riverside_copy_of dj turner. january 29,... _ jan 29, 2025 _radical_massage the

12:18AM Feb 23, 2025

Speakers:

Krista Dicks

Keywords:

massage therapy

group practice

scaling wellness

business vision

delegation importance

personal growth

team management

hiring strategies

core values

operations manual

quality control

leadership shift

business systems

nomadic lifestyle

book recommendations

Hello radical massage therapist, and welcome to another episode of the radical massage therapist podcast. My name is Krista. I'm a registered massage therapist and clinic owner in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I'm not the radical massage therapist, but you are. You are here to learn about the benefits of this amazing career massage therapy offers such as freedom, the financial success and the flexibility to live life on. Today's guest is Daryl DJ Turner. He is your go to expert for growing and scaling and ethical, sustainable thriving in capitals group massage practice, one that not only creates more impact and income, but more free time too. Through his company, scaling wellness. He helps group massage practices and practice owners grow their team, fill their treatment rooms and enjoy more time off. This is darrell's second time on the radical massage therapist podcast, and I'm so grateful to have him back in our first conversation with DJ back in 2022 this was episode 51 we covered the seven stages of practice ownership, which became the roadmap for moving from a solo therapist to a thriving business owner. We also talked about the importance of having a clear vision for your business and life so you can build a practice that works for you, not the other way around. And we discussed the power of delegation, why letting go of certain tasks and building a strong team is key to long term sustainability and freedom. If you missed that episode, I highly recommend going back to listen, because today we're diving into brand new insights and strategies that will take your practice even further. I hope you enjoy this episode with Daryl DJ Turner. You Daryl, thanks so much for joining the radical massage therapist podcast for a second time.

Yeah, I'm really excited to be back in and dive even deeper. Yeah,

tell me about what's been going on, or tell like the listeners and what's been going on since the last time we talked. It was 2022 early 2022 I think we're in 2025 now, it's crazy. What's been going on with you lately?

Yeah, man, I feel like so much has happened. So I can't remember. What all should I think like what I covered in last episode. But for me, continued traveling. I think I was in Mexico. I left, came back to Mexico, kind of going back between Mexico and Colombia on a personal note, which I don't feel ashamed of. I went through a divorce. That was a mutual decision, but still never a fun thing that anyone goes through. And then on the business side, really, just getting so much, just more experience, and kind of seeing some of these, these, these further ends of working with people who they're going and they're scaling their massage businesses, people who are starting to, like, approach a million and going on that end. And then, because of, you know, between the last episode and the things I talk about, people were like, hey, well, I'm just hiring my first person, and I wanted to advocate that. Can you help me out and then really getting more into that space and being able to help more people who want to scale and taking those first steps. So it's been a lot and fun and amazing. And, yeah,

amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate you. You know, sharing that little bit about your divorce, can I ask a personal, personal side of that though. I mean, I feel like you came into your work from, from your your partner at the time, and how do you how do you feel being in the work now? And, and it has, you know, has the perspective shifted you? Do you want to, like, completely go away from the wellness industry, like, does it have any kind of, you know, mixed emotions for you? Don't think

necessarily. I do think something that was really important, and I'll pick, like, a medium amount of length is just throughout the process, just so with my ex and I, there's kind of this realization of, like, the kind of thing I tell people is like, well, I'll use the word toxic. That can feel so heavy, but it's like, we'll say the most unhealthy. Most unhealed version of ourselves worked really together. We both kind of separately. We're doing the inner work, and then we kind of looked at each other, was like, you know, we don't really actually function that well, when, like, we're both, like, way more healed people. Okay, cool. I think throughout that process, there is this, amount of asking like, so what do I want? What do I value? What do I care about? What is important to me, peeling back layers and all of these things that sort of happen, I think anytime you go through like, a big event like this, and so within that, I do think it's probably not a coincidence of like at that time I had also recently shifted into scaling wellness. And then I think, through this process of with the divorce, of like, more confidence, a bit more clarity. I mean, some things feeling lost, but with the clarity on others and saying, like, cool, I feel a lot more secure, and listening to my own inner voice about what I want to do, what I want to accomplish, what I want to take the business, and then I've always just been someone who's made digital nomad. I think one. It. She was a huge push for me to get started. I always knew I was going to travel. And, you know, there are some parts they look back where it's, like, some things I just, like, didn't know, getting into in terms of, like, business and all of these things. Then I got into it was like, Oh, this is more than just, like, Hey, here's the thing. You could maybe make money. Like, I really freaking love this. Actually, let's go and let's make this the best thing possible. Awesome.

Thank you for sharing. Diving into this episode. I want to start with for a somebody who is a massage therapist or body work, somebody in the wellness profession who's been in a solo practice, they've been working on their own. How do they know if it's a group practice, if it's the right time to go into group practice for them. So I think

there needs to be a look at things somewhat externally and somewhat internally. And what I mean by that is, we'll say like externally as like, what's happening inside of the business. So some of the signs might be, you're fully booked, you've got a wait list, you've got people who are asking for more. Maybe you happen to be someone you know. Everyone markets their business a little bit differently. So maybe you're like, heavy on social media. Maybe you're you're known in your town by other massage therapists, and you've got people who are like, coming to you. Maybe they're asking if they can work for you. Maybe they just want to, like, I don't know what we got going on, but you're just cool and I want to spend time with you. So those are some of those external signals that like, hey, maybe it's time for growth. But I think the internal ones are equally, if not more important. I think there's this question of really, like, what do you want? So one of the things that I really try to do with my own podcast, besides giving the advice, is share stories of what other people have done. And it's sometimes hard to know, like, if you don't know pistachio ice cream exists, it's kind of hard to know whether or not you want that to begin with. But I think it's worth taking a moment to say, so what do I want? Like, really, what do I want when it comes to the kind of business that I want to have? What is my mission? Some people know from day one, they want to be the thing that takes down Massage Envy, or they want to build this beautiful, you know, multi disciplinary wellness practice. Maybe they just want a space that's really cool, and everyone gets paid well, and everyone just kind of vibes. And then some people are very this business driven. They're like, I want to build an empire. I want to build something that I can sell one day I want to build something that is going to allow me to sip cocktails on the beach. You got to think about, what is that thing that you want, especially now that you're if you're already at a stage where things like on paper are going well, you know, I think a fully booked solo practitioner is considered the top of the mountain for the vast majority of the industry. So while you're sitting at the top, kind of take them over and say, okay, would I like to stay here? Would I like to continue forward? And if the answer is no, it doesn't feel good, then you probably shouldn't and explore some other opportunities, some things that might make sense for you. But if you hear that voice, that calling, that sensation, even if you're scared, even if you're worried, even if you're not sure all the details, I think that's a pretty good sign that you should start to go down that path.

Yeah, I love all of those points. And definitely on your podcast, you do share those stories somebody you know, somebody will you'll be able to relate to somebody in those stories and be inspired. Is it's so wonderful. And I mean, as somebody who is a clinic owner, who's come from working at another clinic, and I've done the solo practice thing as well. But yeah, you just, you just don't just something kind of clicks inside at some point, and you kind of get a little bit restless, and it's okay to be asking those questions as to what's next. I really, I really love that, and then I love how you're able to guide that process as well. We talked a lot about in the that in the first episode with you, about just guiding you through that, that journey to becoming a clinic owner. Have you noticed? Are there so, are there key mindset shifts? So These might be things going on externally and internally, what you might feel like that bug to become a group practice owner. But are there mindset shifts as well that you see that are common to those people that actually go into group practice?

Yeah, absolutely. I think as I find myself working with more and more people who are on the cusp doing the first thing, I think people fall into one or two categories, typically, like they've already made the decision. One is, I want to go build my empire, like I have this vision for this thing. And maybe they already have the space. Maybe they don't. And the other side is this, this person is kind of just asking what's next, and typically, it's motivated by money. I think the two biggest motivators are like, I want more money, where I want more free time, that's a lot of people who already have teams do where I'm saying, Hey, you didn't build your business to become a pair of golden handcuffs. You wanted to, like, have that lifestyle, that dream, that income, that being an entrepreneur, regardless of its massage or not, like you're looking for that. And so when people are at this phase, I think what has to change. And something I'll probably mention later in this episode, something I find myself saying more and more, is one of the things is like you are no longer a caterpillar becoming a bigger caterpillar. This process is a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Or the other way to think about is like we have a very clear, clear understanding of like a teenager, or rather a child, an adult, and then this teenager is its own thing in between those two phases. And this is what I think is really important. It's like the things that were good for you previously. There's nothing wrong with them. They just weren't good for you. The shirt you wore at 15 years old and like what you want to wear at 30 something probably just doesn't make sense anymore. So that's one of the first things. Like fundamentally being open and understanding like these aren't the same rules, we kind of unlocked another level of business ownership and entrepreneurship. The other big shift, I think, is within this, because the rules have changed. One of the big ones, I think, is the go from hustle to build. And I know especially North American culture like hustle and grind, especially especially in the US like that's this kind of this, this glory and hustle and grind. And I think you take a 10,000 foot view, I actually do think that's really important. I don't know anyone who has built a, we'll say a successful solo business without some level of hustle and grind. I think there's some, some late nights, some some really hard things we just really have to to push. I think lift off is like the most energy consumption part of a rocket going into space. But as we get into this next phase, hustle needs to go towards build. You can't white knuckle your way into this, like, successful, sustainable group practice. It doesn't mean it's not going to be work. Doesn't mean you're going to have to, like, do things, but I see people fall into this trap of like, well, what got me here was just working really hard. Let me just like, you know, crank the Dow to 12, and maybe I'll get to that next spot. And that really isn't the case. That is just not how it works. We've got new rules here, and you have to think about so what is the infrastructure that I'm actually needing here to build this out, which I'm sure we'll get into later this episode. I think the other thing is, within this now is, if you're a solo practitioner, and you've only ever been a solo practitioner, even if you had a different business, you've only ever worked for yourself, your entire concept of business is about being you. That has to radically shift into saying, what does it mean to manage? What does it mean to lead. What does it mean? So that everything that happens in the business does not run by you? I think that I often tell my clients, and like, our big goal is, up until this point, you have been the engine. As we go into this phase, it is now time for you to be the driver, and that requires a very different approach. So instead of, how can I do this? Because that's what you had to do. That's just like when the you know, the company payrolls just one you are the firefighter and you are the problem solver, you and everything. And as we move into the next phase, that's just not really sustainable, it's not practical, because you're gonna be hiring other people. But we go from how can I do this to who can help me? Or how can I get this done with less involvement for me, and that shift will take you so far throughout the journey. Wonderful.

I'm going to pull in one of the questions that I had early here. But so essentially, like going from that shift, though, as a solo practitioner, you're the you're the engine. Now you have to be the driver. You have to lead. How do you help somebody, though? What would you say to a busy massage therapist who's so used to being the the engine that be all, how can how can you convince them to step away from that hands on work? Yeah, I

think this goes back to this question of, what is it that you're trying to build and trying to accomplish with your life, with and with your business, and then just asking, like, Hey, is what you're doing right now? Action alignment with what is that you want to do? I think being a CEO for small business, like, there's no difference between founder, entrepreneur and CEO when it's just you. Like these mean the same thing. They're just words. They feel nice as you start to grow an organization that actually means something. Like Bob Iger can't be at Disney scanning tickets. Jeff Bezos can't be packing boxes individually. That just does not work. There needs to be a CEO doing CEO stuff. And so this question is like, so what do you want to do for your life? What do you want to do for your business? And then asking, Are you giving your business what it actually needs from you when you're really honest about where it is that you're trying to go to and the answer is like, if you're in the treatment room, all. Day, and then you're too tired or you're too busy to do anything else, because hiring and systems and marketing and all these things, they just take time and energy. In some capacity, making decisions takes time and energy. Are you actually making yourself available to your business? If you treated your business like a client, and you've looked and you said, Okay, where are you today, and where are the goals we're trying to achieve? Well, here's what I'm going to need, here's what we're going to do throughout this process. Are you actually giving your business that stuff? Odds are probably not, when you're in the treatment room all day, and this is scary, the main thing I want to say is, like, this is scary. This is a massive identity shift where the difference between I'm a business owner and massage therapist isn't massive. It is like there is a notable if you're employed versus self employed, but at this stage, it's still like you are the revenue producer. You are the everything. Now we have to say I am the architect, I am the CEO, I am building the pieces, and you're just gonna have to step back, and you're gonna have to be okay with, that's the part no one wants to say out loud. You're to be okay with there being probably a short period of time where you make less money compared to more. And this goes back to like, you know, chess and checkers have the same board, but they do not have the same pieces or the same rules. And you think, okay, more money means I'm winning up until a certain point. That's true. And then we go into group practice, and it's like, well, not right now. You need to build infrastructure. You got to be CEO. You got to step back. The money is going to follow, but you got to be okay for this shift. Yeah, I love

that. If I can share some examples from myself having learned the importance of taking less hands on time, you know just you have to be also be now available for that team. If you're in the treatment room, your phone's turned off for an hour at a time, and somebody needs you sometimes, I I also work off site, so, you know, like doing treatments, so if my phone's off and somebody needs me for a question or something's, you know, happened in the meantime, I know it's also not the business model that you want to be available 24/7, for your team, and we'll probably get into that as well. But I also just, I feel that that struggle, you know, where I'm trying to get my hands on time and see clients, but then I'm not accessible for client or for my my team when I'm needed. So that's been a learning lesson and and most, most things run pretty well at the clinic, but then as soon as something happens, you know, comes in, like, threes, and it's something that you know, you're, you're the only one that can, can solve the problem. So that's really interesting as well. I've experienced that less income, mostly because I'm offering more hours now to my team. I want my team to be successful. I want them to get the hours and the income that they want. I want to keep them happy, so I've chosen, we are a smaller clinic, so I've chosen to give some of my hours away, which again, means that I'm earning less of with my hands on time. But I'm looking at the bigger picture for the business. And so I completely agree with that, that shift, and just having experience that myself and still a learning process all the time. Yeah, absolutely. So if we get into if, now that somebody wants to be a group practice owner, they want to go into that, that side of it, what's if we talk like hiring and team management, which I think is another, is another level. Of course, we've been managing ourselves and running our own practices, and the business skills involved in that are challenging in themselves, and not all of us have those skills, and we have to learn them. And then, now you're running a group practice. So what's the first step to take before you're hiring your very first employee or contractor for massage therapy. Yeah. So one

of the very first things is kind of this idea of, again, it's just like stopping and pausing and saying, Am I sure that I want to do this, and what is it that I would like to do into the future? Do I want to build this business? Does this make sense? And from there, we start to look at, I think, a few pieces. One of them is again. So not just, do I want to do this, but having a sense of So, what do I want to build? Am I going to be the leader in lymphatic drainage? Am I going to be a high end spa? Am I going to be this multidisciplinary practice, which I do actually think that is kind of hard, and you should wait till you, like, get really good at one thing, and then start to branch out into bringing other styles of practitioners on, just logistically, and then we start to say, like, Okay, I need to just make sure, if I want to bring people on, just do I have the capacity in terms of, like, you can put two up to three, but three is kind of hard, but you can put two people in a single treatment room. So I think the answer is. Yes, but you're just looking at your space, or is there something about your space that dictates whether or not you can bring another person on? So make sure you just have, like, physical space, check, and then the next thing you want to look at is, okay? So I have the space. I know what kind of business I'm going to bring. I just want to have an idea of who a good person is going to be for my business. There's an argument for why you should bring someone on exactly like you. Typically. This is because you're known for something already, and if someone's just like you, you can bring you can offload your existing clients to them, relatively easy. The other side is, hey, is there a demand for something that you notice, maybe you've got, like, you know, this small portion of your personal clients, or, like, lymphatic drainage, but you've got tons of people trying to get in for that. Okay, I'm going to look for this kind of skilled practitioner to bring someone on, but they go back to someone who's going to fit the promise of your business. Your business exists to do something, and not just make money and give good massage, but like we are the best at this thing. We are known for this result, and you want to make sure that a person is going to fit into that. In order to do that, you have to know your own business yourself and think and start to think, Okay, what qualities Am I looking for in someone else?

Yeah, I love that both the, you know, just finding somebody that that is like yourself, or then looking for something that that is something that you want to you want to focus on in your practice. I think that's really key. How do you respond to the massage therapy industry right now? I feel is, and I think in general, the listeners might agree that actually, we're in short supply. And I love that you said, you know, not going multi disciplinary just yet, like trying to focus on one thing. I completely agree with that, having worked in different environments, and also thinking that maybe multi disciplinary would, you know, bring in more income, or just kind of change up the vibe, that kind of thing. But I like that. We're just a massage therapy clinic, but we're in short supply. One of the things that I've heard if I wanted to hire new massage therapists, and I was trying to be a little bit more in alignment with with values and what I wanted out of the clinic, but at the same time I have mentors saying, Well, you know what? Beggars can't be choosers, Krista, because at this point, you know, we're, we're kind of short supply. How, how would you approach that if somebody was like, because, I mean, there's a, I think there's a line between, like, waiting to hire the right, like the the absolute right people, and then also, like you need income, right? Like you want to build that team, you want to build a practice. So how do you approach that with clients? So

I think one of the things is understanding good enough, and actually it's going to be very important. Probably another thing I would add to the mindset shift is we want to search for, maybe not necessarily perfection, but I think again, this kind of hustle and grind, and it's like, we gotta be the best, and we gotta go above and beyond. And I do think there's value in that, but we also have to, like, really sit down and have an understanding of what does good enough mean, genuinely, that's probably the 80% the 90% close enough so that you can now focus on the other things that are going to be important. So when it comes to hiring someone, I mean, regardless of what kind of business you have, our job is to hire the best person we can afford that is available. So that is the upper limit. So there's going to be some people who like, if you went and said that I'm paying $120 an hour, I doubt your business will be profitable or open very long, but that would open up a lot of eyes and ears. So like, Yo, what are they doing over there? I want to go check this out. So, you know, like, your budget is going to be some amount of upper limit. There's going to be some limit of who's available, and then the lower limit is understanding what is good enough. And so this idea of, like, you know, beggars can't be choosers. I do think the you know, the version of that is, I need to find the best person I can afford and that is available. So when someone's presented to you an interview, they come in like, that person who reschedules their interview five times and comes in is unprofessional and is like, you go to call and they're just like, Huh, what is this? Where are you located? Oh, yeah, I replied to that. Like, that person probably doesn't meet the good enough criteria, so we definitely don't want to do that. Now I will say there is a strategic advantage. And this is like, now we're not just talking about making money. We're talking about business building. If we look at Massage Envy, if we look at most of the chains, I think massage, Massage Envy being, I think the biggest cross North America, someone fact checked me. I'm feel I'm free to be proven wrong. One of their strategic advantages, very similar. I think, you know, the McDonald's of massage, I think, is the perfect analogy, both the good and the bad of that. We think about McDonald's. We think about like a. Fast food business, they need to be able to operate across tons of locations from people who are all across the spectrum of skills and age and experience, and to make the correct meal like 97% of the time we've all gotten a meal wrong, but like 97% of the time, it's just correct. Their system is set up to take someone who has been retired and wants to get back into the job market, who's 15 years old and has never had a job before, all of these like different backgrounds and experiences, and turn them into something that produces a consistent result. And so this is where you need to look at again, your market, who's available, what you can afford. It is so much nicer, easier, better, for a lot of reasons, to take that person who's well trained and has the experience and all of these things, but if you can get someone who's like, fresh out of school, doesn't know anything, but you're really good at training, that's a strategic advantage, and that's where, like, Massage Envy stays staffed. I mean, there's shortages, I think, everywhere, but like, they're good at saying, like, well, if you show up on time and you have a license, we will turn you into the massage therapist that gets the result we want for our clients. Love,

I love that answer, and thank you for for the explanation, and I will fact check, fact check you on the Massage Envy being the biggest skill. I mean, skills are important. I mean, I think personality can be important as well, good work ethic and, you know, presence. But are there core values within a practice that you feel like, bring like that that the corner have like the culture of the clinic? Are they? Are there certain things that are more important to the right candidate for your practice? So

I would say there's one part of is like you seen someone who can, like, show up on time and like those sorts of things, but every practice is going to be different. So if I said I've worked with the clients who one of her client, what one client that comes to mind, one of her core values was kindness. And what this meant was that it doesn't matter if you're the best therapist in the world, if you're fundamentally not a kind person, you're not going to fit within this business. First, I work with someone else who I kind of think he's a butthead personally, but like, he's really good at business, really great things. And the people he hires, I wouldn't say they're butt heads as well, but I would say it's like, he's like, I don't really care that you're like, a super, kind person, but I do need you to have great customer service. I need to be very good with the clients, and so your values are going to start to be the in your business and extension of you. Most people don't know their values very well. This is something that it's very easy to be like old guys in suits. And like this list of like determination, self starter and like these one word things, I do think those are important. You can go and google like values, and you can get a list of like those one word things, and you can think about what matters to you. That list can't be any more than like, six. If you've got 15 things, you gotta, like, cut them down to the ones that matter the most. But you think about your values. Think about what are the things that influence you your business? What are the phrases you maybe find yourself repeating if you don't have a team, what phrases Do you find yourself repeating a lot to other people in your life? You know it's one thing to have, uh, honesty as a value. And I think being honest is is important. But like, does that actually mean something to you? Is that really signify anything? Versus for me, one of our values is, like, everything is figure out able. So one of my values, some of the values internally on the team, is, is like, sounds like there's a problem, and I'm like, okay, like, what's the solution? Like, if you need me to help you, I will. But like, a problem isn't just a problem. Everything has a solution. It's figureoutable. Here's the same thing I impart into my clients. Every problem you have, not enough money, not enough time, not enough staff, too much this too much, that there is a solution. So you got to think about what it is for you. The other side of it, I think, is when you hire for the first time, you probably don't know, don't really, necessarily have a culture. Culture is going to be that thing that is sort of the glue in between people. And so when it's just you, you don't really have culture, and that starts to develop as, I think, stories, stories of what happened in this sort of scenario, what happens when this goes on between a client, between a therapist, something went wrong, and here's how we reacted, and that's going to develop over time. So with your first hire, really, you want to emphasize so like, the basics. I need them to have, like, this sort of licensure, and I need to be able to, like, have, you know, reliable transportation. And if I need someone who has these specific modalities in training, and then I need someone who's available these days a week, like, okay, cool. And then an interview process you're checking for, what are the values that matter and how. How to you and your business, the business down the street, might have different values that make someone perfect for them and horrible for you. And just check what those values are and like are they do. They exemplify them the best that you can tell in your interview process.

Yeah, I love that. And values are not easy. You're absolutely correct. A lot of people don't know what their values are, and I will raise my hand to say that, yes, I been been wanting to learn my values and thinking that I've had it and taken different things. I'm just starting to get a hang of it now, after a recent like workshop, and I agree that they are definitely an extension of yourself. And I also feel like if you do find your list is a little bit long, then you can, you can divide and conquer, and now you get to have some of them at your practice, and some of them in your in your personal life as well. And you won't. You're absolutely correct that I thought that the values that I had before I started the group practice. You know, we're one thing, but it's really not until you get into the day to day and you realize what is becoming more and more important to the the practice, versus like maybe what you what you thought it was in the in the beginning, and just encountering different problems and finding solutions and finding out where loose ends are happening in the clinic as well and and you know how we can collaborate on on certain things. So I'm really excited for values for my 2025 and it sounds like when you're working with clients, you're really trying to help them develop what their values are. Yeah. So it

depends on where they are. So one of the easiest things to point out is when someone already has a team and they've just got someone on their team that I know instantly, like, we got on a call and I'm like, How are things going? And they spend half of our call talking about one person, and I'm like, okay, one need to fire them. And I'm actually like, not that fast to fire and that's something people don't talk about. We're very we're always talking about hiring, and it's like, Ooh, what a bad team member will do to your team and your business is outweighs hiring five good people. But that's like, one of those things where I think value sometimes can be like boundaries, where you don't really know where they are until you cross them. And so I find so if you've already got a team, usually what I'm doing is people often don't have their values defined, and they've got this person that's like, they are a thorn in their side. And so one of the parts of that is not just logistically, like, okay, so what things are they not doing correctly? But we're just sitting down and saying, okay, so what value do you think they're not exemplifying? And then something will, will, come to them, and it's like the rest of my team, maybe it is about integrity. They've got a person who's like, a great therapist, actually, their schedule is full, but they're just like, sneaky and weird behavior, and then they lie. And then when they get confronted, they lie again, instead of just being direct, like, that's when it's like, this value suddenly popped out. Is really clear to me. For someone who's just getting started, usually what I say is, you know, kind of walk them through, trying to identify what their own personal values are. I ask them, have they thought about what values do they bring into the business? You know, I've worked with someone who is, you know, a very religious person, and their faith being very important. It's like, okay, we need to kind of deconstruct this a little bit into what aspects of this, what beliefs or ideas are important that you are imparting into the vision. And some people just kind of have no idea. And this is where we go. And we're like, okay, like, here's a list of, like, 100 words. Find 20, and then, you know, from there 10 and then five. And not just have those five, but like, write a story, write at least a sentence about, like, everyone should be honest. It's like, oh, okay, sure, I kind of like, it's not really a value, if it's like, kind of a given, but if it's something in your business, really specifically where it's like, no, it doesn't matter if we make a mistake. It doesn't matter if we do something wrong. It doesn't matter x, y, z, we are always going to tell the client the truth, tell each other the truth. And this matters. This is important to me, because that's how you go through and not just have like 20 ambiguous business e words and say, like, you know, these really, are this handful of things that really, truly matter the most here.

Yeah, amazing. Thanks for the explanation as well. I did want to follow up as a that, like that team building, and I wanted to ask a personal for my personal business. I know in other conversations you and I have had, you know, my team is 11 people, including myself. And I was curious, because I know with your experience working with with different practitioners, different business owners, I sort of got the feeling that there's a number that where things can get too big and things might. Go off the rails, or there seems to be a restructuring that has to happen at a certain number of practitioners. Can you share a little bit about maybe you can use me as 11 practitioners, and how you would approach that business? Or, yeah, so what

it comes down to is the demands on the business and the demands of management, like what we actually have the capacity for. So you've got a one person business, and then what I'll typically come across like, the next group is like three people, maybe up to five. But I find three to be very like, three people to be very common, including the owner at that size. Everyone kind of does their own thing. And the culture like, there might be some sort of culture, but the culture is just like, we're just, we're just three dudes, three ladies, just chilling, and it's cool. We're vibing. We're making money. We got our clients and, like, that's kind of it. As we grow, the demand for structure becomes more and more important, and so it depends a little bit on the, like, working hours. But I don't know if you've, let's say, come across someone who has, like, eight, 910, 11 children and like, do they really know every single thing that's actually happening? I typically know, and so usually what the structure is is it's usually the need for management. So everyone's a little bit different, but it's somewhere around the like, eight to 10 ish mark is usually where we start to need some level of management and leadership in place. Because when we think as the owner, you might still have some time inside of the treatment room. You've got to think about, like, big picture Business Growth stuff. You've got to think about planning and marketing all these things, and then you also are responsible for all of these people and what you need. And this is where, like, as we start to get to this level of practitioners. This is usually where I'm talking about people. Of the numbers are relative, but I say like, between 10,000 a month and 1000 a month this, like 30k month mark is kind of this middle where, typically, someone's got their they've got more practitioners. And we're starting to say, like, hey, you need leadership. Because, again, in the same way where you couldn't be in the treatment room all day and grow your business now, like you can't possibly be productive and grow and give everyone what they need when you have that many people coming to you, you need something or someone in the middle. Usually we look at revenue, but I'm usually saying, like, Okay, we need someone who has an official title as lead therapist and has, like, a pay bump, or we need something unofficial, but we need some sort of, we need someone who's a filter in between you and all of the children who can, you know, point, and I don't want to, like, demean, like anyone's team, but it's like, we need a filter in place to say, like, okay, the actual really important stuff gets directly to you, and there's someone in the middle who's like, hey, we ran out of this, and where's the cream. I don't know this. And this is, like, someone else's job to be able to handle that stuff, so you can handle, like, the really big, important stuff. And that just goes on and on and on up into like, when we're saying, like, okay, build a million dollar business multiple locations, we're looking at having like, an operations manager, like per location, or like a manager per location, then an operations manager whose job is, like, see the whole thing, so that you know where you should be focused on. Because if we scale up to I've got multiple locations, multiple businesses, and I'm not doing a licensing or franchise model that potentially is like 50 100 people that are underneath you, and you can't possibly be directly available to each and every one of them. So as we scale back, it's like eight to 10 ish people as we I want to see some sort of leadership. The other thing is, usually in this, this is a little tricky, and I'll try to, I'll speak to like because in the US, every state is different, and it's like between independent contractor employment laws in Canada. I can't speak to with tons of accuracy, but the same idea of like, you have a small group of people, everyone's kind of doing their own thing at the beginning, when we're thinking about the capacity of our business, or what is possible, we're typically looking at our team as we grow. The actual upper limit is your space. And so now, when we were thinking previously about maybe like playing Tetris with clients, we are starting to play Tetris with team members. And this is where it's like, we think about human resources. And it's like, I have this team of people my space, I want to be earning somewhere, at least for most people, for like, most pricing. I see it's like, I want to be earning, like 10,000 per room per month, and if I at least ends for some people that's closer to, like, 1520 if you're like, a very, very, very high end, high priced place, it's all relative to the market. And if you're not there, then it's like, why? Typically, it's because, well, so and so comes in three days a week and has this half day, and this person comes in three days a week, and that person does their two days a week. And then I've got all these gaps in my calendar. And when someone's an independent contractor, you can ask them kindly, Hey, would you mind doing this? Am I very right to say no, like I don't. I don't want to do that. And actually, I want to do things my own way. And so the control that your business wants to be able to accomplish some more of these business goals is like, Oh, I I need these people to be employees, because I really do need them to act and behave and schedule a certain way if we want to grow beyond a certain point. So those are like the leadership aspect and then the control needed. Those are the things where it's like around eight to 10 ish, we start to see things switch. Great,

great insight, for sure. I love that you use the word filter. And again, just as a business owner, it's just nice to hear that perspective. I'm really trying to not be the bottleneck and not be the go to person, but I think that also just having that practitioner that is the go between. I think that makes it more accessible for the therapist, because maybe they don't feel comfortable going to like the big boss. And I mean, I hope that I don't project that persona. And I want I am an open door, and I want to communicate. I've been in really terrible communicating clinics in the past, so I try to really, maybe over communicate to my therapist, but I think that having that filter makes a difference for them as well, that they feel that there's somebody more approachable, that it's not me, that they're going directly to so that that, you know, the reaction, they're not worried about a reaction or rejection or things like that. So that's that's really important. I like that perspective. I never necessarily thought about it that way. I just sort of thought about it as, like, responsibility, like, take on the responsibility of this, and I can focus on that, but, but just being more of a go to is a really helpful visual

as well. Also, you know, at your size and so part of it is revenue, part of is the number of people. And this is where it's like, so when I work with my clients and like, those make me really excited, because, I mean, I think big numbers are fun and flashy, just personally, it's also just like, Okay, we're dealing with a business that we're thinking about 50k months, up to 100k months, being like, real numbers, and not just like crazy things that I've heard about, but as we start to, like, in that leg of the journey, you know, we talk about the different phases, really, in this leg of the journey, it's about leadership and management. And what that means is, like, how you are getting higher and higher, and like, kind of being okay with being the big boss. I think what usually tends to happen that becomes like a problem. One, we usually had a boss that, like, really sucked, and we will be like, I want to make sure I'm not that person. But the other thing is, a lot of times people lack the infrastructure. So in the small phase, we're thinking about just our clients, and then I think as we go like, we're starting to expand systems and operation, that is really the name of the game. And then at a certain point, like, by the time you have 11 people, and especially you, like you personally have come in through a licensing where it's like the systems and operations pretty much were set really, now what's going to matter a lot is people management. And again, the same way that you can only do so much with clients, you can only have so much with people, and so you can kind of liberate yourself to be the big boss when you do have those people. And people aren't afraid of communicating, they aren't afraid of going in, because they they know the channels that they're allowed to go through. They know like I can go to so and so whenever I need something with this, I have the confidence that I that that message is going to get relayed up to the big boss. Or I know I can go to the big boss if I need to. And I think the same way we think, like military, like, functions very well because of structure, like, there's a way to do things, there's people to report to, because someone's at the top doesn't make them good or bad. That is the role that they need to play, and so on and so forth. The people who are, you know, hierarchical organizational structure below them. It is a neutral thing that allows the business to function the same way, like we got to make sure we have a way of, where do we go, who's in charge? How do we handle this? But if you're listening and you've, like, hiring your first person, not really matter right now, really, really matters. As we're like, we get up to like, you're, you're like, starting to lose count on your hands of how many people that you have like, that's when it really starts to matter. Okay, awesome.

You said one of my favorite words. So let's get get into a part of it. Their systems are systems sexy. Daryl, do you like systems? Think

systems are super sexy. Personally, I think explaining the other people typically aren't. But if you like knowing that things happen the way you want them to, consistently and repeatedly, then systems are pretty sexy,

amazing. So one of if your team is growing and you. Now have, like, maybe you, you have had somebody that is designated as, like, your your operations manager, and you sort of have, you have certain expectations from the team. What is an operations manual that you've recommended? And, like, why is it important? How do you create one? And how early should you create one? Yeah, so

your operations manual is essentially going to be the playbook for how your business functions, or it's the recipe book your business makes grandma's famous lasagna. You need to make sure that no matter which person is in the kitchen and which person is waiting tables and which person is working at the cash register that someone's able to purchase and eat and it gets cooked correctly, and be happy. And, you know, be rung up. The lasagna is there all the time. And so that's where the operations manual comes. Important. Already have system. Doesn't matter how big or small your business is, you already have systems. Usually, what you're lacking is documentation. And documentation is the act of putting something into a recorded format that someone else can find later. Like, I promise you, you have a flow of like, how you see clients, how you check people in, how you do marketing. Some things probably are a bit more ambiguous and aren't very well systemized where, like, they don't really have the clear step by step we are running on systems. Now take a second to mention this is different from an employee handbook and these documents. Some of it is just a name, but the way I want you think about them differently is our operations manual are the is the playbook of how things are going to get done, while your employee handbook are the policies. You've got the playbook and you've got the rule book. The rule book is telling you, like, what is and is not okay. It's like your attendance and your vacation policies, and like, you know, hygiene cell phone policy, that is the rule book versus the playbook of do this, do this, do this, do this. Now, in terms of where you should start, I think as soon as possible, I think in a practical sense, building out all of your documents. So like all of your how tos, all the individual recipe cards that make up your restaurant, building it before you have your first person sounds nice, if you have the time. I honestly, I would say, go for it. But practically speaking, it kind of helps to just have, like, a big picture idea of like, here's how things are going to go, and use bringing on person number one as an opportunity to build out some of those. Because when it comes to, like, building out your operations manual, I think about it in two pieces for just like most massage businesses, if you have like, less than a dozen employees, I'm thinking about you've got a therapist handbook and an admin handbook. And those are, like, how your business is going to run. I want to document the day to day life of what a therapist is going to do, and the day to day life of what an admin person is going to do. And if you don't have any front desk, you don't have any admin those are the same things, but like, in your head, this is like therapist stuff. This is like sitting at a computer kind of stuff. And so you want to build out those pieces, and as you start to bring on, like your first person, you want to have an idea of what they need to do. But when it comes to each individual and SOP standard operating system, each individual recipe card, the actual last step to making sure the recipe card is correct is having someone else cook the recipe so you can write down the list, and that's, that's, that's a product process you should do, but up until you give it to someone else, or you train someone else, you take someone through your onboarding, you won't be 100% certain that it's correct, and so just know that it's okay if everything's not perfect. Now, if you've already got a team, you've already got stuff going on. You should have had like this yesterday. Like you've got five people on your team. You should already have this. You should have done it yesterday. And I encourage you to look at where are things not happening consistently, and start there to put together your step by step instructions on how things should be done. Yeah,

I completely agree with that, that yesterday was when I needed a playbook, and then admin, and, yeah, it's, I mean, sometimes what happened for me was like, what questions am I getting the most like, Where have I really dropped the ball with my team? And what questions just keep coming up that they're not sure about? And that's where I essentially started with, like, my onboarding kind of playbook, and I love that you separated the playbook and the rule book and admin and therapist, especially if they're not an employee and it's an independent contractor. That helps me also just make sure that they, they know like that again, they're they're not bound to, like my all the rules and of the of the clinic necessarily like they still have that independence. Nobody wants to necessarily feel like they're they must follow all everything in here. So I like that it was an admin and and therapist kind of situation. So that's that's super. Helpful. How are you going to maintain the control? Or, like, the quality control, I should say, like, how are you going to maintain the quality control while spending fewer hours in the treatment room or in the office? Now, so you've created these systems. Now, you're you've taught somebody, you know, you had to do it. You want to back off a little bit, see how everybody gets on. But how do you, how do you maintain the quality of of what's happening in your space? So

I think when you first start to, like, you back away. You're delegating your give something to someone else. You got to be okay with someone messing up. Like, this is, this is what you're really looking for, is like accuracy over speed first and foremost, and knowing that, like the first time someone does something that maybe the first time they do on their on their own, they might get something wrong, and you just need to be okay with that. One of the most like dangerous things as you, if you're trying to grow a business beyond yourself, is I could just do this better myself. I know, I know that deep, deep, deep in my core, I just gotta pause for a second and say, like, hey, that's okay, but I need to make sure that this other person can handle this. And so as we look into to quality control, I do think it depends on like, Are you trading for the first time, or are you kind of adjusting someone's behavior. I do think no matter how much experience someone has, if they've never worked for you before, then they don't know exactly how things are supposed to be going. So you want to, you know, we've put a system together. We've got step one, do this. Step two, do this. Step three, do this, and then we're going to check them out. Now this might mean a couple different things, depending on what the task is, what we're looking for is outcomes and process. And you need to have a have an idea of, like, you know, the process should lead to outcomes. Like, if I do this script, it should end up with 77% of people rebooking their appointment. And that's going to give you an idea of, is this working or not. And so your first, thing is, like, outcomes. The outcomes are good. I'm usually not looking too much at the process. Like, someone might say things a little bit differently, they might do their treatment a little bit differently, but if outcomes are there, I'm like, You know what? Maybe I need to update the system, actually, so that more people are doing it the way that you're doing it. Or it's like, I don't care, like, I'm happy with the outputs. I really don't care. You're following the law, and that's all that matters. Cool, as we're looking at the process depends what it is. So for example, I've seen where had a had a client, where it's like, we're actually getting new clients, but they were not rebooking people. And it's like, okay, what part of this process is broken? We see the outcome is not there. What part of this process is broken? And one of the things that he really went in on is like, actually paying attention, not necessarily to the treatment itself, where I've had people, I have had people retrain their therapist on whatever techniques and treatment, but it was the notes. And it was like, your notes are empty. Why? And that was the thing that pointed out, and it's like, oh, well, their notes were empty because they didn't know what they were doing. They didn't have any recommendations for the person that also bled into how the treatment was going, that bled into how the assessment was going with the person. And so, like, you're looking for what is the thing that's not happening and what part of the step is missing in his case, it was the notes that made it really clear. I've had other persons where it's very common. If you're the hiring person, you might have a hands on practical interview, and someone just like, it's just not it. And what not it is like depends on your practice. There's no magic modality and magic style of treatment. But it was like, this is this was clearly not it, and what was going on, and that's how we handle that on the admin side, same idea, we're looking for outcomes, and saying, is this pointing towards the outcome that I want, if not? Why? And I'm going to investigate further. And so I might, in either case, I might have someone just explain to me, like, let's say we already have a system in place, and I say, okay, cool. Can you just repeat it back to me? Like, just tell me what happens. And see, do they miss a step? Like, Hey, can you just show me what's supposed to happen here? And you're just like, you're intentionally standing over their shoulder watching them and seeing what's going wrong. And this is where, if you've got your like, your your playbook, you've got your SOPs, this might be a time where it says, Hey, for the next week, I need you to, like, physically have this open in front of you when you do this task, or I need you to review this, or I'm gonna check in with you in the next week what the steps are, and that's how you can kind of go in and spot check. And the goal is to just let go. If the outcomes are there, you let go and you really just check in. Because, you know, showering is great. It keeps you clean, and also helps you often, so every so often, and this might be depending on what's going on you're looking at your outcomes. This could be once a quarter. This could be once a year. Could be somewhere in between, where, just like how. Okay, are we still following this process? Is it still having the outcomes? Let's just make sure things are good. Maintenance is part of the process.

So I have just a few, you know, quick ish, maybe a little bit more about Daryl questions, but you live like a nomadic lifestyle, as you described. I love the freedom that our career provides, and you can work anywhere you want, as long as you've got, like you know, your tools with you, which are your your hands. But I'm curious to know, because you have lived in a couple different places at this point, do you have like, a top list of things that you are either looking for in your destination or that you're traveling with that are like, non negotiables, yeah.

So one of the first things is probably like, my, my, I'll call it like my mobile kitchen. So I've slowed down in my travels, so I carry less spices with me, but I absolutely travel with spices. Don't travel with salt. It is not worth bringing a kilo of dead weight in your bag when that costs, like $1 when you get it to the place. So that's not worth it, but more so I carry a chef's knife, always, when you're traveling, often if you're living in Airbnbs, people know how to take care of knives. They beat the crap out of them. And like, you don't even have to have an expensive knife or a good knife. You just have a knife that's yours, and you take care of it. It's night and day difference. I do a lot of cooking, and just, like, I just gotta have my knife so I can, like, actually cut through whatever I'm trying to do. I think the second thing is probably my Kindle. I love books. Actually, when I, when I lived in Switzerland, I'd, like, immigrated and did the whole thing, and looking back, I probably shouldn't have done it, but, like, I shipped a box of books overseas, because, like, I love my books. And, you know, now living out of suitcases that just isn't practical, so I make sure that I always have a Kindle with me. And the third thing is, I don't think people realize this when they're not nomadic, your life can be determined. No, this idea of like, your life's determined by your environment. I don't think people realize how much your life can change based off of what's within, like, a 15 minute radius of you. And so if I'm moving to a new place, or I'm looking back and forth, I want to know, like, is there a park? Is there a gym? Is there a grocery store? Does that mean I need to live in a different neighborhood? Is this neighborhood gonna be okay? Am I gonna be like, am I gonna feel good walking outside my house? So like, when I'm on Airbnb and I'm looking at places I've never been before. I'm like, on Street View, and I'm on Google Maps, making sure that, like, I want to be able to not feel inconvenienced with the things that I want to do. Yeah,

those are great, great features. Yeah, that's, that's wonderful. I love the chef knife one as well, because, yes, the knives in Airbnb kitchens are not always that great. So, yeah, amazing. You did mention that you travel with a Kindle, so and you're a big reader, what is either one book that you're reading right now and loving, or what like book would you recommend that has influenced your approach to to business and leadership? So I

think this question is really interesting, and I'll give a specific answer and then an intentionally non specific answer. So the non specific answer, I have no idea who or where I got this from, like, maybe I made it up one day, but I tend to follow this rule of five. And even then, I'm not super strict with it. But essentially it's like, if you want to get good at something, if you want to know something, we have like Dunning Krieger effect that you can know, like, just enough to be dangerous, like, if you read five books on the same topic, you're going to know significantly more than the average person on that topic. But the other thing is, you will start to find the truths. If I read five leadership books, and I happen to notice where all five of those things said the same thing, versus the five of them said something different, like those universal truths, start to rise to the surface. And so whatever topic I recommend you read five, at least three, if not five, books on the same topic. And like you will just go so far, and whatever that is, in terms of a specific book, the one that I have every single one of my clients read is called Traction. Get a grip on your business. This is by Gina Wickman. If you've ever read the E Myth revisited, which I think talks about the process of mostly going from self employed, or rather going from being good at what you do, to having the business of what you do. That's like, step one, this is the big brother of the E Myth. And this is like, Okay, this is, this book is written for people who already have successful businesses, and saying, Well, how do we take this and how do I look holistically? I think this book is really good because just a lot of business books intentionally are very focused on one thing, or they're very focused on people who are just getting started in their business journey. There's like, a certain point where it's like, Hey, you're not in grade school anymore. You need some undergrad, graduate level material. This is a great and easy to read introduction. Into higher level business. Thought,

awesome. We'll make sure that that goes in the show notes, as well as, lastly, as someone who is outside of massage therapy and body work, and I say that just as far as, like, you know, the hands on time and techniques, because you are very much immersed in in this body work world. But what is, what is like one common mistake? Because you're on the outside and we're on the inside, and sometimes we can't, you know, we have blind spots. But what's one mistake that you see is really common between massage therapists or body workers when they're trying to scale their practice? Yeah,

I think there's. So I'll give two. I'll give a bonus one, and I'll keep them short. One, I think, is I'm gonna say, like running on whole old hardware. And I mentioned this before. Of the vast majority of this industry is towards one person, businesses. And if you take that advice and that information, you're not gonna get very far. Like, again, chess versus checkers, the board looks the same, but the game is fundamentally different, and there's a lot of unlearning that you have to do, and a lot of ignoring people you have to do. If you're in like Facebook groups and you're asking around like the average person for advice, they're gonna give you horrible, but very well meaning advice. And then I think the other thing that's important is chasing money with no vision. This is really common. You know, if you're self employed, to some extent, you like making money, so that's normal. This is not like a morally bad thing. I think it's neutral. But what I find is opportunity is kind of a dirty word for me. I could put the sauna in here. I could hire this a chiropractor. I could do this thing over here and ask you why? And it's like, well, because it makes money. You know, I had a client who they were like, gonna build their own essential oils or aroma therapy? And I was like, that's like, that's not a bad thing. But why? Oh, because we can sell so much online. I was like, okay, so you're going to replace your income. Like, yeah, well, we can, like, the limits are endless. Like, okay, so you're gonna fundamentally change your business from a brick and mortar to an E commerce business and replace all your revenue based off of, well, I'm not saying you can't do it, but now you're just chasing money instead of trying to execute on a vision. So that's a big one. I think that gets people caught up. That

is a very great closing point as well. Darryl, where can people find you and find your podcast? Yeah, so

if you like podcast, if you want to hear more advice about the higher levels of running business, you want to hear stories of people who've really from like hiring the first employees up into multi million, multi location businesses. Check me out scaling wellness podcast. You can find me WWW dot scaling wellness.com or learn more about what I do. See if it makes sense for us to work together to help you in the process. And hanging out on Instagram more. Check me out on Instagram at scaling wellness. I'll be there posting some new stuff, interesting stuff, some advice, some funny stuff as we play around on our end of what my social media presence is going to look like. So find me there. Amazing.

Thank you so much for your time. Daryl, I'm looking forward to everybody listening to this and getting connected to you. Thanks so much again for being here.

Thanks for having me. You.