Ash welcomes Dr. Corey Malnikof, and they discuss his journey from struggling clinic owner to leader of 24 successful healthcare practices. They talk about the early challenges he faced, including serious financial setbacks, and how critical moments and strong mentorship led to a major shift in his mindset and business approach. Dr. Malnikof explains that personal development, intentional leadership, and a focus on systems are key factors in rapid growth.

He examines how lessons from outside the healthcare industry, including companies like Starbucks and Ritz-Carlton, helped him build a distinct culture and training structure within his clinics. Dr. Malnikof also talks about the importance of discipline, consistency, and ongoing self-improvement, not just for practice owners but across the entire team. He also outlines practical steps for healthcare professionals who feel stuck, including tracking statistics, understand key business metrics, and seeking out mentors or peers who are already achieving your desired results.

To connect with Dr. Corey, visit: https://www.coreymalnikof.com/

Key Topics Discussed:

• Dr. Corey Malnikof’s early business challenges and financial struggles
• The importance of mentorship and mindset shifts
• Applying lessons from industries like Starbucks and Ritz-Carlton
• Building intentional culture and training within clinics
• The role of discipline and consistency in business growth
• Practical approaches to developing and implementing systems
• Tracking and analyzing practice statistics for growth
• The value of ongoing staff reviews and open communication
• Seeking guidance from mentors and outside high performers
• How a leader’s behavior is reflected in the team and practice

Welcome to Beyond Bite Wings, the business side of dentistry, brought to you by Edwards and Associates PC. Join us as we discuss how to build your dental practice, optimize your income, and plan for your future. This podcast is distributed with the understanding that Edwards and Associates PC is not rendering legal, accounting, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with their business advisors before acting on any of the information that is shared. At Edwards and Associates PC, our business is the business of dentistry. For help or more information, visit our website at eandassociates.com.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Beyond Bitewings. I'm your host, Ash. Today's guest has a story that many healthcare professionals and business owners will recognize. One filled with ambition, unexpected challenges, and a decision to grow from the inside out. When Dr. Corey Malnikoff opened his first clinic in 2005, he expected patients to come through the doors. Instead, he faced serious financial struggles, lived on ramen noodles, and even had his card declined while trying to buy a $4 sandwich. That experience became a turning point.

Through rigorous study, mentorship, and lessons drawn from leading brands such as Ritz-Carlton and Starbucks, Dr. Corey scaled from one struggling clinic to 3 multi-million dollar practices in just 3 years and eventually expanded to 24 clinics. Today, he helps healthcare professionals understand that sustainable success requires more than tactics. It takes strong leadership, an intentional culture, the right mindset, and systems that can support growth. Dr. Corey, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Of course. Of course. It's a pleasure. Now, take us back to 2005. What did you expect when you opened your first clinic? And what was the reality once the doors opened?

Yeah, sure. You know, for a lot of us, when we go to school to be healthcare providers, you know, we have a really big passion. You go to school, you learn a lot, you get more and more inspired on a, you know, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. And by the time it comes ready to graduate, you know, whatever healthcare practice you're going to open— chiropractic, dentist, you know, podiatry, etc.— you know, you're just excited. And you think, you know, I hate to put it like this, but at some point you start to think you're God's gift and that all I really need to do is put out a shingle, the Red Sea will part, patients will come, and I will just, you know, help my community and everything is going to be amazing. And You know, that was my thought. I graduated, I was good, I knew I was good. I had a really big head.

I used to joke and say I couldn't fit through the door because my head was so big, which is terrible looking back now. But, um, you know, I did that. I, I found a space, I signed a lease. I knew nothing about business, so I signed a lease and had to start paying rent for a place that wasn't built. I had all kinds of bills coming in and nowhere to see patients. And, you know, the reality is just it was not good. I did not know what I was doing, you know. Lucky enough, or You know, I went through, I went through what people go through, you know, when they don't know what they're doing.

And which was, you know, I got down to the point that I literally had nothing left. I was, I was stamping passes at the Dulles Expo Center in the evening to pay the bills on an office that I couldn't open. Uh, got down to that last $4, didn't even have $4, right? I wrote that book, The $4 Sandwich, which, which pretty much talks about, you know, hitting that low point of I had nothing left. You know, lucky for me at that point, Um, I found my way over to another chiropractor who happened to have a space open and, you know, got him to agree to let me start seeing patients out of his clinic. But it was, it was very humbling, right? So, you know, for all the new grads and people that are ready to go and you're excited, you really have to prep because, you know, my story is I, I was not prepped. I was, I was, I was the guy that walked into the gas station to buy the $4 sandwich, had his credit card declined.

Yeah, talk to us a little bit about that moment. I mean, what did it teach you and about yourself and your approach to business?

Yeah, so, you know, for me, luckily, I had really good mentors up until that point. And so, you know, when I hit the point that I had absolutely nothing left, you know, it's funny, you want to look at the community and you want to look at, you know, this isn't the right place or not the right time or my fees or my this or my that, you know, lucky for me when I hit the bare bone bottoms and I absolutely felt like that failure, you know, I had the right mentors in my, in my life up to that point that had told me and taught me that it's, it comes from you, not to you. And so when I hit that point, I started to think for, for the first time ever in my life is I'm the one that's failing, right?

Yeah.

So if I'm the one that's failing, why am I the one that's failing? Like, why am I failing? Why am I attracting debt? Why am I attracting, you know, all these things that are happening in my life? And so in that moment, for me, it was, okay, take a step back. If I was the man that was successful, what would that look like? And so it was the things I had learned that I started to implement was at that point, should I write some affirmations and start programming, programming myself on who I should be? Should I do some visualization so I could start seeing it? Should I write some goals so that I know where I'm going? And then one of the biggest things that really, and you mentioned it earlier, one of the biggest things that helped kind of change everything for me was I thought to myself, as I'm sitting there, no patients, no money, and a lot of debt. And there's all these companies in the world that do so well. And they don't just do so well, but they just grow every year. And I'm like, wow, you know, Amazon is going to be bigger next year than this year. And they know it already. You know, Starbucks is everyone's third home. Like, how did they even do that? Like, the Ritz-Carlton is the number one service industry in the world.

And everybody knows it. How did they do that? Nordstrom has the best training process in the world. How did How did they do that? And so, you know, it's crazy to think that all of these things came crashing down in my brain as I'm sitting there with, with nothing left. But my thought process was, it was kind of just this moment of, I'm going to recreate me with all the tools you do to create you. And I'm going to study all these businesses because I'm going to copy them. I'm going to mimic them. I'm going to plagiarize them. I'm going to steal everything that they have and make it my own so that I can grow this business.

And literally, it all just kind of hit me all at once.

Wow. So it seems— it sounds like a lot had to change internally before your business began to change externally.

It is by far, right, of everything. You know, I'm on podcasts a lot and get to speak a lot, and I'm grateful for all the people I get to talk to. Um, every system I teach, every marketing thing I teach, everything we talk about with the books and, and profit margins and scaling I will tell you the absolute number one thing by far, you know, my mentor taught me this, which is who you are determines how well what you do works. So the absolute number one most important thing is you have got to always work on yourself.

And would you say it's a constant thing and not just during the preliminary stages?

Never ends, right? It never ends. So, you know, in my scaling world where I went 1 to 2, 2 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 24, at each one of those stages, changes. You know, I can't, I can't be the same doctor, the same guy at 10 clinics as I am at 24. That the guy at 10 can't handle 24. So whenever you want to go through this growth phase, it's not just about new procedures, spending more money, bringing on more people. You, you've got to be the person that would be there. So, you know, one of my early mentors, Janice Hughes, taught me about stepping into the world of being uncomfortable. And so I, I've always spent my life trying to find things that make me uncomfortable to help me grow.

I mean, even, even now, you know, as I'm— I've paused the last 6 months, 24 clinics. We paused the last 6 months to get ready for our next push, right? So we're going to be having a really big push here pretty soon. And so some of the things I've been doing, right, like I'm training for a HYROX, which is like a workout I never thought I'd do.

And I'm—

I got a cold plunge in my house, and I hate getting in the cold plunge, but I get in it every day. And so like, these are the things I force myself to do because I've got to build a better me even now and always, every step.

Wow. So it sounds like it's not just the external discomforts, but also some intentional discomforts, like the cold plunge.

Always, always better.

Okay. I mean, that's true. You can't really grow without having some form of discomfort. I feel like, you know, when you become complacent, when the comfort seeks seeps in, that's when the growth stops. And as you mentioned, you know, depending on your struggles and what's to come, you need to constantly evolve, right? Prepare for it and make the changes that's needed and then grow along with it.

Yeah. Yeah, big time. And, you know, some of it comes with experience. You know, one of the questions I always get asked, like, what would I tell myself back then when I was going through all of that? And, you know, I hope for all the especially the people who are getting into practice or getting ready to scale, you know, the advice I always say is, I wish I could go back and tell myself like, calm down, it's not the end of the world, you're gonna handle it. And so, you know, throughout this whole process, I think one of the things I've gotten very good at is handling stress without reaction. And I think people just have to, people get too paralyzed by the stressful things that happen in their business, in their practice. And so instead of getting paralyzed, just take, take a breath. It'll be all right.

Step forward. But, uh, yeah, growing myself intentionally and learning to deal with the stresses. I mean, that's kind of how you just keep, keep your foot on the gas pedal.

Yeah. And you're actually affirming the fact that sometimes we are our own enemy or inhibition towards growth. Sometimes it's our mind that, that stops us from what we're actually capable of. In other words, you know, a lot of times we're just underestimating our capabilities.

100%. I mean, I just— before this call, I was actually just on the phone with, uh, one of my doctors talking about, you know, a new location we're looking at. And he was talking about how we're, we're talking to some of the doctors in that area, and one of the doctors in that area was telling us what patients are willing to pay And so he was telling me all of this and I was just smiling because when I talked to the doctor, what I was telling him was, you know, it's funny, Doc, I love that you think that that's the case, but patients are willing to pay because the doctor believes so. And so it's, it's just so true. I mean, I have 24 clinics and, you know, I, I got like 60 doctors and I work with a lot of docs, but I get to see doctors all around the country. And the reality is what you just said is just so dead on, is that once they have a certain belief, that becomes reality, right? Like, so they think my area, people can afford X, and my area, people can afford Y. You know, in my area, people like to have plans like this. In my area, people like to have plans like that.

And it's just not true. What, what's true is that if you take a doctor and he has full conviction and full faith in what he has to offer, what the price is, what the plan is, full faith, and believes that people will do it. No matter where I drop that person, he's just gonna do it. So yeah, it's one of the biggest things I think doctors do, man, is they point at their communities and they point at the marketing and they point at the prices and they point at this and they point at that. None of that's true. I mean, are there advantageous things you can do, like being in the right area, having the right prices? Sure. But at the end of the day, it really is just us. It's just you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all relative, you know. If you think about it, it makes it easier for people to benchmark and do comparative analysis, uh, when they're looking at variables like that, as opposed to just looking inwardly and setting their belief system. Because you're that one person that can't be compared to anything else or anyone else, right?

Right. Right.

So I could see that.

Yeah, that— there was a piece of advice when I was doing my preceptor, you know, I was still a student. I'll never forget this doctor said it to me, right? He said, you got to be a little bit cocky as a doctor because you have to believe you're the best. Because if you don't think you're the best, you should probably send your patients to somebody else. So, so yeah.

If you're thinking there's someone out there who's better than you, then yeah, might as well just do that.

So yeah, you got to build yourself in good thoughts and good confidence. So yeah, an ongoing always thing to work on. Yes.

Right. Now, you mentioned you studied brands like Ritz-Carlton and Starbucks. What can healthcare practices learn from companies known for delivering a consistent customer experience?

Oh yeah. And so that's such a good point. It's funny, actually, nobody's ever, nobody's ever asked me this, but I have learned way more from outside my profession. As a matter of fact, anytime I really want to grow, really want to make a change, really want to get ahead of the curve of what we have to offer compared to everybody else, the first thing I do is look outside of our profession because there's other professions that are just doing things better. So for instance, Starbucks. I read every book by Howard Schultz. I was obsessed with it because He created a coffee shop that was the third home. So work, you know, you have your home, you have your work as your second home, and then Starbucks was your third home.

And I'm like, I'm building a wellness clinic. I'm the third home, not you. So I'm like, okay, how did he do it? Well, he did it by, he looked at every color. He looked at every scent. He looked at the fact that every single person that worked there had to have the same core values and same expressions, same thoughts, same answers. based on who that company was. And so he created, you know, a little green book, and inside that little green book had every script and every core value. So there was never a difficulty in answering a question or how you approached somebody in the coffee shop.

It was defined by what was in the little green book. And so I built a little yellow book, right? And it was all our scripts, all our procedures, all our core values, right? Because I wanted to build the culture. And so I learned how to build the culture. And, you know, when people ask me what's What's so unique about Palmer Care? Why do you guys grow? Why do you do so well? Number one is, I would say, culture. And I built that culture based on reading the books of Starbucks. Um, so yeah, you can learn so much. And then, you know, the Ritz-Carlton— you know, I was at a seminar many years ago, and there was, um, a dentist who was doing marketing based on, uh, Dan Kennedy. And he used to send out, you know, thank you gifts and things to his clients, give them starter packs, and they were very expensive.

Um, and I'll never forget because— but he had these moments where his clients were telling people they had to go see this dentist because they deserved that level of service, right? And all of that was kind of based on he based it all on Ritz-type service. So the Ritz-Carlton, number one service industry in the world because they know their, their clients, right? They call them ladies and gentlemen. And he copied it, right? So he would learn about hobbies and interests of his, uh, dental patients, and then his welcome gift would include things that were kind of costly but then linked to what their interests were, which made them feel so welcomed.

Wow.

And then they saw these things that they knew cost more, and then they just assumed that his service was just at a higher level. And that's just so Ritz-Carlton, you know, learning from the Ritz on how to be the number one in service just puts you above everyone else. And no matter what healthcare you're in, uh, that's, that's a great one. But yeah, I mean, I could just— all the books. I mean, Nordstrom taught me how to, how to create my training programs. Amazon taught me how to look at my books and make sure we have innovation ready for the next year. So Yeah, if you have a dental practice or any healthcare practice, you know, those are the industries that teach you how to make sure next year will be better than this year.

Wow. So quite literally thinking outside the box or looking at what's outside of, you know, what you know, forcing yourself to look outside and taking inspiration from there. That's fantastic advice.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's funny because you're right, a lot of times people feel like, oh, you know, I'm in the world of dentistry, so I should only talk to my peers and take advice from them, or, you know, pull in inspiration from other people who are from our world. But—

It's very difficult. Yeah, you know, I went to Alex Hormozi, you know, he's in Las Vegas. And he sees all kinds of businesses. And it was so funny, you know, he says to me, you know, in my chiropractic world, typically what happens is you come in, you have an examination, and then you come back on a second day, you go over the results and over the plan and all that stuff. And he says, why, why do you do that in 2 days? And I'm like, well, that's, you know, how we do it. He goes, but why? And I just couldn't help myself. I'm like, looking back to everyone that I've learned these procedures from And it was all in my field over the last 21 years. And I finally had someone from the outside look in and show me statistically why, why, why, why I was doing was wrong and like just flip it.

So it's hard to look outside of your profession sometimes because there's so many people inside your profession. And I do, by the way, I do, by the way, think you should know who, who are the most successful people in your profession and you should be learning from them because there's a reason they're doing so well. But yeah, you definitely, you've definitely got to step out and you've got to, you've got to read books on business. You got to read books on service. You got to read books on marketing and they got to have very little to do with your profession. So you get that outside perspective.

Yeah. Broaden your scope and don't limit yourself.

Yes, sir.

Now you grew one struggling clinic to 3 multimillion-dollar practices in 3 years. Um, what were the most important decisions that made that growth possible?

Um, you know, so a big part of it was like I was just so much into growth, you know, back then. I think it was just— I was just so obsessed with personal and professional growth. I was just such a self-help junkie. And so, you know, I had one office and, and we were doing well, had the chance to have a second office, and then all of a sudden I got to see that helping so many people. And, uh, you know, it was actually 4 offices there, uh, that we kind of popped up. And watching the— watching the staff grow as people— like, the number one reason we lost staff back then was because we helped them find a career that better fit them so they could grow, or they went back to college. You know, I was watching the doctors grow, learning techniques, becoming leaders. I was watching, like, we weren't just seeing, you know, 500 visits, we were seeing thousands of visits.

And so I was just so obsessed with the growth, um, that that's kind of what drove those first few offices. Because, you know, we had meetings. I was— I'm just so big into training, and I think that that's probably a big part of it. I was just so big into training, and we were spending so many hours, and half our training had nothing to do with any of the procedures. Half our training was self-help— affirmations, visualizations, goal goal setting, reading, charting, journaling, gratitudes, like everything we could do to grow ourselves personally and professionally. Yeah. And the other half was on techniques. And so I think the reason that we grew like that was just we were all just so together, so in on what we were building, the culture and the personal development.

That's where everything from PalmerCare stemmed, was just that personal growth.

Wow. So placing the onus on the individuals themselves first before having them bloom into the culture.

Oh yeah. And you know, back then we didn't even have like— my God, I had binders, I guess, where we wrote some systems down.

Was that yellow too? Probably.

But yeah, I just, you know, that was not— there was nothing back then that was That was just by the seat of our pants, obsessed with impacting our communities and growing ourselves.

Wow, fantastic. Now, speaking of your yellow book, right, where you built that culture, a lot of companies may have that in place. However, I think what separates, you know, the generic ones that we see out there from, you know, to yours that ultimately became such a success story is, is the ability for it to be translatable to your team members and something they can fully adopt to. Yeah, right. How were you able to achieve that?

Yeah, yeah. I think too often, you know, we have these, these like moments where we We sit down and say we should have core values for our business, and we write core values and maybe put them in a frame and put them on the wall, and then that's the end of it.

Yeah.

Um, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's so much better than not having them at all. But, uh, for us, you know, we, we really, we really find ways to implement it. So for instance, you know, A, I have on-purpose training, right? So like we have a training set for every single Monday for the whole year, and we have a training set for once a month that's like 3 to 4 hours. And in all of those trainings, we are always referencing who we are and what we're creating based on core values, affirmations, visualizations, goals, stuff like that. You know, end of the year, we have a cabin retreat where I take— like this last year, we took everyone, 150 or whatever employees, and we literally went through and created the strategic plan for every clinic for the next year, which included goals, affirmations, core values. So we're always putting it in. And then, you know, We have, um, we have morning meetings every day where the clinics check in with themselves to make sure everybody's ready.

That's very based on the Ritz-Carlton. But we also have on Fridays where I get everybody on a Zoom call and I do the meeting. And on that meeting, we're referencing things, you know, like the, the, the core values and the, the, um, the different strategies we have in each clinic so that people can actually look at them and I can— they can come back and share how they're implementing it. So we, we've on purpose put so many things in place to reference them and ask, how is this showing up? And then, you know, the trainings that we do specifically are based around a lot of what those core values are. So, you know, we're doing what we say we are. It's, you know, luckily enough for me, I, I've read a book at some point that talked about the fact that too many companies do make core values and never use them. We reference all the time.

Now, these monthly meetings that you guys have, you know, again, a lot of companies have some either weekly or monthly or quarterly, some kind of a get-together, right? It could be like a training or a quarterly meeting or just a team huddle, right? But one of the constant complaints that I hear from these business owners is that they can't have their team members be vocal or be open about some of their concerns or, you know, some of their struggles or what's working for them.

Mm-hmm.

I personally think it has a lot to do with them feeling Like it might come back to them or it might come back biting them somehow. So they just stay quiet. But, you know, after listening to what you just said, it seems like you don't have that issue with your staff members. How did you get your staff or team members to, you know, be open with you or the people in your locations that are leading your teams?

Yeah, so, you know, kind of a loaded question because it's changed so much over the 21 years. You know, in the beginning it was me, you know, and I can just tell you that I always had individual meetings with people so that I could see how they were doing. Oh, that's awesome. And, you know, you gotta, you gotta pay attention too as a doc. I know, I know it's tough when we're with patients all day, but you do gotta pay attention to the energy, the focus, and then what your people are bringing and notice when it's not there. And instead of doing check-ins to say, how are you doing, doing a check-in to say, I notice, you know, you're not fully there, what's going on? But, you know, you have to have planned— you know, we have planned reviews now, and you, you have to have them. You know, I think it's one of the things that people just skip a lot. You know, in our monthly meetings— so we do 3 to 4 hours, you know, once a month where we get all the clinics together, and we train on, on different procedures and different things.

And I will tell you, a lot of the trainings that we do are based on the fact that we do reviews so much. And when we do these reviews with our, with our staff, and we can hear the things that they're struggling with, or if we test them and see what they're just not able to do, it's really easy to bring it up as a training. And instead of, instead of our staff having to step in front of all these people and say, this is what they're struggling with, we can do a training in front of all these people. And it They'll already know we heard them. They'll already know we're working on them. They'll already be grateful for the fact that we're trying to work on it. But then everybody else is having the same problems, which, you know, if one person is, others are as well. Everybody else can just chime in as well.

But I just think one of the biggest things is, you know, we put such a process— and I hope this isn't too much of a soapbox— but we put so much of a process into hiring. At least I hope everybody does. Because, you know, there's so much of a process of you're putting up the proper ad, you're doing the proper follow-up, you're doing the proper interview, you're doing the proper second interview, you're doing the proper onboarding. And then one of the places that we drop the ball is, you know, with reviews. And so you've got to make sure that you have a very well-written, well-planned review so that 60 days, you know, our first one is 60 days into working at your place. They don't feel like you forgot about them or lost them, that sitting down with them and going through that lets them open up to you. And then, you know, after 60 days, because a lot of companies do that and then never remember their employees ever again until a problem, you know, we're doing another review at 6 months and then we're doing another review, you know, 6 months later. And so they never stop.

So we always have a preplanned check-in with our staff to see where they're at. You know, part of it is to judge them. on how they're doing. We literally are looking at statistics and KPIs to see where they're at, to see where we need to work with them. But the other part of it is to see how they're personally doing. So, it has to be purposely planned that you're checking in with your staff. Keep them engaged, keep you engaged with them, make sure they're growing, make sure your statistics are going where they should be, and kind of jump in where you need to.

You know, what I'm hearing consistently from you is, as a business owner, as a leader, you need to be proactive Yeah, that's, that's the gold standard.

Not always the easiest thing, but yes, sir.

But you guys, you consistently do it, that, that, that you will see the result of it. And I also like how you said, you know, instead of putting your employee under the spotlight, since you're already aware of their concerns, implement some of what they need to address those concerns in your training. Whether it's monthly or quarterly, whenever. That way they don't feel like they're being singled out, but at the same time you're addressing the concern.

Yeah, no, 100%. And, uh, yeah, I was gonna say, you said, you know, the proactive versus reactive, man. Your world, your world is— that's probably what makes you guys so good as the accountants for the dentist, is, you know, you also understand it's hard sometimes, right?

Because especially in the tax season for us, it's hard to always remain proactive, especially during those times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that is the gold standard. If we can just stay one step ahead.

That's right, that's right. Now, would you say that discipline alone can help you scale a business? And being proactive?

I would say it's one of the most important things, right? I, I always tell people the 2 most important traits of a successful person are discipline and consistency. So yes, I think it's huge. Um, I think that people, a lot of the times, you know, it's, it's not, it's not sexy, but a lot of the times the people that are really successful are the people that will do the boring stuff the same way every time, over and over and over and over and over. And that's kind of the discipline and the consistency part of it. But, but no, just being disciplined isn't enough, right? I think, I think one of the things that's always going to help somebody be successful is to be able to step out of their business and look at it from that, you know, bird's-eye view. You know, you've got to know your KPIs and your statistics, where you're at, where you're going. You've got to have your goals set, and you got to see the strategy is to get you from here to there. And then, of course, discipline becomes one of the biggest parts of that.

But yeah, there's a lot to growing.

Right. So, inwardly, I could definitely see that. But from a business's perspective, what about systems? How important are systems?

Yeah. One of the talks I used to travel around and teach was called Intentional Success, Systems for Intentional Success. That was— everybody wanted me to teach that. So, I would go on the big stages and teach Systems for Intentional Success. And again, that was based on the fact that all these companies that I knew that they would be bigger next year than this year, and they already knew it now. Because yes, if, if you want to be bigger next year than you are this year, then it is the systems that you have in place that you have set in place intentionally that are going to get you there. There is no other way that I know of, right? You, if I know my goals and I know this is where I want to be, And I have to create systems now so that I can follow these systems and procedures to get me to that. So the most important thing, and I'll tell you, I did a, I did a podcast not that long ago where we spent the whole thing on systems.

And the number one thing I think, you know, for anyone that's listening to this and they're like, I need to have a, I need to have, you know, standard operating procedures, I need some SOPs in place. The biggest reason people don't have those things in place is because they get paralysis. Because there's so many things that should be systemized, and because there's so many things that should be systemized, I end up doing none of them.

That's right.

Because it's just paralysis. Yeah, it's just crazy. And so systems are so important. And so what I would tell anyone listening is, if you don't have systems, even if you do, um, you must, right? And so again, it started with me back in the first few practices where I had a 3-ring binder. And we just started it that way. And if that's how you have to start, start it that way, which is just literally take out a sheet of paper. And, you know, my suggestion now— it's, it's amazing now with AI what you can do, right?

Mm-hmm.

But my suggestion would be to take out a sheet of paper, and I would write down with your staff, at least one staff, every single procedure in your practice that you know needs to have a system. I'm not telling you to even create them, just make a list of everything. Then take that list, put it in AI, and say, here's the list of everything I think needs to be systemized in my practice. did I miss anything? And then see what AI says. And then the first page of your binder is a list of everything you now must create.

Mm-hmm.

And then all you have to do is take number one or pick the most important. And then I, I would go on a computer, or I'm old school, so I do it with a pen, but do it on a computer, that's smarter. And just type out everything that is the system for that one thing. Show it to your staff, have them add to it, and then pump it into AI. Say, here's the system I created for this. What do you think? What should you add? And just knock one out. And, you know, if it becomes a binder or a folder on your computer and you just create one— if you created one system this week, you'd be one system ahead of last week. And by the end of the year, you got yourself a pretty good binder of systems, you know.

And so you can take that as far as you want. You know, for us with 24 clinics, we've taken it as far as now it's all digitized to the point where you're going onto a website and your position is going to literally walk you through everything. single step of how to do everything, um, digitally with tests, with a mentor, with a follow-up. I mean, just, you can do so much, but start with, start with a list and then get to work because systems is 100% how you're going to get to the next level.

That's a great piece of advice. Any preferred LLM platform that you use?

You know, we use something called BT Lightspeed and I really like it. Grant Cardone used it, and, and I liked, I liked that platform. It literally, it's a nice platform that allows you, you know, like, so one of our, our assistant positions we have, uh, it has day 1, day 2, day 1 through day 9. And then each one of those, you'll go in there, you'll download paperwork and a workbook so you can follow, and then you'll watch videos to fill in the workbook, and then you'll have somebody jumping on Zoom to walk you through some of it, then you go to the front desk and demonstrate it, then you go back to the Lightspeed and it'll test you on it. You can do so many cool things with that. I do like that platform.

Okay. Oh, these are great advice.

Yeah.

How does a leader's mindset, behavior, and personal development affect the performance of the entire practice? I know we touched upon a little on this. earlier, but if we have to talk about translating that or projecting that onto your team members, um, yeah, yeah, no, I love this, right?

So a mirror is, is my answer. So, so when a doctor comes to me and tells me all of my staff are acting this way, all of my staff Etc. I just— my— the first word that comes to my mind is mirror, because they— their staff are literally being a mirror of you, my friend. And so you got to look around your clinic, and if you don't feel like your team are, are at the level you want them to be, acting the way you want them to be, your patients are not following procedure the way you want them to be, you've got to be able to say it's me. And it's the hardest thing in the world to do. And if it's me, right, then you've got to accept it. And then the, the, the exercise I was taught 21 years ago that I still do to this day when I want to grow is I, I take myself and I say, okay, I'm supposed to be the leader of my clinic. If I was the leader of my clinic, my staff would behave like this, would, would execute like this, my patients would behave like this, my results would look like this.

If I was the leader that I was supposed to be? And so then I am going to write that down. I'm going to say, what does that leader look like? And I'm going to make a list of everything that that person would be. And then I'm going to make a list of everything I am. And I'm going to say, who do I need to be or become to be that leader? And that becomes the gap that I have to fill, whether that, like we said earlier, whether that's with creating affirmations to program myself to think a certain way, whether that's me visualizing me being that person, whether that's me writing goals to become better in shape, better health, better energy, better focus. But from a leadership standpoint, for me, it's always been the word mirror, which is everything in your practice is a mirror of how you are projecting your leadership. And then time to sit down and figure it out. Yeah.

So bridging the gap internally first. And then you should be able to see the reflection that you, you hope to see.

You got it.

Okay, good. Well, for a healthcare professional who sometimes, let's say, feels overwhelmed or financially stuck, what is the first practical step towards building a stronger practice?

It's really a crazy thing, but people do not know their statistics. They just don't. So, you know, you go to a practice and you say you're stuck. Okay, well, why? So if I go to a practice and you're doing, say, say you're doing $50,000 a month, right? And I'm just making easy numbers, right? I'm doing $50,000 a month. I've been stuck here forever. I can barely pay the bills. What do I do? Okay, well, the only way you can figure that out and step forward is to know where you're at. How many new clients do you have this on average per month? How many new clients convert and actually start? How much money do you make per client in a lifetime? You know, how long do people stay with you? How much do you have to spend to get a new client? How much is your average procedure? What procedures are you selling? If I know all all those statistics, then I now know why I'm collecting what I'm collecting.

And if I'm stuck at a number and I want to be at a different number, if I'm currently at $50,000, I want to be at $100,000, then now all you have to do to change that is figure out which statistic needs to be changed. Now it's not that easy, right? So let's say I'm struggling with new clients and I only get 10 a month and I need 20. Okay. Well, now I need to come up with the procedures To go from 10 to 20 clients and put the work in. And I think, you know, one of the things that happens a lot to people is we take them through that first phase. Like, I'll talk to people and we'll figure out, okay, here's your current statistics, right? You're stuck because obviously your retention's not there. Obviously you're not doing enough of this procedure, which is where you make all your money, or you don't have enough new clients, or the people that come through the door aren't converting. We'll figure out which statistic is the one that's, that's holding you back.

Then you write a goal for the new statistic and you have to go get it. And then they try it for a month and it doesn't work and they go, it doesn't work. I'm stuck.

Okay.

That's, that's ridiculous, right? So, you know, you've got to be willing to put the energy and effort into try something. And if it doesn't work, pivot, try again, pivot, try again, pivot, try again. But people don't realize how much it is. Just sometimes one little lever makes such a big difference. And you got to keep working on the lever. And, you know, the only other thing I'll say about that is like, if you have one lever that you know you have to move and you're having trouble moving it, then go find someone that's killing that lever and hang out with them. You know, I, I was stuck at, uh, you have to, right? I was stuck at like 65 visits a day, which is, it's still pretty good, I, I would say. But I didn't want to be 65 visits a day.

I wanted to be seeing 100+ visits a day, but I could not get past 65 visits a day. I'd push myself. I'd like 78 visits this, this day, and then the next day I'm 50. I'm like, well, what the heck? And so I drove down to a doctor, uh, I forget what his name was, but he was near Virginia Tech and he was seeing about 125 visits a day. And I just followed him around and he made it look so easy. And he just kept his, his, his pace. He was only walking between a couple tables. The way he did his notes, the way he talked to his patients.

And I was like, oh my God, it's so easy. And I just, I just immersed myself into watching him and went back to my clinic and I was finally able to do that. So, you know, I would say if you are stuck, A, you have to figure out why, what statistic is not getting you there, because normally it's just one thing that's not doing it, not doing it. Um, and then you gotta, you gotta come up with a plan to work on that one statistic. And then if you really want to take it home, find someone that's great at it, just, just go follow.

Great tip. Yeah, especially if you're trying to reach a certain goal and you know someone who's already there, and if you hang out with them, right, shadow them, follow them, you're bound to rub off a little bit of that, right?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I mean, especially, you know, yeah, I mean, whether you've been in practice for a long time and you're stuck, or you're young and first getting into practice You know, one of the things that has been probably one of the most important things that's helped me grow has been, you know, being in these different groups. Not always my profession, sometimes my profession, but being in these groups of people that are just doing better than me. And just getting yourself into those groups and being around those people being successful, it just helps bring you up. It really does.

Yeah. And you said something earlier, I don't know why, but I just thought of it. It's like plagiarize the hell out of these people, but then make it your own.

Yeah, Larry Markson, that was my first— one of my first very impactful coaches. That was his saying. He said, if you find someone that you want to be like, you get around them, you plagiarize, mimic, you know, steal everything they have. You just, you just make it yours. And that's just— that's what I've done. I love it.

I love it. Well, Dr. Corey, thank you for sharing your story and reminding us that Sustainable business growth begins with leadership, culture, and intentional systems. Where can listeners learn more about your work and connect with you?

Yeah, you know, for right now, I would tell you just go follow us on Instagram, either @PalmerCareGroup or @CoreyMilnikoff. Right now, we're just trying to put out as much free information as we can. Just want to see people in the healthcare world grow as much as they can. I got nothing to sell you. I just want to see it grow. So come follow and, uh, hopefully it helps you grow.

Awesome. Well, thank you again for being on our episode today. It was a pleasure.

All right, thank you.

Thanks for listening today. Be sure to subscribe to Beyond Bywings on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, or reach out to us on our website. You can also shoot us an email at [email protected].