Latest / No Appointment Necessary / The Patient’s Take: Trust, WhatsApp and Modern Patient Relationships

Transcript

The Patient’s Take: Trust, WhatsApp and Modern Patient Relationships · No Appointment Necessary

• 0:01
  Michael: Welcome to the latest episode of No Point When Necessary.
• 0:04
  Michael: Today we have Heather with us.
• 0:05
  Michael: Heather is, um, as I would describe her, the female version of Michael.
• 0:10
  Michael: Um, slightly bulky, slightly opinionated, but absolutely brilliant.
• 0:16
  Michael: Um, I met Heather quite a while ago and we just connected so well.
• 0:20
  Michael: Um, what's interesting about Heather is she's got nothing really to do with this industry, but is a female business owner who has done all kinds of very cool things.
• 0:28
  Michael: And I think it's really interesting to get an outsider's take.
• 0:31
  Michael: And also interestingly, she is a client, I guess, or a patient of a um joint friend, joint customer, actually, or a customer of ours as well.
• 0:41
  Michael: So you also have some experience there.
• 0:43
  Michael: So welcome, Heather.
• 0:44
  Michael: Um, do you want to give us a little bit of background who you are and and why you're so great?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Michael.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted at being called the female version of Michael, but I'll take it as flattery.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's lovely to be here.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have been in the UK for the past 25 years.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: I built and sold a marketing and PR agency.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I ran another group of agencies for a while.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And for the last year-ish, I've been focusing almost exclusively on AI, helping uh leaders make sense of AI, get think clearly about AI and make better decisions around AI.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, but you're right, I am full of aches and pains and a regular um patient at my physio clinic.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I've got lots of insight into how these clinics work, and that's been going on for a long time, ever since I decided to run a marathon that I wasn't ready to run.
• 1:45
  Michael: I want to get your bird's eye view on some of the things that you see in the industry.
• 1:49
  Michael: Some of the things, you know, because you are a uh you are a patient, but you're also a business owner and you're also a mark tier.
• 1:56
  Michael: So it's kind of interesting to see your your view on things.
• 1:59
  Michael: And in fact, um, I was chatting to one of our team who um I I think I can share this, who you do some uh I don't want to call it coaching, but you you work with um a little bit.
• 2:11
  Michael: And um she said, God, even Heather says that she's going to maybe not see a uh not see her physio as many times, and Heather's rich.
• 2:22
  Michael: So well then God be in the the market must be crap, and it may be but um I love the fact that I give the impression that I'm rich.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure that's how I describe myself, except for the fact that I have two beautiful children and an amazing family, so I'm very rich in that sense.
• 2:39
  Michael: You've done all you've done all right, and I think I think it's probably put together as well, like you know.
• 2:47
  Michael: Um let's talk then about um let's start with the patient experience because it's something I feel really, really strong about, and and I I think a lot of clinics really overlook it.
• 3:00
  Michael: We we they'll often talk about retention and how we can train the physio better, how we can do XYZ better.
• 3:07
  Michael: In fact, we did a talk last night and with an amazing Celia Champion, love it to bits, and it was about retention.
• 3:14
  Michael: Um, but one thing that I think is so important is the experience that you get as a patient from from even before you visit the business, but certainly once you're in the business, um, you know, what is it that you're you're doing?
• 3:26
  Michael: So so now it's it's you have a slightly skewed view because you do visit a very brilliant clinic who really are put together properly and and do really well.
• 3:37
  Michael: Um, but what are your overall views on on how important that patient experience?
• 3:42
  Michael: What is the patient experience?
• 3:43
  Michael: What do you want to see?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this is so important, and every business I encounter, I look at it through this business lens.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: I go to a restaurant and I'm like, it's four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and only two tables are filled.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um like, is this restaurant going to survive?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: What's that person eating?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: How much are they making?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: They've got three staff in there, and I try and like work out if this business is going to be successful.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so I do that with everything I encounter.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um it's so important in terms of dealing with um clinics like the ones, the ones you're talking about.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And as you said, I um I go to a very good one, but I haven't always um the I for me the quality of the physio is not the whole picture.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the quality of the physio is obviously important, but it is a small part in the bigger picture.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not just about retention, because the particular clinic I go to, I've probably been to 10 appointments in the last 18 months, but I've probably referred that clinic to 30 people.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um my the retaining me is not nearly as valuable to them as um the business I think I've probably generated for them.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that is where the customer experience is so important.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the customer experience starts with when you try to make an appointment, you know, you phone, nobody answers the phone.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's an answering service, that's fine.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: You don't expect the receptionist to be available all the time.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: But then you get a call back like 20 minutes later, um, and they know who you are because they've looked at your phone number, even if you didn't leave a message, they've looked at your phone number, they know who you are.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um I think you and I are gonna disagree about this.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's an actual human who phones you back.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's not an AI agent pretending to be a human.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: They phone you back and um uh they book you in.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if the physio you want to see isn't available, but you're in a lot of pain.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I got back from a holiday a couple of months ago, was in a lot of pain.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: They made a plan.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't say, oh, well, your guy's not back for another two weeks.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, okay, this afternoon, this guy can fit you in.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it ended up being very, very valuable.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, everything from booking the appointment, getting some sort of confirmation and follow-up, but not like three emails and five texts, just something that I can refer to so that I can double check that I've got the right time in my diary is really, really important.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Arriving, knowing what to do where you are when you arrive, um, knowing how to check in.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then people, like just the communication before you've even met the physio, the communication is so important.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's I don't mind if I go to the physio and I wait 45 minutes for my appointment.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: If there's an apology, look, the guy before you just had an accident and like there's a been a real problem.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if there's an a reasonable explanation and an apology and an attempt to solve it for me, that's fine.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'll sit and wait, or I'll work with you to arrange an alternative time.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: But it's this like lack of communication.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, the number of small practices, not necessarily in this space, but like dental and stuff, where you book an appointment and you get five confirmation emails, and they all say a slightly different time and it doesn't make any sense, and you phone and then you can't get hold of anybody and you don't know when your appointment is, and then you ask to be emailed a receipt for your records, but then it doesn't happen, and you've got a phone to follow up.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like all of this stuff really matters.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then walking into the room, I I am like very um, like I noticed this stuff.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Dust bunnies, the room must be clean.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you're getting down on doing downward dogs and you know, expected to practice your exercises with your foam roller on the floor, you know what like the hair of the last 20 people who are there, like get a room but clean it, right?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because that might only bother 20% of people, but those 20% of people might be the people that refer other business.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that sort of stuff is really, really important.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then for me, like the quality of the practitioner is actually less of a concern because I've almost always had brilliant support, um, varying levels of brilliant.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: I had I had one experience that was less than brilliant, um, but I've almost always had very, very good support.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um so I don't think people will make a recommendation because they adore the person, but they won't make a recommendation if they find the experience, if they adore the person, but they find the experience too frustrating.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I think all of those things are so important.
• 8:55
  Michael: Okay, uh there's a reason I've got you on.
• 8:58
  Michael: Um because there's some really great stuff there.
• 9:02
  Michael: Um I think w what we're talking here is quite operational.
• 9:06
  Michael: And so yeah, you've got to make things life easier for people.
• 9:10
  Michael: Um, and and most importantly, and and I don't say this enough, but you're absolutely right.
• 9:16
  Michael: It's not just about you coming back, it's about the people you recommend.
• 9:20
  Michael: I whenever I get a great service, I recommend whether it's a product or anything, I recommend it all the time.
• 9:25
  Michael: I make companies thousands of pounds just through the recommendations and and then their lifetime value.
• 9:31
  Michael: So that's really important and and something that that I'm definitely going to take away from this and and and put some effort into to talking about more.
• 9:38
  Michael: I think um another point you made was that the quality of the practitioner.
• 9:44
  Michael: I hear all the time we've got the best physio.
• 9:46
  Michael: I don't care, we've got the the no one no one actually first of all cares about that initially, and most of the time you don't even know if that practitioner has been really good because you're not an expert in the field, right?
• 9:59
  Michael: So what are you really judging it on?
• 10:01
  Michael: You're not getting an outcome after two minutes or you know one appointment.
• 10:04
  Michael: You're judging it on your experience, um, how easy things were, how nice the clinic was, and then how nice that person was.
• 10:11
  Michael: I mean, I I think um a really nice, personable um uh clinician who really listens and and does all the right things is going to get a better performance from a revenue perspective than than than the best clinician who's just very short and and doesn't you know doesn't talk very much.
• 10:29
  Michael: So I think that's that's super important.
• 10:31
  Michael: Uh good point about three emails, four texts, or whatever.
• 10:34
  Michael: You don't have to try so hard.
• 10:36
  Michael: Like um you are going to bother, particularly ENTJs like me and you, I'm assuming you're an ENTJ, um people like us, we honestly, you text me three times, I'm going to delete you and probably never gonna come back to you again.
• 10:49
  Michael: Yeah, like do it once and do it right.
• 10:51
  Michael: And I think there's a a real um thing in this industry where it's like let's just keep emailing people as many times as we can until they come back, or let's just text them three times to remind them.
• 11:01
  Michael: They know.
• 11:02
  Michael: Um you just need to do it once.
• 11:05
  Michael: Um so uh operational stuff, I think absolutely, I think that's so important.
• 11:10
  Michael: Is the booking system good?
• 11:11
  Michael: Can you call?
• 11:12
  Michael: Is the phone answered?
• 11:14
  Michael: Um, and by the way, on the AI stuff, no, AI shouldn't be doing outband calls.
• 11:17
  Michael: But if you can't get through to a receptionist, I would rather an AI receptionist says, hey, listen, there's no one here at the moment, can I help you or can I refer you?
• 11:26
  Michael: I think that's where AI comes incredibly well.
• 11:28
  Michael: Or if you've got an emergency at 9 p.m.
• 11:30
  Michael: and you want to book an appointment and and you know, I think that's where it comes in really.
• 11:34
  Michael: Um so all of this operational stuff, super, super important.
• 11:37
  Michael: Um, one question I have for you is more and more people are using WhatsApp now to confirm appointments and do various things.
• 11:47
  Michael: My view on this is great for confirmation of an appointment once, maybe.
• 11:52
  Michael: Don't use it to market.
• 11:55
  Michael: What do you think?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I um I just don't like having my admin on WhatsApp, but that's just a personal choice.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very happy to get a text, and I know that um if I've got an appointment tomorrow, I know that when I need to work out what the time is, I'll just go look on my text.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really need it cluttering up my WhatsApp feed because I think most people struggle to keep on top of WhatsApp anyway.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and because of the way they structure that the newest one goes to the top, and then it's I just I struggle with it.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: I get that other people might find it useful, but I don't like that.
• 12:40
  Michael: So I don't I don't like anything in WhatsApp that isn't kind of useful to me.
• 12:44
  Michael: Like I I keep all the documents in text, and WhatsApp is for close friends or very important customers or whatever.
• 12:51
  Michael: Um, but I don't mind something if I might might need a discussion.
• 12:54
  Michael: So I had an operation, can't really call it an operation, but it was really nice for the consultant to say, hey, just remember this is what's happening.
• 13:01
  Michael: Any questions?
• 13:02
  Michael: And you feel like now you're having a conversational relationship with someone rather than a transactional one.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, with the with the practitioner, absolutely, I'm happy to be on WhatsApp, but I don't want the admin, I don't want the meeting, the meeting confirmation can come on email, can come in text.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't want the meeting reminder on WhatsApp, I don't want all of that, but absolutely the conversation with the practitioner, which um is yeah, brilliant if you can do that on WhatsApp.
• 13:31
  Michael: So here's another question then, um, because that leads it in into it quite nicely.
• 13:36
  Michael: In in the old days, say the old days, brands were the company name.
• 13:40
  Michael: Okay, it was Argos or it was Woolworths or whatever the brand was, it didn't matter.
• 13:44
  Michael: It was the clinic name, you know, Bob's physio.
• 13:48
  Michael: And my view now is that much like hairdressing to some extent, is that the brand is less important, the brand name is less important, and it's the people within the business that are the most important people.
• 14:01
  Michael: So, and you know this, right?
• 14:02
  Michael: If your uh head headmaster's getting your hair cut by someone and they leave, you're probably gonna go with that person.
• 14:09
  Michael: And I think we see that in clinics all the time as well.
• 14:11
  Michael: But I think clinics are sometimes resticed to to push their clinicians out there and make them the face of the business.
• 14:18
  Michael: So, and as an example, I don't think it would be a bad idea for all clinicians to be texting confirmations to you, hey Heather, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.
• 14:27
  Michael: Just remember this is what we're doing, rather than the brand, i.e., being being out there.
• 14:32
  Michael: What do you think about that?
• 14:33
  Michael: What do you think about the brand versus the clinician versus the personality and and how that fits nowadays?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think from the end user, the customer's point of view, it's much better to be dealing with an individual.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, I mean, I do feel loyalty to my particular clinic because I know the the owner, but um, typically you don't feel you don't feel loyalty to the hairdressing salon, you feel loyalty to the guy who does your hair.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that I'm not that interested in hearing from the brand, except in this case where I am, um, but you're not that interested in hearing from the brand, you're interested in dealing with your practitioner for sure.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think the strongest businesses would be bold about this and they would say, Look, we realize that giving our practitioners direct access to their clients creates a risk.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: But equally, if those practitioners, if we've got some very entrepreneurial practitioners in here who want to go off and set up on their own and take, they'll probably end up taking their clients with them.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Rather than turning it into an adversarial situation, could we do this like in a mutually beneficial way and uh, you know, set up their almost set it up that they can buy their client contracts off us if they want, because most people aren't entrepreneurial, they don't want to do that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you're only probably threatening like 10% of your business.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then rather than having this like persona non grata name that is never mentioned in the business because Matthew left and set up on his own round the corner, it's like, oh yeah, Matthew left, we're celebrating with him, we're really happy for him, we're um out on social media together, and you know, good for you, Matthew.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, you you took some of our clients, um, but you've done really well.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And at some point in the future, we might buy you, or you know, you might buy us, or um, we might open an ultrasound department and we might share the costs.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there is actually a lot to be gained by not turning everything into a this guy's out to get me.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that across my whole business, the best one of the best things I ever did was make friends with competitors.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the best ideas, clients, I bought one of my competitors because I'd made friends with them.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like so much opportunity came from making friends with my competit competitors.
• 17:05
  Michael: This was going to be one of the topics I was gonna get into actually was collaboration.
• 17:09
  Michael: And let's get into that more in more depth in a bit.
• 17:12
  Michael: Going back to that that that um practitioner versus brand experience, I think it's really important, even if it's just on the website, I want to see the the practitioners available, I want to see who they are, I want to see what they enjoy doing.
• 17:23
  Michael: Yeah, this is something we do with all of our clients, is is we made sure that that on their website doesn't just say Heather went to this university, does XYZ.
• 17:32
  Michael: It was like it's like Heather has kids and she does this, she hells from, you know, if she likes Netball or whatever the case may be.
• 17:38
  Michael: And I think driving that personality is is really important.
• 17:40
  Michael: And when you look at some of the big brands, actually, I I recently getting a web wedding suit made, and I went to a very nice brand for this.
• 17:48
  Michael: Um, I'm in contact directly with that person within the shop, right?
• 17:54
  Michael: It's it's not it's the actual tailor, it's not the the the brand name, and and it's really good to have him little like WhatsApp me over.
• 18:01
  Michael: He actually WhatsApp me over some Pinterest pictures and said, What do you think about these and how does this fit?
• 18:06
  Michael: I'm never leaving that rant, I'm never going anywhere else because I just feel like I have now a relationship and you can build a relationship there, you can't build it with woolworths, right?
• 18:17
  Michael: Or whatever the brand might be generally.
• 18:20
  Michael: Um back to that patient experience, because that is part of the patient experience.
• 18:26
  Michael: We talked about the operational experience, but what about the soft experience?
• 18:30
  Michael: So how someone greets you at the door, um, whether they've got nice hand wash in their bathroom.
• 18:35
  Michael: People laugh when I say that, but um, what about those soft um patient experiences?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, those things are important to me for sure.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think um I've my whole experience since I first went to my very first physio when I tore a car off muscle 15 years ago, um has been they've always been awesome.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like they've always been really nice people, they've always been friendly.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it is, but it's just it's always been a nice experience.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I suppose because I'm comparing it to going to the dentist where you like you're gonna be hurt and you're worried, and or you know, going to the doctor where you might be anxious.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like they've always been it kind of feels like going to the doctor, but they have more time for you, they um it go more into your history.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's always been this like positive experience for me.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say that that's really important, but it almost seems like the default, um, in my experience, and the probably 12 physios I've seen over my life.
• 19:37
  Michael: Well, I'm thinking more about uh and by the way, I think the reason that you're experiencing that is because I truly believe that um people who are physios are doing this because it's vocational, because it's they want to help people, and that they are genuinely nicer people on on average.
• 19:56
  Michael: I'm being very generous, but but I do believe that you know you only need to put a physio against a consultant, and you you will see the difference between the the the level of I don't want to say care, but yeah, care, right?
• 20:08
  Michael: It it it it certainly is very different.
• 20:11
  Michael: It does leave them.
• 20:20
  Michael: True, but at the same time, what because this leads, and we use by the way, everyone, we're using the word physio as a umbrella term.
• 20:28
  Michael: We actually are including because that's how we're talking about chiropractic clinic with you, um, rather than that's the physio clinic.
• 20:34
  Michael: Um I I think that that leaves them open often to being really uncommercial, making bad decisions and not thinking through what are we giving the patient because they're so nice.
• 20:45
  Michael: And and and I don't want to get into pricing yet, but I don't think you would care what the pricing went up to at your current clinic within reason, but it's it it they are and I and I know that clinic, well, mentioning it's Rob, right?
• 21:02
  Michael: Um, we we know that that clinic will be doing everything right and so they can justify their price.
• 21:08
  Michael: I think there's a lot of clinics you've probably been to where you're like, Jesus Christ, this is cheap.
• 21:12
  Michael: Like I'm getting a lot here for not a lot of worry.
• 21:15
  Michael: Um, and I think that's where physios, because they're so nice, do too much sometimes and give away too much and so on.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've been um in my certainly in the last 20 years, I've constantly been telling certain people to increase their prices, whether it's personal trainers who are just excellent or um physios, or I mean, look, I come at this from London though, where I was used to London prices, and now I'm in the middle of the countryside and the prices are just lower.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm kind of pleasantly surprised by um the pricing here.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I mean that's just even just the parking here.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: People complain that it's like£1.80 for.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Three hours, and I'm like, ooh, bet.
• 22:05
  Michael: I think you will get this.
• 22:06
  Michael: Because for me, it's it's rarely about the price, right?
• 22:10
  Michael: So for example, um, let's say you have a cardiac issue and you private consultant and said I'm gonna take a thousand pounds, you're finding a thousand pounds, right?
• 22:18
  Michael: Uh if if you have your favorite restaurant, it's more expensive than McDonald's, but you're paying it because you love the place.
• 22:24
  Michael: And it so I think often it's about expectation and it's about what you're providing.
• 22:30
  Michael: Um, and I um the example I always use is Pure Gym and Third Space.
• 22:33
  Michael: When I hit the Pure Gym website, I expect it to be 50 quid a month, 30 quid a month, or whatever, London or not.
• 22:38
  Michael: When I hit Third Space website, I expect I'm going to be paying some money out here.
• 22:42
  Michael: And and 300 pounds doesn't surprise me at all.
• 22:45
  Michael: And I actually think it's value, even though I can get the same product eight times cheaper somewhere.
• 22:50
  Michael: What I think a lot of MSK clinics, so you tell me if you agree, what I think a lot of MSK clinics don't realise is that they're not competing with the NHS, they're not competing on price necessarily.
• 23:02
  Michael: What they need to do, forget about pricing, create a great product, charge whatever you like because people will come.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it I think that's I think that's true in somewhere like London.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that when you get further outside of London, there's just you're just servicing a smaller market.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then these small towns across the country, you've got you look at the gyms, like how hard it is to keep a gym going, even though the gym is busy, there's just not that there's just not that traffic um to be able to get people there.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't know.
• 23:43
  Michael: Just to clarify, I am talking percentage terms.
• 23:46
  Michael: So no, you are not gonna charge um 200 pounds for an hour appointment in Abingdon.
• 23:52
  Michael: It's not happening.
• 23:53
  Michael: But you also shouldn't be charging 35.
• 23:55
  Michael: So I think it's in relation.
• 23:57
  Michael: Like there's there's i if you're in London um charging someone 140 pounds, absolutely fine.
• 24:05
  Michael: Like, there's no problem doing that.
• 24:06
  Michael: And lots of people are at the 80 or 70 or whatever, and in the countryside, let's say around scientists or whatever, there's no problem charging someone 70 or 80 pounds.
• 24:14
  Michael: Absolutely, you're with that.
• 24:15
  Michael: But I think what most clinics are doing is charging the 40 or the 50, right?
• 24:19
  Michael: And I and I that that's my issue.
• 24:21
  Michael: It's more about um encouraging people not just to put up the prices, but it it's all about expectations of what what you're providing, people will pay.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would have agreed with you up until probably the last two and a half, three years, um, because I think that people are just so much more price sensitive now because the cost of everything is just so high.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And this is across like all levels.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know people who I would have considered extremely wealthy, and I've had conversations with them about how they're cutting costs in like their day-to-day like lives, you know, and they don't need to, but just because people have cash doesn't mean that they are used to spending at 50, 60 percent more than what they were spending three or four years ago.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that there is a level of price sensitivity right now.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's just less cash flowing around in the economy, but let's not talk about politics um because we'll be here forever.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's less cash flowing around in the economy, and I do think that it's a difficult time for small businesses of all descriptions right now.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that that is so if I I'm trying to think, if I was running a clinic, how would I handle that?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because of course their costs are going up as well, so they can justify increasing the prices.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think people understand that suppliers' costs are going up.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but equally, a lot of customers look at businesses that raise their prices and assume that that means that the owner is getting a nicer car or something.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, often it's just to cover increased costs, like national insurance, all these changes that have happened recently.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think it's um I think it's a balance that needs to be struck because people are price sensitive here.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: I know Pilates studios that charge£18 a session are struggling to get people through the door at that rate.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that like seems crazy.
• 26:31
  Michael: So I here's where we'll disagree because I like this.
• 26:34
  Michael: Um I can go and find you within two minutes, I'll name you 10 businesses that sell handbags for£20,000 and you cannot get in without queuing for an hour.
• 26:46
  Michael: I'll find you restaurants to charge£500 a meal,£800 a meal, you can't get a booking for three months.
• 26:52
  Michael: The there is there is the I I think what's happened to the market, and I think where the big problem is now, and and this applies to every industry, is that everyone's sort of merged in the middle a little bit.
• 27:03
  Michael: They're all trying to go after the same people.
• 27:05
  Michael: Those that are doing incredibly well are either very, very cheap and admittedly so, or very, very expensive, and saying, you know what, our position is yeah, you're gonna pay some decent money here, but you're gonna get an experience that is unparalleled.
• 27:19
  Michael: And I agree with you, and and and I do agree that there is less money, and even very wealthy people are um are spending less.
• 27:28
  Michael: I I'm a big fan of of the of watches in the watch market.
• 27:31
  Michael: It's brilliant because watch is about you know a hundred thousand pound watch is now 40,000 pounds less, not on buying, but it's 40,000 pounds less than it was, you know, I can dream now.
• 27:41
  Michael: Um but and if you look at the watch market, there are certain brands who are in that middle, the omegas, just saw the latest watch report going off tangent, but it's it is it's related, is they're just doing terribly.
• 27:55
  Michael: But the ones that are melees, who are 200,000, 300,000 band a watch are doing brilliantly.
• 28:00
  Michael: And we see it in fashion, we see it actually in a lot of healthcare businesses.
• 28:05
  Michael: You look at those charging like the third spaces, the big, big bucks, the equinoxes, they're doing really well.
• 28:11
  Michael: The ones that are super cheap, they're doing well.
• 28:13
  Michael: But I think a lot of clinics try and all compete on price and sit in the middle rather than saying, no, we are a luxury product and we're confident about it, and we are gonna charge a big price and you are gonna get a great service.
• 28:25
  Michael: If you want the IKEA clinic, you can have it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, I and I think um that one of the benefits of being out of London is there is less competition, there's more scarcity.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So as long as you're justifying the price, um you're still gonna get repeat business and referrals and stuff.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: But it's um and I think pricing is actually really, really hard.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh it's it's a it's a very hard thing to get right.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I feel like it, I feel like it's it well, it is the people in the middle generally that are struggling, right?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's I'm sure the very wealthy are affected by um what's going on in the economy at the moment, although does that impact their day-to-day lives?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, it impacts the size of their trust fund or whatever.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh I think that there are a lot of people who previously had more disposable income that now have less disposable income, and they're not broke, they're not desperate, but they're just making decisions about what to spend on, and they're spending on spending less on personal trainers, on things that are seen as a luxury, and obviously, like physio or osteopathy or um podiatry isn't a luxury, but some people you wouldn't put up with a heart problem because that feels um fatal.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I put up with pain for about eight weeks before seeking treatment.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that wasn't financially driven, that was just because I just didn't get my shit together and thought it would go away.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I put up with it in a way that if I was having heart palpitations, I would have been that afternoon at the doctor.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it is kind of seen as less necessary.
• 30:29
  Michael: So, so, and I agree on all of that.
• 30:31
  Michael: I think it's then about framing.
• 30:34
  Michael: So I I am cutting costs at the moment, um, bloody weddings.
• 30:39
  Michael: I'm still paying, I don't know how much for my woop.
• 30:42
  Michael: I'm still paying that.
• 30:43
  Michael: Why?
• 30:44
  Michael: Because actually it's the most motivational tool that I've got.
• 30:47
  Michael: Argue whether it's good or any or not, probably not, but point is it's motivational.
• 30:51
  Michael: I am finding money for that.
• 30:53
  Michael: I am finding money for any nice wedding suit.
• 30:56
  Michael: I am finding money for the gym membership that I have, even though it's bloody expensive.
• 31:00
  Michael: It's about not price, but the value assigned to that, right?
• 31:05
  Michael: And I and I think that's where one of the big um issues is because if you if your clinic is framed as we fix hurting ease and we're really great, and we got fantastic clinicians, you're gonna struggle.
• 31:16
  Michael: But if you are framing yourself, let's talk about the countryside, if you are framing yourself as the place to go to yourself healthy, that's really high-end, where you've got amazing staff who are gonna look after you, and you walk in there and you think, you know what, I could go here, even if I'm not in pain, this is a great place, and let's take um Rob's clinic.
• 31:34
  Michael: Like it's such a bloody great place, the staff are great, Rob runs it amazingly well.
• 31:38
  Michael: It's like a cool place to hang out almost, right?
• 31:40
  Michael: So you are getting more, you're not thinking of it in terms of I've just got a hurdy knee and therefore I can whatever.
• 31:47
  Michael: You're thinking of it more as a community high-end resource.
• 31:50
  Michael: Do you do you see what I'm saying?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure that I would ever use a a physio as a kind of sorry, a muscular musculoskeletal clinic as a um as a community, but I do think that before I ever used physio, I didn't really understand what it was about.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Never occurred to me that the physio could diagnose the problem.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: I just thought that they would like massage and make you feel better.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um the fact that they could diagnose the problem and get to the bottom of it and help you deal with it without drugs is really fits with my belief system and the way I operate.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so that became very appealing to me.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and for me, it's about I tend to go when something's wrong to fix it, but um that's happened a bunch of times over the last 18 months, and now I'm kind of starting to think, well, what can I do to prevent more shit from going wrong in the next, you know, as I head into, as I head into middle age, she says age 45.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's let's just say I'm heading into middle age.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: As I head into middle age, um uh, you know, what can I do to prevent and to avoid this stuff?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not um I need this, but it's like, how can this help me just be in better health?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And there's definitely that's definitely a conclusion I've drawn.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: The issue about that for me isn't so much financial, it's time, it's just fitting it in and just working out, you know, um how to fit that in.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: But that is important.
• 33:31
  Michael: Uh so to one thing, just you hit on time.
• 33:34
  Michael: I I've had lots of discussions recently with people who are, they say every patient needs the hour appointment or a 45-minute.
• 33:43
  Michael: And I said, actually, a lot of people want a much shorter appointment.
• 33:47
  Michael: I think it's actually really important to offer those very quick sessions where someone like you who are incredibly busy at certain points in time or just the kind of person that doesn't want to sit in in a place for an hour is is given those shorter appointments.
• 34:01
  Michael: And sometimes you can even pay more for those because you're happy to.
• 34:04
  Michael: Would you agree on that?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I think that's quite a good way of getting your pricing up, isn't it?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than charging um uh£50 for half an hour, don't charge 25 for 15 minutes, charge 30 or something like that.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then that's the way you you ed your prices up.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that's quite a good strategy.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if you're seeing somebody consistently over a period of time, then often regular 15-minute check-ins are with or regular 30-minute check-ins are more valuable than monthly hours or something like that.
• 34:41
  Michael: That's interesting because that's looking at it from a patient.
• 34:44
  Michael: You said something else that was interesting.
• 34:45
  Michael: So, one other quick one on that is you are let's take a women's health physio and you're a mum, so you know, you you go with girdle pain or incontinence or whatever the case may be.
• 35:00
  Michael: A lot of the women's health physios that I've spoken to have said that the patient will come to them, but they develop a relationship, and then they become an invaluable part of that person's life, and they're talking about their annoying husband or their annoying kids or their money situation or their job or whatever.
• 35:17
  Michael: And I guess to some extent, we can look at this as hairdressers as well.
• 35:21
  Michael: You talk to your hairdresser, and often you're thinking, you know, I'll go and see Jenny because uh quite fancier chat on top of that.
• 35:27
  Michael: They're making themselves part of your life, your lifestyle, and your health.
• 35:32
  Michael: And I do wonder whether that's something the MSK clinics need to do more, which is really build that relationship and make themselves invaluable going forward, whether it's to do with health or whatever the case may be.
• 35:44
  Michael: Like you said, you're now talking more about preventative stuff.
• 35:47
  Michael: Um well, let's do some preventative stuff.
• 35:50
  Michael: Come in and so on.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: In the UK, I think that is a huge opportunity for MSK clinics because I don't know what your NH NHS GP is like.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: That was the role that your GP used to fulfill.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was a person, a human, the same human, every single time.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he or she knew your, and this still happens in South Africa, he or she knows your kids, they know about your birth, they know about like your birth stories, they know about your partners, and they don't really need to spend hours reading your chart.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: Not that anyone speeds spends more than a few minutes reading your notes before an appointment, because they kind of know you and probably their kids go to the same school as yours and they're local in the area, and you know, their dad treated your parents, et cetera, et cetera.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that has just gone.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I mean I'm being a little bit unfair because I have actually had a very good NHS GP experience recently.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: But the the fact is it's it's not the norm, it's locums, it's random people, it's hard to get an appointment, it's rushed, it's long waits, it's nice guidelines preventing X, Y, and Z.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that almost feels like this pastoral care that you're getting is just it's it's gone.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the physio can absolutely step into that role, um, which is very valuable to the patient.
• 37:19
  Michael: Yeah, I completely agree.
• 37:21
  Michael: I think that it that even if you have a great GP, then still not fulfilling the same role.
• 37:26
  Michael: I and and I don't know if you've been in the UK long enough, actually, have you?
• 37:29
  Michael: Um, Dr.
• 37:29
  Michael: Leg on East Enders back in the 90s or whatever it was, he would everyone knew him, he'd walk into the pub and they'd ask him all sorts of questions.
• 37:37
  Michael: That just doesn't happen.
• 37:38
  Michael: But actually, there are really great clinics who are making themselves um sort of centres for that, for that level of support.
• 37:47
  Michael: Um, I know for example, Rob's doing a lot with older people now, isn't he?
• 37:51
  Michael: Um, and and and sort of helping there.
• 37:54
  Michael: So I think that there is you're right, there's a big opportunity to become that that central source of, hey, listen, we're here if you've got issues.
• 38:01
  Michael: We see actually a lot of physios running community schemes, whether that be community walks or community get-togethers or community exercise, and it works incredibly well, so it's a really good point.
• 38:12
  Michael: Um the other thing you said, which is really interesting because I had exactly the same thing, was I didn't know physios did.
• 38:19
  Michael: So didn't know they diagnosed, didn't know they did this, didn't know they did that.
• 38:23
  Michael: And I remember um I think, oh, I I I I just had such a skewed view of what physios did.
• 38:30
  Michael: Now we know, and MSK, now we know we can't be so objective, but I think everyone needs to remember that although you think everyone knows what you do, most people have absolutely no idea.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and I had I mean I have loads of friends who are physios.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: I had my cousin was a physio, and it was liter literally only when I tore a calf muscle, and I messaged my cousin, um, but I messaged her because this is this is bad.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: I messaged her because she's a physio married to an orthopedic surgeon, and I was like, oh, between them, they'll be able to work out what I should do.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the advice was go to a physio.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, really, but it's really sore.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, don't I need to go and get a diagnosis first?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because actually I had seen a physio about 10 years prior to that when I'd broken a kneecap.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'd gone for all the medical stuff, and then I had physio as rehabilitation.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of saw it as a the doctor refers you after the diagnosis for the rehabilitation program.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: It never occurred to me that they would be able to diagnose, and they're so good at it, they like really get it right, and um, they can do it off.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, often there's no scans or ultrasounds or anything.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's often done through looking and poking a bit and prodding.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just it's amazing that you can get to the bottom of what's actually gone on here.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then they can so far, they've fixed it every time, which has been also amazing.
• 40:00
  Michael: Well, now that now they're actually adding ultrasound, right?
• 40:03
  Michael: They are adding a lot more tech into the business as well.
• 40:06
  Michael: So they are definitely not, I think, what I think they it's a little bit like what does an accountant do?
• 40:12
  Michael: Most people go, oh, I think they do like something with taxes.
• 40:15
  Michael: They don't really know all the great things.
• 40:16
  Michael: And we think about our account, what they do, insane amounts of stuff.
• 40:20
  Michael: And and I and I think clinical and physios as well, they just need to remember that and remember that's the case.
• 40:27
  Michael: Um, and there is a patient piece to be done at many different times during a patient journey, but also in your marketing as well.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and I think you need to kind of almost overcome this and and this might be my South African upbringing, this kind of prioritizing of doctors over other medical pr professionals because there's this like it just never occurred to me that you didn't go to a doctor first for anything.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and actually lower back pain, probably if I'd gone to the doctor, I would have just got drugs and then had to go back for more drugs because the lower back pain was still there.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that it's it's just you kind of need to find a way to get people out of that um go to a doctor first and get them to think about just the things that can be dealt with or can be investigated or can be attempted via this route.
• 41:29
  Michael: I think a lot of that is to do with um just being more visible in certain situations.
• 41:33
  Michael: So I think you're right, there is this tendency, and I still remember during COVID, one of our employees, his other half smashed a leg up and he said, Oh, first thing I need to do is go and see, I need to go to A E.
• 41:44
  Michael: I was like, No, no, no, speak to my other half.
• 41:46
  Michael: She's probably physio.
• 41:47
  Michael: And he's like, You do not, you're absolutely fine.
• 41:49
  Michael: This is what I would do, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:51
  Michael: And and and it's interesting because even he didn't think a physio could help.
• 41:56
  Michael: And so I thought that um much of this is to make sure you're in the right place, you are visible, you are saying the right things.
• 42:02
  Michael: Good example of this is all those people running Facebook campaigns saying, Hey, we're 50% cheaper than everyone else, come and book an appointment now and and chasing you around.
• 42:11
  Michael: That is much less effective than, hey, did you know that we can do this?
• 42:14
  Michael: We have this amazing team and this great tech.
• 42:17
  Michael: Not if just, hey, this is what we this is what we do, this is who we are.
• 42:21
  Michael: That's way more effective because you're gonna get people who actually gonna get you and I, you're not gonna get someone chasing the 50% discount or the three appointments.
• 42:29
  Michael: That's just as as a side comment on that.
• 42:32
  Michael: Um let's talk accountancy, because we just sort of got into that and I we sort of uh we may disagree on this.
• 42:39
  Michael: I I I was having a chat with a client and I said um that we we were paying when we first started like£400 a month to an accepted, and it's the best thing I ever did because I'm in numerous, can't read numbers, hate spreadsheets, and having someone who could guide us through every stage of um uh our business from when we eventually had to be more careful with corporation tax and what we could do to not avoid tax, we never did that.
• 43:04
  Michael: We optimized, I always paid it.
• 43:07
  Michael: No, we did.
• 43:08
  Michael: Um, but what what we what we did there, or whether it was just little things like actually, did you know you're entitled to this?
• 43:14
  Michael: And then beyond that, if you employ this person, this is what your year end looks like, this is your cash flow at these months.
• 43:19
  Michael: Having that was invaluable to us.
• 43:21
  Michael: And I think for me, it was possibly um the best decision I have made as a business owner is employing an accountant early on.
• 43:30
  Michael: What are your thoughts?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a different experience where we were spending in when I launched my business, we absolutely overspent on accountancy twice in a row.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um they weren't bad accountants or anything like that.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: They were giving, you know, solid advice, but they were charging, I mean, one of them was charging 10% of of our revenue at one point.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how naive I was that I actually let that continue for more like for I don't know period of time, right?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think look your accounts and your books have to be managed properly.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you are not capable of doing that yourself, then you've got to get some help, right?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's just not worth the hassle of not organizing your information and kind of keeping it um keeping it up to date.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen a lot of businesses with where the the owner feels very out of their depth with finances and spreadsheets and they just want somebody to hand it over, which I think is what you said you were like, but they haven't found a brilliant accountant.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: They found someone a bit crap and then they haven't had the um knowledge to be able to look at this and say and spot that it's not very good.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so they haven't been able to spot that there's nothing like untoward going on.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's not what I'm talking about.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: But like you know if if I when I was running an agency as a perfect example it was only when I really took charge of the accounts and when when we moved to accounting software because I launched my agency in 2008 and there was no well I mean there was Sage but we I don't even know if we were using that we were just using spreadsheets.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it was only then that I realized why are we waiting until the end of June to get May's management accounts like all the invoices go out on the 31st of May or before the 31st of May all the suppliers should submit their like bills on or before the 31st of May that can all be uploaded that day and on the 1st of June we should be able to see what happened in May and I think that a lot of accountancy practices still operate in that old model where you had to wait for the invoice to arrive in the post and then you had to wait for the check to be written and then you had to wait for it all to be added into the ledger.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so you know you were lucky if you got May's accounts by July.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that is so damaging to businesses.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: They think to these small businesses they think oh well you know Tanya is in charge of all of that she's on top of it.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: But really bookkeeping is as important as accounting and you can't run your business properly if you don't know where you stand if you don't know what money is coming in and what money is going out and there can't be a lag and there's no reason for there to be a lag.
• 46:47
  Michael: There just isn't and I I I agree I I think that's where I'm sort of coming at it from because I think it's not necessarily what you spend on the account it's what they do.
• 46:56
  Michael: And for me what what did I get?
• 46:59
  Michael: Because this is about what I suppose what a good accountant is what versus what a terrible accountant is no matter what you're paying.
• 47:05
  Michael: What did I get?
• 47:06
  Michael: I got every single month I got um figures on our entire business not only that I got a video from the accountant saying hey this is what's going on here's where you're growing these are things we're looking at yada yada yada um we got growth planning with them so listen where do you want to be at the end of the year what do we need to do your uh staff's percentage turnover is 30% that's very low.
• 47:31
  Michael: We actually should be at um close to 40% particularly because of the increase in clients we got advice I want to buy a car don't just buy a car Michael let me know which ones you're looking at and I'm gonna see which ones are going to be most tax efficient for you.
• 47:43
  Michael: We got really good forecasting if I hire this person for£50,000 what does that do to next month's money?
• 47:51
  Michael: Because you've got to think about your corporation tax you've got to think about your national insurance um you've got to think about a pension contribution so what is the real number of that employee before I was just guessing I just thought it was a 50k weight to divide that by 12.
• 48:04
  Michael: It isn't how does that fit into your and I and I think oh and I remember one particular time where I got a call and he said Michael is everything alright I'm like whoa what's going on he said well your numbers have just crashed I'm like what what's going on turns out the it was just a stripe connection that had gone but to have someone looking out for you who spotted that before you did really really important.
• 48:26
  Michael: So I think that's where people need help with it's not the basics that I think you're right you can do yourself unless you're an idiot like me I think I think where you can get real advice from it's more of a financial consultant than just a spreadsheet person.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I still think it has to be a partnership because they you know you've got to understand all of those lines in your PL and you can't just expect the accountant to tell you what's going on in your business because they are disconnected from your business.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: You should be able to say sales in that category like when the accountant gives you a forecast and shows a big spike in November you should be able to say that doesn't make sense what would be going on in November that would result in a big spike or when as happened with me when I was kind of abdicating responsibility to accountants and not really knowing what the hell was going on suddenly we made a giant loss in May and um it was only when the accountant sent the management accounts which were like in July it was a long lag and I got into an absolute panic.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: And all that had happened was 31st of May had fallen on a bank holiday and I'd sent the invoice on 1st of June.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: I hadn't dated them properly and the loss in May was made up for in June and stuff.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: And like I just obviously the accountant should have spotted that as well but um we weren't using accounting software at the time but that sort of stuff I mean you've just got to be on top of the basics.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to think when that profit comes in at the end of every month that much goes into a separate account so that we have the money to pay the corporation tax when it is due.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know and the VAT return is quarterly so we've got to like pop the VAT into that account to make sure that there's money to make sure that when we look in the bank account and we see X, we know that that is X that is ours to spend because I think a lot of people make decisions off the bank account rather than the financial position of the business.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's extremely dangerous when your corporation tax is due nine months after the year end.
• 50:40
  Michael: So totally agree and I think you're you're right on the partnership that's really important.
• 50:44
  Michael: I remember one situation where I said oh everything's looking really good and he said yeah you don't forget aren't you're doing that trip in to Spain with the team in June aren't you?
• 50:52
  Michael: Uh-huh well that's gonna be 25 grand shit okay and he knew he knew that that was happening or um I remember another situation I can't say specifically but again he he understood the business enough and I think that's that's what you want your accountant to be doing if you're gonna be paying them significant money.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise you've got to be careful if you're ever going to sell your business if like that's ever on the cards for you get this stuff sorted because you might not pay now but you will pay in fees during the due diligence process and in your own heartbreak during the due diligence process if your books are messy.
• 51:33
  Michael: Because even if your books are perfect the buyer is going to ask a whole bunch of questions that you're gonna find pretty uncomfortable but if your books are messy it's gonna be very very very hard to get to the end of that process absolutely and when we sold it was such a joy on the financial side I think Buzzcott said because they were the due diligence can see on the other side they said you are the most responsive easy seller of all time and that's because we had a company we knew what our eBit DAR was we had that calculated for years and exactly how it was calculated.
• 52:07
  Michael: We knew what we had what was what was adjusted and what wasn't adjusted.
• 52:12
  Michael: We knew that and when it came to it basically like it was like we need the numbers for the sale you said okay cool press the button beautiful sheet we had a uh an online thing that we could send out it's so so so important um everything you don't have and you you you're you're you know starting your discussion about your sale and you go oh yeah business is worth a million pounds and when they do the due diligence they find out that it's worth 200,000 because you hadn't done all the numbers properly um and you spent an extra like 20 grand on some finance professional to help you answer the due diligence due diligence queries and so it's not worth 200 grand it's worth 180 you know exactly that um and it also just gives you more confidence as well when you're going through that whole process plus I think you get a better price because you're not you're not negotiating from weakness you're negotiating from strength.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: I know my numbers you ain't getting me on this stuff like this is where we are um so yeah super super important out of interest how um metrics based were you as a or are you even as a business owner like how important are all of those things on the day-to-day business you more intuitive or are you very metrics based very very very metrics based um I'm very focused so at the moment I'm building my AI coaching and training business and it's kind of got this whole social media content creation side to it as well and I'm very metrics based I look at everything on a month to month basis what's happening you know what's what's coming in what does that mean about the future what little experiments can I do I did that experiment how did that move the numbers it moved them in a good direction okay can I expand it or it moved them in the wrong direction okay but did I learn something from it it's very very very structured and um I yeah I'm very much a process systems and metrics person.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's the only way that works for me.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do you ever take a chance when the numbers say something different oh yeah yeah for sure but I do it in the knowledge I don't do it um I'm I mean I'm about to sign up for something that is a real pint and is gonna you know eat into my runway quite substantially but I've got a good vibe about it and I'm gonna give it a go but I'm not doing it blindly I know that it's gonna eat into my runway and I know it's gonna reduce my runway by a certain amount of time by a certain amount and I'm going in eyes wide open.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I absolutely take punts but um I've got to know just to sleep at night I've got to know like what the the impact is on everything else.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, for sure.
• 55:09
  Michael: Yeah but you're doing it as you say I suppose you're taking the pump but you have the knowledge that it's affordable at least or you have a level I guess it comes down to control, right?
• 55:18
  Michael: It it's it's having control of a situation.
• 55:21
  Michael: Absolutely yeah interesting I I I do wonder whether it's something you mentioned earlier as well um and I've been making this point recently is that you said that business owners see things as their money when they're making decisions and and I think that's absolutely right I think there's so many clinic owners who and and there's no criticism to this at all because they're small businesses, small margins, but they treat the business as their bank account and they therefore see every decision made based on you know that could get me something rather than what we might do which is you know looking at the business saying well this is what the business will do and this is how much money the business will get um I suppose that's where the metrics become really important if you're making those business decisions.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I've this business that I'm running now is the first business that I am the only shareholder.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess every decision that I make is really about me.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas previously I've always had stakeholders to consider you've got other shareholders and so even if they're small shareholders you can't make decisions that are about you because they've got to be treated fairly even if they own 1% and you own 99% you know you've got to you've got to protect their interests because that's just your duty um so I think and I think a lot of clinics it kind of is almost like a often it's a lifestyle business.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: It almost wouldn't have been set up as a limited company if the structure wasn't better than just giving you my personal bank details and asking you to put the money into my bank details.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like probably if that was a viable way of doing it, which obviously it isn't because you can't get your insurance and you know you've got all your liability and stuff if that was a viable way of doing it, probably a lot of clinic owners, a lot of small business owners would just prefer to do it that way, be the kind of sole trader rather than actually building a business because it's less complicated.
• 57:34
  Michael: And and you've actually looked I think at businesses in the space because you've acquired various businesses but you've looked in this space before haven't you and I don't think you ever went through with a MSK business.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: No I never really pursued it um seriously partly because I got distracted by the AI stuff and ended up um uh focusing on that but I did look at businesses in a kind of similar or adjacent space and I think you know they're all not they're all the ones that I looked at are very you can tell it's the owner running them and the owner making all the decisions and the owner trying to cobble together marketing and trying to sort out the finances and trying to manage operations and trying to also be a practitioner or deliver the service or whatever.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of unusual for somebody to be really good at all of those things.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: And even if they are really good at all of those things it's kind of unusual for them to have the time and the interest in doing all of those things.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: So you find a lot of look small businesses are known to be a little bit messy and um the and buyers don't expect small businesses to be perfect and beautifully run.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: In fact buyers like to buy small businesses to fix the messiness because then they benefit from that.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's I mean I'm not saying like the messier the better necessarily but um I remember when I was selling my business the advice I got from my lawyer because due diligence queries were coming and I was like oh I never thought about whether our fire safety certificate was up to date and whether we'd you know tested the alarms and written it down correctly or whatever.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember my lawyer saying to me look like answer honestly no one expects perfection.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like give the honest answer and then the buyer can work out what to do with that.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: But don't feel that if you can't answer perfection that you failed.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that is like the case for almost all small businesses.
• 59:40
  Michael: Well yeah and so many good we could talk for hours here um I think that that old adage of um you know break things I I think is really important.
• 59:52
  Michael: I think it's important that um companies and even our company today is a is held together a little bit with sticky tape because if it's not you're not trying different things.
• 1:00:01
  Michael: If you try and aim for perfection on every single thing you're never going to get anywhere.
• 1:00:08
  Michael: You have to have a little bit of messiness in businesses.
• 1:00:11
  Michael: However I think in clinics it's way more bit messy than in many other industries I think that you are you just um got us into an interesting topic of non-exec and support because you're right the clinic owner cleans the toilet sees the people like they just do everything and that's why life is so bloody tough for them and they may be good at all those things but they will burn out they won't do as well as they could financially and and I think part of that is the lack of support actually in this industry for people um and and I gave you the example you know another time we spoke where um I I went and hired someone um for I just looked out for another agency and I said this guy sold two agencies one was 10 or 12 and I wanted that advice and that support we wanted someone who was a strong female business leader who could come and work with one of our employees.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's nice I can find someone who's like shit that this this person's amazing let's get let's bring them in I don't think people in this industry have that ability I don't think there are enough people out there offering that advice for this industry and the major and we've talked about this the majority of people no I don't want to say the majority there are many people in this industry who are selling snake oil definitely and I think um yeah there are a lot of people who haven't done it themselves they've advised on it or they've um been in involved from a distance and they market themselves as um non-exec directors or business coaches or um something like that and I think that it can be a very costly mistake to bring on the wrong person to help you with this stuff and I find I've like I've noticed that really what what I think is that advisors if you've got a business advisor helping you with something what you want is you want them you want to be constantly improving your business and you want them to help you with new ideas, new um directions, new points of view, maybe a few introductions um and then you do the work and you're constantly making improvements.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: What you don't want is to have a meeting with them come out with a list of action points and then you never get around to them anyway and then you meet with them again.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that there are a lot of advisors who kind of end up being retained for a very very long time and it's very hard to measure the value that they've added and ideally over time they should potentially do themselves out of a job rather than entrench themselves in the business.
• 1:03:19
  Michael: The majority of people out there who are giving advice are just absolute bullshit.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: They have never done it themselves even if they pretend to have done it themselves when you look at their business you're like Jesus Christ I wouldn't want my business to look like this there are a lot of people who are out there selling cookie cutter schemes that are based on nonsense courses they themselves have been on and spent tens of thousands of pounds on um and and I think that um well do you agree yes absolutely look I was once um uh offered um to join a program to get I it was a mentor I think it was um or some sort of advisor or a mentor and I was paired with this guy and he was such a nice guy and he was so keen um to help but he came for the first the kickoff meeting and I realized within about an hour that he had worked in an accountancy practice his whole career and he had been an employee his whole career which nothing wrong with that he was brilliant he was successful he was a really really nice guy but this guy had never lain awake at night thinking shit am I going to be able to make payroll next month like he'd never faced that situation right because it had never been his problem and he'd been in a very like regulated industry where there's very clear structured career paths and stuff.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought I'm not sure I'm gonna benefit from working with this person because even though he is a lovely person and even though he's worked with lots of businesses that have gone I'm sure he's seen amazing stuff in his career he doesn't understand that feeling of like how am I going to cope with this major major major situation?
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the only way to understand that is to have built a business yourself.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I actually returned him I asked for not a refund, I exchanged him I asked for an exchange and I went back to the company that um uh organized it and I was like he's such a lovely guy but can I please have somebody who's built a business and um they were amazing and they did actually they um paired me with somebody who ended up I ended up having a very long relationship with him and I'm still in touch with him and he's uh he sat on our board in the end and he had built businesses and he had succeeded and he'd also failed and he also like had like so much experience from that and I benefited so much more from that.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that happens So much.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, I just don't.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm I met somebody recently who was an event planner who'd become a business growth coach.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, I'm not sure.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm sure there's some transferable skills, but when that physio is looking at their numbers and thinking, what do I do?
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: Do I have to get rid of two staff members and cut my phone answering service?
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or do I just take a risk and go full on new business for the next six months?
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't think that this guy's going to be able to like add value to that decision.
• 1:06:36
  Michael: I agree.
• 1:06:36
  Michael: They need to have been there.
• 1:06:38
  Michael: They need to have had that fear.
• 1:06:40
  Michael: You know that fear we all have as business owners.
• 1:06:42
  Michael: Um, and it is lying awake at night.
• 1:06:45
  Michael: Um, but beyond that, they need to have been there and done it.
• 1:06:47
  Michael: They need to have been successful.
• 1:06:49
  Michael: Um, I I think it's uh I see a lot of business coaches, and often, and I'm sure they're very lovely people, but they're sort of local grant business coaches, local council, whatever they go.
• 1:07:01
  Michael: And and we have clients who said, Oh, our coach said to do these four things.
• 1:07:05
  Michael: And I'm thinking this is in no way beneficial to your business in in any way whatsoever.
• 1:07:11
  Michael: Um, you need to think about where you want your business to be, and in my opinion, find someone who has done that with a business.
• 1:07:18
  Michael: And if they have now you've got someone who is is is kind of valuable.
• 1:07:21
  Michael: Um, and the same way that we we're we're using you to to train, not I don't say train one of our staff, but work with one of our staff.
• 1:07:29
  Michael: It's because it's like this part, like if uh can we employ you?
• 1:07:33
  Michael: That's basically my thing.
• 1:07:34
  Michael: Could could we hire Heather?
• 1:07:36
  Michael: That would be amazing.
• 1:07:37
  Michael: No, we can't, so let's in the best way we can, you know.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't offer me a job, I accept, thank you.
• 1:07:43
  Michael: Oh, I wish I could.
• 1:07:46
  Michael: Well, let's talk about finally, because we've been here for a a while, an hour and 20.
• 1:07:51
  Michael: Honestly, we could talk for a few hours, but um let's talk about AI.
• 1:07:56
  Michael: Finally, it's something I've tried to avoid a few times recently, but I think you take a you bring a different spin to it.
• 1:08:02
  Michael: Um, so talk to me about what you're doing with the company at the moment, but also your views on AI, how that it could be used within businesses and so on.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the company that I'm running at the moment is called the AI Edit, and it came about when I was doing something completely different because I had done quite a lot of work in the AI space.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: I talked about it a lot, I read about it a lot, I took loads of courses, and people kept coming to me um for to ask me questions about AI.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a week where I had 11 calls with people who wanted to ask, just chat about AI.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't selling anything.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I found that they were largely asking the wrong questions.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so they were thinking about AI in um a way that wasn't like going to be helpful to them long term.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I my business is at the moment around helping people think clearly about AI.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it's about um helping them understand where AI can add value and keep up to date on that because it is changing every freaking minute.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: And but also where the big risks are and working out how to kind of incorporate that into their lives or into their small businesses.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and my stance on AI is I think I'm I'm I'm not remotely anti-AI, I'm very pro-AI.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think AI can do a huge amount.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_02: It helps uh I use AI all day, every day, and I'm constantly like iterating on it.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm also very cautious about how I use it because I'm very um I think that if you don't understand how these models work, like what's going on in these AI companies, what are they trying to do?
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do you know that they all want your data, all of your data, as much of your data as they can get, because their models get better, the more data they have, the more varied that data is.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that um you have to know this stuff before you start using it, because otherwise you're going to come into some kind of trouble.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um I see it a lot.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, you know, I think that there's huge opportunity, but you've got to know what you're doing.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that you are very, very pro-AI, but I think you think about it and you understand the risks, you, you know, it's only now that people are really a lot of people don't really understand that AI hallucinates.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and that's like such a major, major issue and hasn't been solved.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that there is a lot of education and just understanding that just because Sam Altman says something or just because Dario Amade says something doesn't mean it's necessarily fact.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: That is a person with some major vested interests, like literal vested interests.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so before you like jump and go after what they've said, you need to think about well, what are the implications and how do I manage this so that I don't end up with my whole server deleted or all my emails published on the internet or booking a flight to the wrong city because um chat GPT told me to.
• 1:11:31
  Michael: Yeah, and and I I I I wouldn't describe you as anti-I just core I'd probably say cynical than cautious sometimes.
• 1:11:38
  Michael: I I think uh just talking about you know uh uh all my emails being released or whatever.
• 1:11:43
  Michael: I I saw a lot happening with claw recently.
• 1:11:45
  Michael: I uh uh claw not clawed.
• 1:11:48
  Michael: Um people were doing the craziest shit, like giving it access to bank accounts.
• 1:11:54
  Michael: I think people have been wiped out.
• 1:11:55
  Michael: It's it's it's all a little bit quiet at the moment.
• 1:11:58
  Michael: I didn't even dare go near that, and I know a little bit.
• 1:12:02
  Michael: Um, and there are people that know less that were giving it access to their entire lives, and oh my god, that that was the one the most that was probably the most dangerous time I've seen with AR so far.
• 1:12:12
  Michael: I I think you have to understand hallucination, you have to understand limitations, you have to understand that just like getting an opinion from a doctor, you would get a second opinion if it's a very, very serious thing that you're dealing with.
• 1:12:26
  Michael: Um and you also have to understand where you where you use it.
• 1:12:30
  Michael: I am I didn't post this, but I was going to um honestly it was a middle midnight run on seeing people posting LinkedIn bullshit AI bucking things, you know, you know, the the the post that you just know is just been written by ChadGPT.
• 1:12:47
  Michael: A little bit of original thought, please.
• 1:12:49
  Michael: Like just a little bit.
• 1:12:50
  Michael: It doesn't take much to write a couple of paragraphs, and I'm just seeing it over and over and over again, and half the time the bloody quotes wrong.
• 1:12:57
  Michael: Socrates said, no, he didn't say.
• 1:12:59
  Michael: Like, I don't know where that just came from.
• 1:13:01
  Michael: Well, I do know Claude hallucinated it or whatever.
• 1:13:04
  Michael: Um, okay, that's my run on AI, because I do I think it it's incredibly it's it's fantastic.
• 1:13:10
  Michael: You do have to understand limitations.
• 1:13:13
  Michael: Um, I may have an argument legally with a company that I'm having a disagreement with.
• 1:13:18
  Michael: I'm not saying my company using Chat GPT.
• 1:13:21
  Michael: Um talk me through where you see the real value of it in businesses today.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean the the possibilities are endless for sure.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: In my business, I run a content strategy with two people that the level and quality of output that is produced would have taken a team of six people in 2022, for sure.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um now that doesn't mean that anybody who's never done marketing or content or strategy will be able to replicate that like that.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I know what good looks like.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is my my whole career has been built on this.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I'm able to get a lot more out of it from w with a lot less input.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that is incredibly valuable.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think within almost any business, the place, well, the place I would start is just AI fluency because as soon as a leader, as and it has to start with the leader, as soon as the leader is fluent in AI, they start spotting all the opportunities and all the risks and they start moving and they start pushing everybody along with them and dragging the people who won't come because they just it just becomes their top priority.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that burying your head in the sand as a leader or outsourcing it to anybody else is crazy, crazy thing to do.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but easy wins are just looking at every single process that you do.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Things, anything that you do repeatedly, there's a good chance, probably a 50% chance, that AI can save you time, make it faster, make it better.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's like a good starting point, just the repeated tasks.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then once you're comfortable with that, if you are constantly learning, constantly keeping up to date on this, this is where you start to spot the bigger opportunities, like the things that you couldn't do before because you didn't have the resource are now available to you suddenly, or things that you would never have even imagined possible before are now possible.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that there's there are so many opportunities created, not by AI, but created by people who understand how AI works and implement them properly.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you've got to have, you've got to know what you're doing because otherwise somebody building agents will come and sell you something, and it's like you just don't know if it's gonna be any good.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not even just that it might not be good, it's that it might do damage.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And a good example, um I'm and I talked earlier about having an agent, having a human call you rather than an AI.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't mind if an AI calls me.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_02: If it is flagged that this is an AI, what I have a major problem with is the AI calling me pretending to be Sophie because I know that it's not Sophie, and now I feel like I am being treated like an idiot because I am expected to have a human conversation and ask a machine, I'm fine, thanks.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_02: How are you, Sophie?
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just ridiculous.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like ridiculous, it's inauthentic, it's crazy.
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it can be incorporated, but you've got to do it smiling.
• 1:16:37
  Michael: Yes.
• 1:16:38
  Michael: I I I think um one point is uh yes, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive tasks, things that are very simple, but you can't hallucinate on just very, very basic things, um, automating of basic things.
• 1:16:52
  Michael: I think where it where it really helps actually is giving companies like ours access to enterprise capability that would have cost you 50 million a few years ago.
• 1:17:03
  Michael: Now you're able to do an awful lot of stuff that just could never have done before.
• 1:17:07
  Michael: Um, predictive modeling, real financial forecasting that you you know you would have needed ERPs for and so on.
• 1:17:13
  Michael: So I think that's really interesting.
• 1:17:15
  Michael: I think one of the um and one question I have for you is um you can settle an argument.
• 1:17:20
  Michael: Um AI notes during your session, do you like them or don't you like them as a patient?
• 1:17:29
  Michael: Or do you care?
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't consent to that.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um I wouldn't consent to it because well, okay, let me put it this way.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_02: If you arrange a call with me and I join the call and your AI note taker is on the call, I will leave the call and email you and ask you to remove your AI note taker, and then I will join the call once your AI note taker has been removed, right?
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_02: In most cases, when that happens, and it happens a lot, I'm a thorn in the side of suppliers the world over.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: In most cases, when it happens, the person on the other end of the call doesn't know how to disable it.
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know what to do.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so the call has to be rescheduled in a way that um they can set it up without the AI note taker.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they are not empowered to do that.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_02: I have a massive problem with that.
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I wouldn't consent to it in um a physio session unless the physio or the company could explain to me the data policy, what's happening with the um, you know, what's happening with the notes, is my data like how is it being secured?
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_02: And is my anonymized data being used to train the model?
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_02: If they could explain that to me, then I'd be okay with it.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think that the practitioner sitting in the chair with 30 minutes to see me now, and I want him like checking my back.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that that would end up being taking up 10 minutes of the discussion.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Can you turn that off?
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_02: What happens with my data?
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_02: What happens, like, how is it secured?
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Blah, blah, blah.
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, um, so I would probably just not consent to them.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_02: But they can be done the right way.
• 1:19:16
  Michael: Okay, yeah, I win the argument.
• 1:19:18
  Michael: I I I knew it was an internal one.
• 1:19:20
  Michael: I knew you would say no.
• 1:19:21
  Michael: Um I think generally the public is is uh is okay with it, but you are right.
• 1:19:27
  Michael: They they should be asking some of those questions.
• 1:19:29
  Michael: Okay, in terms of um risks of AI, um, I think one of the big risks, it's not necessarily so there are risks with the data and where it goes and so on.
• 1:19:40
  Michael: But I think actually for a business, one of the big risks is time wasting.
• 1:19:43
  Michael: I think you can spend an awful lot of time going down a black hole, like just endlessly looking at the latest AI tool, what it can do, and never thinking about what is the need of the business, what can I use to fill that hole, instead going, oh, look, this does this, what can I use it for?
• 1:20:02
  Michael: And I think I I think that sometimes is a big risk for a business.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's you need that kind of curated um view of it because it can be it can be time wasting in that sense, but it can also be time wasting, maybe not so much in clinics, but in in terms of people creating content, creating slop, and then that doesn't waste a lot of time to create the slop, but then the slop gets sent to somebody, and now they've got to work out what the hell this means, and then their time is wasted.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think that that's that's a big risk um is that you end up wasting people's time having to consume stuff that just was unnecessary to produce in the first place, or there was no thought behind it.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I like I was having a very respectful discussion with someone on LinkedIn who who said um that, oh, she loves AI because um she can get a strategy in two minutes.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, writing down the strategy is the last two minutes of the 10-week process of developing the strategy in your mind.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so what you've got in two minutes has no substance to it.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_02: So now what are you gonna do with it?
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna implement it?
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna oversee it?
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Not only does it have no substance to it, but it's not embedded in your brain because it's been brought in from outside.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_02: And now what are you gonna do with it, right?
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_02: So she kind of thinks that she saved a lot of time, but actually she's just gone off on a tangent or just created something that's not worth it.
• 1:21:44
  Michael: You're often creating work for yourself further down the line.
• 1:21:47
  Michael: I think I think for me, I I I'm a heavy user in all sorts of ways.
• 1:21:52
  Michael: My question is always does it save me time, does it make me money?
• 1:21:56
  Michael: And if that if it fulfills those two criteria, then I go for it.
• 1:22:00
  Michael: Um I should probably be a bit more vigilant of where my data's going.
• 1:22:05
  Michael: I mean, I'm not uploading company business details, but um, but for me, it's does it save me time and does it make me money?
• 1:22:12
  Michael: Um, and if it does those things, then I'm I'm all for it.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um risk.
• 1:22:19
  Michael: I I I don't so it's a little bit like um years ago, the discussion on Google, you know, oh my god, Google has all your data.
• 1:22:28
  Michael: Yes, it does, it has all your data.
• 1:22:30
  Michael: Do I care that it has my personal data?
• 1:22:33
  Michael: Not particularly.
• 1:22:34
  Michael: Um I'm at that age now where what are you gonna do with it?
• 1:22:39
  Michael: I I I kind of care less about it, and if it makes the product better, um I understand by the way, philosophically, how that I I can critique myself and say you're a moron, and that's a really terrible view to take.
• 1:22:54
  Michael: And actually, from a societal standpoint, it's a terrible view to take.
• 1:22:58
  Michael: But from a personal point of view, I sort of don't care quite so much.
• 1:23:03
  Michael: Um and again, I've got no problem with someone calling me an idiot.
• 1:23:07
  Michael: I understand that I'm an idiot.
• 1:23:09
  Michael: Um, I do care if I think it's gonna impact children, my my children, for example, and maybe other people.
• 1:23:15
  Michael: But in general terms So what if Google has my data and knows what I search for?
• 1:23:20
  Michael: What what does that matter?
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think it does matter.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think it leaves you open to being short-term manipulated, which we've seen with big tech um time and time again.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it leaves you vulnerable to that, which might feel like a small risk.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously, everybody thinks that they are less manipulative manipulatable than we actually are, because that's just a cognitive bias.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_02: For me, the concern is long-term and more macro.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's like at some point, if somebody wants to get very authoritarian, they'll have the means at their disposal with all this data.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know who that will be, and I don't know what will precipitate that, and it might never happen, but um it's something that's there have been many people in history, there are many people currently who are or want to be very authoritarian, uh totalitarian, and they haven't had the ability to do it to every single person at a granular level, and I feel like that is being created at the moment, and so that's my kind of aversion to it.
• 1:24:32
  Michael: I agree.
• 1:24:32
  Michael: I and do you know what?
• 1:24:34
  Michael: Um, we we actually have quite different politics, but I agree with you.
• 1:24:37
  Michael: Um facial recognition, I can see the massive benefit of that, I can see the downsides, I can see that authoritarian argument.
• 1:24:45
  Michael: I I I don't disagree.
• 1:24:47
  Michael: I think that um, particularly with people that are in government now are not the smartest or not the most capable.
• 1:24:54
  Michael: Um, we see it in America right now where um there's very little pushback against some of the authoritarian things that are being done, and I think there's a massive danger.
• 1:25:02
  Michael: I actually think there's a bigger danger to this world of people wanting to blow each other up because they're a different colour of skin or because they're a different type of person.
• 1:25:09
  Michael: I think that's a real danger.
• 1:25:11
  Michael: I think if we all go down, it's because of that, not because someone's got access to a load of data.
• 1:25:16
  Michael: Could be wrong on that.
• 1:25:18
  Michael: Um but yes, I I I suppose it's that um you know, it's the same view of listen, I'm gonna eat this chocolate egg, and I I I know it's gonna make me fat, but it's I'm alright for it for the for the time being and at this moment in time.
• 1:25:32
  Michael: And I recognise that I'm doing that.
• 1:25:34
  Michael: I think I would have been a bit more um yeah, at a more of an idealist when I was 25 or 20.
• 1:25:44
  Michael: I probably would have been in the streets campaigning against AI.
• 1:25:48
  Michael: Now, I suppose I just care less.
• 1:25:50
  Michael: Um, even if that does leave me open to even self-critique and criticism of maybe you shouldn't care less, maybe you should care more, Michael.
• 1:25:58
  Michael: I get that.
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's and no one can predict the future, no one knows what's gonna happen.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I suspect that probably people generally will want more of as as the world feels more dangerous, people will want more of that like clamp down.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because of course the what I might see as curbs on my freedoms has benefits in curbing the freedoms of people who want to do dangerous shit, right?
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_02: So there's kind of there's two sides to it, and nobody nobody knows what's coming, really.
• 1:26:38
  Michael: Do you think do you think um Stuart thought experiment if we could right now offer everyone a little chip that goes in their brain that will mean that they live the rest of their lives in utopia in exactly the kind of life that they want, and everything's lovely and perfect, kind of a matrix-y type thing, but you're in in charge of it, you know it.
• 1:27:02
  Michael: What percentage of people do you think would go down that route?
• 1:27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_02: I have no idea.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_02: I certainly wouldn't.
• 1:27:10
  Michael: Um high proportion.
• 1:27:13
  Michael: I asked that question because um I do wonder whether people care about the safeguard and whether over time they just surrender to it and go, you know what, this is just the way life is, and we're gonna go with it.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's a it's a kind of chipping away at something that doesn't feel that important, doesn't feel that meaningful right now, and might never be important, and might never be meaningful.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_02: But when it is, if it is, it's impossible to come back and fix it or solve it, right?
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_02: So um that's that's the the that's the way I look at it.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a good chance that it'll that AI will end up being this like force for good, and way more good will come of it, but of course good.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_02: And bad or subjective terms and them and them.
• 1:28:04
  Michael: I remember when mobile phones came out and you had you know GPS.
• 1:28:07
  Michael: And I remember doing a I'm gonna say which brand, doing a marketing campaign with a brand where we uh essentially pushed out offers onto people's mobile phones if they were a customer of that brand and they had our you could just suddenly push out and go, hey, in fact, even if they weren't customer, um, you could push out and go, Hey, we're doing a 5% discount on this particular thing that we're doing.
• 1:28:26
  Michael: Um, that was pretty intrusive, right?
• 1:28:28
  Michael: And and and you know, a number of different organizations can to this day track where you walk, what you're buying, who you're messaging, all of that data together.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:40
  Michael: It's it's scary stuff.
• 1:28:42
  Michael: Um I guess the difference is I tend not to care in a very selfish kind of way because yeah, I'm no longer an idealist.
• 1:28:55
  Michael: But I appreciate but but yeah, I appreciate you do.
• 1:28:58
  Michael: It's important people too.
• 1:28:59
  Michael: Um Alrighty, listen, it's been lovely chatting.
• 1:29:04
  Michael: It's been really, really good.
• 1:29:05
  Michael: Um uh it's been really useful.
• 1:29:07
  Michael: I think you've given a bit of a different view on on certain things.
• 1:29:11
  Michael: So it's been great.
• 1:29:12
  Michael: Um how do people uh get in touch with you?
• 1:29:15
  Michael: Um they want you on LinkedIn or wherever.
• 1:29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been really great.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, thanks very much for having me on the podcast.
• 1:29:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can get me on LinkedIn um or my website is theaiedit.ai.
• 1:29:30
  SPEAKER_02: My YouTube and Substack are thehumansontheloop.ai.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you can find me there uh for anything to do with AI.
• 1:29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been really great chatting.
• 1:29:38
  Michael: Brilliant.
• 1:29:39
  Michael: Thanks very much.
• 1:29:39
  Michael: Cheers, Heather.
• 1:29:40
  SPEAKER_02: Cheers.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_02: So