How To Create KPI Dashboards That Motivate Staff And Drive Results - Practice Perfect Podcast Episode #9

Practice Perfect: Actionable business information to take your medical practice to the next level. Now you're host, Nick Dumitru.

Nick: [00:00:34] Welcome back to another episode of Practice Perfect. The podcast for medical professionals and anybody running a services business as opposed to a bricks and mortar store. On today's show, we're going to talk about something that is probably the second most boring topic in the world. The first being operations which one of our guests is an expert in as well. But this boring topic is probably one of the most important things that you can have in your practice. Something that is going to be the difference between success and failure for a lot of doctors. And what is going to make you money for years to come. What I'm talking about are KPI. If you're not familiar with the acronym, KPI is our key performance indicators. They are the things that matter to a business. They are the numbers that actually move the needle as opposed to vanity metrics like likes on our Facebook page. They don't actually make you any money. Traditionally in my experience there hasn't really been any kind of software or any solution that I've found that has been able to do the job for our clients and for doctors in general. It's a complaint that I hear about constantly and it's an ongoing problem which I think we may have finally solved. Joining me today, I've got Izhak Musly from AtlasKPI. He's the CEO. And I've also got Randy Torben who is the V.P. of sales at Atlas. They are both experts on the subject and we're going to get into it in just a little bit. So Izhak and Randy, welcome.

Izhak and Randy: [00:02:02] Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Nick: [00:02:04] Awesome. All right, guys. I'm going to jump not really into the topic right off the start. I want you guys to tell me a little bit about you. So let's start with Izhak. Give us a little bit of a background of what your history is and how you came up with the idea of AtlasKPI and why you guys started it.

Izhak: [00:02:22] So the true story is that it started from the professional needs that pays to be a general manager in a different software company. We used the time to serve more of the retail industry part-managing the company. I found myself spending a lot of time crunching data within Excel spreadsheets and exporting information from multiple different types of systems just in order to come to the KPI that I needed in order to make a decision. With time, I realized that there is technology to solve my problem and I started to work just like every startup traditional story. Fo r my side-business/mother in law unit of the House. Developing a solution for for my needs. Starting to develop some sort of a system that's going to be able to speak to all the different softwares that I'm using and collect all the data and already run all the population for me automatically so I can really focus on making decisions and be there on the day to day and really experience the business. Not just from the side of the numbers. As I was watching it on it to serve myself, I went on a weekend to visit my father in law which is also a plastic surgeon. And while I was visiting I realized that he's still using papers to run his own practice. Pretty successful doctor with pretty good and established practice. But overviewing the performance on a monthly basis from the accountant, on top of the support in some sales printers report, and I figure that that's even way worse than what I'm trying to solve for myself. This is like different levels of simplicity. That there is so much potential in that area to improve. You start to speak with them about what I'm working on. It's obvious there is definitely a need for themselves to use something like that. I have connect with a couple of experienced people. We interview multiple different doctors. We realized all of them sharing the same type of pain points in terms of not having the data available when they need it available. Although they're so limited on time to run their business, they don't have that information available in their hands when they when they want to make the decision. When they have the time to review. All of them have major dependency on different people within the practice so if they accounted for the past and not support the office manager to generate themselves the report, the market theories, to generate for them some Google Analytics and then also spend with them a lot of time to sit and explain. Because it's information that came. And they just came in numbers, not in a visual way. And that is after we did all those interviews, we realize that that's what we want to focus. That's what we really try to aim ourselves too.

Nick: [00:04:55] I love that story. I think some of the best software I've ever used was born out of necessity. Was born out of people building it for themselves and then they decided to take it to the world although I've got to tell you, I've never heard of anyone brave enough to take on the father in law's business so I commend you, my friend. That is appalled and you're probably better off for it so you know it better work. I can't think of any better guarantee than that. That's pretty amazing, actually.

Izhak: [00:05:25] If I can make him happy, I'm definitely going to be happier.

Nick: [00:05:30] That is a very very bold move. So I would stand behind recommending this software after hearing that. That is a 100 percent guarantee right there. Izhak literally put everything on the line there making sure that this thing actually works and doesn't shoot down. So Randy, I know you're on the frontlines. You're dealing with doctors. Tell me a little bit about how you got involved in this and why you joined the company and what's passionate for you about this industry.

Randy: [00:05:55] Absolutely. Well, in a former life for the company that Izhak was the GM of, I played the same role. And then we went different ways. I ended up working in a software company that focused on efficiency metrics in healthcare. Not necessarily for plastic surgery but for large medical centers and hospitals. And after reconnecting with Izhak and understanding the new project he was working on, after seeing his passion, and I agree the gall to take this project on for his father in law given the family, I also became passionate about it and I was happy to join him. And I'm glad I did because as a professional sales person who speaks to doctors, I hope that I'm able to convey to them that a lot of their practice is also revolving around sales and about sales metrics. And as I've worked for companies where I've needed to track my leads or my customer lifecycle, how long it's taking me to make the sale, these are all things that these doctors and their staff have to deal with but they are not able to utilize some of the same technology that exists in other markets that's focused in other verticals. And so to be able to introduce them to a, in my personal opinion, a sales tool that can grow revenue. But something that's simple enough for a doctor, for an office manager, for an association to use, this is typically the hottest thing since sliced bread. You know what I mean?

Nick: [00:07:43] Absolutely. I think it's something that a lot of doctors are stuck with right now. And what Izhak said there about them still using paper, a lot of them are still in the same situation. So you know, you've got everything from resistance from staff for not using EMR type software to manage their records to just them getting stuck in their old ways or frankly a lot of the time, software just gets in the way more than anything. It creates more of a problem than it solves and that's what I've seen with it with other solutions. But let me ask you both to answer this question. What are the main reasons for having KPIs? What do KPIs mean for you and your mind? And Why should doctors care about them?

Randy: [00:08:21] Well, if I can answer first, we have a saying 'If you can't measure it, you can't manage it'. Because how can you tell if you are growing or you're not growing if you don't go where you started? If you started with a dollar and you now have a second dollar, you're up you're up by some would say 100 percent right. If you grow another dollar, you're still growing but you haven't grown by 100 percent. Right? Because now you've already had two, you've gone to three. And so when you can measure everything from your revenue to your expenses to the number of patients you see, you almost begin to understand that correlation between these different metrics. And these metrics becomes KPIs. Standing for key performance indicators. Because they are that. How are you performing? And I can speak for almost anybody. I think we can all in every walk of life always be doing better. And so that's really the focus of these KPI. Is to be doing better.

Izhak: [00:09:28] I'll add to that. When you said what KPI is for you. And for me, KPI is almost like a shortcut to getting inside your business performance. So when you look at the metrics of customer acquisition costs, so you look on conversion rate except just the number that you see and your result in terms of conversion go up, in terms of acquisitions goes down, there is a lot more to that. It represents an entire aspect of your business. If you are looking in isolated, only the revenue that you bring again from the existing customer that's referring to you their friends have much more than just a revenue number. You represent the NPS or how much the customers are happier. What's the level of service that you provide? When you let the customer go lower, your loyalty to customer go to her friend, you did a great job on this customer. If this number is going down, it's not just you losing money but it also means that your services is not the same performance as it was before. Or if your customer acquisition cost is going up, means that it takes from you more now to gain brand new customers into your door and more opportunities. Now you are starting to pay more. Either competition around you increased or your fells went down or different sources are not performing as before. And like Randy mentioned, it's a better way of being able to look at your own business and see if you're really growing on the rates that you want in all the different aspects that businesses need to operate in the right way. So it's all going to work. So just like there is teamwork within people of the business, also the different aspects of the business working in the team. There needs to be a synergy between the front, to the conversiom, to the costs, to the end of the bulk. And I think the KPI is the best way to get the entire picture from A-Z.

Nick: [00:11:08] I think those are both fantastic answers and I got to tell you guys that it's a point of frustration for me when I speak to doctors and they don't understand this. And here's the reality, I started off the show by saying that it's the second most boring thing. Number one, the thing that makes you the most money I think is operations and systematization as well. But I'm not saying that it's boring because I'm taking a swipe at it. I'm saying that it's boring in the sense that it's not sexy. So when a doctor engages a marketing company or a consultant, they'll come in and they'll touch on all the sexy stuff. They will touch on, let's use the analogy of a car. If this were a car, they touch on the engine, the horsepower, the wheels, the paint job, all of that stuff. You know you've got your web site that's pretty, it's painted nice. You've got a lot of good server for your your thing, your web site's fast. All of these things are absolutely irrelevant. If your check engine light is on and you don't know that it's on and then your engine blows in another few miles. And that's essentially what doctors are doing right now. They don't think twice about getting in their car and they would never drive their car anywhere if their speedometer or gas gauge was broken. But they will run their multi multimillion dollar practice flying absolutely blind. Relying on people that may or may not care about their practice. And the reality is that most times doctors are not even in the practice. They are there to do the consultations and then they're doing surgery. And when they're doing surgery, and if it's a full day or two of surgery, a week minimum, that means that nobody is running the show for those two days and then they don't know what's actually happening. And I've seen this over and over again where their dashboard, just like the dashboard of their car is not functioning. Because Most times it's just plain non-existent.

Randy: [00:12:49] Nick, if I can I'd like to add to that. Especially focusing on what you have just said about the doctors being in and out of the practice. That's one reason why it's so important to recognize that the technology in the industry has grown to not only allow these doctors to move from paper to software but to now have that software be available through their mobile phone. Because it's one thing to manage the KPIs from your practice, it's an entirely separate page to make sure that whether they're in surgery, they are at a conference, or they're taking a two week well earned vacation, to be able to recognize where those KPIs are in their practice, to feel comfortable being away, to know that nobody is stealing from them. Nobody is slacking and that their standards are still being met.

Nick: [00:13:43] Absolutely. And you've actually brought up a very good point that I want to touch on before we go any further. And I've got some questions I want to ask you guys before we even get into your software. But I think you've touched on the dirty little secret of the industry. Nobody really talks about this and I've seen this in multiple practices and it's my belief from what I've seen from experience that this is not a one off. It's not something that doesn't happen. When you grow to a certain size and you're not really paying attention to your business, people start to steal. You could have a bad egg or it could be systematic. It can be job satisfaction but I've seen everything from people taking Botox and running a business on the side to just flat out embezzling two to three hundred thousand dollars out of a practice. And the physician had absolutely no clue that it was happening because he wasn't monitoring anything. He didn't have any alarm bells that were going off. He didn't know his numbers and people were just doing this over and over. And the sad reality is that that doctor was doing everything absolutely right. He wanted the best for his patients But negligent staff were doing things like watering down the product. And then people were getting substandard results. And the byproduct of that, that again nobody talks about is that it leads to bad reviews, a bad reputation, and it harms your practice over the long run. And not only harms it over the long run but also ruin your opportunities. It prevents you from growing to the point that you could have gone and it's all because again, they're flying blind. So I just wanted to touch on that. That was a very good point you brought up that nobody seems to want to talk about.

Randy: [00:15:13] Why thank you. And I'm happy to bring that to the attention of people and to your point. Nobody wants to talk about it especially when somebody in my situation is generally talking to both the physician and the office manager. Nobody wants to even think that that could happen to them. But I recently attended a conference where General councelor for I believe it was the ASPS brought up a list of things that you should do if you want your employees to steal from you. You should never check your bank account. You should never check your mattress. You should never question the staff times coming in and out. And he gave this very warm seemingly comical list but it is true. You know if you say on top of things and happened to be looking at your metrics and see that for whatever reason you spend twice as much in office supplies randomly in this month, it's going to be a cause for a question and I don't think that any office manager is offended when you ask them why expenses are up by 50 percent a given month. But as my father said, a question costs nothing but not asking that question could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Izhak: [00:16:26] And I think that with a tool like the dashboard when all the staff members can have their own aspect of the business, just might be able to monitor themselves and know that it's being monitored, that by itself can prevent a lot of everything we discussed. You can just prevent that from the first place then it does never need to come into that playing dirty to ask those questions, to put people in the corner. People don't want to be in the corner but when they feel too much freedom that's when they start to convince themselves that maybe nobody's going to notice. If they see it on the screen, they're not going through that one.

Nick: [00:16:58] Everything happens through incrementalism. I've said this for years. It just takes a little step a day and then you end up somewhere you didn't want to be striving. That's a very good point. So guys, I want to start adding some value to the listeners here. I want to get to giving them something that they can actually use and what I want to ask you guys because you're on the front line of dealing with KPIs on daily basis. Let's talk about a doctor and an office manager separately. What should matter to them? So what are the KPIs that actually moved the needle? What should the physician be paying attention to? And what should the office manager be paying attention to in their dashboards?

Izhak: [00:17:36] So let's start from the office manager. When I'm assuming and understanding the majority of office manager also is playing the role of patient coordinator. Especially from the press. What's important for an office manager and some of them was in charge of the expenses as well. I think that the number one for them in terms of priority will be to look at the conversion rate, looking on the customer acquisition cost, to understand how is it being built. Based on customer acquisition cost and in partner to that, monitor the marketing outright, the return on investment. How much money they pay for new opportunities to come through the door? And sometimes practices and practice managers can get confused of using multiple services. One for the social media, one for the phones, one for the web site, and all kind of different types of services and other offers. When it's really getting simple to the fact of how much did you spend on total marketing and advertising this month and how much new revenue generated at the end of it and quantify the number of opportunities. And how qualified those opportunities were if there were for the purpose they wanted or do not want. This is something that the patient coordinator and the office manager have to look at. They have to look at the quality of what they bring through the door. Quantity of what did they pay for in terms of new opportunities. When it comes to the existing customers, they really will want to review how many referrals did they received. If they integrated it with one of our review systems, they can look how much review they have on different type of websites and make sure that everything over there is clean and good. That comes from day to day and that by itself can move the needle dramatically. Comes to the doctor, I would put the attention into the profitability from different procedures and products. We met many doctors who spend the same amount of time doing consultation for facelift or doing consultation for breast augmentation. Although the amount of revenue that they will generate from that opportunity is dramatically different. So they cannot spend the same amount. So once they have started to have the attention of how much their time cost Which is always the most expensive within the practice and they start to work based on capacities. So they are not spending their time without generating the most amount of revenue that they can for their own practice. And when they understand when they run a med spot. A lot of them these days running a med spot and don't understand that it's a completely different business model that needs to become positively to run by itself, to have its own measurements to run. And we're talking about KPI like revenue by square foot for the medspot so they can really utilize all the rooms and all the area to generate as much revenue as they can. Or even revenue by the hour because it's really businesses run by service. It's almost like a retail business that can generate money on an hourly basis although the doctor is doing consultations or performing a procedure on a different practice. Those are the key that can really be a game changer for everyone. They start to monitor those, they can already start to be on top of their game. And then again, of course, you have the more traditional KBI which is the revenue by providers and the revenue by the location and by the different products and services. So then they can pinpoint and look at the trends and make sure that they push everything within balance or the most profitable one for to go first and really monitor those kind of things. Those for me are the top of their head. Every practice must have been monitoring.

Nick: [00:21:00] Awesome. So I understand that this will give them insight into that. Now I want to ask you guys what is different with this vs. let's say somebody that's using software like I believe the industry leaders next tech or other software. Why do they still need KPIs? Because this is something that I personally myself as a consultant, I have a hard time getting this through to a lot of doctors. But tell me why do you think or why do they need a dashboard if they've got this other software app?

Nick: [00:21:26] Well Let's break this down into a few compartmentalize pieces. We play very well with next step because Nextech of course is storing a lot of the revenue data. Storing the patient information. It is a core functionality of the practice but clearly it's not the only software that they're using. And so it's one thing to allow an office manager to go in and pull all these reports when needed every two weeks before a staff meeting or a management meeting at the end of the month vs. being able to look at these specific data points updated hour for hour throughout the day. coming from the retail side of things, we're used to CEOs and business owners wanting to look at their profitability throughout the day. Now you can't do that in just the EMR because your EMR like Nextech, that's not where you're entering in your cost. That's not where you're putting in your expenses. So it's wonderful to be able to pull the products and procedures that are bringing you in revenue ranging from five to fifteen thousand dollars. But if you can't get a handle on the profitability of those procedures by looking at let's say QuickBooks up against your Nextech, what is it that you're really knowing? You're doing a million dollars in revenue. That's great. Unless your expenses are nine hundred ninety nine thousand. Right. So how do you really know the health of your clients unless you're looking at multiple data sources. And so that is what we do as a dashboard. As you made the car analogy, it's wonderful that you're a full tank of gas. But if you need oil change, you're still going to have an engine problem, right? So we're still looking at it from the reports and the information the next tech are paramount. We just want to get you that information on demand and do any correlation with the other softwares to provide you profitability. Not just revenue.

Izhak: [00:23:36] And I'll add to that again. Reports have been generated from system and especially if they need to be exported. Then present are normally set. So it needs to be done every freakin amount of time. Read on again and read on again which is a huge operational waste. In addition to the limitation of everybody to see it on their availability. And with our system when we can pull all this information automatically. Pretty much with our default, it refreshes every one hour that they don't know our dashboard. And already automatically combine it with the rest of the data from the different systems. The Google analytics, social media, the phone system or like Randy mentioned, from their QuickBooks for the accounting side of things. Already have those blended KPIs with multiple sources of data, already copulating for them those KPIs and with one time and with the next level and multiple dashboards, they're distributed around practically. Everybody is already speaking about the why and not always having a doubt about what is it that people are jumping. And I think that that's one of the main keys. Once everybody have this ability, with a limitation of what they should access for shouldn't access, everybody is a lot more focused into the target. And then not talking about that is completely different. All the add-ons are coming with us. The ability to set up targets, receive notifications, and based on that, automatically calculate the commissions for your people. Al those addition of it gives so much more power to the report that you can export from EMR. And maybe manipulate it and then only spend a couple of hours doing that every week.

Nick: [00:25:15] I think that's a fantastic point you guys are touching on again. It's something that doctors don't pay attention to because they don't factor in the cost of the execution. The cost of labor. And I'll tell you what the clients that we have which are bigger. You know, they're doing over 20 million dollars a year. They do have some robust reporting in place but it takes multiple staff at least eight hours a week working on generating these reports So this is as you know two, three, four people that are taking a full day's worth of work out of their work week. Four days a month minimum to generate these reports. And the issue is that from a marketing consulting standpoint where I look at it is that is something that that employee could do that could actually generate money. So if you could get a computer to do that work, that would free them up to have an additional eight hours a week to do things like social media engagement. To do things like producing better advertising. To do things like taking care of the clients better, right? Replying to e-mails. You know, any number of things. And what happens when that is in process is that again, it's the opportunity cost. It's what could they have done. How much further could they have done? Could they have gone from 600000 ad revenue to a million in revenue that month? And that's something that I find that physicians, because of the nature of the education which is to be very conservative and very careful and very sort of step by step, they don't really pay attention to the what could have been. There are always trying to mitigate the downside. They're trying to avoid risk. They're trying to avoid injury. They're trying to take care of the patient. That's Their schooling. And in a business sense that's fine. But growth needs opportunity. And opportunity is lost when staff are doing things like copying and pasting things from QuickBooks. And I've seen that multiple times. So I think that that's a very very important point that you guys are touching on.

Izhak: [00:27:04] 100 percent correct. Just wanted to answer that. We were very focused on how the practice of utilizing the dashboard when we find that many times, our dashboard is also utilizing the services that serving that practice. Which means for example, from the marketing companies, we're getting a lot of traction. We really would like to get some access into the EMR. Now it's something that no practice will do just like that and give them the user into the EMR. It is an old restriction. So they're going to give the decision that they won't do it. And by not doing it, the marketing services for example stay blinded by what's happening from the other side of the fence. I generated for you all those opportunities based on Google based, on the web site, based on social media. I don't know what happened after they call to the practice. And with our dashboard, what we're also now doing often, creating a dashboard dedicated to the marketing agency, that they can then also see the console based on the different reasons that people schedule out. Based on the lead sources so they can really see how their work is then working on the other side once the customer call. If you really schedule an appointment, what type of an appointment is scheduled, what they're going to be comfortable about. So then they can utilize their effort and their budget in a much more wise way and then reward that practice in a better way as well.

Nick: [00:28:24] Absolutely. And I got to tell you as a marketer, that gets me personally excited because I would say that that's the number one frustration that I have personally is that we generate a ton of leads. And then I hears things back like you know, those leads were this quality, or that quality. And when you drill down into it and with the bigger practices, you can really see this one. They've got multiple sales people handling the same type of lead. Is that the conversion rate on that lead is drastically different depending on what that salesperson did and how they handled it. And it's the exact same quality of lead across all our clients. And I see varying degrees of success because of that. And then we have to drill down into where the problem is. And finding that problem is frankly, it's impossible when they're on paper. It's extremely challenging even if we get them on spreadsheets. And then you know, you've got to go in and tease out that data. So this is you know the number one leverage point in my belief and in my experience that I've seen that any practice could do right now. Is if you take something like KPIs and software that can easily show you this, not only just on a daily basis but even almost in real time, and see how people are doing with your leads, that can easily double your business right there because you don't have to spend any more on marketing. You don't have to do anything different in terms of your ads, your social media following. Nothing. All you have to do is tweak the conversion process on the incoming lead and you can find out exactly where the problem is. Is it from when they called and book but didn't show up? Is it when they showed up and we didn't sell? Or is it because we didn't follow up afterwards and we didn't make sure that they come into the business and that they pay? So all of these numbers in my experience, I find that most practices are flying blind or and I think this is just as bad, they compartmentalize Them more accounting has their set of eyes on the books, on expenses, the salespeople have their set of eyes on the convergence, and the marketing person is sort of isolated on the fringes and they don't know what's happening with the expenses or with the leads or with the sales. And they're just you know, shrugging their shoulders and saying 'Well, I got you leads'. And none of that stuff works because it's an integrated organism, and you think that more physicians will understand that, but I find that they're just so busy and they don't have the time to really tie these pieces together. So that's another very very good aspect of KPIs. So guys, let me ask you this. What are the most important KPI that you're seeing in the most successful businesses? If someone asks you what are the top three things that all of the successful businesses are doing? And they can be unusual ones. They can be things that you may not think is so prevalent that nobody pays attention to. But what are the top 1 2 or 3 KPIs that you feel should be there for all successful practices?

Randy: [00:31:10] I would say... Wow, top 3. There's probably a handful and they're all related to ROI. Return on investment. You're looking for profitability by provider, profitability by procedure, you're looking at conversion rate by channel, you're looking at patient acquisition costs. And at the end of the day, you're looking at your expense ratio up against your budget. I would say if you had to take just a select few, those will be it.

Izhak: [00:31:41] And if you want one that recently is making a great light into some area of the business is the ratio between how many new patients you see versus your established lines in percent. And I think that's a key one that I see recently that a lot of people is in kind of shock. And I think that they're making so much new business and don't put enough attention on their existing when the ratio is shut. And sometimes completely different of what they had in mind. The same goes for the conversion rates. We noticed that a lot of people think that the conversion rate is completely different than the reality say. Because it's a lot more convenient to remember the good consultations and then put on those retention. And that's the question about those. So most people think that the conversion rate is much much higher and once you start to break it down based from the different procedure and the base from different providers, that give them a huge insight into the real performance conversions and how well do they deal with everything.

Nick: [00:32:40] I completely agree. Randy and I had this conversation when we first spoke. One of the first things I asked doctors when we engage with them is what your conversion rate. And then they give me a number and I will tell them 'OK. Well, is that on referrals or call traffic? And they all kind of have this deer in the headlights look because they don't know. And you know, if you can't get a conversion from someone that's been sent to you by your mother in law, you're probably doing something drastically wrong vs. your conversion rate is going to be a lot tougher on someone that's just coming in from the internet who's maybe you only had one or two touch points with your business. And I find that across the board, I've maybe met you know, in the 20 years that I've been doing this, maybe one or two plastic surgeons that I can recall that actually knew the distinction between that. Everybody else had it in aggregate. And the scary thing is is that even the business consultants from Alregan were teaching them that. They were just doing an aggregate conversion rate on the incoming patients that were coming in blank. So you know, it's something that nobody is really paying attention to in my experience. All right, guys. So let me ask you this, on a slightly more fun side, what is the most unusual KPI you've been asked to integrate?

Izhak: [00:33:47] Well, I don't think it was unusual. I think the results were unusual. And Randy was laughing a lot when we opened up revenue by customer gender and there was four different categories. I think that was a very different result. So that was a new one as well.

Randy: [00:34:04] Well, you know. Plastic surgeons are there to not only assist people in making them feel better about their caring bodies but potentially giving them new bodies. And on a somewhat serious note, they are there to help people transition into these new bodies. And so just as I had an unexpectedly realized that in this graph that traditionally I was ready for only two different colors, there were more than two colors. And I thought that that was an error on our side and it turned out to just be my own mental error without giving fair consideration to what plastic surgeons are doing to help patients become more of the real them. But from a funny KPI side of things. I would have to say the funniest one is and we do not do this. We did have a physician ask us to track the number of cups of coffee that were distributed throughout the day in relation to the number of patients that they saw because they feared that it was their staff that was taking advantage of their Nespresso. That was something that they laugh out loud but it turned out that doctor was totally serious.

Nick: [00:35:28] That is funny. Well, I mean that just shows the power of these types of dashboards that you can actually track coffee usage. I think that's fantastic. Yeah, the level of detail. On a more serious note on what you said with the genders, I think that that's a fantastic story because it shows that when you're tracking something, you will get insights that you didn't know existed. You will have your assumptions destroyed and you will get real data and start operating your practice using facts, not fiction. And I think that that's something that people don't realize is that you're going to get these insights that you may not have known. And what happens when you get those insights is that you've got a secret advantage over all the competitors. You've got something that they're not paying attention to and they wouldn't think to pay attention to. And then you've got this nice tidy little profitable niche that you can start targeting and doing things with. And they will most times just blow it off. That's what I find happens the competitors. Look at them, they go 'There's no money in that.' In the meantime, the clients making several million dollars a year just using that one little niche that he's discovered. So that's a great story. I love that.

Randy: [00:36:28] I'll add to it that it also helps to save and protect the practices from making investments that probably won't pan out. And what I mean by that is once you're looking at a simple KPI as what is the gender that you are catering to the most, it allows you to invest in the right tools that you will need to assist that gender. And what I mean by that is there is a new product that's in the market. It's a hair transplantation product, not a laser machine that will help you the hair transplantation more efficiently for the practice and without having the doctor need to do it which would make it a very very profitable procedure. Not having to pay the doctors hourly rate. But let me ask a question as I would to the physician, if you're looking at your dashboard and you see that less than 10 percent of your customer base are men, why would you think to reinvest without growth potential? Why would you think to invest in 150000 dollar machine that a sales rep will tell you 'Oh, all you need to do is three procedures a month to pay for it within six months.' Well, if you don't have that number of patients who are male. Who are going to be interested in that, you will not see that return on investment. And if you do, it certainly won't be in six months. And so somewhere between a capacity KPI and a gender KPI, it assists these practices in making good financial decisions about investing in new technology.

Izhak: [00:38:10] Right. And just want to add to that, and some of my ads will be almost like a tip based on what we've seen and experienced. If we talking already on opportunities and ability to intensify opportunities, we've noticed that a game changer to many is when they get the realization that meds are a completely different type of business with a different business processes that can be measured differently from their clinical practice. That will be one. And the second one will be to really-- a lot of practices are not focusing enough on man and a trend that we've seen that grow especially as I see in two years of data, you can see the demand sector for surgeries, the ones that's focusing on them and serving them in market to that area, there is a lot of money to generate from that area. And practices that do not do it are just leaving money aside.

Nick: [00:39:02] Awesome. So guys, is there anybody who would this KPIs are not a good fit for or your dashboard would not be a good fit for?

Randy: [00:39:10] Sure. Anybody who is not interested in growing.

Nick: [00:39:16] What about size wise? Do you guys find that a size of practice matters or is this a good fit sort of everywhere?

Izhak: [00:39:20] I think if a small want to grow to be big, you have to start somewhere. I think that the smaller ones are working harder. Which means that they have less time to run the practice in the right way. So that's the main reason why they need that. The big ones have too many moving pieces and that's why they need that. So the need is shifting within it and the growth can continue when that dashboard will be dynamic enough to adjust itself. To have multiple providers or one provider, it's really giving them enough availability to fit to what they need. So it's really not about the size, it's about how to utilize it right. The same big operation will not operate on the same scale as the smaller one. With a smaller onem you don't need so many in order to do so much better. In order to grow. So it's really just the utilation of that but I think the size really doesn't matter. People need to know their data and data needs to drive the decisions of the business. That's how simple it is.

Randy: [00:40:14] And I'll add to that. It makes total sense. I mean, if you're doing 10 million dollars a year business and you fluctuate 10 to 20 percent, okay, we're talking about millions, right? But if you're doing 2 million dollars a year, that same 10-20 percent swing is going to be much more impactful to your business. So while some could say a larger company could benefit more from this because they have a lot more moving parts to keep organized, the Ying to that Yang is it's the smaller practices that have or feel a greater impact from these numbers changing. And so you know, it could also mean the difference between life and death for a smaller practice. Now that's going a little over the top but you know, if you have ten million dollars you can afford to lose a million. If you have a million dollars, you know and you afford to lose 10 percent, a hundred thousand, I don't know about that.

Nick: [00:41:12] Yeah that's a very good point. I think people are not thinking about that at all. As it's all about the profitability and how much you can really weather the bad times. And 10 percent on 10 million, even though it's a larger amount, is a lot safer than 10 percent on one million which is a huge huge part of the business because there isn't anywhere to draw additional revenue from. I think that's absolutely important. Guys, before we wrap up this show, I want to ask you guys to give me a story of someone that's used your software. Someone that didn't have this in place. And give me the specifics about what happened in that situation. How they used it. How they made more money specifically and what life looks like for them after they implemented it.

Izhak: [00:41:56] I'm going to use my father in law. He was our first customer, obviously. We did that almost on demand for him. One of the main game changer I think within his practice was when we got to the point that he just had the realization of the data that he had never seen before and they just started to make sense to him and he took a couple of weeks for them to practice again on the charts and ask the question to understand exactly how did they race coming together and what is it exactly represent and why should they care about that. If it goes up or goes down and once we went through that phase and he started to ask the right questions, we started to create the network to the staff members. And I think that that was a huge game changer within his practice. The moment the revenue providers within his practice. So the nurses doing the injections or the patients to do all the different services, started to have their own bit of dashboard with their own performance to show quantities and even show the revenue and compare it automatically to how they perform over a quarter, we were able to develop for them a bonus plan. This bonus plan came into place when we set up to target. The target is sending them notifications to their phone, letting them know on the progress them in themselves. Receiving a simplification that shows the progress. With that, he was able actually to-- we're about a little over a year of using it, year over year, the goal growth that he was planning on is now coming into place. When everybody is pushing together when they know that they're going to their bonuses, they see the light of the care as how people like to see it. They see it on their phone. They understand their own performance. They know how to ask what services they can push more. Which services they need to practice more. Or if somebody else from their same team know how to serve it better. So they can operate with more money in those areas so they can get their bonuses. That was one thing and then the second one, they usey to operate with a team bonus as well for the general performance. And this is something that we always encourage. Since we proved it a 100 percent of the time. Even if it's something small, people want to be part of the success. And for the small pie of the success, they will give a lot. And there was another bonus plan for the entire team. The problem is that until the end of the month, nobody had the insight to see where do they stand. If they should push more or push less. We took it and we created within the dashboard a slideshow feature that is made for big screens. So we put a big screen in the coffee area in the kitchen where they all go and eat lunch and make themselves a coffee during the day. And we put a large screen. And every time there is a rotating different type of chart of the different areas where they need to improve. If it's to spend more calls scouting or some more botoxes or generating more opportunities from a specific source. And those were key problems ailing. And within a month, we were able to see a huge change in their attitude. In their motivation. Everybody were focused. Everybody, when they talk in the lunch break, they were talking about the screens and are talking about what did they do yesterday or on Friday. So that I think is one of the best case studies that we have a chance to observe from the site and see how just the features and the data and the ability to get the data available for you and for everybody. The power of that effort can really do miracles to the business. I'll put one day probably on the podcast and let them tell the story and they could put the numbers in and the percentages. And I think it's going to work even better when he say it on his side. I suggest that to everybody. If you're going to use a bonus plan, start the bonus plan. Give your people the insight to their own data. You don't have to see everything but they need to see what they do and the area that they control. Hold them accountable for it and reward them if they have outstanding performance. That's the recipe for success.

Nick: [00:45:43] I love that story. I hadn't even actually considered that. Like we could do a whole show and employee motivation. And the fact that you guys are able to do that with the data is you know, I'm going to admit, that I hadn't even seen that angle to it. I was always thinking on sort of the marketing and our wide side of it but motivating staffs, one of the biggest challenges you can have in a practice. And the fact that you are giving them this data. And it's something that would seem kind of cold but at the heart of it, it's really human motivation. And you are using data to let people pull in the same direction. Let everybody actually work as a team. Instead of all the pettiness and bickering and infighting, they can see how each one's performance affects the group as a whole and their individual performance. And I hadn't even thought of doing that so I appreciate your sharing that. That actually is a very powerful insight for people.

Randy: [00:46:32] Well, if I may a give mine as well to give you some more food for thought. The focus was a little bit different for this practice. There were two topics. One was they could not tell the difference between their most popular lead source and their most profitable lead source. And the second thing that we really opened their eyes to was the time that it was taking to perform some of the procedures and how there was a difference in time between the providers. And so from the start of the marketing side of things, this was a practice that was spending as many practices do in a variety of different marketing channels but came to find that at the end of the day, the thousands of dollars they were spending on Google AdWords were totally unnecessary. Because not only were those potential patients not more or less strong than other lead sources, but they simply weren't getting the business from that channel. And in cutting out Google AdWords and going organic, they were able to save themselves thousands of dollars. And then working from an efficiency standpoint at the amount of time procedures we're taking, we went procedure by procedure and found that partners in this practice, there were varying types between breast augmentations or Brazilian butt lifts or even facelifts. And simply by delegating the correct procedure to the correct physician so that they could actually kind of hone in on the exact amount of time it was taking, they were cutting half hours off of these procedures making them more profitable. And so if a certain procedure came in, it was deligated to position number one. For a different type of procedure was requested, it would go with position number two. And again, not by bringing on any overhead additional staff, not by making really any large changes, they were able to increase procedural profitability just by understanding which doctor needed to take which procedure.

Nick: [00:48:43] That's fantastic. And I got to tell you that I've had sort of red faced arguments with physicians about cutting Google AdWords and you know, this has been a struggle for me for a long time. When we used to do the primary acquisition through SEO and not ad buys. And the challenging part of it is that you don't know if you're making the right decisions and what I'm hearing from what you just said is that this practice could cut those AdWords costs but then also look back ongoing and keep getting that data to see if they had actually made the right decision so it justifies the decision making. And consequently, if they made the wrong decision, they could very easily turn those AdWords back on but at least they know whether it worked or not and they're not just guessing at it. So that is also a very very strong point. All right, guys. I'm going to ask you the second last question of the interview. So is there anything that I didn't touch on that you feel is a burning topic that physicians should know about today?

Randy: [00:49:42] Wow. A burning topic. I guess-- You know what, there is help. Help is available for any medical professional that realizes that they have to balance being a doctor and being a business owner. There is help and it's not help in the sense of a better office manager or other staff. But there is help in the sense of giving them a higher level of control. Right. Giving them an increase peace in mind. And for any physician who has children that we'll be going to college or physicians that are planning their retirements, nobody wants to get to the end of their goal and realize they fell short. Nobody wants to set an end of year goal and then realize coming in on November that they're just not going to get there. So for anybody who feels that it's overwhelming, there is something that can be done. There is a way to balance health care and that business role. They just have to be open to having that conversation.

Izhak: [00:50:47] And moreover, I think that one of the first rejection we always get is about the changing. And changing is not necessary in order to do better. When people think about 'Oh, I need to change my next step or I need to change those EMR or the system that I'm already using, my methods.' We always correct them and we always take some time to explain that now technology doesn't make you replace things. You can just keep walking as you do and just get so much more advanced than what you already do without changing anything. So I think that's another point. So with the help, the fear of change does not need to come into being for doing better. It doesn't have to be replacement of existing processes or existing systems.

Nick: [00:51:36] That's great. Full disclosure here for anybody that's listening. I've got two passions that are very very powerful in my life. One of them is eliminating busywork with technology. I love technology and what it can do for humanity. And the other one is business growth. And I just want to give full disclosure that we're not being compensated here. ThinkBasis as an agency is not getting anything from this. I am just very passionate about this software. And having said that, now that you understand that we are not a part of Atlas KPI in any way, I want to give Izhak and Randy the opportunity to let you guys know where to get in touch with them and I'm going to put a guarantee on it right now. And even though I'm not part of the company, I'm just going to take some latitude. And this is going to be the software that has the father in law proof guarantee. So Izhak and Randy, tell everybody how they can get in touch with you.

Randy: [00:52:28] Yes, happy to have a conversation with doctors and family members. Our web site for anybody looking to do some research and not feel roped into anything. It's www.atlaskpi.com. Atlas being the Greek God who held up the globe. KPI, ofcourse, standing for key performance indicator. And if they like what they see and they'd like to reach out to us, they can reach me at [email protected]. Or of couse, [email protected]. Or you can call us directly at 1 800 9 0 5 2 9 8 9. They should feel very comfortable speaking with Izhak or myself. Again, we're happy to answer any question and if they feel we're the right fit, we can even show them a demonstration whether they're here in our native Florida or anywhere around the globe.

Nick: [00:53:26] Excellent. Guys, look. I want to thank you both for your time. I think this was very insightful. You guys dropped a couple of very big knowledge bombs here. One of them obviously was the one with the staff and being able to make decisions and verify your decisions and your business. If people get nothing else from this interview, I think those are two very very powerful insights of how to use these KPIs to grow their practices. So thank you both for joining me. I appreciate you and I appreciate the time that you've put in and sharing your knowledge with everyone.

Izhak and Randy: [00:53:54] Thank you for having us. Thank you for the opportunity. Yes, thank you very much.

Outro: [00:53:58] Thanks for listening to Practice Perfect. I hope this episode has given you a lot to think about. I hope you've got actionable ideas that you can take back to your practice and go back and make changes, make improvements and take it to the next level. If you want show notes and additional help and advice and articles on how to grow your practice, visit us at thinkbasis.com where we hold the podcast. That's t h i n k b a s i s dot com or just google the practice perfect podcast and you should be able to find our podcasting page. Have a great day. Have a wonderful week and I wish you all the best with your practice. Go out there. Make a change. And make it happen.