Speaker: Prabin Gautam
Hello and welcome to digital perspectives
episode seven.
I'm Prabin Gautam.
This plan is all about exploring your Digital
Trends, strategies and transformation insights
to help your business build a brand and monetize
it today.
Today I am very excited and have a very special
guest and a top leader, Dr. Billy chow.
So, we'll get on to it.
But before we welcome two things very, very
quickly one if you have missed the past episode
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So, if you're watching this right now is a
thumbs up, comment, or share this post and
I hope this will give you a bit of inspiration
in this time of crisis to think differently.
And one of the things which we have been asked
by a committee member at this time is Prabin,
how do we really innovate, and thrive in the
time of crisis like this?
And that's what Dr. Billy Chow will cover
today.
A little bit about Billy.
He's really passionate about helping health
practitioners and service professionals to
grow and sustain the profitable business.
So, let me have him.
Great to have you today, Billy.
Speaker: Billy
Hi, problem.
How are you?
Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Prabin
Yeah, awesome, man.
Oh, wow.
I, it reminds me you know, the time goes so
quickly, isn't it?
Speaker: Billy
I remember that our first meeting was we met
each other at a networking function, I think
like a breakfast thing many years ago in Adelaide.
And then we had multiple coffee catch ups
where we spoke about things and we bounced
ideas off each other.
Yeah.
So,
Speaker: Prabin
Yeah, totally.
And obviously, it's about 10 years it's been
now I was thinking last night and obviously
you have inspired I follow you very much in
your LinkedIn and very inspired with some
of the leadership role you have done in last
few years and obviously strong governments
in healthcare industry, including you have
the national board and chiropractic association
of Australia.
Australian Spinal Research of foundations.
Yeah.
Will that be okay Billy if you share little
bit about your journey especially as being
a multiple practice owner clinic till now
to our viewers and listeners who are watching
this right now, please.
Speaker: Billy
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, um, yeah, so my journey has been I've,
I've been a chiropractor, for now, like 22
years, I think are 21 or 22 years.
I'm no longer in practice, but I, like you
know, back in the day, I did have multiple
practices with lots of different staff.
along the journey, I, I knew that I wanted
to do something else.
And obviously, I love you know, taking care
of people and, and having my own businesses
but I also wanted to sort of step up and try
and sort of, you know, have a leadership role.
So, for seven years, I was on the national
as a national director for the chiropractor’s
association of Australia, where I ran the
public education committee, and then most
recently, I am also a board member for the
Australian Spinal Research Foundation.
And that foundation does research specifically
for chiropractors.
Even though we were based in Australia, we
actually do global research.
And then also more recently, I've dived into
helping service providers and chiropractors
and health practitioners by physiotherapists
and dentists, you know, help them sort of
navigate through, you know, business strategies
and helping them grow their businesses.
Speaker: Prabin
Wow.
I very much especially, you know, the buying
and selling and managing all these practices
for 19 years and obviously, along the journey,
you know, serving the patients as well as
involving.
This is very much very much full on.
Speaker : Billy
Absolutely, yeah.
But like, you know, it's uh, I think I always
say that, you know, you give a busy person
something to do because I'll get it done.
And that's something that kind of that fell
into my life if I didn't try and find that.
I mean, it was, you know, like, I've got,
we've got three kids.
There, obviously, some of them are older now,
but certainly, you know, going through the
journey with kids and family, like it's certainly
a busy life.
And so, like, you know, I wake up in the morning
and just kind of want to get out and do things.
Yeah.
Speaker: Prabin
And one thing I'm also curious, especially
now a days I'm dealing and talking with a
lot of entrepreneurs and healthcare professionals
who manage a lot of multiple practice you
got to have a passion, isn't it?
What do you think?
Speaker: Billy
Yeah, passion, and also systems.
I think that you know, that it's, especially
when you you're dealing with multiple sites
and multiple team members and having to manage
them.
It's virtually like, you know, from experience,
and certainly from trial and error.
It's certainly hard.
It's too hard and almost impossible to be
successful.
If you don't have good systems.
You can't have one rule for one place and
another set of rules and other systems.
They have to be across the board.
And I think especially what you guys do, and
us talking about innovation and thriving with
technology, I think that technology has certainly
made an impact.
It's made it easier, you know, you like, you
know, you have things in the cloud that you
know that every practice and every business,
every site can manage and access, you know,
things like, you know, missing just things
and, and what kind of stuff it makes a big
difference.
Yeah,
Speaker: Prabin
So, the process systems is a key part of managing
business.
Now, everything is going on the cloud, everything
is happening and a lot of technology is coming
up.
So , those viewers who are watching this right
now if you're just tuning in, I am in talk
with Dr Billy Chow and talking about power,
and he was fascinated, rather grow and scale
the service professional, as well as healthcare
business, and if you like this, just give
us a thumbs up or commented, or feel free
to share this post.
Now, let's go to a little bit deeper if that's
okay, Billy.
Sure.
You know, you mentioned obviously managing
the practice.
here and involving under boards and obviously,
now in last few years have been helping entrepreneurs
and professionals on healthcare business,
including many medical, dental and allied
health practitioners.
So how, what they need to do a couple of things,
those of us who are watching what are the
things they can do to sustain the business
during the COVID and post COVID crisis, man?
Speaker: Billy
Okay, well, that's a big topic.
We could spend hours talking about this.
But um, but I think that the one thing the
buzzword, a problem that you've that you've
probably heard of during this time of COVID,
and the pandemic, and that is pivot, like,
we probably heard that buzzword where people
have talked about how your business and you
know, in order for you to survive during this
time, you have to pivot.
And even though that's important, I think
that's a good word to use.
I think that if you look at the definition
of pivot, and that is that you're changing
course, and when it comes to health practitioners,
and certainly health service, basically professionals,
it doesn't have to be a health practitioner,
it could be an accountant, or it could be
a mortgage broker, for a lot of those professionals,
they can't just like change their business
they can't go on, I'm now doing something
different.
So, I think that the pivot needs to be more
looked at as how do I actually change what
I'm doing?
So, I can actually tap into unmet needs for
my customers?
And also, what are the opportunities that
I can actually start to develop in order to
serve my ideal clients and my target market
better?
And so, I think that this, obviously, as we
all know, there's no discounting the fact
that this pandemic is horrible.
And it's not only here, but globally, it's
really, it's really, really changed the way
we've done things.
And it's been, a terrible situation to be
in.
The silver lining, I think for many business
owners is to use this as an opportunity to
actually start to develop and almost like
start to reinvent some of those things that
they should have been anyway.
So, one example is, as a business owner, we
should always communicate.
And we should always be in touch with our
clients, whether they be our current clients,
whether they be current clients that have
used our services previously, and are no longer
you in our practices or our current clients,
or our long term databases, we should always
be in communication with them, we should always
see how we can actually serve them or re-engage
with them.
And I think that, you know, with this whole
situation, not only being sort of in lockdown
and being online, this is a great opportunity
for business owners to actually start to be
more, you know, engaging with their current
clients, seeing how, you know, they can offer
support and care, and especially, you know,
during this time where people are uncertain,
you know, like, we always say that, you know,
people that are uncertain, that are stressed,
who feel overwhelmed, who are confused, and
there's so much of that going on in the world
at the moment they don't make great decisions
or they choose not to make decisions because
they become paralyzed and so I think for business
owners if they can provide information for
their customers and their clients, that helps
them be less confused, allow them to be more
certain and certainly be an provide an understanding
about how they can help them and how they
can actually help them be you know, better
through this journey.
They're going to make better decisions and
certainly when it comes to health care, they'll
make better decisions for their health.
Does that make sense?
Speaker : Prabin
Spot on mate Yeah, interesting.
You say that, you know, communication is a
key because you know, obviously, this is unprecedented
time and no one ever thought about it, but
the key here is communicating whether that
may be with, the patients or with w your team
members, wherever it might be easy, it is
a key so and I totally agree.
I mean, because there are so many tools these
days.
Whether that may be just giving a simple call
was a trust call or that my name the emails
or SMS.
Just keep Get on a loop.
It's very important, isn't it?
Yeah.
Speaker: Billy
Yeah.
And there’s one thing which I think it's
really important to, for business owners is
that it's probably less now, although having
said that, we're still going through the crisis.
But certainly, when the whole country was
in lockdown.
And we had, you know, really, tough laws on
isolation in all states.
And, you know, people weren't allowed to go
out that what happened was that, you know,
that a lot of people thought that their businesses
would go under, and they start to they start
to lose hope.
And one of the things I kept telling people
and that is that your patients, your clients,
they haven't lost hope in you.
They still obviously value services.
They've lost hope in the fact that they they're
confused and they're worried and they're worried
whether that if they go out, they're going
to catch Coronavirus or they're going to be
in a situation where they danger their family,
and so that's really, really important.
And so, as business owners, it’s a great
right time to really connect with your clients
and let them know, number one that you care,
you did a support them that you do, you're
doing whatever you can to be safe.
You know, whether it be sanitizing and cleaning,
making sure that you have social distancing
strategies and, you know, implementing that
in your practice or in your businesses, but
just letting them know that you're here for
them.
And you understand, and you empathize with
the fact that they might be a bit confused
about what's going on, but you're here for
them.
And that's like, if only you know, businesses
did that, they'll find that, that actually
Donna and regained a lot of relational capital
back into the business, and when things start
to open again, when things start to go back
to normal, you know, they'll get these people
come back because they haven't lost hope in
their business.
They just lost hope in the environment and
the situation they're in.
Unknown Speaker 12:51
Now, that's, again, the prospective isn’t
it.
The way how you think about great point that
haven't lost the hope on you or on the practice.
That's a great point, man.
And especially someone like you because obviously
you've been this healthcare business for more
than 19, 20 years which also means almost
two G's.
One is, you know, in 1992, that was a big
crisis.
And yes, yeah, not so much in unemployment,
and then we have a GFC.
So, someone would have survived that far in
about 2025 years.
And definitely there is a, there's a bit of
resilience there.
Unknown Speaker 13:32
Yeah, yeah.
And with every crisis that happens historically,
that it almost like kind of catalyzes opportunities
for things to change, you know, so you look
at how things have changed with the Great
depression, and obviously, all the different
sort of stock market crashes and the GFC,
recession.
The unfortunate aspect also, you know, provides
some kind of uplifting to people to actually
start to make improvements.
So, going back to innovation and pivoting,
yes.
So looking at looking at sort of moving forward
these the unmet needs and opportunities, we
as health practitioners, we will always, like
one of the biggest gaps was how do we take
care of people remotely, you know, like not
everyone, and especially because there's an
aging population in Australia, you know, like
not all aging people can get to their appointments,
whether they to go to the physiotherapist
or chiropractor or even the GP.
And so, you know, that like the technology
has always been there, but this pandemic has
opened up sort of like and sped and catalyze
the innovation for that to happen.
And even at the most basic situation where
if even if you don't have all the cameras
and all the all the technology, you can easily
just call your patients and let them know
what's happening like, you know, what are
you suffering from what's going on, especially
current clients, maybe you know, you have
to stop implement different strategies for
new clients, but your current client base,
if they can't get to your appointment, like
give them a call and let them know that you're
still there have a phone conversation.
And if you're a physiotherapist, you can easily
prescribe certain things.
I mean, obviously, people like another thing
is with healthcare.
I mean, with AI with those things, certain
elements of healthcare will be replaced by
AI like things like radiology and all that
kind of stuff and, and even oncology, a lot
of that kind of stuff is starting to become
more AI.
But for the better, I think, because obviously
they're able to pick up more things faster.
But generally, healthcare, even in the future,
people still need to go see someone like,
you know, we're never gonna ever be in a situation
where we can totally be remote.
But I think that we can as health practitioners
and as health businesses, we can certainly
provide a better service and more value to
our clients and even expand our, our client
base.
Like you know, if you're not open to the fact
that you're happy to see people remotely,
then that opens up your ability to see more
people, which is the benefit your bottom line
as well.
And also, I was talking to a colleague of
mine and she was talking about how, you know,
there are now more businesses that are starting
to innovate to get people to do more like
me, GPS have always done house home visits
for Allied Health.
So, the allied health, you know, chiropractors,
physio, therapists, podiatrist, what kind
of stuff to actually do remote and also home
visits.
And when you think about, I think, you know,
before this interview, we were having that
chat power problem that, that there's a new
norm.
So even though, you know, the downward track,
we're going to be in a better situation with
the virus and hopefully it all goes away.
But it's now a new norm.
We're still going to, have these social distancing
things happen.
We're still gonna be wary of you know, how
to be healthier and if we if we feel unwell,
we have the sniffles.
That kind of stuff to maybe not go out to
the public and just stay at home.
But it's still the new norm is, is that people
will still maybe want to be more remote that
they may not want to sort of always go out.
So, having the options to take care of clients
to provide service for clients, both at the
spectrum of new clients, and also along the
journey.
It's gonna make a huge difference to health
practitioners that really invest in the time
the money and also the resources to do that.
Unknown Speaker 17:30
Totally, totally Billy.
Obviously, you talked about telehealth and
mobile, you know, people talking about the
digital and mobile health or that might be
AI machine learning.
What I'm hearing from you is, I love your
perspectives, thinking about being open.
Isn't it? being flexible and being adaptive?
Yes.
Because things are changing as you're saying.
I mean, obviously, if you have an existing
patient, there's already a trust built in
so it's easy either you give a call sending
emails or whatever other forms of communication
but if you're really tapping new prospects
or new clients or new patients then the whole
experience they want a different So, idea
of being open being flexible or being adaptive
is a key.
That's what I'm hearing is that right?
Speaker: Billy
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yes.
You know, the, the adaptation is so important
and also, it's being contemporary with the
way you think as well.
So, you know, like, it's, we can't we can't
stay in our bubble and are kind of like our
little test tube of like it's always worked
this way and we will keep doing that.
And so, you know, I always, always tell people
that regardless of how small a business you
are, doesn't matter whether you're just one-person
practitioner or you are a big you know, multi
practice, multi business.
You have different departments, like you know,
if you look at Apple, you look at IBM, you
look at, you know, Ford Motor Company, they
have the math department They have the sales
department, they have the human resources
department, the R&D department.
And it's no different to small businesses,
it's just that we often forget that and neglected
because for most small businesses, people
have to wear multiple hats.
But if we actually start to look at our client
journey, and we start to sort of go, okay,
we have this department, it could be the lead
generation and marketing department.
And then we have this department, which is
like the onboarding of new clients and the
processing.
And then we have this department, which is
relationship building and retention.
And then we have a look at how we can actually
make sure all those departments are working
properly because for most small businesses,
all we all we look at is a metric of revenue.
So, you know, like, if we see that one month,
we collected this much money, and then the
next month, we collected more, and the next
month, we collect more, everything's fine,
you know, we're happy.
But then if there's a month that just starts
to drop, and then the next month it drops
again, then we start to go, oh, gosh, like
there's something wrong.
Something's wrong, we need to put more money
into getting more leads.
And to get more money into advertising, we
need to get more money in that, because we
need more new patients or more new clients.
But it could actually be the fact that you're
not converting them, you know, it could be
that you're getting up great, you know, like
people are using your business and getting
a whole lot of new clients but they're not
converting them into care . Or it could be
that they are getting new clients, they're
converting them, but they they have a leaky
bucket.
So with retention, you know, there's no there's
no communication, there's no constant engagement,
there's no value adding or providing them
with like a reason for them to continue using
your services or to refer people so you know,
there's a lot of things we can actually do
to look at big businesses and how they structure
their business and be contemporary with how
we do small business.
Speaker: Prabin
Love it, love it love it man and couldn't
agree more.
And that's what yeah, I think we should as
a small business if some of you guys are watching
this right now, then as a small business,
what is the one thing we can take from a learn
from big businesses is never stop marketing
and never stopped communicating with your
clients or your patients.
Because the whole idea here is to add value,
add value, add value.
Because again, as a small business, putting
the small business hat, you know, some time
we create leads, leads, leads, leads, and
for five months, we don't do anything.
We just sit down and say, Look, we are busy,
and then all of a sudden no return Oh, there's
nothing coming on.
There's no cash coming on.
Let’s Pump It Up marketing a little.
Let's extract or add value, so that doesn't
really go for a long run.
So, what you're saying is and value in a time,
always, isn't it?
Speaker: Billy
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
That’s absolutely
Speaker: Prabin
Now I'm obsessed with the time.
Today, obviously not to go more deeply.
Right.
So as a leader, obviously a lot of things
we're talking about in AI, we talk about digital,
mobile health, we talking about machine learning
a lot of things are coming in next time and
you know, as we just discussing just before
five years has now almost covered up in a
loan last five months, and things are changing.
So, as a thought leader in the healthcare
business, talk to me about the challenging,
you know, the how it's challenging and changing
the digital perspectives within the healthcare
industry, and how you get and yes, some of
the examples if you pass to, you know, to
share with our viewers, that would be great.
Speaker : Billy
Yeah, well, first of all, like,who would have
thought that you know, like back like, if
someone could tell me to go and buy zoom stocks,
I would have bought zoom stocks.
So you know, all these platforms like zoom
and Skype and even on your mobile, your smartphone,
like you know, all those things have started
to change the way we actually can, you know,
can communicate with our clients It's not
just our current clients, but certainly new
clients as well.
And I think that like, once again, going back
to our conversation before about the new normal,
that, you know, last year, in 2019, if you
started telling other health practitioners
about that you could possibly outside of telehealth,
like obviously, we already knew that there
was telehealth, but you know, that you could
easily you know, go on your phone or zoom
or do like a group workshop or start to educate
people on your computer that would say, yeah,
look, yeah, I can see how that can work but
you know, it doesn't it doesn't actually,
like I don't see it isn't that important to
me at the moment, but if you fast track even
this now, you know, like six months, we like
it's people now it's the new norm.
So if a client called up and they wanted to
see you and I was a physiotherapist, and I
told them that, yes, like you can definitely
organize an appointment to come see me, but
what I do prior to you coming In is I would
love to see if we can actually organize a
time where we can actually do a zoom call
or even a Skype call.
And the reason for that is it actually provides
me more benefit and your benefit, so they
can actually see if I can help you with a
good fit first, and also answer any questions
that you might have.
And then also to see whether you're a good
fit for us.
So, when you do come in, we can actually fast
track you around your processing for this,
but in 2019 A lot of people say no, that's
not going to happen.
But the new normal is, is that most people
will probably go Yeah, that sounds like okay,
because now it's the new normal.
So, I think that the technology and innovation
with when it comes to health, the health business,
it's fast track now this new normal where
it's okay and people understand that, you
know, this is what we can actually do to make
it more efficient.
And it also it's actually valid once again,
value add, like, you know, if my doctor said
that he was going to jump on a call with me
and be like this, like imagine if like if
I called up someone out of the blue to organize
an appointment and then that he or she wants
to actually organize a call for we can have
a chat.
And then let's just say for example, it could
be that, oh, like my shoulder, it's over here
and like and then then we end and then we
do report.
So, it's actually we actually fast tracking
the reporting.
It's also fast tracking that if you're my
prospective client, you're now building more
trust in me.
And that's just going to make it easier for
when we actually start to, you know, have
that journey as a client adopter.
Speaker: Prabin
Yeah, totally, man.
Totally.
So again, patients experience keeping patients
in the forefront.
That's, that's the key.
Whatever you do.
Yeah, that's a that's a great insight.
Billy, thank you so much.
Now, anything you want to add before we wrap
up this quick chat for today?
Speaker: Billy
Oh, no.
Thank you very much for having me . If any
of your viewers want some information or have
any questions about what we spoke about, I
think you've got my email, they can just email
me a question and I'll be more than happy
to help them that some of you
Speaker: Prabin
Beauty.
So, let's quickly if you're watching this
right now and you want to know a little bit
about how Billy can help in consulting or
any helping your practices, just email to
Billy at blackdiamondclub.com.
Thank you so much for your time.
I hope you know all the viewers watching this
right now you would have enjoyed and what
you're saying is innovation is a big part
of how we look at Digital advantage in your
business.
And obviously in future episodes, we will
talk about how to innovate, automate and accelerate
in your brand, and then you can monetize it,
so stay tuned guys.
Thanks for watching.
I'll see you on the next episode on Thursday
at 1pm.
Eastern Standard Time, stay safe
