In Episode 64, Gerda unpacks a truth every private practice owner needs to hear: It really does take a village to build a sustainable, thriving business. If you’ve ever felt like you’re carrying the weight of your practice on your own shoulders,  juggling clinician, CEO, HR, bookkeeper, and everything in between, this episode is your permission (and blueprint) to stop going it alone.

Gerda shares how the right support team can help practice owners move from overwhelmed operator to confident, strategic CEO. Discover how to build your “top of the mountain” circle,  the people who help you see further, make better decisions, and create the freedom and impact you’ve been aiming for.

In this Episode, you will learn (among others):

• The five must-have roles in your business village: why they matter, who they are, what they do, and how to find (and use) them well.
• How to get the most out of your team, including the questions to ask and common pitfalls to avoid.
• The difference between being the bottleneck and building a self-running practice 

Who This Episode Is For:

• Private practice owners who feel stretched thin, stuck, or ready to scale but unsure where to turn for support.
• Clinicians dreaming of a business that gives back more time, freedom, and impact.
• Anyone who wants to step into true CEO leadership, with a team that’s got your back.

Tune in for a practical, empowering conversation about building your business “village”,  and discover how surrounding yourself with the right five people can help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about.

Want Gerda’s Help with your Business?

Gerda helps allied health group practice owners go from overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid to fully empowered and financially thriving. If this is you, then make today the day you reach out. Complete this super short Triage Form here bit.ly/triageformpps and Gerda will personally reach out to you. 

Here to help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about 🙂

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Well, hello there fabulous private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 64. 

Today I’m going to talk to you about The 5 Most Important People in the Life of a Practice Owner. Now I am sure you have heard the following saying before: It takes a village. Have you heard that one? I’m sure you have. Now, we often think about this saying in the context of raising children or supporting families. But the thing is this, it actually also takes a village to build a business. Yes, of course you can try to do it on your own. You know, you can try to be the clinician, to be the practice manager, to be the bookkeeper, the HR department, the strategist, the culture driver, the recruiter, the marketing team, and the CEO of your small business.

But if you’ve been where I’ve been – and lucky for me, this is now many, many years ago – but if you’ve been at this place where after the kids have gone to bed, ate at night sitting at your laptop trying to interpret a profit and loss, or a balance sheet, googling fair work legislation, reviewing a legal contract, responding to yet another team issue – and then tomorrow morning you still need to get up, get the kids to school, and have a full day of clinical work. If you are experiencing that right now, I think you’re going to admit to me that that is not a scalable business, that is a fast track to burnout.

Which brings me to another saying that I absolutely love, and that is this one: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Because going alone in private practice, I’m going to admit it can feel fast in the beginning, right? Which can feel good, like you’re making fast and quick decisions, you don’t have to consult anyone, you just figure things out as you go. If I had a dollar for every practice owner that told me, ‘Gerda, I built this business by just winging it,’  I would be a multimillionaire. But at some point, your practice hits a ceiling, and I hate to break it to you, but that ceiling is you – your capacity, your knowledge, skills, and experience, your time, your energy. And if it is your vision to build a profitable, long-term, sustainable private practice, maybe even a self-running practice AKA a business that gives you the time, the money, and the impact, very importantly, that you were after when you started this, it is going to require going TOGETHER.  

I promise this is the final saying, but this one is just as important and that is: That you become the average of the five people you surround yourself with. When most people hear that saying, they think of it within the context of mindset, as well as friendships, and it totally applies to that but, it also applies to you as the CEO of your small to medium sized business. I’m not talking about your team here, I’m not talking about your clinicians or your admin team – those are your employees or potentially contractors that you have. I am talking about the five people you surround yourself with within your business world. The people sitting with you at the top of the mountain, as I like to say. Down in the valley is your team – it’s your clinicians, your admin, your contractors, the people doing the work. But when you’re sitting at the top of the mountain, that is when you can see what’s coming into the future, and you can see what happened in the past – this is where strategy occurs, thinking ahead occurs. And the five people that should be sitting there with you, they will determine the quality of your decisions. They will determine the speed of your growth, your profit, your leadership capacity, and whether you ultimately achieve that vision that you have for your business.

These three sayings that I’ve just shared with you have stood the test of frequent time for a reason. They are not just cliches. They are patterns. They are truths. And in today’s episode, I want to take you through who I believe to be the five most important people in your life as a practice owner from a business perspective. Those people whose job it is,  and who will take you from an overwhelmed operator to a strategic small to medium sized business, CEO. The people who will help you move from a practice that depends on you for every little thing to a self-running practice. Because building a successful practice is not about working harder and longer hours, it is about building the right village of people that you can surround yourself with. So let’s get into it.

Person 1: Your Accountant

Person number one that you need in your corner as a practice owner, is your accountant. Not one of those once-a-year tax return only accountants, no, a proper strategic financial partner for you and your business, okay. I do not know how many times I have spoken to practice owners that tell me, ‘Gerda, the diary is freaking full, the team are productive, they’re busy, but yet there’s no money left in the bank, and every two weeks when I’m doing the wages, I’m scrambling, I’m panicking. There is never enough money.’ 

If that is happening for you, did you know that your accountant can help you with that? They can help you understand what is going on with your cashflow. They can do things like helping you work out your breakeven point. Finding out what your percentage wages to sales, is it where it should be? Is it too high? What are your utilisation benchmarks? What is your cashflow forecasting like? Your accountant plays an incredibly important part in the life of your business. But not only that, if you are a business owner and you want to buy a car, you should speak to your accountant. You want to buy a house, you should speak to your accountant. So even when you are doing things in your personal life, it impacts you as a business owner. Because ultimately, whether you’re a sole trader or a company, the government still holds you responsible. There is very little place that you can hide these days.  So everything you do as an individual. In your private life as just an individual and in your business life, it’s all interconnected, it’s all interwoven, and you need an accountant that’s across all of those things happening in your world. 

If there is a significant change, like your moving house, your accountant needs to know about it, so they can help you make the right decisions. Now I really want you to ask yourself. Do you have an accountant, yes or no? That’s, that’s the easy one. If you don’t have one, you need one, okay. And like I said at the start, you need a good one, somebody that does more than just tick boxes, dots i’s and crosses t’s. Now, I will encourage you to go and listen to Episode Number 4 of this podcast where I talked about Why You Need a Three-Scenario Accountant, and that one’s going to really help you make a good decision when it comes to your accountant. So that’s the first question: Do you have them? Yes or no? If not, get one. 

Second question for you: Do you actually regularly communicate with them? Not just replying to a random email where they want you to sign something or you need to pay your exit fees or whatever else, no, do you actually meet with them on a regular basis? I would say my recommendation is that you should be talking to them at least once a quarter. And that is the recommendation for when things are going well. If things aren’t going well financially right now in your business, you most certainly should be meeting with that person on a monthly basis. And I don’t want to hear that it’s expensive. I pay my accountant good money. It is an investment into my business, into the future of my business, into my team, into the clients that we service, and into me and my family – having a great accountant. So I don’t go, oh, I can’t work with them this month because, you know, I pay X amount of dollars. I look at that as the return on investment that I get from it. And I can tell you just the tax savings by having a great accountant help you with your tax planning, will already look after the bill that you pay every month in order to see them and have them in your corner.

What I will also say is that sometimes I do speak to people that have accountants and they regularly meet with their accountant, but they take it one step too freaking far. And this is like, this is life, right, you need to know where the midpoint is. You need to have balance. So I don’t want you to go from having no accountant whatsoever. to have an accountant and going that this person is now in charge of my business and I make zero financial decisions that they don’t sign off on. Because I can tell you, I have made many financial decisions in my life as a business owner that my accountant has said, ‘Gerda, don’t do it.’ And he said that to me, looking me in the eyes. And guess what Gerda did. Gerda did it.  But here’s the thing, right… It’s about making informed financial decisions. I am still the business owner – the buck still stops with me. I will still do whatever the hell I decide to do, right? But it means that if things don’t work out well, then I need to deal with it. But what my general response would be if my accountant says, Gerda, this thing that you want to do – let’s say for example, I want to open up a new location, and we do some modelling and we have some discussions – and he says, ‘No, it’s not going to work. It’s not the right time.’ ..or whatever. I might go, ‘Okay, I hear what you’re saying, however, I choose to go ahead with this right now. What do we need to do to make this work? How do we need to adjust the numbers? Tell me what do I need to put in place for this to work?’ Because I know that there’s always a solution.  And I know that I am happy to find the solution, and I will do the work and I will make sure that we get there.

I will always ask the question, but I don’t require the sign off, because at the end of the day, I’m still the business owner. I get to make the decisions, and I also know that a lot of accountants are very risk averse – that’s just their personalities, they’re number people. And when you have a big vision like I have, when you are a heart driven, helping professional that wants to make a difference in the lives of people, it’s like I, I’m not going to let numbers hold me back. I’m going to look at them, I’m going to acknowledge them, and then I’m going to ask myself, ‘What do I need to do to make this work?’ Because I know what the vision is, and I want to achieve that impact. So now I need to take some action steps and yes, sometimes it means three, four, even five, even 10 steps backwards in order to go and rejig something, in order to be able to move forward and achieve that vision that I have. So that’s me. That is how I look at it. I love my accountant. I’ve got a great accountant and I speak to him very regularly. It’s like very direct, open, robust conversations, and you know what the great thing is? I know that it doesn’t matter what decision I make, he will always back me. He never goes, ‘I told you not to do that,’ or ‘I told you so.’ Never. And that’s the person you want in your corner. Somebody that backs you every freaking step of the way – that is an amazing accountant. 

Person 2: Your Lawyer

Person number two is your lawyer. Now nobody likes dealing with legal matters, right? You try to avoid them as much as possible because a lot of the time they’re not pleasant. But a lot of times, if you actually think about it, a lawyer’s job is to protect the asset that you are building. They’re like a protection, right? And that asset is your business, but it’s also your life, and as a business owner, those two things are once again connected. Just like you have an accountant that needs to be across your business and your personal life – legally, you want to protect your business, as well as your personal assets, for example. So a lawyer is going to play a really important role within your world, particularly on the business side of things.

For example, if you decide to take on contractors, you’re probably going to need a contractor agreement. If you want to start a practice and you want to do it with another friend who’s also a clinician, you’re going to need a partnership agreement. Maybe you are opening up a second site and want one of your team members to buy into the business, you’re going to need legal documentation. If you want to purchase a practice, again, a lawyer needs to come in and help you with the contract of purchase, or if you’re the one selling, you’re the vendor – the contract of sale. So it’s really important that, if these scenarios pop up, who is my person? Who am I going to go to? Now again, you won’t need to be talking to your lawyer every week or even once a quarter, for example, like the accountant. But it’s important for you to know who your lawyer is. So when the freaking pawpaw hits the fan, or something new and exciting pops up and you need their legal eagle eyes over documents that they are there ready to help and support you. 

Now, for me personally, I have decided to not have just one lawyer. Now, you could potentially have one person that does a bit of general law, but my thinking is that, just like when you have a really serious problem with your heart, you’re probably going to need to go to a cardiologist, a GPs going to help do those initial stuff, but you’re going to want a specialist to help you with this specific problem. And I take a very similar approach with the lawyer. So for example, I’ve got one lawyer, and the only thing he helps me with is my contractor agreements. So Michael is there, he wrote my agreement, he and me have had many a long, robust, interesting conversations about contracting – particularly after the 2024 legislative changes that came in and the changes in definitions – and he has had so much freaking patience with me helping me get my head around, this is how contracting used to work prior to all of this, this is how it should work now. This is what you need to be compliant. This is how you operationalise it. This is how you make these decisions. And I’m eternally grateful that I’ve had him in my corner. I can tell you it was a full nine months to really make sure that we were able to devise a compliant contractor agreement that also incorporates the commercial realities of running an allied health private practice. I always want to make sure that if somebody goes to the ATO and reports us for whatever reason, that I can have the confidence that we did the right thing. I don’t want to have to worry for three months straight because it will take at least three months before they get back to you worrying about what the ATO is going to say? What’s the ATO going to say? 

I’m not saying I’m not going to have a level of stress because nobody likes being freaking audited by the ATO, because there’s always that, oh shit, what if I just missed one little tiny little thing that I wasn’t even aware of, but you know, hopefully not, but that’s what your lawyers are there for. They’re the ones to not miss things, but it could still happen because nobody’s freaking perfect. And if that were the case, then we can just fix that up, right? But to know 99.9% confidence that what we were doing was right. Because I can tell you most people out there don’t even know about the changes that happened in 2024. They are still operating with contractor agreements that were first designed in 2016 or 2014 even, and that is really, really scary to think about. If I consider how long it took me to get my head around the changes, imagine being a contractor that’s never spoken to a lawyer about these things, they don’t understand it. And they’ve always contracted under these old arrangements, and now they might come to a practice like mine and I’m going, ‘Well, this is how this now looks.’ And they go, ‘No, that’s not right, because I’ve been contracting for the last five years and it didn’t work like that.’ So there’s a lot of education that we need to do for ourselves, but also for the industry, and it starts with our team around these things. But I digress a bit. 

So I was saying I’ve got a lawyer specifically for my contractor agreements. I also have an amazing lawyer that helps us with all our lease agreements. So if you have to negotiate anything like for fit out or anything like that, when we sign a new lease agreement, she’s the person we go to for that. And then the third person I have is the person that does my will and estate planning. That is his jam, he’s a specialist in that. He’s very much a details person, very risk averse, perfect for estate planning, that’s his job. And then the fourth lawyer is the person that I just referred to as my guy. I would every now and then flick him an email. I’m normally in contact with him when I want to know my rights on something, and it’s very rare that that’s in my personal world. It’s mostly within the business world. For example, If somebody has broken a contractual agreement with my business and I want to find out what legal recourse do I have in this specific scenario. Then I would reach out to him and I will gather all that information that I need in order to make the right decision. 

That all being said, I’m not a very litigious person. You know, somebody would need to seriously piss me off in order for me to take legal action against them. And at times I have thought that I should probably take action more readily, because it’s really important as well. I feel like as a business owner, I have an obligation to enforce contract agreements, right? Because if I sign a contract with someone, I’m going to stick to that. That to me means being in integrity. And I can’t tell you, and this is not just for me and my business, I speak to so many practice owners over the years and this particularly is with contractor agreements, but at times also employment agreements where, let’s say in the scenario for a contractor, they might just decide that, ‘After three years of working under this contractor agreement, I no longer want to stick to clause. X in the contract agreement. I have now decided that I don’t like that clause. I have now decided that it is actually an unethical clause.’ They love to throw  the unethical card.  It’s like, so it wasn’t unethical three years ago when you signed it?  I think it would be really unethical to sign a contract that is unethical. But anyway, it’s like – you actually can’t do that. If you’ve signed it, you’ve committed. I think we as practice owners have an obligation to actually show people that this is actually legally enforceable, right. 

So yes, I’ve sent legal letters but I’ve not sued somebody. I’ve not taken somebody to court. But I most certainly will assert my legal rights, and I will tell people about the legal rights that I have, and how they are breaking it. I will always encourage you not to be scared to do that, especially when you know that you’re doing the right thing, and especially after you’ve considered why it is that you want to do it. You should never be taking legal action because you’re upset, that’s not a reason to do it. The reason for me, if I ever write a legal letter to somebody, it’s really about going, It’s my job to protect the integrity of this contract. And if I still have this contract with other people in my business, it’s my job to show that this contract means something, because otherwise why have contracts in the first place? Then everybody else that’s on that exact same contract can just tear it up, you know, let’s just pop it in the bin because it means freaking nothing, okay. So I do think, well, I do believe that as a business owner we have that obligation. But again, I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit hole there. 

The bottom line is this, you need a lawyer. And if you go.. I’ve got no idea Gerda who to call, then speak to your accountant. Most accountants already have lawyers that they work with. Because when the pawpaw hits the fan, generally you’re going to need your accountant, and or your lawyer – so a lot of them work together on specific issues or challenges that businesses need to deal with. So get your accountant to then refer you to somebody. And you want to do this before the problem arises. Make sure that you’ve got that person, you’ve got their number, their email address, maybe you’ve done a quick meet and greet, and you know that the day you’re going to need them, they will be ready and willing, and able to help and support you.

Person 3: Your HR Advisor

Person number three is your human resources, AKA, your HR Advisor. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the people in your business are your greatest asset, particularly if you have a service business like most of us within private practice allied health has. Similarly, I can tell you now for a freaking fact, because I’ve experienced it, and 9.9 out of 10 people I talk to who are also practice owners tell me this, and that is that your people will be your biggest headache in your business. Why? Because your people matter to you, and because they’re people, and when things go wrong with your people, it’s challenging, it’s really, really hard. Particularly for when things go wrong, you’re going to need HR support.

Now there are quite a number of HR providers within the marketplace. What I have seen is that the majority of them fulfills a compliance role: helping you with employment contracts, ensuring that your people are on the right award, helping you with performance management, for example, when somebody’s not performing. What is the process? If you want to make somebody redundant, what is the process that you need to follow? So a lot of people use HR providers for compliance, so that they don’t get in trouble with freaking fair work or WorkSafe or any of those people, and for you to do the right thing. Because there are a lot of rules, regulations, and legislation that you need to get right. And as a result, I have found that a lot of HR providers I will also add, again, are very risk averse. Case in point, for example, the company that we are with, who’s our official HR provider at my business, If we follow their advice and things go wrong, and let’s say money needs to be paid out to a former employee, for example, then we are actually insured under them. So they will actually pay that money out. But it means that we must have followed step by step what they told us to do. It’s almost like insurance, right? And sometimes they might want us to do things that I actually don’t agree with. Because it’s like, that’s not right.

It’s almost like when insurance companies pay out in order to stop a court case, for example,  they try to stop things and then of course you need to pay out the money as the business –  they don’t pay that out. You are only insured against, if there’s like a court case down the track because you did something, they advised and the court found it not to be correct, for example, that’s when they will pay out, they are very strong in encouraging you to payout, for example. I know I’m being very broad here, but I don’t want to share two specific examples for confidentiality and privacy reasons. The amount of examples that I have on my own practice is minimal, because touch wood, we don’t have those types of issues at my practice. Well, not for the last couple of years, did very early on before I knew what I was doing. 

I’m sharing that again for you to also be mindful of the role that these people play, but also the limitations. And yes, I still have them as one of your five people, because I can tell you, like I said earlier, the people in your business are one of your biggest challenges. There is going to be somebody that’s not performing who you need to performance manage. Now of course you can consult fair work, there are actually a lot of websites out there, you can even call up fair work and they will give you input and advice. But 9 of 10 times they’re not on the side of their employer, let’s just be honest. There is a fair work, small business line I think that you can contact, but at the end of the day, they are there to protect the employees. Doesn’t mean that you can’t contact them and find out what advice they’re going to give an employee if they were to call. But honestly, I feel that every practice owner should have an HR provider that can make sure that they follow the right steps when things happen. 

Again, you are not a donkey, you need to make your own decisions. You don’t just blindly follow, so you need to also make sure that you are with a provider with whom you can have those conversations with, who you feel comfortable saying, ‘Well, this is actually not right, and this is why this is why this is an in-principle decision. You need to help me get to the outcome that I want in this case.’ And this is what I often advise my mentoring clients when they’re working with their HR providers, dealing with difficult team issues in terms of going, okay, the HR provider is saying – ‘Can’t do this, can’t do that, must do this, must do that.’ And my advice to them is always, go back to the HR provider and say, ‘This is the outcome that I, as the business owner, want. You need to come up with a pathway to that outcome.’ – because that’s what you pay them for. That’s why they’re there, right. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. I want to tell you the outcome I want. You now tell me how to get there. 

When you are actually clear with the outcome that you want, I can tell you they can help you get there. And sometimes if they go, ‘Oh no, it’s not doable.’ Then I go, ’Is there somebody else that can help me? Because this is where I want to get to.’ So you also need to stand in your own knowing and confidence of what it is that you require from the people in your corner, okay. Same with your accountant, same with your lawyer, same with your HR provider. This is the outcome that I want – your job ‘accountant’ is to help me get there financially. Your job ‘lawyer’ is to help me get there legally. Your help ‘HR provider’ is to help me get there compliantly with the National Employment Standards, the award, fair work on all of the rules and regulations. that is out there.

Person 4: Your Principal Clinician

Person number four is your principal. This is generally a principal clinician. If you’ve got a psychology practice, this is your principal psychologist. If you’ve got an occupational therapy practice, this will be your principal OT.  This person in essence, is the bridge between you as the CEO and the team, so between you and the rest of the team. And this is the role that stops you from being the bottleneck. Yes, we cannot clone you. In fact, we don’t want to clone you. All we need is somebody on the ground to be your eyes, be your ears, and be your heart that can fulfill the vision that you have for your business, that can be there to lead the team – look after them, drive the culture, uphold standards, do quality control and help you implement this vision that you have for your business. Without a principal role, you will remain the bottleneck within your business. Because every clinical decision will come to you, every business decision will come to you, you will still be the one that has to manage all the crises. Is the air conditioner broken? Now, it’s your job to fix it, answering all the questions. And if you are telling yourself, I just cannot step away from the business – of course you can’t, because you are still the one doing it all. You are still the clinical operations manager, you are still the business operations manager. So if you want to be able to step away, you are going to need a principal that can step into that role.

Now, 9 out of 10 times, that will be a principal clinician. I will say that it doesn’t have to be a clinician. It can be a well-trained, experienced, qualified, nonclinical person, however, that is the exception rather than the rule. Now if you’re listening to this and you’re going, ‘Well, that’s all good and well for those large practices, Gerda. I don’t have a principle and I can’t see that I’m going to have one in the next 12 months.’ That’s okay, if that is the case, what I would recommend is that you start with, if I now only have clinicians and admin, is there somebody that can step into a practice manager role? Is there somebody that can step into a team leader role, and one of those two practice managers or team leader could potentially become like an understudy. You know, in the world of theatre, there’s always an understudy for if the main character becomes unwell and can’t show up as the curtain opens. And they can be an understudy for that role so that when they are ready, and you’ve given them a lot of coaching and a lot of mentoring, a lot of guidance, and they really chomping at the bit, they will be in that place where they can step into a very, very important role in the business, and a role that’s very powerful for you. Not powerful that they have the power, but what it does for you is the business owner. You know what that is? Freedom. Time freedom. 

I don’t know about you, but time freedom is incredibly important for me, and you only get that when you have somebody that is that bridge between you and the business. I’ve got that person. I meet with that person every Monday at 1:00 PM. That person is the bridge that allows me to only think about the business during that time. That’s what I call a self-running practice. Yes, I still need to meet with them once a week, but honestly, that is nothing compared to the amount of hours I used to put into the practices. I would work full-time in the week, the kids when I get home, still work until midnight every night, and I would work weekends in between sport and all that stuff – I never want to go back there. You could not pay me enough money to go back there, and it became possible because I said, You know what? I need somebody to step in and be that bridge. I need to build an organisational structure that supports me to step away. Because you can’t just take yourself out and expect somebody else for whom this is not even their own business, to work the hours that you’ve worked. You can’t do that either, right? And that is also, I mean, there’s a whole different conversation – because it’s about getting the right frameworks in place, having the right structures, doing proper systemisation optimisation, delegation, all of that stuff had to happen. But ultimately having that person there to now make sure that everything keeps on humming as it should – that’s worth gold – and I want that for each and every one of you. So person number four might not be in your world right now, but I still want to share it because I want you to start thinking about this.

Person 5: Your Business Coach, Mentor & Consultant

Person number five is your business coach, mentor, and consultant. Yes, me. And this person is person number five for a reason. Not because they last on your person list. But because at the end of the day, your business coach, and I’m just going to say business coach, here just for ease of reference, and I have previously done an episode, I think it was Episode 21, where I spoke about the difference between a business coach, a business mentor and a business consultant. So if that is of interest for you, please go and have a listen. But for now, we are just going to talk about person five as your business coach. And the reason why this is number five on the list, is because your business coach is the glue that holds everything together for you as a practice owner. And I mean, I can just reflect on my own experience as being an allied health private practice business coach, mentor, and consultant, and that is every day when I support my clients, I am helping them with issues that they need to take to the accountant. 

I might go, for example, okay, ‘Let’s do a breakeven sheet, here’s a template. This is how I recommend you do it. Now you’ve got this document, you can go and take this to your accountant when you are meeting with them, and can take them through it.  They can put their eye across it and see what you might have missed,’ or what is relevant to your specific business, because they might have information about your business that I, as the business coach, might not know about. They might know about personal situations in your life that you’ve not told me about because, it’s up to you how much you tell me, all of that type of stuff. I often need to tell people, ‘Oh, I can see in your contract agreement this and that is missing, or this is here, or that shouldn’t be here. I think you need to go and talk to your lawyer about this again.’ So I’m always flagging things for people. I am constantly sharing with them that based on my experience, this is how we need to operationalise the contractors that you have in your business. 

Maybe you need to go and check that with the lawyer that wrote up your contract agreement for you. Very often, I would also be the first person people would come and talk to when they’re having a tricky HR issue, and a lot of times I will support them as much as I can, in terms of providing a remedy for it. But when it comes to those legislative conditions, particularly stuff that is state-based, I would always refer them to speak to their HR provider to make sure that they are following not only the national and federal rules and regulations, but specifically the state-based regulations, because my practice is in Queensland I know those like the back of my hand, but I don’t know it in that detail when it comes to other states. But I can always flag things. I can show people what it is that they don’t know that they need to ask of their accountant, of their lawyer, and of their HR provider. 

The other thing that I find a business coach does and that I do a lot, especially in the HR area, is to help practice owners develop a team that is high performing. I said earlier on that the HR providers out there in the marketplace, the majority of them operate in a compliance manner – making sure you’re compliant, helping you fix problems, helping you deal with issues. But there is this whole flip side of the coin when it comes to our people in terms of building great culture, helping you step into leadership, helping you empower your team, that career progression side of things. So I find that I do a lot of work in that area that doesn’t always happen within the traditional HR provider area of the marketplace. 

And of course, you know, I’ve got a group private practice still myself. I had a few principal clinicians over the years. Currently I’ve got a director of strategy and operations running my practice, that person is now the bridge between me and my entire business on the ground. so I can do a lot of coaching, mentoring, and consulting on that to support the principal or that person for every practice owner that I get to work with. And that is why I’m saying that your business coach is like the glue that holds the support team together. I am not saying I’m the most important one. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying is that all five of these people are important. But the one thing a business coach does that you cannot get from your accountant, cannot get from your lawyer, cannot get from your HR provider, and cannot get from a principal clinician, is the following: Somebody that keeps you accountable to the vision that you said you have for your business. Somebody that can fast track you to getting there. Somebody that can help you with the right strategy to achieve that, and then keep you on that pathway to achieving it. 

So a good business coach will give you clarity, focus, and they will enhance your consistency. They will help you prioritise, they will keep you accountable. They will be there with you every step of the way, and that is often the hardest thing, keeping our eyes on the prize because we are all so busy with day-to-day stuff, and that is an essential part of what a business coach does. Because it is incredibly easy to get distracted – to go off course, to get discouraged, to just want to give up. And the business coach is the person that’s going to be there for you during those times. And guess what? Inside the Private Practice Success Academy, this is exactly what I get to do with my business coaching clients every day. So when somebody comes to work with me, what we do is we install your growth plan, a plan that’s right for your vision for your practice. We help you identify any bottlenecks that’s getting in the way, and we make sure that you’ve got all the necessary tools and resources to implement that growth plan, so that you can move into true CEO leadership, so that your business stops depending on you for freaking and everything. Because a self-run practice is not built on you just working harder, on you just being more disciplined or being more motivated, no, it is built on structure, strategy, support, and implementation. 

So here’s my question to you. Do you have these five people in your world? And more importantly, are they working together in service of your vision for your practice? Because when they are, that is when you are moving towards your very own level five private practice, or even a self-running private practice and that is when your business starts to give back to you as the business owner – more time, more freedom, and more impact. That’s where we are going to leave it for today.  Thank you for tuning in, and as always, remember that I am here to help you build a practice you can’t stop smiling about.  😊