Latest / Hey Docs! / The Journey to Jill Allen & Associate: A Peak Behind the Curtain With Jill Part One

Transcript

The Journey to Jill Allen & Associate: A Peak Behind the Curtain With Jill Part One · Hey Docs!

• 0:05
  Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Haydocks Podcast. On this special two part
• 0:10
  episode, I will be your guest host Jordan Killian. In part one,
• 0:14
  we are getting to know the one and only Jill Allen from her start into
• 0:19
  consulting to the logistics of the services offered at JA and A. We are
• 0:24
  covering it all. It's a peek behind the curtain you won't want to miss.
• 0:28
  Let's jump in by now we all know I talk to a lot of
• 0:33
  doctors and give advice to practices in every stage of their life cycle. And
• 0:38
  one question my docs ask all the time is who do you recommend for marketing
• 0:42
  to attract more new patients from the internet. My answer easy. I have
• 0:47
  been recommending Mary K. Miller and her team at Kaleidoscope for the better part
• 0:52
  of a decade. Why they are thorough, professional and transparent. Kaleidoscope Digital
• 0:57
  Marketing is who you want to talk to because they understand how to market in
• 1:02
  the orthodonic world, and they offer tools that are affordable and easy to use.
• 1:06
  I'm telling you, if you're looking to step up your digital presence,
• 1:10
  Kaleidoscope should be your first call. Go to contact kl dot com to request
• 1:15
  your free digital marketing consultation. That's contact kl dot com. All right,
• 1:25
  well, this is an exciting episode. I think it's going to be really
• 1:27
  fun to record together and give the audience a little bit of a peek behind
• 1:32
  the curtain into you. I think it's something people want to hear. It
• 1:36
  they don't really get to hear very often. Yeah, this is going to
• 1:38
  be fun. Thanks Jordan for doing this. Yeah, well let's get going.
• 1:42
  So to get started, I wanted to talk through the careertology of JA
• 1:48
  and A. Can you tell the audience a little bit about your career trajectory
• 1:53
  and what it kind of took for you to actually start Joe Allen and Associates.
• 1:59
  Sure, so, probably a lot of people don't know this, but
• 2:01
  you know, when I got started in orthodonics, I actually started as a
• 2:07
  sterilization assistant way way way back when, and kind of made my way through
• 2:13
  the orthodonic office, you know, kind of learning all of the positions.
• 2:16
  And one of the really fun things about when I got into this industry was
• 2:22
  that I was able to work for some really progressive orthodonists who really believed in
• 2:28
  not only leaning in and teaching their team members about orthodonics, but also exposing
• 2:35
  them to consultants. So as I was, you know, kind of making
• 2:38
  my way through the orthodonic office, and you know, I started as sterilization
• 2:44
  and then worked my way up into clinical, and you know, from clinical
• 2:47
  became a lead and a lead trainer, you know, and then on into
• 2:52
  treatment coordinating. I was also being exposed to what I'll say, all the
• 2:57
  stages in our industry in the on the consultant realm, and as crazy as
• 3:00
  the sounds, I was one of those gals that was like, that is
• 3:06
  what I want to do. Like I love, I love everything orthodonics,
• 3:09
  but I love the business of orthodonics even more so. And so I would
• 3:15
  keep a little notebook I still have it to this day of you know,
• 3:20
  how I thought that I would run a business and so that was kind of
• 3:23
  my journey in the orthodonic field. And and for me, you know,
• 3:29
  there was never a position that I just wanted to stick in because I love
• 3:34
  them all. And so I think, you know that has really lent a
• 3:37
  lot to me in moving into the consulting realm, is because what I saw
• 3:42
  is that every role in the orthodonic practice is really contingent upon another, and
• 3:49
  you know, there used to be I think a thought that, you know,
• 3:53
  one role was higher than another, or one role was more important than
• 3:58
  another. And you know, as I moved on in the industry and then
• 4:01
  you know, started my business, you know, what I believe is that
• 4:06
  every role is important and you have to know how to do it all.
• 4:11
  And so when I got into the consulting business, you know, that was
• 4:14
  something that I wanted to make sure is that I was not just specializing in
• 4:16
  one area, but able to really look at consulting as a whole for the
• 4:21
  business in every area of the orthonotic practice. So that's kind of how how
• 4:27
  I got into it and got started, and you know, eighteen years later,
• 4:30
  it's it's pretty fun. Oh. I love that. I love hearing
• 4:34
  that and just kind of how you moved through each position in an office.
• 4:39
  I think it gives people some hope into Hey, I can move through different
• 4:45
  positions in the office as well, and my career trajectory and orthodonics is as
• 4:47
  far as I wanted to go. And you can kind of do whatever you
• 4:51
  want in this industry as long as you just have a mindset for growth and
• 4:55
  a mindset for learning. And I think that that's really good for our listeners
• 4:59
  and our audience to hear. Yeah, so I'm wondering if we can kind
• 5:02
  of take a look behind the curtain at the beginning of the business. Sure,
• 5:08
  we're your startup years, like, because everybody kind of knows you as
• 5:13
  the startup expert, but nobody really sees you as a startup. So what
• 5:17
  did that look like for you we were getting started? Yeah, well,
• 5:21
  and it's it's so interesting because you know, for any any docs out there
• 5:27
  listening who are doing a startup, you know, the one thing I can
• 5:30
  say is I've got empathy for you, because it doesn't matter what you're doing,
• 5:33
  any industry that you're in when you choose to become an entrepreneur, and
• 5:39
  that really is what each of you are doing, is choosing to become an
• 5:42
  entrepreneur. First, your profession just happens to be orthodonics that you're going to
• 5:46
  be an entrepreneur on. And then you know that was that was kind of
• 5:50
  me me as well. And so when I got started in this industry,
• 5:55
  man, it was the hustle, you know, back when I was getting
• 5:59
  started, And for a lot of younger docs that are listening, maybe some
• 6:02
  of our senior docs will appreciate this. The Internet was not a thing,
• 6:08
  you know, we were it was still just really coming into its own within
• 6:13
  our professions. We were still completely using charts. And the way we found
• 6:17
  out about other orthodonists was there was this big, almost like phone book of
• 6:24
  every single orthodonic practice in the United States. And so when I got started
• 6:30
  as a consultant, you know, and I'm thinking, you know, who
• 6:31
  am I. I'm just Jill Allen who's got a passion for wanting to,
• 6:38
  you know, help doctors. I had to do all of the work.
• 6:42
  I would comb my way, and you know, at the time, I
• 6:45
  was living in Colorado, which I still live, but you know, I
• 6:47
  thought, man, if I can just do some seminars on things that I
• 6:54
  know, you know, maybe that's a good way for me to get my
• 6:57
  name out. So I would hand write out all of these invitations to doctors
• 7:01
  in the Colorado metro area and you know, come up with the topic,
• 7:05
  and you know, I'd be like, for fifty dollars, you can,
• 7:10
  you know, come to my little conference and you know, and I'll teach
• 7:13
  you about HSA accounts, or I'll teach you about insurance billing, or I'll
• 7:17
  teach you about this, that or the other, and it was really having
• 7:21
  to do the work. I can remember, you know, making my little
• 7:28
  flyers on I don't even know what the program was at this point because it
• 7:31
  was so old then, and having to print it out and you know,
• 7:34
  being like, oh my gosh, am I going to have enough money to
• 7:38
  buy all the cartridges to print out all of these flyers and color and make
• 7:43
  them look pretty so that people will pay me my fifty dollars to come to
• 7:46
  my little seminar and just little things like that. That it took one of
• 7:51
  the things when I you know, a lot of people ask well, Jill,
• 7:54
  how did you get into startups specifically? And that was you know,
• 8:00
  as I was entering into the consulting field. You know, again, there
• 8:03
  was such great sages out there, and I knew that I didn't want to
• 8:07
  compete against them. And I had had an opportunity to work with a doctor
• 8:13
  who had come in deciding to be a partner in one of the senior doctors
• 8:16
  practices that I had been in, and that partnership didn't come to fruition,
• 8:22
  and so he ended up buying kind of a satellite practice of this senior doc,
• 8:28
  and I thought, gosh, this is my opportunity to really like put
• 8:33
  all of my vision and thoughts into play, and so I made the decision
• 8:37
  to follow that doc, and you know, we started that practice and it
• 8:41
  was a two day a week practice, well probably not even two day a
• 8:46
  week, because it was a four day a month practice. And since then,
• 8:50
  you know, it's grown to be a you know, multi multi million
• 8:54
  dollar practice. And it was just fun to be able, you know,
• 8:58
  to see this doc who had vision but didn't have real clarity in how to
• 9:01
  run a business and get in there and help them do that. So as
• 9:05
  far as you know, kind of the look behind the scenes that's you know,
• 9:09
  getting in there and helping that, that just really solidified what I saw
• 9:13
  as there just was not anybody that was really focusing on young ducks coming out
• 9:18
  of school and helping doctors be business owners, you know, really understand and
• 9:26
  you know, the big, big picture of what it takes to get in
• 9:30
  and run a business. And of course, you know, the times were
• 9:31
  changing a lot too, in the sense that back in the early nineties it
• 9:37
  was a very different landscape than what it is now. And even when I
• 9:41
  got into starting my consulting business. The times were really changing on how we
• 9:46
  were growing businesses and doing businesses. So that's you know, that's that's some
• 9:50
  of that. I mean, I could go on and on about, you
• 9:52
  know, just all of the different things that I had to do as a
• 9:56
  consultant to make my way. But hustle, hustle, hustle, a lot
• 10:01
  of grit is really what JA and A is built on. I love that.
• 10:07
  I think. I think you're saying grit. That is the key word.
• 10:11
  That's the word that I kept thinking about the whole time that you were
• 10:13
  talking, because I think not only did you build your business on grit,
• 10:16
  but you're also teaching all of your startup doctors that grit is what it takes
• 10:20
  if you want to do it. Don't play small, play gritty it deep
• 10:26
  go you can do it. You can do it. You just have to
• 10:28
  push through the hard times and you have to think outside the box. And
• 10:31
  it's going to be you getting your fingers dirty to get started. Yeah.
• 10:35
  And you know, Jordan, you know one other thing that kind of comes
• 10:37
  to mind when you say that is, you know, I think for all
• 10:41
  of us, when when we are getting into our own business, we really
• 10:46
  have to understand that rejection is part of it. And I think that that's
• 10:54
  probably one of the biggest things that we all have to overcome, is that
• 10:58
  when we're getting into it, you really don't have a reputation. You really
• 11:01
  don't. You know, you haven't had a chance to prove your worth yet,
• 11:05
  and you're going out and putting yourself on the line. You're putting yourself
• 11:09
  out there, you know, whether it's with an existing you know, me
• 11:15
  trying to break my way into the industry, or as a doctor trying to
• 11:18
  get out there and talk to you know, maybe docs that you want to
• 11:22
  become, your referring doctors you know, within your network, and you know
• 11:26
  them taking a chance on you. And I think, man if I would
• 11:31
  have not persevered through that, and you know, when I had so many
• 11:35
  people, you know, tell me, what are you doing? Like,
• 11:39
  You've got this great job working in an office. Why in the world would
• 11:43
  you step away and take a chance on yourself. Why would you risk your
• 11:48
  husband's retirement money, Why would you risk being at home with your kids,
• 11:52
  you know, to do you know, something crazy like this. And I
• 11:56
  always used to think, you know, my husband and I, Doug,
• 11:58
  are you know Number one. Our motto has always been We'll figure it out,
• 12:01
  you know, no matter what, we'll figure it out. And I
• 12:03
  truly believe that. And I also believe that God put me here for a
• 12:07
  reason and if this wasn't the career or where I needed to be, he
• 12:11
  would close that door. And I was always open to that. If this
• 12:15
  door closes, I'm resilient. I'll make it. But I think, you
• 12:18
  know, just knowing that that you can you can always do it, and
• 12:22
  you just got to put your pride aside and you know, go out there
• 12:26
  and yeah, I think that is that that great component, But just going
• 12:28
  out there and saying, you know what, so that person doesn't believe in
• 12:33
  me, that's okay, there's going to be another one that does, and
• 12:37
  you know, and just building on on that that momentum. Yeah. Well,
• 12:41
  I think some of what our audience might not know is that I'm your
• 12:46
  daughter. So for the listener, I didn't know. That's right, that's
• 12:50
  right. But I can actually like remember those times and even those times kind
• 12:54
  of when you were starting to really get going in the business, but it
• 12:58
  hadn't picked up enough to where you could fully step away from some of the
• 13:01
  other things that you were doing, and you really were trying to burn the
• 13:05
  candle at both ends. You were working constantly, you were making things fit
• 13:09
  where things didn't really fit. I can remember many a car ride in my
• 13:13
  career starting an orthodonic industry, just listening to you on phone calls with doctors
• 13:20
  and just getting to know kind of everything that you were doing in the industry.
• 13:24
  And one thing that I think stayed constant is you always have vision,
• 13:28
  You always had goals. But something that I don't think anybody really sees from
• 13:33
  you, I just got to see because I was your daughter, was that
• 13:37
  you also had the same nerves and hesitation that everybody else has when they're starting
• 13:43
  a business. So I'm wondering if you can share with the audience a little
• 13:46
  bit about some of your insecurities and how you pushed through those insecurities. And
• 13:54
  also if you could go back to Jill what was just getting started, and
• 13:58
  you could tell her one thing to keep her going, or one thing that
• 14:01
  she would want to know that you know now that she didn't know. Then
• 14:05
  what would that be? What would you tell Jill to keep her going and
• 14:09
  to you know, I think just have the hindsight perspective sure. You know,
• 14:15
  I would say probably in the beginning. The biggest thing that comes to
• 14:18
  mind, and I think every entrepreneur has this is just this imposter syndrome,
• 14:26
  you know, like like who am I? You know, I'm I'm just
• 14:30
  Jill Allen. I you know, I'm just a gal from Golden that has
• 14:35
  a passion for the orthodonic industry. And who's going to listen to me?
• 14:39
  And who's going to trust you know, these systems that I have put into
• 14:43
  place, and you know, who's gonna who's going to pay me money?
• 14:48
  You know, to to do this. And it took a lot of years
• 14:52
  for me to get past that to be like, you know what, I
• 14:56
  can stand in my own space. I can own it just be because I
• 15:01
  maybe haven't. I am not a consultant that's been doing this for fifteen twenty
• 15:05
  years like some of the stages in our industry. I bring a lot to
• 15:09
  the table and I can own my space. And you know, after working
• 15:15
  with doctor after doctor after doctor, I am able to show the results.
• 15:18
  And you know, I think it always comes down to the proof is you
• 15:22
  know, in the putting as cliche of a little phrase as that is,
• 15:26
  And I think that for me was, you know, just just getting out
• 15:31
  of my head there, And again, I think that's what if you know,
• 15:33
  every doctor were to kind of think about it, that's ultimately what you're
• 15:39
  most afraid of. I think most of the time is you know, why
• 15:43
  is a client going to choose me over somebody else? Why is a doctor
• 15:46
  going to choose to refer to me over somebody else? And why is you
• 15:52
  know this that or the other? And I think it's just because we haven't
• 15:56
  come into ourselves yet enough to really believe that we are just as capable to
• 16:03
  own the space that we're in, whether we're an orthodonist opening up a new
• 16:06
  practice or or a consultant choosing to step in and say, you know what,
• 16:11
  I've got something that's bigger than myself that I have to give to the
• 16:15
  industry. So that's you know, so that's for me kind of how it
• 16:18
  got. I think the other thing that has always driven me and I you
• 16:22
  know, I'm very thankful about this is I've never been told, even from
• 16:27
  a little girl, that I couldn't do something, and that was a big
• 16:32
  deal for me, Like I can remember. I mean, I have been
• 16:34
  an entrepreneurial spirit from childhood my mom. Anybody who even remembers this company,
• 16:42
  my mom. I would say, I want to make some money, and
• 16:45
  she'd be like, here's an Amway bottle. Why don't you go up and
• 16:48
  down the street and see if anybody wants to buy Amway. I mean,
• 16:52
  I was like, you know, not even a third grader selling Amway.
• 16:55
  So, you know, as unbelievably crazy as that sounds like, I was
• 16:59
  like, sure, great, I'd be happy to do that. But you
• 17:02
  know, a funny story just to kind of tell you kind of how my
• 17:04
  brain has always been is you probably remember this story, Jordan, but for
• 17:10
  the audience, when I was in junior high, I again, I have
• 17:15
  always been about the business hustle from as long as I can remember, and
• 17:21
  way back everybody who who knows you know, I'm in my fifties now,
• 17:23
  so way back in the eighties, you know, while I was probably seventies
• 17:26
  at that point, but well, early eighties, there used to be these
• 17:30
  hard candy suckers that were really the rage way back in the day. Anybody
• 17:36
  anybody from the eighties will know this. But anyways, and there was a
• 17:40
  gal that would sell me suckers for twenty five cents and I would, you
• 17:45
  know, take my twenty bucks and go buy as many suckers as I could
• 17:48
  for twenty five cents, and then I would go to the school and I
• 17:52
  was like the drug dealer around the corner, except for I was pedaling suckers
• 17:57
  and I would and you know, I started off at fifty cents and I'm
• 18:03
  like, oh, these are easy to sell. So then I up my
• 18:06
  game to seventy five cents, and like I was bringing in a racket,
• 18:10
  buying them for twenty five cents, selling them for seventy five until I got
• 18:14
  caught by the principal. And I didn't know that I was doing anything wrong,
• 18:18
  but they were like, now, miss Jill, you can't, you
• 18:21
  can't. They confiscated all of my little suckers, all my money making suckers,
• 18:26
  and you know, and then sure enough, then the school store started
• 18:30
  selling the suckers. So I'm like, Number one, I had a good
• 18:32
  business idea. Number two, I was making great money and I got shut
• 18:34
  down by the man. No, just kidding, but that that just totally,
• 18:40
  you know, just for me, you know, throughout my entire life,
• 18:44
  and I've got story after story after story of you know, just constantly
• 18:48
  looking I mean, it's just in my blood. I always always joke with
• 18:52
  your dad, my husband Doug, that business is my hobby. I love
• 18:56
  it. If you know, any chance I get to talk to anybody about
• 19:00
  business, doesn't matter what it is, that's that's what I'm doing, because
• 19:03
  it's just in my blood. I love it, every aspect of it,
• 19:07
  doesn't matter which side of the business, the hard, the easy. I
• 19:11
  love it all. I love that. I love that. So is there
• 19:15
  something that you could tell Jill from fifteen years ago when the business was really
• 19:22
  just starting to take off and you were unsure of where it was going to
• 19:26
  go and where you'd be in fifteen years from then? What would you tell
• 19:30
  her now? What would you go back and tell her? You know,
• 19:33
  surprisingly, it's probably the same thing I was telling her then, is you'll
• 19:37
  figure it out. It'll work. You can do this. If this is
• 19:41
  where you're meant to be, it'll work out. And luckily had a good
• 19:45
  internal voice at that point in my life that you know, I said it
• 19:51
  then and I would continue to tell myself it now. You know, if
• 19:56
  this is where I'm meant to be, the doors will stay open, and
• 20:00
  you know you you will be successful and you know, there were many times
• 20:03
  where we had conversations like what if you just had five clients? Oh,
• 20:07
  I don't think I could ever have five clients, you know. Oh what
• 20:11
  if you just had ten clients? Oh, I don't know if I could
• 20:14
  ever have ten clients. You know. I can remember at one point having
• 20:17
  a conversation with the CPA, and I had the smallest of smallest goals,
• 20:21
  like, you know, if I could just make fifty thousand off of this
• 20:25
  business, I would be And I think that that CPA looked at me like
• 20:29
  are you nuts? Like why are you even here? That's nothing, you
• 20:33
  know. But but my goals were very small but steady, and so you
• 20:38
  know, I think I would tell myself, if you're doing what you're meant
• 20:41
  to be, it's going to work out. Yeah. I think that's really
• 20:45
  awesome. Hey, docs, let's talk about smile Sweet because it's not just
• 20:51
  another scheduling system. It's a game changer in the world of new patient management.
• 20:56
  And as a proud smile Suite partner, I've witnessed the incredible impact it
• 21:00
  has on practices of all sizes. Smile Sweet means your new patient calls and
• 21:06
  web leads are expertly handled seven days a week, even during nights and weekends,
• 21:11
  and they offer top notch customizable presentation software and seamless post consultation follow up.
• 21:18
  It's like having a secret weapon for your practice's success. Curious, dive
• 21:22
  into the revolution at getsmilesuite dot com and don't forget to mention, Hey docs
• 21:27
  to unlock some extra goodies. Elevate your practice with smile sweet, because every
• 21:33
  smile deserves a suite of excellence. Hey docs, Let's talk about consumer experience
• 21:41
  for a minute, specifically the kind of experience where you purchase an item or
• 21:45
  a service that you've been excited about only to be let down or disappointed by
• 21:49
  the actual product or experience. Not a good way to start a relationship.
• 21:55
  That's why relationships are so highly valued at GC Orthodonic because they are truly dedicated
• 22:02
  to the orthodonic specialty. GC Orthodonics is a leading provider of tony orthodonic appliances,
• 22:08
  quality products that have serviced the orthodonic community for well over fifty years.
• 22:14
  They are focused on providing total solutions that include both digital and analog orthodonic treatment
• 22:21
  modalities like brackets, indirect bonding and clear aligners, it's time to build a
• 22:26
  long term relationship with a company that is dedicated to delivering total solutions to your
• 22:32
  practice. Visit GC Orthodonics at www dot gcamerica dot com, forward slash Jill
• 22:41
  Allen and see why countless leading clinics have made the switch. So can you
• 22:48
  share with the audience what your why is? What is it for you that
• 22:52
  makes this worth it? You know, I think about this a lot because
• 23:00
  I just haven't got to the point where business is just business. And probably
• 23:04
  the thing for me is I truly love helping doctors and I love helping somebody
• 23:15
  else bring their dream to fruition. As corny as that sounds, I love
• 23:21
  helping them make it through. And you know, take something that's just a
• 23:26
  dream because I've lived it, and then see and talk to my doctors.
• 23:30
  You know, I've been doing this eighteen years now, so I've got docs
• 23:33
  that have made it all the way through startup to sell at this point and
• 23:38
  it is there is nothing more rewarding to me to be meeting with doctors and
• 23:45
  to have them say, you know, Jill, I still use you know
• 23:48
  a lot of the same systems that are in place or them you know,
• 23:52
  coming back and saying, you know, that really made such a big difference
• 23:55
  on how I did business. You know, going forward for me is you
• 24:00
  know, I just my why is I love love love helping people. I
• 24:06
  love meeting people where they're at and saying hey, you know, whether it's
• 24:10
  a team or a doctor, you know, and saying, hey, you
• 24:12
  know what, it doesn't matter how we got here. If there's a problem,
• 24:17
  we're working with an existing practice, because I don't just do startups,
• 24:19
  as you know, you know, but saying it's all right, you know,
• 24:22
  like we're going to just come right alongside you're I'm not going to beat
• 24:26
  you out over the head like nobody wants that. I went. I experienced
• 24:30
  that, you know in my career, and nobody needs that. It doesn't
• 24:33
  help anybody, and let's just you know, kind of figure it out and
• 24:37
  move forward. So you know that. And I also think, and this
• 24:41
  is definitely more just a personal thing, but I love our industry and there
• 24:45
  was a time, and you remember this where I even considered becoming a doctor
• 24:51
  because you know, I really love our industry so much, and I honestly
• 24:55
  felt like I would have more of an impact as a consultant than as a
• 24:59
  doctor. And so for me, just knowing that every new startup practice or
• 25:06
  every practice that we get to work with, I think just helps make our
• 25:11
  industry stronger. And I don't give into the fear of DSOs and osos are
• 25:17
  going to take over our industry. There's a lot of incredible, amazing private
• 25:22
  practices out there, and you know, doctors that are doing it for the
• 25:26
  right reason. And so I've just always felt like every time I have that
• 25:30
  opportunity to put a little of you know, my two cents worth into a
• 25:34
  practice, into a doctor, and the way they treat their employees and the
• 25:38
  way they learn to do business, it just helps make our industry stronger.
• 25:42
  Yeah, it's really good. You can feel your passion in every every question
• 25:48
  that you answer. You can just feel the passion that's behind it, and
• 25:52
  I think that that's inspiring for I think it's easy to get burned out in
• 25:55
  anything, especially when you've been running your own business and they're hard things.
• 25:59
  Your doctors know that you know it, so just to be able to feel
• 26:03
  even this far into the journey that you're just still so passionate about what you're
• 26:07
  doing in this industry, Like I said, it's inspiring. So as we're
• 26:12
  kind of switching gears a little bit with this episode, one of the stickers
• 26:18
  that we just created and one of the phrases that I've just started hearing you
• 26:22
  say more consistently is don't play small. And you tell that to your doctors,
• 26:27
  and you tell that to your practices. You're talking to them about that
• 26:30
  when you're saying, hey, you can stand in your space, you can
• 26:34
  be who you're going to be. Your practice could grow as big as you
• 26:37
  want it to be. So what I want to ask is, at this
• 26:41
  point in the journey of Jill Allen and associates, would you say that you're
• 26:47
  still considering yourself that small startup business or do you think that you've kind of
• 26:52
  outgrown that. Ah, such a good point, and this kind of comes
• 26:56
  back to that imposter syndrome. At what point do you get past that?
• 27:00
  And for me, definitely I have passed that stage. You know, there
• 27:03
  was a point again, you know where you're like, you know, I
• 27:06
  don't even know where to set my prices because who's going to pay me x
• 27:10
  amount or this or that or whatever. And I can say definitely within you
• 27:14
  know, for sure, the last you know, eight years or so I
• 27:18
  definitely feel like mindset wise, definitely past that. But it's kind of interesting
• 27:25
  because I think a lot of times in this industry, a lot of times
• 27:30
  the business is still associated with a startup business, and I think so many
• 27:36
  times people will go, oh, Jill does startups, so therefore Jill Allen
• 27:40
  and Associates is a startup business. And you know, it's kind of funny,
• 27:45
  you know, now having eighteen years behind me and to think I've been
• 27:49
  doing consulting longer than I was actually in the workforce of orthodonics. So you
• 27:59
  know, I think to say, are we a startup business? Absolutely not.
• 28:02
  You know, it's it's fun to look at it now and say,
• 28:06
  okay, yes, I've focused my business on startups, and now we've really
• 28:11
  brought into the fold acquisitions where we're really helping doctors because there's just as big
• 28:17
  of a need for a new doc coming in and purchasing a practice. A
• 28:21
  lot of times many of the doctors just like a startup doc, they've never
• 28:25
  learned how to run a business. They may have been an associate for many
• 28:29
  years, but they never really got the behind the scenes. They don't know
• 28:32
  how to run a team. So having to you know, be able to
• 28:36
  switch gears from helping doctors do startups to now acquisitions and you know, helping
• 28:41
  them do all the things that it takes to transition them, especially if the
• 28:45
  senior doc isn't staying and then now working a lot with existing practices. And
• 28:49
  this is an area that you know, you've heard me say this and maybe
• 28:52
  other people have too, Like I love to work on the shoulders. I
• 28:56
  always say, you know that that startup acquisition eight years to retirement, but
• 29:00
  you know, also working in that kind of mid midlife area, we just
• 29:06
  couldn't be a startup practice and be able to handle all of those different areas
• 29:11
  that we work in in the business anymore. Yeah, yeah, I totally
• 29:15
  agree. Well, I know I told you that we weren't going to do
• 29:19
  a speed round, but I think that we should finish up this little part
• 29:25
  one of the episode, this special episode of the speed Round, because I
• 29:32
  don't know about our audience, but that's one of my favorite parts. I
• 29:34
  love to hear those little pieces of sage advice from the people that are guests
• 29:40
  on the show, and so I think that they'd love to hear that from
• 29:42
  you too. So let's go for the speed round. Let's answer these questions.
• 29:48
  Okay, okay, what is your go to productivity tool? That's a
• 29:55
  you know, I use a lot of tools. I would say, I
• 29:59
  am a gal. I live on everything Mac. So for me, my
• 30:06
  notepad is probably my my go to if I have an idea. I'm always
• 30:11
  grabbing my phone and writing ideas. I've gosh, I'm almost embarrassed to say
• 30:15
  how many. I think I have like three hundred notes on my notepad,
• 30:22
  and believe it or not, I use them all for different things. So
• 30:25
  that's that's probably like my quick, down and dirty go to. But then
• 30:27
  I have a lot of other programs, you know, having a bigger team
• 30:32
  and you know, just having to keep up with all the different things.
• 30:34
  I do use a lot of other ones too, but that's that's probably anything
• 30:38
  Mac that is a quick thing that just helps me between devices is my go
• 30:44
  to. Yeah. Well, we got to love that ecosystem, right,
• 30:47
  Yes, yes, it's all connected your phone, your watch, your Mac.
• 30:51
  It's all there whenever you need it. Yep, I love that too.
• 30:55
  So I know the answer to this our audience may not early Bird or
• 30:57
  night Owl, which do you think could contributes more to your success. Well,
• 31:03
  if you were asking me twenty years ago, it'd be a totally different
• 31:08
  answer. But I am now for sure an early bird. I you know,
• 31:14
  if I can get to bed this is so embarrassing before nine, and
• 31:18
  I'm usually up five five thirty at the absolute latest. For me, the
• 31:25
  morning time is when I do a lot of creative things. And then also,
• 31:30
  you know, just I just like getting my day started right that way.
• 31:33
  Yeah, I love that. Well, I would say I'm neither because
• 31:37
  I like to go to bed before seven thirty and I like to be up
• 31:40
  after seven, So you know you're doing great. What is the first job
• 31:45
  you ever had? Oh, my very first paid job. I was a
• 31:53
  Baskin Robbins scooper Man. I love that job. It was so much fun.
• 32:00
  We probably did everything that you don't want to know happens at a Baskin
• 32:02
  Robbins. I can remember we would have races down the aisles of ice cream
• 32:07
  with the mini Scoopers to see who could get through the ice cream the fastest
• 32:13
  without a brain freeze. So Bascar Robbins was was my first official page up.
• 32:20
  I love that. I love that. And what would you say had
• 32:22
  the most tremendous impact on your professional life so far. You know, again,
• 32:29
  I'm just I love I love business, and I don't think that there
• 32:34
  is one particular thing. Again, you know, I could say, you
• 32:38
  know, working for very progressive orthodonists that really believed in educating their teams and
• 32:45
  sharing education with them was huge because it showed me that there was more out
• 32:52
  there and the opportunity was mine if I wanted to take it. But I
• 32:54
  think for me, just over the years, I'm just I love all things
• 33:00
  business, So any any opportunity, I would be the person that if somebody's
• 33:06
  talking about business, I don't care if it was a dog walking business or
• 33:09
  if it were I don't know something in statistics. I'm like a moth to
• 33:15
  a flame, just you know, tell me all about it, and tell
• 33:17
  me all about the business and all the things, just because I love it.
• 33:22
  I just it's you know. So for me, I think the opportunity
• 33:24
  to talk to so many different people and so many different industries has been something
• 33:30
  that's just fueled me to continue to push for what I do. Yeah,
• 33:36
  and for our last question, what is one business skill you think everyone should
• 33:42
  have. I think the art of listening and communication is important, but I
• 33:49
  think being able to be still and listen is really really key. And listen
• 33:54
  not only with your ears, but with your eyes, because you can learn
• 34:00
  so much about just being quiet and letting somebody else talk. That's probably one
• 34:07
  of my favorite things when I'm talking with people is to ask a question then
• 34:10
  let them tell me, you know. And it's so easy to want to
• 34:14
  be the smartest person in the room or the loudest person in the room.
• 34:16
  But if you can just learn to listen, listen with your eyes, listen
• 34:21
  with your ears, I think that's a skill that everybody needs to maybe do
• 34:27
  a little bit more of. That is a very important skill, and it's
• 34:30
  something that's hard to learn. It's not easy to be able to learn to
• 34:34
  be a good listener. So I think those are some good pieces of advice.
• 34:38
  Well, I think that this episode is going to be one of the
• 34:40
  crowd favorites. I think that it's really exciting to kind of get to hear
• 34:45
  your journey and maybe a softer side of Jill Allen that people don't necessarily get
• 34:51
  to see all the time. So thank you for joining us on this special
• 34:54
  episode, and I can't wait to get back with you for part two.
• 34:58
  Yeah, Thank you, Thanks Jardan. Are you ready to start a practice
• 35:01
  of your own, need a new fresh set of eyes or some advice on
• 35:06
  your existing practice. If so, reach out to me, Jill Allen at
• 35:10
  www dot practice results dot com. If you like what we're doing here on
• 35:15
  Haydocks and want to hear more of this awesome content, be sure and give
• 35:20
  us a five star rating on your preferred listening platform and subscribe to our show
• 35:25
  so you never miss an episode. Remember, new episodes drop every Thursday.
• 35:30
  See you next week.