01
  Michael: That's an interesting one.
• 42:02
  Michael: So I know you number one patient outcomes, right?
• 42:04
  Michael: That's that's it.
• 42:05
  Michael: That's what you want.
• 42:06
  Michael: I'm about to talk to a P next week, I think, on on, and I'm gonna ask him a similar question.
• 42:11
  Michael: Because you can't be up here with patient outcomes if your profit is down here, right?
• 42:16
  Michael: So I'm wondering, how did you because I know you did, but I'm sure there are times where you're like, well, patient outcomes, profit, that's kind of where I want to be, because I need the profit.
• 42:26
  Michael: How do you stop yourself from becoming a corporate twat and thinking, well, let's care a bit less about patient outcomes because I need the money to come in.
• 42:35
  Michael: I've got to pay the bills.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: The the the quality is the North Star.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at one point I was quite tempted.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was approached by a corporate entity and they said, you know, we can send you probably about 120 treatments a month, but we're gonna pay you 30 pounds a session to do that.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I really can't do that.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can we meet somewhere in the middle?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like, you know, with our normal fee is 50 pounds a session.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Can we, you know, we're quite happy to discount that to 45.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they've literally ghosted me.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, like it just there has to be a point where you've got to keep your North Star.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that is the patient quality in terms of the treatments and the outcomes that we're getting.
• 43:08
  Michael: And like you, like quite rightly said, you know, you want to make sure that you're delivering a good service, and that means being able to- It must be but that it must be easy to say, you know what, I'm just gonna hire these three crappy physios because I know they're cheap.
• 43:19
  Michael: That's gonna hit my profit margin, I'm gonna make more money, and I'm gonna put myself in a more comfortable position.
• 43:25
  Michael: It's very easy to do that, and I know companies that are doing that.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess it's easy, but uh, you know, if you're hiring crappy physios, then your patient outcomes will no-star, and your profit will no-strive with that too.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: You'd have a clinician that sits there with 50% capacity, and and you know, if you understand that most of that money is going to pay their wage, then there isn't much less.
• 43:46
  Michael: I wonder if that's true.
• 43:47
  Michael: I wonder if that's true.
• 43:48
  Michael: I I'm not so sure that patient outcomes and profit and revenue are inextricably linked.
• 43:53
  Michael: I just don't think they are.
• 43:54
  Michael: I think there's many clinics that are providing absolute shithouse of care, but still making a ton of money.
• 44:00
  Michael: And as long as they got the marketing right, bad marketing might add.
• 44:03
  Michael: I think there's a plenty of people can make money through through uh patient outcomes, you see it all the time.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a very expensive business business model, doesn't it?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're having to rely on on uh you know, if you say you have a big churn rate, people are dropping off like flies, and you know, 50% of your patients are disappearing every every week, then you have to have the marketing budget there.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I'm pretty sure people can make a business model out of it and make money out of it.
• 44:26
  Michael: So you manage to stick with the let's let's keep things at the high standard.
• 44:30
  Michael: Yeah, that's that's kind of what I told us.
• 44:32
  Michael: I know we have a hard stop in about two minutes, so I want to know um what are the most expected, very quick short file questions.
• 44:40
  Michael: What's the most unexpected issue, maybe stupidest or funniest thing that you hit that you just never thought was ever going to be a problem?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of the acquisitions?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened was I'm trying to think.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Unexpected problem.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: The the biggest one was probably being chucked out of our premises.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and and um yeah, I think we got given three months' notice to be chucked out of the premises for on one of them, and then subsequently we found new premises and we got given six weeks again, and and you know, we had to overcome that.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had to find new premises, which we did, and we're now in some lovely locations.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it all worked out well.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was a bit a bit of luck in and that it was available.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, yeah, that was kind of uh unexpected.
• 45:19
  Michael: It's always again, just for anyone who's thinking going down this route, don't expect it all to be think double.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Shit will happen.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: These things happen, you know, we were reliant on on uh another clinic and they changed their mind uh about what they wanted to do the space space for, and then you know, we we just got given our marching orders and you know we didn't really have much more than a three-month notice period.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: So um that was kind of it.
• 45:40
  Michael: Which is not the best thing when you're buying a clinic to uh only have a three-month notice, but you would probably or at least that's that you're probably looking at that next time you buy a clinic to make sure there's something a little bit more stable there.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I read all the contracts before I took it on and I thought, well, do you know what?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: The clinic's been there since 2007.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's unlikely to change, right?
• 45:58
  Michael: Right, exactly.
• 45:59
  Michael: Uh it's unlikely.
• 46:01
  Michael: Right, next one.
• 46:02
  Michael: What three qualities do you think a person needs absolute must-haves to succeed and make something like this work?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Resiliency, patience, and enthusiasm.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And a little bit of madness.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of madness, perhaps.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there are easier ways of making money.
• 46:18
  Michael: Certainly are.
• 46:19
  Michael: Sell courses on how to do this stuff.
• 46:20
  Michael: That's probably and the last one is more of a serious point, very quickly.
• 46:24
  Michael: I know we've got to go, but it's a serious point.
• 46:26
  Michael: I think it's an important one.
• 46:27
  Michael: Um, I I remember when I when I was running stuff here at HMDG, I I I had a bit of a nervous breakdown.
• 46:33
  Michael: Not a nervous breakdown, but I break down.
• 46:35
  Michael: And something that I think is is really interesting is that there's so few people, especially when when you're looking at this stuff, they all want to show themselves with their Lambo and their Ferraris and their big houses and their expensive watches, and they want to always make out some, you know, everything's going really well, but that isn't the case.
• 46:52
  Michael: Um, is that something that because I think you you did open up to people, right?
• 46:55
  Michael: It was really how important was it to be able to have a support group where you could go, you know what, I'm, you know, Elon Musk here and shit's going south.
• 47:04
  Michael: Like I need some help.
• 47:05
  Michael: How important was that to have that support group?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think huge, hugely important.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you if you sit there and having to pretend to people that everything's okay, then that could lead to worse things down the line because you become so isolated, right?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: And even just having a sounding board, even if they don't offer you any help, just the fact that you can voice your problems and often you know they have nothing to say because nobody's been in that situation before.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: They might just go, do you know, okay, I've heard you, you know, I've got you've got this.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's important.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then, you know, you you you know you've had a a brunt of it, you've helped me helped me out.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: At times I'm gonna go, I've got this problem, and I need to fix it.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then because of your experience, you know, within the industry, you've been able to to to kind of just nudge me in the right direction with that.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've got a great group of clinic owners that we we speak about a lot of different things, and no, I I don't really feel that there's a need to pretend.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been quite open in that group going, do you know what?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is shit.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Shit.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I don't know why I even bothered doing it.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, there's help to be had because other clinical have have had the same issues, they've met the same resistance, they've had to put in a new system that fixes a problem.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it there's always some some help to be had there.
• 48:18
  Michael: So I wanted to make this point because that there are so many clinical as I see who are really struggling, and sometimes they do actually open up to me, but they on the outside there, everything's amazing, look how wonderful I am, look how rich I am, I've got these these big businesses, but they don't ever have that support group where they go, shit, it's actually really bad, and I need some help.
• 48:36
  Michael: And I I think it's important to have that support group, and I think going back to the qualities that you had, I think one of them has to be humility because whether that is walking into a clinic and thinking, well, I know how to run a business way better than all of these staff that have been there for 15 years, one times you've got to say, you know what, like you say, let's ask you questions.
• 48:54
  Michael: What would you change?
• 48:55
  Michael: What do you think needs doing?
• 48:57
  Michael: Or it's shit's really tough and I need some help and I need someone to to even just listen to me or whatever.
• 49:02
  Michael: Um I think it's an important point because um you know, people always go on about mental health, and actually I think men suffer just as much as anyone else, if not more, because they don't bloody speak up.
• 49:12
  Michael: Um and I think it's definitely an issue in this industry.
• 49:14
  Michael: Everything's a little bit gung-ho and testosterone at times.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, well, you know, running a business is hard.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, however good you are and however resilient you are, there's always going to be problems when you're running a business.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, like yeah, I think you know it's invaluable to have a peer group that you can you can speak to.
• 49:31
  Michael: It's hard, but sometimes it's not just about it just gets on top of you.
• 49:34
  Michael: There's too much, right?
• 49:35
  Michael: You're like, you can't I okay, enough of the fucking problems.
• 49:39
  Michael: I've got you've given me 15 today, I can't deal with another, and then another five come along.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's the case, it's the volume of requests and volume of problems that hit your desk on on a given day.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um the next day, there's another pile on your desk.
• 49:55
  Michael: Yeah, or something happened to you the other day, which it was a a a single issue, but it's a significant one, right?
• 50:00
  Michael: And these things that it's just I remember you going, for fuck's sake.
• 50:04
  Michael: And and and it is, it's so important.
• 50:05
  Michael: I I do let's end on that point because I think it is important if you're gonna go down this route that you do make sure you have a support group, you've got a bit of humility, and you you have some people that you can open up to.
• 50:17
  Michael: Um good.
• 50:18
  Michael: All right, thank you so much for doing this.
• 50:19
  Michael: I know we've I've made you late to your next meeting, but thank you again.
• 50:22
  Michael: And if anyone wants to get in touch with Uber, then um yeah, let us know.
• 50:27
  Michael: Uh, because I'm sure you'd be more than willing to give it out some some advice and um anyone looking to go down this route.
• 50:34
  Michael: All right, thanks very much, and we'll chat soon.
• 50:36
  Michael: Cheers.
• 50:37
  Michael: Thanks, Michael.
• 50:38
  Michael: Bye, bye.