April 19, 2023
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Dr. Danny Clarke: If you start looking at what your costs are involved just to open your doors. So if you look at you have to have a staff you have to have a facility you’ve got to turn on the lights. Before you see a patient. There’s a number there and the amount of dollars that you’ve got to collect in that month before you make any money. And when you start running your numbers and showing them what that number is, and it may be for a lot of practices $100,000 before they even are going to make a dime. Your team listens to that and those are the kinds of things we get down to some of those details and it’s pretty eye-opening.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I’m Bethany Fishbein. I’m the CEO of The Power Practice host of The Power Hour Optometry Podcast. As you probably know, I’m also the owner of two practices in New Jersey. And today I’m talking with another practice owner who has really committed to a fantastic way to engage his team. This is Dr. Danny Clark. He is the owner of Clark Eye Care Center in Wichita Falls, Texas, and a Co-Ffounder of a company called Modus Practice in Motion, which has almost single-handedly brought the great game of business to optometry. And it’s something that is very cool for a lot of practices has been great for many including my own. One of Andrew Peters’s staff members mentioned it on the podcast last week. We had Danny’s partner Jolie speaking on the podcast a couple of months ago about Mini-games. So I invited Danny to talk about the great game of business and the impact that can have on a practice. So Danny, thanks for doing this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Thanks for having me, Bethany. I appreciate it.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And I learned today this is your first Power Hour appearance. So welcome. Hopefully, it’s not going to be too bad.
Dr. Danny Clarke: It is, appreciate it. Thanks.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So I had actually found out about the Great Game of Business years before I met you or Jolie from reading a book talk about like the general concept, the Great Game of Business book and what the ideas of great game overall.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Yeah, so back in 1983 there was a company called Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation and they basically it was a failing subdivision of International Harvester and so there was a leader in the organization a manager named Jack Stack and he wanted to buy this business. So they got some managers together and ended up with a highly leveraged buyout of the business. They purchased it, he had to go to 53 banks to find one that would loan them the money. Back in 83, the interest rate was 18% on this loan and they ended up purchasing the business, and to make their bank payment. They started playing, you know, certain games like you would like monthly incentives and they were saying how are we going to pay our bank loan and they would do like a mountain climber game, something like that. And ultimately, they turned the whole business around by playing these games within the business. They started sharing financials with their team. And after about seven years, they completely paid off all their loans, news outlets started coming in and a book came from it. So the concept of the book, it’s called “The Great Game of Business”, and ends up they paid off that loan from 83 in about 1990 About 94 they wrote a book called “The Great Game of Business” and the concept is basically it was written not just for optometry, it was written for any business. Most of them frankly, are like manufacturing businesses, big you know, $50 million corporations. And it’s how we share our financials with our team. And so the concept is, is that there’s three components to it. One is there’s a scoreboard and the scoreboard they use is really the P&L you look at your revenues minus your cost of goods minus your expenses equals your profit. And the concept is instead of paying bonuses based on you know what we collect in the business or revenues that can be dangerous. The bonus is based on the profit. So it’s tying that owner’s goals with the team goals, so you’re aligned better with your team. There’s also another component of it is that bonus plans. So there’s a quarterly bonus plan or quarterly bonuses are paid out, based on the profitability of the business. And then as you mentioned, Jolie is on a few months ago talking about Mini-Games, and those are the monthly incentives that have helped drive the profitability in the business and it’s fun for the team to play and keeps them engaged. So that’s the concept of the book is basically how we engage our team, to be more business-minded how we teach them financial literacy, and help them to think act, and feel more like owners of our business.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I remember when I read the book at first time and was really into the idea of it and I thought like, Wow! okay, this is really cool. I like the idea of this. I like having team members engaged. I like basing any bonus on profitability instead of revenue. But after feeling that it was one of those things that I just kind of filed away as an idea. Like I could figure this out. When I get around to it someday I’ll figure out how to apply this to optometry. And so I think I mean, you obviously took the steps and said, Okay, I’m going to actually do it instead of putting it on the list somewhere. Or, as I now say, after my conversation with Steve Alexander putting it on the whiteboard, so did you figure it all out on your own? Like, talk about how you got from reading the book to creating something that really is pretty turnkey for optometrists to use.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Right and it’s pretty interesting because it’s pretty organic, which I love is that we ended up figuring out that, that Great Game the company, there’s a company in Springfield, Missouri called the “Great Game of Business” and that spun out of this book and the concept and so we called the people a great game and I wanted to implement it, but I was like, I don’t know how to implement it from the book. And we ended up at a weekend workshop two-day workshop on how to implement the great game of business. And we had a car dealership in the room. There was a friend of mine that’s an optometrist, and Jolie, my partner went with me at the time, and we were intent on implementing this little did we know, it was the first of the implementation workshops they’d ever done. And we just randomly happened to show up the first weekend they ever had one. We went to this and it was very generalized. It was still a general workshop. It wasn’t like here’s exactly how you do every detail, but it’s kind of spelled it out and it went a step beyond the book. So it made it a little more actionable. We had a few, you know, generalized spreadsheets that we kind of work from. And we went back we were intent. So Jolie went back and was working on how we’re going to present this to our team. I went back and was working on all the, you know, the spreadsheets and things we use to actually calculate bonuses and work on the scoreboard. And within two weeks, we presented it to our team and said we’re going with this one of the concepts Bethany of great game is ready fire aim. And I tend to be an Aimer so I tend to want to read the book and think on it forever and ever or do anything. And when that showed up on a slide at their workshop of ready fire aim, I thought, turn to jelly and I said we’re gonna do this. So we just went for it, and we messed up a lot of things. And you know, at first, we weren’t perfect at it. We didn’t know. But it showed some vulnerability with our team. And that first year we went to that workshop in March of 2010 and in April of 2010, April one, we kicked off the great game, and in 2010 we went up 1% and collections and 47% in profitability. That helped a lot because we were like, Whoa, we had this early success. And then we had built the model for optometry just for us. And then what ended up happening was we had other people coming to us saying, “Hey, can you teach us to do this?” And that’s when we started working with Great Game to actually license from them and develop the optometry-specific model. But I’ll tell you, it’s interesting when you develop something for yourself to use, it’s one thing but then trying to figure out how to put tools in place so that others can use it and implement it. It’s a different thing. So we had to kind of work on that the next few years to help others. Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, it’s kind of that like learn one do one teach one concept is so I mean, one of the things that concerns people when they first start to hear me or you or anybody talking about is they have a lot of reluctance when it comes to opening up the books to the team. That’s very terrifying for a lot of practice owners for different reasons sometimes, right some of them think, I don’t want the team to know that we’re not doing well. I don’t want the team to know I’m losing money. Some of them don’t want the team to know how well they are doing. Like I don’t want them to know. You know, I’m grumbling about 50-cent raises and I’m making hundreds of 1000s and then some of them are just afraid of them. You know, I don’t want people to know what they’re being paid. So, I mean, it truly is open-book management. How do you help doctors get over some of the fear that comes along with that?
Dr. Danny Clarke: Absolutely. The number one thing that people are fearful of is are they going to know what I make? And so we do build in a tool. When you go to great game companies. There are certain great game companies, big manufacturing facilities that it’s completely open 100% They know what everybody makes. In optometry we designed a tool where it’s open to the point that makes sense. So we share financials such that the team knows the financials, but the what everybody makes from owners to other staff members is not something that’s shared. So it’s really open-book management as to what makes sense. But I’ll tell you, just from personal, My reason for kind of sharing this and when I got in front of my team and said “Hey, we want to implement great game”. what I was nervous about is our cash flow isn’t good at the time. And when your cash flow isn’t good, I was fearful of sharing that with my team because what if they say “Well, if you’re not insolvent business I’m gonna go, I’m gonna leave” so I was always fearful. So that ready-fire-aim concept came up. I presented to them. “Oh, you know our cash flows aren’t great, by the way”. And not only did they not leave, they came up after the meeting and they said, “How can we help you?” And so it was really interesting that I think that we’re fearful of opening things but the reality is, the more open we’ve become and our clients have become who’ve implemented great game, the fewer questions they get from their team actually when things are closed is when they have more questions. They’re more curious, they’re more concerned. And so we really find over and over again, that there’s really not a lot to be worried about. But the one thing that’s the major one is that your private income isn’t shown. And that’s the one that probably people are most concerned about.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That idea that people are more fearful when there’s unknown,
Dr. Danny Clarke: Right
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: versus when they just know about it. I think that’s true. And the other thing that we see is that when they don’t know about it, they’ll fill in the information that they don’t know with something that they’re making up in their heads that makes sense to them. So we had seen this before. And you guys have heard say the same thing, that the staff does know how much money the business makes, because they’re closing out your credit cards at the end of the night. They’re entering all those payments into the computer, they’re running your day sheet so they know if the practice is, you know, bringing in 10,000 12,000, whatever per day. So the idea of what the business makes is not private to them. Because they’re the ones make that and when they don’t have all the other data, what they tend to think, is that the vast vast majority of that goes to you the practice owner, and it’s one of the things that sometimes will blow up a collection based bonus system. It’s hard to make those feel worth it. “Hey guys, if the practice does $100,000 this month, we’re gonna give you 50” It’s like “Thanks boss?” right like know exactly, but it really helps them to understand “Yeah, we brought in $100,000 here are all the things that we have to spend it on to keep the door open”, talk about the like, mental transformation that people go through as they start to learn this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s exactly hit it on the head. It’s exactly right is that people tend to substitute what they think they know and Jolie, tells a story we always think about back in the day when we collected $2 million. It’s like, half a million is a bunch of money surely that pays all the bills. So my partner on this business, thought before we did this before the books were opened that I was making a million after years and optometrist and we’re like, that’s just not what it is, you know. And so, you know, we all know that but our team doesn’t. And so when we start sharing with the team, and they start seeing all the costs and all the things associated, they’re a little bit like, “Oh my gosh, sorry about that.” You know, they see why we’re stressed out sometimes and you’re exactly right. It does come a little bit like oh, here’s 100,000 And you know, that you’re collecting, like you said, and here’s your $50 good luck with that, you know, but it really ends up being where it does allow them to be more, not just the engagement comes after what happens is, is us being vulnerable and open and being willing to share kind of puts out an olive branch to them to say, Okay, let us learn more. As they learn more they start to realize that it’s not we’re not making all these dollars that they think we did. And then as they’re part of the process of calculating the numbers and in putting things on the scoreboard as you know, and you’re doing your practice that gets them more engaged in it really comes down to a lot of communication. We’re a lot of businesses and our optometry. We don’t have time. We don’t create time in the business. And part of it is a rhythm of communication where we’re talking about financials, and it really does allow them to get more engaged in the business because of that and because of their awareness. They don’t feel so much like there’s this discrepancy or this disparity from ownership to a staff member.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: What are the some of the things that you found are the biggest surprises to staff when they start learning about the expenses I know is the biggest shock to our team, but I’m curious what your experience has been.
Dr. Danny Clarke: I used to do this game it was funny because before the great game, I would be like “Guys they probably need to know a little bit more about I want them to know our bills are high”. So I would go in and you know, go by the tech station and say “Oh, I need to pay these bills today”. And you know, it’d be $50,000 sitting there. You know not that that helps them but there we go. “$50,000 bill, that’s a lot”. But I think one of the things that we do and you can kind of think about from even an equipment standpoint is you people are running equipment all day long. If you go in there and say “how much does that Optomap cost?”, and just ask him as a team, they’ll say “10,000? 15,000?” you know something they’re going to come up with a number higher than they think it would be, and they don’t realize that maybe 80 and go through different equipment. And so some of the things that may be on your balance sheet that aren’t even part of your P&L. Those are surprises for people. There are certain practices we see that tend to share a little more of that but even when we share it in say it sometimes it’s different than when you put it on your P&L or you look at your profit and you add everything up and you start looking at all the things how they add up and I think that’s it reminds me a little bit about that concept like the latte effect. You know, coffee doesn’t cost that much but if you buy $6 a day then it starts to add up. And I think that all those things on the P&L start to add up and they go “Whoa, I didn’t realize that”. The other thing Bethany that I think is a wow factor for them is that if you start looking at what your costs are involved just to open your doors, so if you look at you have to have a staff you have to have a facility you’ve got to turn on the lights. Before you see a patient there’s a number of there an amount of dollars that you’ve got to collect in that month before you make any money. And when you start running your numbers and showing them what that number is, and it may be for a lot of practices $100,000 before they even are going to make a dime. Your team listens to that. And those are the kinds of things we get down to some of those details and it’s pretty eye-opening. It’s eye-opening, frankly, for the owner of the practice because most of us you run your business, but it’s a little bit like how much you run it by how much cash is in the bank is how we kind of run sometimes and so when you’re doing it more strategically, and that’s the point I want to make is not just for the team, but it engages us more to because we have to be responsible for sharing information with them. We’ve got to be better about getting that information. And a lot of our clients are actually like, “Whoa, I didn’t realize that’s what it took to open my doors.”
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That’s true, that’s how I remember the thing that our team was most outraged and surprised by was a credit card service fees. And I remember I don’t know what it was and we had started it but like 27, $2,800 a month in credit card fees like, and them saying “What is that?” Right. Because if we had that as a separate line item, and trying to explain to them, right, “that’s the cost from the credit card company.” “That’s what we paid for those machines?”, I’m like “No, but like they take a percentage on every transaction.” “Wait a minute, so if somebody charges $200, we don’t get $200?”. “No, we don’t get $200.” And it was a completely mind-blowing thing. But we had said to them before, “You know if a patient wants to pay cash, take the cash don’t fall into credit cards, right? It’s like let them put in the four-digit code and make it a debit card”, and whatever and they were like “Yeah, yeah”, never did it and all of a sudden this outrage “Can we get around this?” Like, it was so funny to me it’s because we knew about it. We took it for granted. It’s a cost to doing business and they were like, crazed.
Dr. Danny Clarke: You know, it’s funny that makes me think about not just so if you think about the benefits of great gaming, I’m jumping forward a little bit but if you think about the benefits of Great Game, one of them is is that their awareness to the dollars but the other thing is just what you said they’re like, “Oh, what can we do about this, we may need to start accepting cash a little more, or whatever it may be”. Is I was always the one responsible pre-great game of running reports in our practice, and you know, some of it is behavior and getting things in place and we would put in and we would have all these categories, and I would always be the one to say “ You know don’t just freak free type something in there choose from a drop-down because when I go do my reports, it’s more accurate.”. And they’d be like, “Whatever.” and then as soon as we played great game, literally within two weeks, they had all the reports cleaned up because they had to be the ones getting this information. So it reminds me of what you said about that.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, it definitely brings a lot of awareness to their own spending habits because they might be careful with their money at home or might not. But it’s very different when it’s your money. And oh no big deal. Okay, this patient wants these three frames to try him in a different color. We’ll just order them from three different distributors and, you know, it really makes them aware of what some of those costs are associated with the decisions that they’re making. There’s some that we can’t avoid, right? The rent, utilities, computer, stuff like that. But all those ones that they can impact a little bit, all of a sudden start to just be brought to the forefront. They’re made aware of them. They change or they don’t but either way, you’re talking about them constantly. And you can’t just forget that they exist. It’s kind of cool.
Dr. Danny Clarke: It really is.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So the way that it works is to have this bonus system based on profitability. And I want to talk a little bit more about the importance of that because that’s one of the biggest areas where I see people kind of getting in trouble a little bit is doing a very simple bonus just based on production alone. One of the most extreme ones that I I think about was an office that had a production goal set, it was I forget what the numbers were, if they improved 10% over last year, the team would get some percentage of the amount over the 10% Right, so that was great. The team worked hard to get to 10%. In the meantime, the practice owner at some point hires and associate so now they can see one and a half times as many patients. So yeah, like the practice grew way more than 10% but they had to employ doctors to do it. And after the practice owner figured in the cost of these huge bonuses plus, employing the doctor there was like she ended up giving more than she had increased, which was crazy. So that concept of taking the costs into account and only bonusing when there is true profit, their net income is really an important factor to this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Absolutely. And it’s interesting because it’s really important to protect the practice. It’s fair because it’s right it’s not you know, it’s fair to the practice and it’s fair to the team. But again, it creates that engagement. So it’s kind of dual purpose. But yeah, absolutely. It’s you know, we could be collect 2 million and spend 2 million there’s nothing left over and so we need to incorporate the cost involved and that leads me to think about a little bit just a little more meat to the bone on the great game is is that it’s the P&L we talk about, but I don’t want to forget about the listeners that there is also your balance sheet items. You have things that you owe the bank that aren’t on your P&L and we account for those as well. So it’s not just what’s on your profit and loss statement. It’s also other costs you have and we build what we call a threshold. So then it’s the profit, the incremental increase in profit over that threshold, and we share part of that so it’s even safer for the practice and it makes real good sense because we’ve got everything else involved or accounted for before a bonus is paid.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I want people to understand some of the intangible benefits that this brings to a team. So obviously the awareness. I don’t know if awareness is tangible or intangible but the awareness it’s an opportunity for a bonus. So it gives them a chance to make extra money. But talk about some of the other mindset benefits that come to a team from doing this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Sure. You know, do you think about and one thing I want to make sure I say is that you know, it always sounds like it’s about the money but the reality is, is that great game is about if we have to be a profitable business to provide the best care to our patients. So we make our team very aware because sometimes when we’re talking great game and dollars seems like it becomes about money. But our team very well knows that if we don’t run a profitable business, we can’t offer great care to our patients. So that starts number one with how do we take care of our patients but the team is you know, I’ve been a big believer in not just employing people but developing people. And this gives opportunities for people that really allows them to grow, not just professionally but personally and they can use concepts from this event and take it home and we have one of our team members who had worked with this for her husband, he owns a business and he started incorporating some of the great game concepts there. But if you think about camaraderie, we have at least an hour a week and we recommend for great game practices at least an hour a week of communication. A lot of us quit doing or don’t do office meetings. And it’s because we’re always as the owners, giving information to our team or trying to pull them along with us and this is really team lead. So when we have our meetings, they’re feeling better about themselves because we’re giving them opportunities. And they’re working together to achieve this goal. And we’re kind of moving along with them rather than trying to pull them and just them working together really creates a better team culture, as well. So yeah, I think those are all kind of intangible things that happen. But probably the core concept that it brings is there is really a rhythm of communication. And so you know, we have team meetings every week for the past 13 years we implemented great game in 2010. And prior to that I quit doing them because it was what can I come up with this week and there’s always a core component to discuss. And then there’s discussions that happen around that. So it’s really helped also to develop leaders within the organization because as we’re moving forward, there’s opportunities for leadership growth as well.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Going into logistics a little bit. If someone has read the book and thought that’s a cool concept. They’ve heard someone else doing it or they’re hearing this podcast today and they think okay, I want to do this. What’s the timeline and how do you start?
Dr. Danny Clarke: Sure. So, you know, we don’t have many people that we’ve heard of that just read the book and implement and so what we do is we have a workshop where we help people understand, you know, anything you do with your team, the number one thing is why are you doing this, you need to know the why. So, we start on when we do and just so you know, we do have a day-long workshop where at the first we start talking about why you might want to implement great game, and this is more for not the whole team necessarily, but for owner and manager or leadership team. And then we really go through the concept of: What is a scoreboard? How does your P&L look? Is your P&L set up? And the first things you’re going to do, if you’re going to try and do this after reading the book is to look at your P&L and doesn’t look like an optometry P&L, we see some practices to this day and they have a P&L And I say that doesn’t look like Optometry. Well, it’s what my accountant makes me use. And you know, we really look at this like, you know really almost like an operational P&L, what’s the P&L that’s gonna help you run your business better, and your account is going to file your taxes. So those may look different. We really want people to have that look the same. So we help with the chart of accounts in QuickBooks and that needs to look appropriate. And then you match up the account of chart of accounts in QuickBooks that look like an optometry P&L, and then we put that in a scoreboard. It’s a spreadsheet that looks like basically a scoreboard and then we have team members actually that not just are they responsible for being at the meeting, but certain team members will actually be responsible for projecting and forecasting where we’re gonna be by the end of this month. One of the concepts in great game that I love, it’s not about what we did compared to last year. And it’s not about where are we right this minute. It’s about where we think our profitability is going to be by the end of this month. So our whole team is engaged. I’m looking forward for that. And then once we know what that is, and that’s about the threshold that I mentioned, that is dollars that need to be left in the bank like balance sheet stuff. Then there’s a monthly bonus plan. And so we help people create that monthly bonus plan and the leftover man is what we pay in bonuses to the team. And then during that during the months we’ll have each team member is playing one mini-game, maybe in their department or with the whole team, have some kind of driver that helps increase sales or change behaviors, improve something in the business that’s going to help increase the profitability. So their goal really is to improve profitability. And then ultimately come back in a bonus but for those logistics I mean, you know, if you read the great game book, it’ll go through and talk about scoreboard bonus plan mani-games, but that’s kind of the getting a little bit more in the logistics of how that might work.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: It definitely does take some work though on the part of the practice owner and a manager, administrator, whoever’s gonna run this and it’s one of those where it’s work, but I think it’s really important work. I’ve talked before on the podcast about the importance of having your numbers up to date. And to not be in a situation where you’re finding out how you did six months or 12 months or 18 months after the fact because, at that point, you can change it. So one of the accountability pieces I think this brings that I like is it makes you get your numbers in because the staff has been engaged in this. They’re telling you they’re making those projections. And the first of the month, they’re like, “Well, where are we right?” And you don’t even have them by that and so it puts a little bit of pressure on the leadership of the practice, in my opinion in a really good way.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Totally agree. It creates that accountability for us, which we probably need anyway. And that’s what I said, Why don’t we manage by the checking account what’s in the checking account? And this really allows us to kind of forward forecast and does create some accountability for us to give them that information. Speaking of Bethany, I was just thinking, I want to add to that that, you know, it is there’s definitely time and effort for that. And you mentioned I’m sure you’ve talked before about kinds of big rock items in your business and I’ll talk to our clients about you know, this is one of those core concepts that once you get this in place, and even though yes, it’s more work upfront, but that work we did those first two weeks, when we implemented this, it was like huge amount of time spent for two weeks and then a lot of good things happened. And we all have other things we’re working on but we’ll do a workshop on a weekend on a Saturday and then Monday people will go back and they’re putting fires out. And I’m always like we really need to think about this is a big rock item. When this is in place. It helps a lot of other things fall into place.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: For sure. Give us success stories, something memorable from you or one of the offices that you’ve worked with where this really made a difference in their practice.
Dr. Danny Clarke: We have a client in, that has as a practice in Minnesota, and he was early on and this is you know, some few years ago, but early on in the great game he implemented and in the first year it was like I keep about 20 or 30,000 in my checking account. It wasn’t a huge practice necessarily, but he was 20 and I was like okay, and you know, just from a cash flow standpoint, he was kind of stressed about that whatever. After the first year, he had about 150,000 of free cash sitting in the business and so he had an idea of I want to take my team to Vision Expo West. And so it was really cool because there wasn’t ever enough cash there to really do extra but because the team was engaged and they set kind of a long-term target. And I was at EXPO one year and saw him and he was with his team of you know, 12 or 14 employees and it was just great. Like turned around his company and I saw him recently. That’s probably five years ago. I saw him recently and he’s still going great with great game and still moving forward. With it. So we hear a lot of those success stories and, you know, thinking of those kinds of things that change is and we really look at the opportunities to increase team culture, cash flow and profitability and each practice that implements will say you know, I want to do I’m really looking at cash flow or profitability or team culture. But when they implement great game, well, all those things improve it, and it’s just the design of the game is that you know, you may want to do one, but they all tend to improve when that goes. But that’s just one story. And there’s a lot of little things I can think of that. We hear people and see and then I call this is going really well with our teams. And then like you’ve said you’ve had good success with yours as well. And you mentioned Andrew Peter and I know he was on last week in his team and he does some crazy trips and stuff with his team but I know great game has been part of the fuel for that to help to engage the people.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, and it’s a different appreciation when you’re doing something and I’m afraid it’s not gonna sound right but like, they can see the impact of what you’re doing. And so it’s not something that’s taken for granted. It’s like okay, we see this and know what they want to deliver for the business to make sure that they can do it again and again and again. So it’s very cool. I appreciate you coming on with short notice after Andrew’s team mentioned that I was like “Yeah, I gotta get Danny on here.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Appreciate that.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: But yeah, if somebody wants to learn more, go to one of your workshops. Go ahead and give your website and where they can reach you.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Sure. Yeah. So our website is experiencemodus.com. And you can go there and find a link to upcoming workshops and email me, my email address is DBC@ClarkeEye.com. But the website experiencemodus.com is probably the easiest place and reach out the unlimited talk and if you just want to talk about would this be for your practice or learn more about it? I’m happy to set up calls and visit with people to you know, no commitment, but just to discuss if this makes sense but been great for us and it’s been really fun, engaging our team but also working with other practices and seeing benefits around the US and so really appreciate you having me on Bethany. Thanks.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: My absolute pleasure. for more information about what we do or to set up the talk with somebody on our team. You can find us on powerpractice.com Thank you for listening!
Read the Transcription
Dr. Danny Clarke: If you start looking at what your costs are involved just to open your doors. So if you look at you have to have a staff you have to have a facility you’ve got to turn on the lights. Before you see a patient. There’s a number there and the amount of dollars that you’ve got to collect in that month before you make any money. And when you start running your numbers and showing them what that number is, and it may be for a lot of practices $100,000 before they even are going to make a dime. Your team listens to that and those are the kinds of things we get down to some of those details and it’s pretty eye-opening.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I’m Bethany Fishbein. I’m the CEO of The Power Practice host of The Power Hour Optometry Podcast. As you probably know, I’m also the owner of two practices in New Jersey. And today I’m talking with another practice owner who has really committed to a fantastic way to engage his team. This is Dr. Danny Clark. He is the owner of Clark Eye Care Center in Wichita Falls, Texas, and a Co-Ffounder of a company called Modus Practice in Motion, which has almost single-handedly brought the great game of business to optometry. And it’s something that is very cool for a lot of practices has been great for many including my own. One of Andrew Peters’s staff members mentioned it on the podcast last week. We had Danny’s partner Jolie speaking on the podcast a couple of months ago about Mini-games. So I invited Danny to talk about the great game of business and the impact that can have on a practice. So Danny, thanks for doing this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Thanks for having me, Bethany. I appreciate it.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: And I learned today this is your first Power Hour appearance. So welcome. Hopefully, it’s not going to be too bad.
Dr. Danny Clarke: It is, appreciate it. Thanks.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So I had actually found out about the Great Game of Business years before I met you or Jolie from reading a book talk about like the general concept, the Great Game of Business book and what the ideas of great game overall.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Yeah, so back in 1983 there was a company called Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation and they basically it was a failing subdivision of International Harvester and so there was a leader in the organization a manager named Jack Stack and he wanted to buy this business. So they got some managers together and ended up with a highly leveraged buyout of the business. They purchased it, he had to go to 53 banks to find one that would loan them the money. Back in 83, the interest rate was 18% on this loan and they ended up purchasing the business, and to make their bank payment. They started playing, you know, certain games like you would like monthly incentives and they were saying how are we going to pay our bank loan and they would do like a mountain climber game, something like that. And ultimately, they turned the whole business around by playing these games within the business. They started sharing financials with their team. And after about seven years, they completely paid off all their loans, news outlets started coming in and a book came from it. So the concept of the book, it’s called “The Great Game of Business”, and ends up they paid off that loan from 83 in about 1990 About 94 they wrote a book called “The Great Game of Business” and the concept is basically it was written not just for optometry, it was written for any business. Most of them frankly, are like manufacturing businesses, big you know, $50 million corporations. And it’s how we share our financials with our team. And so the concept is, is that there’s three components to it. One is there’s a scoreboard and the scoreboard they use is really the P&L you look at your revenues minus your cost of goods minus your expenses equals your profit. And the concept is instead of paying bonuses based on you know what we collect in the business or revenues that can be dangerous. The bonus is based on the profit. So it’s tying that owner’s goals with the team goals, so you’re aligned better with your team. There’s also another component of it is that bonus plans. So there’s a quarterly bonus plan or quarterly bonuses are paid out, based on the profitability of the business. And then as you mentioned, Jolie is on a few months ago talking about Mini-Games, and those are the monthly incentives that have helped drive the profitability in the business and it’s fun for the team to play and keeps them engaged. So that’s the concept of the book is basically how we engage our team, to be more business-minded how we teach them financial literacy, and help them to think act, and feel more like owners of our business.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I remember when I read the book at first time and was really into the idea of it and I thought like, Wow! okay, this is really cool. I like the idea of this. I like having team members engaged. I like basing any bonus on profitability instead of revenue. But after feeling that it was one of those things that I just kind of filed away as an idea. Like I could figure this out. When I get around to it someday I’ll figure out how to apply this to optometry. And so I think I mean, you obviously took the steps and said, Okay, I’m going to actually do it instead of putting it on the list somewhere. Or, as I now say, after my conversation with Steve Alexander putting it on the whiteboard, so did you figure it all out on your own? Like, talk about how you got from reading the book to creating something that really is pretty turnkey for optometrists to use.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Right and it’s pretty interesting because it’s pretty organic, which I love is that we ended up figuring out that, that Great Game the company, there’s a company in Springfield, Missouri called the “Great Game of Business” and that spun out of this book and the concept and so we called the people a great game and I wanted to implement it, but I was like, I don’t know how to implement it from the book. And we ended up at a weekend workshop two-day workshop on how to implement the great game of business. And we had a car dealership in the room. There was a friend of mine that’s an optometrist, and Jolie, my partner went with me at the time, and we were intent on implementing this little did we know, it was the first of the implementation workshops they’d ever done. And we just randomly happened to show up the first weekend they ever had one. We went to this and it was very generalized. It was still a general workshop. It wasn’t like here’s exactly how you do every detail, but it’s kind of spelled it out and it went a step beyond the book. So it made it a little more actionable. We had a few, you know, generalized spreadsheets that we kind of work from. And we went back we were intent. So Jolie went back and was working on how we’re going to present this to our team. I went back and was working on all the, you know, the spreadsheets and things we use to actually calculate bonuses and work on the scoreboard. And within two weeks, we presented it to our team and said we’re going with this one of the concepts Bethany of great game is ready fire aim. And I tend to be an Aimer so I tend to want to read the book and think on it forever and ever or do anything. And when that showed up on a slide at their workshop of ready fire aim, I thought, turn to jelly and I said we’re gonna do this. So we just went for it, and we messed up a lot of things. And you know, at first, we weren’t perfect at it. We didn’t know. But it showed some vulnerability with our team. And that first year we went to that workshop in March of 2010 and in April of 2010, April one, we kicked off the great game, and in 2010 we went up 1% and collections and 47% in profitability. That helped a lot because we were like, Whoa, we had this early success. And then we had built the model for optometry just for us. And then what ended up happening was we had other people coming to us saying, “Hey, can you teach us to do this?” And that’s when we started working with Great Game to actually license from them and develop the optometry-specific model. But I’ll tell you, it’s interesting when you develop something for yourself to use, it’s one thing but then trying to figure out how to put tools in place so that others can use it and implement it. It’s a different thing. So we had to kind of work on that the next few years to help others. Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, it’s kind of that like learn one do one teach one concept is so I mean, one of the things that concerns people when they first start to hear me or you or anybody talking about is they have a lot of reluctance when it comes to opening up the books to the team. That’s very terrifying for a lot of practice owners for different reasons sometimes, right some of them think, I don’t want the team to know that we’re not doing well. I don’t want the team to know I’m losing money. Some of them don’t want the team to know how well they are doing. Like I don’t want them to know. You know, I’m grumbling about 50-cent raises and I’m making hundreds of 1000s and then some of them are just afraid of them. You know, I don’t want people to know what they’re being paid. So, I mean, it truly is open-book management. How do you help doctors get over some of the fear that comes along with that?
Dr. Danny Clarke: Absolutely. The number one thing that people are fearful of is are they going to know what I make? And so we do build in a tool. When you go to great game companies. There are certain great game companies, big manufacturing facilities that it’s completely open 100% They know what everybody makes. In optometry we designed a tool where it’s open to the point that makes sense. So we share financials such that the team knows the financials, but the what everybody makes from owners to other staff members is not something that’s shared. So it’s really open-book management as to what makes sense. But I’ll tell you, just from personal, My reason for kind of sharing this and when I got in front of my team and said “Hey, we want to implement great game”. what I was nervous about is our cash flow isn’t good at the time. And when your cash flow isn’t good, I was fearful of sharing that with my team because what if they say “Well, if you’re not insolvent business I’m gonna go, I’m gonna leave” so I was always fearful. So that ready-fire-aim concept came up. I presented to them. “Oh, you know our cash flows aren’t great, by the way”. And not only did they not leave, they came up after the meeting and they said, “How can we help you?” And so it was really interesting that I think that we’re fearful of opening things but the reality is, the more open we’ve become and our clients have become who’ve implemented great game, the fewer questions they get from their team actually when things are closed is when they have more questions. They’re more curious, they’re more concerned. And so we really find over and over again, that there’s really not a lot to be worried about. But the one thing that’s the major one is that your private income isn’t shown. And that’s the one that probably people are most concerned about.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That idea that people are more fearful when there’s unknown,
Dr. Danny Clarke: Right
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: versus when they just know about it. I think that’s true. And the other thing that we see is that when they don’t know about it, they’ll fill in the information that they don’t know with something that they’re making up in their heads that makes sense to them. So we had seen this before. And you guys have heard say the same thing, that the staff does know how much money the business makes, because they’re closing out your credit cards at the end of the night. They’re entering all those payments into the computer, they’re running your day sheet so they know if the practice is, you know, bringing in 10,000 12,000, whatever per day. So the idea of what the business makes is not private to them. Because they’re the ones make that and when they don’t have all the other data, what they tend to think, is that the vast vast majority of that goes to you the practice owner, and it’s one of the things that sometimes will blow up a collection based bonus system. It’s hard to make those feel worth it. “Hey guys, if the practice does $100,000 this month, we’re gonna give you 50” It’s like “Thanks boss?” right like know exactly, but it really helps them to understand “Yeah, we brought in $100,000 here are all the things that we have to spend it on to keep the door open”, talk about the like, mental transformation that people go through as they start to learn this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s exactly hit it on the head. It’s exactly right is that people tend to substitute what they think they know and Jolie, tells a story we always think about back in the day when we collected $2 million. It’s like, half a million is a bunch of money surely that pays all the bills. So my partner on this business, thought before we did this before the books were opened that I was making a million after years and optometrist and we’re like, that’s just not what it is, you know. And so, you know, we all know that but our team doesn’t. And so when we start sharing with the team, and they start seeing all the costs and all the things associated, they’re a little bit like, “Oh my gosh, sorry about that.” You know, they see why we’re stressed out sometimes and you’re exactly right. It does come a little bit like oh, here’s 100,000 And you know, that you’re collecting, like you said, and here’s your $50 good luck with that, you know, but it really ends up being where it does allow them to be more, not just the engagement comes after what happens is, is us being vulnerable and open and being willing to share kind of puts out an olive branch to them to say, Okay, let us learn more. As they learn more they start to realize that it’s not we’re not making all these dollars that they think we did. And then as they’re part of the process of calculating the numbers and in putting things on the scoreboard as you know, and you’re doing your practice that gets them more engaged in it really comes down to a lot of communication. We’re a lot of businesses and our optometry. We don’t have time. We don’t create time in the business. And part of it is a rhythm of communication where we’re talking about financials, and it really does allow them to get more engaged in the business because of that and because of their awareness. They don’t feel so much like there’s this discrepancy or this disparity from ownership to a staff member.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: What are the some of the things that you found are the biggest surprises to staff when they start learning about the expenses I know is the biggest shock to our team, but I’m curious what your experience has been.
Dr. Danny Clarke: I used to do this game it was funny because before the great game, I would be like “Guys they probably need to know a little bit more about I want them to know our bills are high”. So I would go in and you know, go by the tech station and say “Oh, I need to pay these bills today”. And you know, it’d be $50,000 sitting there. You know not that that helps them but there we go. “$50,000 bill, that’s a lot”. But I think one of the things that we do and you can kind of think about from even an equipment standpoint is you people are running equipment all day long. If you go in there and say “how much does that Optomap cost?”, and just ask him as a team, they’ll say “10,000? 15,000?” you know something they’re going to come up with a number higher than they think it would be, and they don’t realize that maybe 80 and go through different equipment. And so some of the things that may be on your balance sheet that aren’t even part of your P&L. Those are surprises for people. There are certain practices we see that tend to share a little more of that but even when we share it in say it sometimes it’s different than when you put it on your P&L or you look at your profit and you add everything up and you start looking at all the things how they add up and I think that’s it reminds me a little bit about that concept like the latte effect. You know, coffee doesn’t cost that much but if you buy $6 a day then it starts to add up. And I think that all those things on the P&L start to add up and they go “Whoa, I didn’t realize that”. The other thing Bethany that I think is a wow factor for them is that if you start looking at what your costs are involved just to open your doors, so if you look at you have to have a staff you have to have a facility you’ve got to turn on the lights. Before you see a patient there’s a number of there an amount of dollars that you’ve got to collect in that month before you make any money. And when you start running your numbers and showing them what that number is, and it may be for a lot of practices $100,000 before they even are going to make a dime. Your team listens to that. And those are the kinds of things we get down to some of those details and it’s pretty eye-opening. It’s eye-opening, frankly, for the owner of the practice because most of us you run your business, but it’s a little bit like how much you run it by how much cash is in the bank is how we kind of run sometimes and so when you’re doing it more strategically, and that’s the point I want to make is not just for the team, but it engages us more to because we have to be responsible for sharing information with them. We’ve got to be better about getting that information. And a lot of our clients are actually like, “Whoa, I didn’t realize that’s what it took to open my doors.”
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: That’s true, that’s how I remember the thing that our team was most outraged and surprised by was a credit card service fees. And I remember I don’t know what it was and we had started it but like 27, $2,800 a month in credit card fees like, and them saying “What is that?” Right. Because if we had that as a separate line item, and trying to explain to them, right, “that’s the cost from the credit card company.” “That’s what we paid for those machines?”, I’m like “No, but like they take a percentage on every transaction.” “Wait a minute, so if somebody charges $200, we don’t get $200?”. “No, we don’t get $200.” And it was a completely mind-blowing thing. But we had said to them before, “You know if a patient wants to pay cash, take the cash don’t fall into credit cards, right? It’s like let them put in the four-digit code and make it a debit card”, and whatever and they were like “Yeah, yeah”, never did it and all of a sudden this outrage “Can we get around this?” Like, it was so funny to me it’s because we knew about it. We took it for granted. It’s a cost to doing business and they were like, crazed.
Dr. Danny Clarke: You know, it’s funny that makes me think about not just so if you think about the benefits of great gaming, I’m jumping forward a little bit but if you think about the benefits of Great Game, one of them is is that their awareness to the dollars but the other thing is just what you said they’re like, “Oh, what can we do about this, we may need to start accepting cash a little more, or whatever it may be”. Is I was always the one responsible pre-great game of running reports in our practice, and you know, some of it is behavior and getting things in place and we would put in and we would have all these categories, and I would always be the one to say “ You know don’t just freak free type something in there choose from a drop-down because when I go do my reports, it’s more accurate.”. And they’d be like, “Whatever.” and then as soon as we played great game, literally within two weeks, they had all the reports cleaned up because they had to be the ones getting this information. So it reminds me of what you said about that.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, it definitely brings a lot of awareness to their own spending habits because they might be careful with their money at home or might not. But it’s very different when it’s your money. And oh no big deal. Okay, this patient wants these three frames to try him in a different color. We’ll just order them from three different distributors and, you know, it really makes them aware of what some of those costs are associated with the decisions that they’re making. There’s some that we can’t avoid, right? The rent, utilities, computer, stuff like that. But all those ones that they can impact a little bit, all of a sudden start to just be brought to the forefront. They’re made aware of them. They change or they don’t but either way, you’re talking about them constantly. And you can’t just forget that they exist. It’s kind of cool.
Dr. Danny Clarke: It really is.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: So the way that it works is to have this bonus system based on profitability. And I want to talk a little bit more about the importance of that because that’s one of the biggest areas where I see people kind of getting in trouble a little bit is doing a very simple bonus just based on production alone. One of the most extreme ones that I I think about was an office that had a production goal set, it was I forget what the numbers were, if they improved 10% over last year, the team would get some percentage of the amount over the 10% Right, so that was great. The team worked hard to get to 10%. In the meantime, the practice owner at some point hires and associate so now they can see one and a half times as many patients. So yeah, like the practice grew way more than 10% but they had to employ doctors to do it. And after the practice owner figured in the cost of these huge bonuses plus, employing the doctor there was like she ended up giving more than she had increased, which was crazy. So that concept of taking the costs into account and only bonusing when there is true profit, their net income is really an important factor to this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Absolutely. And it’s interesting because it’s really important to protect the practice. It’s fair because it’s right it’s not you know, it’s fair to the practice and it’s fair to the team. But again, it creates that engagement. So it’s kind of dual purpose. But yeah, absolutely. It’s you know, we could be collect 2 million and spend 2 million there’s nothing left over and so we need to incorporate the cost involved and that leads me to think about a little bit just a little more meat to the bone on the great game is is that it’s the P&L we talk about, but I don’t want to forget about the listeners that there is also your balance sheet items. You have things that you owe the bank that aren’t on your P&L and we account for those as well. So it’s not just what’s on your profit and loss statement. It’s also other costs you have and we build what we call a threshold. So then it’s the profit, the incremental increase in profit over that threshold, and we share part of that so it’s even safer for the practice and it makes real good sense because we’ve got everything else involved or accounted for before a bonus is paid.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: I want people to understand some of the intangible benefits that this brings to a team. So obviously the awareness. I don’t know if awareness is tangible or intangible but the awareness it’s an opportunity for a bonus. So it gives them a chance to make extra money. But talk about some of the other mindset benefits that come to a team from doing this.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Sure. You know, do you think about and one thing I want to make sure I say is that you know, it always sounds like it’s about the money but the reality is, is that great game is about if we have to be a profitable business to provide the best care to our patients. So we make our team very aware because sometimes when we’re talking great game and dollars seems like it becomes about money. But our team very well knows that if we don’t run a profitable business, we can’t offer great care to our patients. So that starts number one with how do we take care of our patients but the team is you know, I’ve been a big believer in not just employing people but developing people. And this gives opportunities for people that really allows them to grow, not just professionally but personally and they can use concepts from this event and take it home and we have one of our team members who had worked with this for her husband, he owns a business and he started incorporating some of the great game concepts there. But if you think about camaraderie, we have at least an hour a week and we recommend for great game practices at least an hour a week of communication. A lot of us quit doing or don’t do office meetings. And it’s because we’re always as the owners, giving information to our team or trying to pull them along with us and this is really team lead. So when we have our meetings, they’re feeling better about themselves because we’re giving them opportunities. And they’re working together to achieve this goal. And we’re kind of moving along with them rather than trying to pull them and just them working together really creates a better team culture, as well. So yeah, I think those are all kind of intangible things that happen. But probably the core concept that it brings is there is really a rhythm of communication. And so you know, we have team meetings every week for the past 13 years we implemented great game in 2010. And prior to that I quit doing them because it was what can I come up with this week and there’s always a core component to discuss. And then there’s discussions that happen around that. So it’s really helped also to develop leaders within the organization because as we’re moving forward, there’s opportunities for leadership growth as well.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Going into logistics a little bit. If someone has read the book and thought that’s a cool concept. They’ve heard someone else doing it or they’re hearing this podcast today and they think okay, I want to do this. What’s the timeline and how do you start?
Dr. Danny Clarke: Sure. So, you know, we don’t have many people that we’ve heard of that just read the book and implement and so what we do is we have a workshop where we help people understand, you know, anything you do with your team, the number one thing is why are you doing this, you need to know the why. So, we start on when we do and just so you know, we do have a day-long workshop where at the first we start talking about why you might want to implement great game, and this is more for not the whole team necessarily, but for owner and manager or leadership team. And then we really go through the concept of: What is a scoreboard? How does your P&L look? Is your P&L set up? And the first things you’re going to do, if you’re going to try and do this after reading the book is to look at your P&L and doesn’t look like an optometry P&L, we see some practices to this day and they have a P&L And I say that doesn’t look like Optometry. Well, it’s what my accountant makes me use. And you know, we really look at this like, you know really almost like an operational P&L, what’s the P&L that’s gonna help you run your business better, and your account is going to file your taxes. So those may look different. We really want people to have that look the same. So we help with the chart of accounts in QuickBooks and that needs to look appropriate. And then you match up the account of chart of accounts in QuickBooks that look like an optometry P&L, and then we put that in a scoreboard. It’s a spreadsheet that looks like basically a scoreboard and then we have team members actually that not just are they responsible for being at the meeting, but certain team members will actually be responsible for projecting and forecasting where we’re gonna be by the end of this month. One of the concepts in great game that I love, it’s not about what we did compared to last year. And it’s not about where are we right this minute. It’s about where we think our profitability is going to be by the end of this month. So our whole team is engaged. I’m looking forward for that. And then once we know what that is, and that’s about the threshold that I mentioned, that is dollars that need to be left in the bank like balance sheet stuff. Then there’s a monthly bonus plan. And so we help people create that monthly bonus plan and the leftover man is what we pay in bonuses to the team. And then during that during the months we’ll have each team member is playing one mini-game, maybe in their department or with the whole team, have some kind of driver that helps increase sales or change behaviors, improve something in the business that’s going to help increase the profitability. So their goal really is to improve profitability. And then ultimately come back in a bonus but for those logistics I mean, you know, if you read the great game book, it’ll go through and talk about scoreboard bonus plan mani-games, but that’s kind of the getting a little bit more in the logistics of how that might work.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: It definitely does take some work though on the part of the practice owner and a manager, administrator, whoever’s gonna run this and it’s one of those where it’s work, but I think it’s really important work. I’ve talked before on the podcast about the importance of having your numbers up to date. And to not be in a situation where you’re finding out how you did six months or 12 months or 18 months after the fact because, at that point, you can change it. So one of the accountability pieces I think this brings that I like is it makes you get your numbers in because the staff has been engaged in this. They’re telling you they’re making those projections. And the first of the month, they’re like, “Well, where are we right?” And you don’t even have them by that and so it puts a little bit of pressure on the leadership of the practice, in my opinion in a really good way.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Totally agree. It creates that accountability for us, which we probably need anyway. And that’s what I said, Why don’t we manage by the checking account what’s in the checking account? And this really allows us to kind of forward forecast and does create some accountability for us to give them that information. Speaking of Bethany, I was just thinking, I want to add to that that, you know, it is there’s definitely time and effort for that. And you mentioned I’m sure you’ve talked before about kinds of big rock items in your business and I’ll talk to our clients about you know, this is one of those core concepts that once you get this in place, and even though yes, it’s more work upfront, but that work we did those first two weeks, when we implemented this, it was like huge amount of time spent for two weeks and then a lot of good things happened. And we all have other things we’re working on but we’ll do a workshop on a weekend on a Saturday and then Monday people will go back and they’re putting fires out. And I’m always like we really need to think about this is a big rock item. When this is in place. It helps a lot of other things fall into place.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: For sure. Give us success stories, something memorable from you or one of the offices that you’ve worked with where this really made a difference in their practice.
Dr. Danny Clarke: We have a client in, that has as a practice in Minnesota, and he was early on and this is you know, some few years ago, but early on in the great game he implemented and in the first year it was like I keep about 20 or 30,000 in my checking account. It wasn’t a huge practice necessarily, but he was 20 and I was like okay, and you know, just from a cash flow standpoint, he was kind of stressed about that whatever. After the first year, he had about 150,000 of free cash sitting in the business and so he had an idea of I want to take my team to Vision Expo West. And so it was really cool because there wasn’t ever enough cash there to really do extra but because the team was engaged and they set kind of a long-term target. And I was at EXPO one year and saw him and he was with his team of you know, 12 or 14 employees and it was just great. Like turned around his company and I saw him recently. That’s probably five years ago. I saw him recently and he’s still going great with great game and still moving forward. With it. So we hear a lot of those success stories and, you know, thinking of those kinds of things that change is and we really look at the opportunities to increase team culture, cash flow and profitability and each practice that implements will say you know, I want to do I’m really looking at cash flow or profitability or team culture. But when they implement great game, well, all those things improve it, and it’s just the design of the game is that you know, you may want to do one, but they all tend to improve when that goes. But that’s just one story. And there’s a lot of little things I can think of that. We hear people and see and then I call this is going really well with our teams. And then like you’ve said you’ve had good success with yours as well. And you mentioned Andrew Peter and I know he was on last week in his team and he does some crazy trips and stuff with his team but I know great game has been part of the fuel for that to help to engage the people.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, and it’s a different appreciation when you’re doing something and I’m afraid it’s not gonna sound right but like, they can see the impact of what you’re doing. And so it’s not something that’s taken for granted. It’s like okay, we see this and know what they want to deliver for the business to make sure that they can do it again and again and again. So it’s very cool. I appreciate you coming on with short notice after Andrew’s team mentioned that I was like “Yeah, I gotta get Danny on here.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Appreciate that.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: But yeah, if somebody wants to learn more, go to one of your workshops. Go ahead and give your website and where they can reach you.
Dr. Danny Clarke: Sure. Yeah. So our website is experiencemodus.com. And you can go there and find a link to upcoming workshops and email me, my email address is DBC@ClarkeEye.com. But the website experiencemodus.com is probably the easiest place and reach out the unlimited talk and if you just want to talk about would this be for your practice or learn more about it? I’m happy to set up calls and visit with people to you know, no commitment, but just to discuss if this makes sense but been great for us and it’s been really fun, engaging our team but also working with other practices and seeing benefits around the US and so really appreciate you having me on Bethany. Thanks.
Dr.Bethany Fishbein: My absolute pleasure. for more information about what we do or to set up the talk with somebody on our team. You can find us on powerpractice.com Thank you for listening!