Building a Sustainable Practice Model with Jabe Brown

If talking about money makes you squirm, your clinic might be paying the price. We sit down with Jabe Brown, practitioner and founder of Melbourne Functional Medicine, to get real about what it takes to build a sustainable naturopath or functional medicine practice in Australia without burning out or undercharging.

We unpack the mindset piece first: the quiet money stories that lead to discounting, overdelivering, and never feeling “ready” to charge properly. Then we move into the practical mechanics that most practitioners were never taught at college, including cash flow vs profit, what “knowing your numbers” actually looks like, and why business skills often matter more than stacking another qualification when your diary is empty.

A big focus is the dispensary and supplement side of clinic revenue. We break down markup vs margin in plain language, why small discounts can smash your margin, and how to treat your dispensary as a convenience-driven growth engine that supports patient adherence and your bottom line. Finally, we talk scalability: what to do when you are fully booked, how supply and demand influences pricing, and how models like practitioner plus health coach support can bridge the implementation gap between appointments.

If you want a clinic that lasts, this is a grounded roadmap for clinic growth, pricing with confidence, and building systems for retention and referrals. Subscribe, share this with a practitioner mate, and leave a review with the one business change you are committing to next.

Shownotes and references are available on the Designs for Health website


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DISCLAIMER: The Information provided in the Wellness by Designs podcast is for educational purposes only; the information presented is not intended to be used as medical advice; please seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional if what you have heard here today raises questions or concerns relating to your health

Transcript

Welcome And Clinic Model

SPEAKER_01 0:11

This is Wellness by Designs, and I'm your host, Amy Skilton. And joining us today is Jabe Brown, who is a practitioner and also the founder of Melbourne Functional Medicine. And today we're speaking on all kinds of incredible things about business. So an episode that's slightly different to our usual condition-based or ingredient-based chat, but one that I'm actually very, very excited to talk about. But before I dive into what we're covering, allow me to introduce Jabe properly. To call him a practitioner is to really scratch the surface of what he does, how he does it, and his learning. He does have a master's in science in nutritional and functional medicine and is continuing to train in that space. Of course, as a degree qualified naturopath, he is qualified in communication too, which will no doubt become evident during our chat, and is very, very passionate about translating N equals one data from a patient in a relatable way to help them understand what's going on and really empower them to make the changes in their life. And what is really fascinating, and something I'm actually personally really admire about Jabe is he created or rather structured his clinic, Melbourne Functional Medicine, out of identifying a real gap in the profession where often it's not a lack of knowledge that practitioners have and a lack of information and instruction that's given to our patients, but a lack of support actually for implementation, encouragement, troubleshooting between sessions. And if I was to reduce the description of his clinic to something incredibly oversimplified, every patient that goes to his clinic gets a practitioner and a health coach to support them. And these two beautiful humans work together to support patients on their journey to not only deliver a treatment plans and guide that, but actually support and implement that in between sessions too, which ultimately I think in today's day and age of information is the fundamental gap in clinical practice where patients actually need more in order to be able to affect change in their lives and therefore get the results with the incredible information that uh practitioners are sharing with their patients today. So, Jabe, I'm so excited to introduce you. First of all, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Amy, and for that um for that introduction.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

It's a pleasure to yes, and I'm so excited for our listeners to learn from you today because you have such a wealth of knowledge and experience and really just translating what you've seen in our profession as a you know a really a missing link to getting the outcomes that we know naturopathic medicine can create and nutritional medicine. And although we're going to certainly be talking about your clinic model and your own business founder journey, the intention of our chat today is really to share some insights, I think, for practitioners, regardless of where they are in their career, if you like, as far as clinical practice goes. So this episode is for you if you are a new graduate or you're in your first one to five years of business, because we are going to be covering some of those essentials that you want to get across really early on around mindset about being a business owner and making money, knowing your numbers properly, utilizing things like your dispensary as a growth engine for your business, pricing with confidence. That's something that we see a distinct lack of in our profession, certainly early on, and how to create systems so that your business is sustainable and scalable at the same time. That being said, of course, Jabe, with the extensive experience and knowledge that he has, also is going to be sharing things today that even if you are the most seasoned clinician, is going to give you opportunities and inspiration to look at your own business model and see what perhaps you might be able to upgrade or tweak or refine or redesign if that's what you feel called to do, in order to, you know, ensure that you're thriving in the business and your business is thriving with you in it too. So,

Why Profit Keeps The Doors Open

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Jabe, I've just given a very long menu of what we're going to be talking about today. But I think before we even dive into those things, I would love to hear you talk to the reality of what a running a business here in Australia, small businesses like anyway, but also unique to our own profession, just how challenging that can be. Can you share some insights with us?

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Yeah, so I suppose the first thing more broadly, and these statistics vary depending on who it is that you read, but a significant portion of businesses are no longer businesses within five years. And depending on who you read, that's 90% or 50%. But the story remains true. Businesses don't tend to keep on going for forever, and a lot of them close because business is hard. Now, the thing that I think I've observed is that most people get into our profession, a healing, um, because for the love of it, they want to help someone, they feel great about that. So you go off and you go to naturopathy school or whatever your modality is, and it's it's wonderful. You've got this beautiful knowledge that you're going to share with people. But the reality is, is that when you get out, unless you're one of the few that gets a paid position in a clinic, um, you're going to be starting a business for most people. And that is something that we don't typically get trained on, and is behind one of the statistics that I heard all the way back at the start of when I was at college, and that was 95% of those who end up graduating with a naturopathy degree don't end up practicing as their sole or primary source of income. Now, that might be because they've got a side gig gig going on, or it might be because life happened and they've got other stuff. But if you put those two statistics together, it means that it's pretty tough.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Uh operating a business without really recognizing that that it's a business, then you're not really in business. And our profession's got this kind of stigma around the words money and profit. Profit's a dirty word. But the reality is if you can't figure out how to make your endeavor profitable, then it isn't sustainable. It's not operationally sustainable, and therefore you don't have a business, and therefore you can't help people with the knowledge that you've got. And so I'm kind of uh all about understanding that it's okay to be in business because if you're not in business, you can't help anyone. And that's not why we get into this.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I think that's probably the first clinical pearl I'd like to just pause on for a moment. And that is if you're not profitable, you're not in business, and then you can't help anyone. And I'm sure there are, you know, there, I'm sure there are clinicians that have maybe a few different revenue streams and they're happy to have it that way. I personally do like a lot of variety myself, but I do think there are many practitioners who would love to earn a full-time income from their business, but are quite drained trying to make ends meet with maybe, you know, a part-time job or some other some other gig, and then their business actually isn't growing. I know um shout out to Amy Mengen, who's a business coach in our space, and she talks about the difference between having a hobby business and a business business. And, you know, I don't think it's helpful that certainly when I trained, which I must say was it, you know, eons ago, there was no business training at all. And I don't think it's changed very much. Um, and I think you're right, you know, when you go into a healing profession, for the most part, people don't choose it to make money, that's for damn sure. It's a heart-centered, soul-led um way of making a living. And because of that, you know, it tends to attract practitioners or people becoming practitioners who are just very much first and foremost, what's on their heart is helping people to become well. But as you said, if you're not making money in your business, you actually aren't going to be able to help as many people, or you might end up fizzle out and make make no money, which is such a waste of your knowledge and your beautiful energy for a start. And there also seems to be, I don't know, I still haven't quite put my finger on it, but there does seem to be some weird subconscious mindset around making money or being profitable or earning good income, doing something you love, is actually just something that's not possible, like it's not aligned with being a good person or having your priorities right. Do you have a sense of where that comes from?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

It's a money story thing, right? Um so we because we're healers, we want to do the right thing for the other party, and that's and that's our patient. And so um we'll go a little bit over in time, we might give them a discount on a on a product, we'll forgive them when they're um late or don't attend because we like them, we want to help, we don't want to make we don't want to make conflict and we're in it for the healing. Um, but I think the the truth of it is is that business has a formula, and there are tons of other professions that have got it. And if you just recognize it's a mindset thing, that it is okay to make money, not only is it okay, it's actually helping more people in the world that it's our profession, by and large, has a money story, and that it's I'm not worthy, I'm not valuable enough, I'm not a doctor, people won't value my pathology. Um, supplements, they're gonna get cheap somewhere else, so I shouldn't sell them. And we cut ourselves off from providing value to people in a business sense because of our own mindset. And if you have that money mindset and you never make money, then you find yourself doing something other than doing healing, and that's tragic. What a shame. Yeah. This is what people are drawn to. It's their reason, for example.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Well, I think if anyone's listening to this and like they're getting like a little knot in their tummy or feeling like uncomfortable that we're talking about money, this is like a green flag that there is definitely some money mindset work to do. And I think you're right, it comes down to there's partly a self-worth piece. And I do find typically people who go into healing very empathic, which is lovely, but also representative of perhaps poor boundaries and low self-worth growing up. It needs some work. And actually, you know, being able to say, I'm actually really worth earning good money. What I do makes a huge difference in the world, and I deserve to be compensated for what I have to offer, is one big part of it. But the other side of it is that practical, there's a formula to it. And I think most people who go into the healing arts, whatever that might look like, don't realize you must also train in business. Now, that doesn't mean you have to go and get a business degree, but because you are setting up a business, there are, of course, basic fundamentals that you might get from your local, you know, state government, um, you know, around tax business structure, whatever. But beyond that, in terms of business growth, if you don't have that entrepreneurial hunger, which some of us do and some of us just don't, like how is it going to be that you're going to have a successful, thriving, scalable, sustainable business if you don't proactively put some time and energy into finding and getting those skills and acquiring those skills? And I know when we were sort of discussing this like beforehand,

Business Skills Beat Another Qualification

SPEAKER_01 12:00

the emyth principle of 80% of success is business skills, not clinical skills. I'm so excited to talk to you about this too. Because, you know, as you said, if you if you're not thriving in business, you can't help anyone. So if you if you won't do it for yourself, do it for the people that are missing out on your, you know, on your help. Um, but I wanted to really rest on that, that 80% of success in business is business skills rather than clinical skills. Because what I see over and over again, and I've also done this, by the way, I've gone, oh, I just don't feel like I know enough. If I just get one more certification, I joke that I'm the most overqualified beauty therapist there is. Like I've got certificates for everything. But these aren't the things that are going to guarantee you success in business. Yes, they're lovely modalities. Yes, it's an extra string to your bow. But I think people keep searching for more qualifications in the health sector without realizing success is actually in the business skills. So talk to me about this.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Well, does this dream um a naivety that I've got my knowledge and then I'm gonna get a clinic, I'm gonna open my doors, and then the people will arrive. And the reality is you open up your doors unless you've done a bunch of marketing efforts, there's there's crickets and tumblework. Um and it's all right, so I remember um back in um in our past school, I went to Endeavour. He went, and we were in a business class, it was the final unit or something, and he went around the classroom and um said, Okay, what are all of you going to charge when you're out? And let's get a show of hands. And um, you know, $60, bear in mind this was 15 years ago. Um, $60, $40, $80, put my hand up and said $100 and the they stopped, stamped their feet and put their hands on the what makes you think that you're gonna be able to charge that? The tutor said that to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, and this is part of part of the problem is that we've got this group think on what natural gas is worth. And um the the truth of it is is that I'm ch if I'm charging anything less than that at that time, then I'm losing money and I I don't end up actually um actually helping people. And so this this 80% of the of the business skills uh is is is your future. It's it's if you can heal someone, great. And if no one knows that you can heal anyone, then it doesn't, it's not valuable to them. And so that when there aren't enough people coming in the door, um getting another qualification isn't gonna help them come through the door. 30 years ago it would have. And that was people were searching based on qualifications in um, I don't know, the the yellow pages or whatever it is. And now people are attracted to your story, your message, your values, and your your what you've got, how you're operating, and that isn't based on qualifications. People just need to believe that you're the right person to help me. And that isn't based on your qualification, and qualification chasing is not wrong. More education is great, but often it's procrastination. And if you're intentionally trying to level up your game by getting more knowledge, there's a world where instead you level up your game by getting more knowledge about business. Because if 80% of your time initially is around attracting patients and getting them in, giving them good service, making them return all of the good business practices, then the business will thrive. But if you already know that if you've you've got the knowledge, you can help people, you just need to get them in your door.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yes, it's business. So I would love to know, did you go into naturopathy as like a second career? Is that yeah? So, in some ways, you had already been in business or in the corporate world perhaps. So you didn't come in fresh thinking, oh, I'm just a healer.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Well, so I uh my first degree was um commerce marketing. And then I got towards the end of that and realized, oh, I'm exactly the sucker that would go and get a corporate job, and then they wave the carrot and I'd climb the ladder, and then at 65, I'd look around and go, Oh, whoops, I kind of missed it all. And uh that something else needed to happen for me. I went through a bit of a down patch in life, and part of climbing out of that was uh pulling my myself together and um reinventing myself and uh getting healthy, and then it got to the point where my mates had just about paid me to shut up and stop trying to solve their health problems. I was like, maybe I could do this.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Went off and uh and did naturopathy. So yeah, by the time that I I I finished, I I had the both, which um a bit helpful, I suppose. But uh, but I don't know that in retrospect that I needed a degree. There's a lot of fundamental principles and foundations that you can learn without a business degree. Um and I suppose a part of the bit that I'm passionate about is helping share that with people because if they can make their business work, then there's more of us out there helping um the world doing our thing. And I think that's something that the world needs.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Oh, desperately, desperately needs that for sure. And and I feel the same, you know, I've done mentoring for new grads and even more senior clinicians. And, you know, there's not one person that I've mentored who I've thought, I don't know if this is professional for you. Like I've always been blown away by their passion, their skills, and it just literally has been like, you know, marketing typically, but also systems, I think. Um, you know, in the beginning, marketing is your challenge, and then as as you grow, you very quickly work out you could there's a capacity issue and you have to think about different systems. Um, and for anyone who's like really excited about this or just knows in their heart that this is the next step for them in order to be able to grow or, you know, keep their business or make their business actually a source of full-time income. Uh Jabe actually has already done a webinar with Designs for Health where he deep dives on all of this. So we're going to talk about some really incredible concepts today. So please stick around. But if you would like to go deeper, I'll make sure that the link to that webinar is in the show notes so that you can go even further. But just coming back to that around the business foundations and speaking about money when you were asked in that um class, which is a, you know, a class I didn't get when I when I was training, but to actually even be asked, what are you going to charge? And already know that it needs to be around this in order for me to be profitable, you already had that framework in your mind around, you know, business costs versus your time versus, you know, taxes versus reinvesting in the business versus marketing budget.

Pricing With Confidence And Clarity

SPEAKER_01 18:50

And so if we were to sort of go back to the basics and talk about things like margin versus markup and the difference between the two, and even maybe beyond that cash flow versus profit, I think it would be helpful if we break those concepts down just because I think a lot of people stop at this is going to be my hourly rate. Like I'm going to charge $100 an hour or $150 an hour. Or, you know, the formula I see is if you want to make $100,000 a year, you know, how many hours a week do you want to work? Divide that by that, and voila, there's your number. And that's kind of as far as it goes. Now that's okay. That's a useful formula to flirt with. Um, side note, I'm just thinking, I love the integrative doctor that I see, but he charges, I think it's like $430 an hour. And like he did some admin for me recently, and I got charged like per minute. It was like for, I don't know, the 15 minutes it took him to write the script and send an email.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

And do you hate him now? Did the world explode?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Not at all. You know, I really value our relationship. I value um the connection we have, how well he listens to me, how he partners with me in discussing like what we're doing. And, you know, I feel very free to discuss what I'm interested in and hear his feedback and then his access to it. You know, it's not a fight. And I I gladly pay it.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

You gladly pay for competence.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Gladly pay. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm just throwing that in there because I think, you know, again, that's that that value and self-worth piece. We are willing to invest in what we value, and our patients are no different. The issue is our mindset. Now, that's not to say that there are um people out there doing it tough, students, elderly, chronic illness. I, you know, I see chronic illness patients, and that's a different scale for them because they're unable to work. But ultimately speaking, you've got to be able to value yourself and price yourself accordingly. But it's not just about what am I worth, it's about profitability, it's about margin. So take us through how you approach that.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Well, you mentioned the words um cash flow and profit there. Um, and I think that if you are doing this profession and you are not going the route of get a job in a busy clinic, but you're understanding that you need to be somewhat responsible for attracting um patients to you, and therefore you're in business, as we've just spoken about, then you do want to figure out how much does the business need to provide in order to meet your needs. Because if it is not able to do that, then you're going to find some supplementary income somewhere, which decreases the amount of time you're um you're healing with people. And so at the end of the year, you're going to need profit, which is how much money you get to take away from the business as a result of having to run the business. But cash flow is often the thing that actually kills businesses, and so faster. Start talking about um, oh, well, and we'll talk about um margin and uh markup and that and whatnot. But if I got a whole lot of product because it's really cheap and I got a massive discount, then I'm gonna be wildly profitable when it all sells, if it sells. Um, but if in the meantime I don't have enough money to be able to eat and pay my bills, I don't have enough cash flow, I'm not able to sustain the business. And so clash cash flow in business is always king. You don't you need to have enough to pay the troops, and in this case, if that's just you, then you need to have enough to pay you and and and your rent. And then profit's what you should be aiming for. And so mostly the the vehicle toward um toward money as a natural health practitioner is service, and um ultimately there's you're pay-by-the-hour approach, um, and then there's other approaches that you can take, so packaging and bundling and all these sorts of things. Don't be afraid of having a high hourly rate. You went to school for four years to figure out how to help people, and they need that information from you. You wouldn't go and see an accountant and expect us to pay $100 an hour. You went to school for three years, you know? And so we our rate's about $400 an hour. Um, but as a as a part of all of that, that's just the service revenue. The other thing that we do, um, which is for many, depending on the modality, but for naturopaths at least, nutritionists, is the medicaments, the supplements that we sell is a pretty integral part of what it is that we do. And so you've got options with that. And it's most basic, uh just go get some magnesium somewhere, whatever, um, and they go off to the supermarket, they grab some um some magnesium there. Or it might be go off to a health food store and get a better quality magnesium. Well, the next step might be um let's go to Vitally, and then we'll get a little um bit of uh you know of margin um there when we when we get them to ship it. And then the other one, and this is what we do, and that many practitioners should think about, is having your own dispensary and then pricing product yourself because the patient comes to see me for my advice. If I can make a convenience option for them, I recommend this product. I happen to have that downstairs. The pricing on it is um reasonably competitive, um, but I also have it here at your convenience, and so there's going to be a decent amount of money in that for me. The patient gets the convenience of it, if they're not in clinic, post it out. And so, what I'm always thinking is make it easy for the patient to do business with me. Take away all of the layers so that I've got a script and they'll just need to say yes, and we post it off to them. Now, when we're talking about product, there's a markup and margin, and they

Cash Flow Plus Markup And Margin

SPEAKER_02 24:44

are often confused. So if I had a $100 product and I wanted to that I bought in terms of it cost me $100, that I want to make some money off that. And so I'm gonna mark that up. And so let's say I mark that up to 50%. So 50% of the um cost price, I'm gonna um get that. So 50% of $100 is $50. So that is now $150 that I'm gonna sell it at. So my markup was um 50%. Um, then now when I sell it, 50% of it isn't profit. Now we're talking about the margin. And so if we got a hundred dollar profit, $50 of uh $100 product, $50 of that is profit, that's one third of that $150. So 33% of that is margin. Now, if I were a generous soul as a practitioner and I knew that my patient was struggling, and you know, I really want to help them. And so I discount my product. 20%'s nothing. I'll take 20 um 20% off. Well, that takes that takes your profit down to $20 from $50 just by doing that tiny little discount because we're taking it off the end, the end product price, and the margin is relatively thin. Uh, and so I think that a lot of people go make make errors here by uh not understanding how much of a discount you're really giving away. Um, it can make a pretty massive difference. But Amy, I totally just waffled from one thing to another, set me straight again.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

No, I think that was an excellent point because I remember my first job um actually while I was still a naturopathic student was in the health shop. And if I recall correctly, a 40% markup was kind of the standard recommended retail margin at the time. And it just took me back to those days where you know it's almost like a skewed or distorted view of what the product really costs or what you're making, particularly because when you go to sell it at $150, you feel like you made $150, but you made $50 on that. Um, and so I think it's really important, as you just pointed out, there are lots of concessions we can make for patients if they are under financial stress or you know, other concessions we can make, other ways we can add value that don't maybe take from our bottom line, whether that's digital products, other support, whatever the case may be. But if you're not mindful of this basic, you can erode your margins. I remember about 10 years ago, I heard someone share that the average income, and this has changed a lot since then, but the average income for a practitioner was 80,000 per annum. Add supplements, it took it to 120,000 per annum. This is obviously very general. There's a very wide range of clinicians. There are clinicians that are really, you know, making really big money, and there's plenty of clinicians at the other end that are struggling to keep, you know, the clinic doors open. But I'm just sharing that because it is a fundamental part of our practice in terms of getting the results that we're looking for. And we're either giving the profit to the local health store or it can be part of our business. And we're giving instant access to patients, the convenience they don't have to go to somewhere else, using brands that we trust and know actually work, and being able to also custom make things. If you're a herbalist or you're compounding, you know, it is a really uniquely powerful experience. And again, I think it does come down to money mindset because I understand in allopathy, although there is compensation and backhanded payments that occur, for the most part, it appears quite separate. A doctor will prescribe a medication and then you'll pay for that at the pharmacy. And they feel they feel like two distinct businesses. And I suppose the um cleanliness of that also feels different. But when you think about this as being an extension of our service and it's at a way of offering a convenient, on-the-spot, personalized prescription of the highest quality, it just makes sense to be doing that, which leads me to the next part.

Dispensary As A Profit Engine

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Because, you know, I'm I imagine for practitioners who are just starting, um, they might only have a small dispensary. We're really lucky we now have online dispensaries to take advantage of. I personally use Natural Script, um, but Vitally, Ariya, there's a number to choose from, which really makes things so much more accessible for new practitioners or people who don't have a physical clinic. But something that you pointed to as a concept, utilizing your dispensary as a hidden engine of profit, even just took me back a bit. I've never really even thought about it like that. And this is probably true for many practitioners. We just think about the patient in front of us, what do they need, prescribe it. And that's not to say the fundamentals on the outside are necessarily going to change too much, but the mindset around this is actually a key revenue stream and a part of my business that I can't just pretend as a sideshow either. Talk me through like how you would recommend someone maybe start, how someone might leverage their dispensary, how they might identify, you know, what's working, what's not, what mistakes to avoid. I'm sure you probably learnt all of this somewhat hard the way, like we all do. So take us through.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I've made all of the mistakes. Don't you don't even worry about that. Um, but I think you're exactly right. You get to if you are a practitioner and you are making recommendations for product that you want the patient to follow through on, that patient must buy that from somewhere. You get to choose or you get to have some influence whether that money goes to Kohl's or if that money goes to GoVita or whatever health food store it is, or if it can go into your own pockets. And at the end of the year, if you didn't have enough money to be able to eat, then you don't have a business again. And so when you're starting out, the temptation is uh it's difficult and I I don't have uh enough money to be able to buy stock and whatnot. I started small. And so for me, it was what are the products that I am regularly prescribing to patients that I'm just sending that money off elsewhere for? So if I a natural script, etc. didn't exist back then. Um and it's kind of easy if I had to suggest two supplements. I mean, let's play again. Uh two supplement, what do you think the most commonly to prescribed supplements for um you know naturopaths are?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

I'd be willing to bet big money that it's magnesium and fish soil.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah, I reckon so too. I don't know. Uh maybe, maybe there is a survey out there somewhere, but I reckon it's them. And it's almost every patient. And so if every patient's getting um fish oil, I don't want them going and getting the fish soils from chemist warehouse. 50% of the over-the-counter fish oils, by the way, are reds by the time they hit the market, or at least that statistic I heard a while back means that they're trans fats. So not only are you not capturing that money, but you're giving it to someone else, they're actually having an inferior product leading to a worse outcome than if they didn't take it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Yeah. So I my expertise is in understanding these products. So I'm going to make a recommendation. A recommendation is going to have a brand or a suite of brands. Um, and then if I've got that in clinic because I've I've purchased it, then the great, that margin's mine. Now, if I always know that the same two products that are walking out there, then maybe I don't just buy one. Maybe I buy 10. And maybe there's a little discount that comes my way when I when I buy 10. Um, and if I as long as I can move those, and you know, that might take a couple of months, might take uh a month, might take um a little bit longer, depending on the volume of patients that you're seeing, then a small discount when buying it ends up making a difference. So, example, let's say we've got our $100 product again. Our markup is still gonna be the same. $100, we're gonna sell it for $150. Now let's imagine that I bought uh I don't know, I bought a volume of those products and I've got uh say a 20% discount. My profit prior prior to the discount was $50. Now with a discount of 20%, the product doesn't cost me $100, cost me $80. And now my profit on it is $70. It's almost half of it now. A little bit of a discount at the start makes a big mix, makes a really big difference at the end. And that is all money that's just going to my pockets instead of coals or whatever it is. And I shouldn't feel bad about that because if I'm not making the money, I can't help people. And this is the biggest problem that we've got. And so your your dispensary can absolutely be a part of the viability of your of your business, and you shouldn't be thinking about it as an afterthought. You should be thinking, how can I leverage this? And the basic ways are to make sure that you're not selling at a discount because that wipes out all of your margin, um, and that if you can find a way to um buy with a discount because that makes for more margin. Do it on a small number of lines, and as you learn turnover of stock, um, expand those out on the ones that uh that you're regularly prescribing. That's I think the only way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

I think it's a brilliant way to do it and and certainly focusing on those things that we know we're gonna pretty much recommend to everybody. Like pretty much every adult is deficient in magnesium, pretty much no adult is eating deep sea cold water fish four to five times a week. Like boom. It's really nice and simple. You know what I also think is really great about that? So my clinic is is virtual, so don't get the benefit of this. But if you have an in-person practice, I think it's really nice for a patient to walk away with something tangible in their hands. There's a bit of a dopamine hit that happens, they have something like physical of value, they can start straight away. I think that really helps to keep the momentum going for patients and as one really big advantage of having an in-person clinic. And but the other thing I like to say again, if if people are listening to that and felt a bit squirmy about, you know, if you're getting the product for 80, should you be selling it for 130 and da-da-da-da. Like I know I can hear, I can hear some people thinking this as they listen. Um, they want to pass that discount on. Like something I said to Jabe before we hit record was obviously there's money mindset work and self-worth work in there. But it would be helpful to create mantras around this to remind yourself that it's okay for you to make money and make good money. And one of the things I said was you need to understand and realize the more money you're making is a direct reflection of the more people that you're helping. And if you're making really good money, it means you're doing a really good job. You're helping a lot of people, people that are coming back, referring to you, and you're making it's a direct measure of your impact in the world. It's a literally a KPI, if you like. Um, and so anytime you kind of reach an income ceiling, perhaps, or you know, you're looking at this example that you gave where you can increase a profit margin by buying smart, buying in bulk, the things you're going to be recommending more frequently, and that makes you feel uncomfortable. Definitely remind yourself that the more profitable you are, the less stressed you are, the more nourished you are, the more centered you are when your patients come in, the more money you have to invest in further training for yourself or systems to support them, the more bandwidth you have to hold space for someone who's financially stressed or stressed for other reasons because you're not financially stressed. Um, and probably another really important reason um we have all have a supplement habit that we need to fund. So, you know, we have to be able to maintain our own health too. So all of those things collectively, I think, whatever resonates with you or makes you feel most comfortable, like use that as your first run on the ladder to moving your mindset up the ladder. The other thing is too, if your business fails and your clinic fails and you have to go and get a job, first of all, what a loss for the world. All of the, yeah, all of that training you did, all of that that you would have had, could have been able to provide is lost. And you still have to earn a living, but you're earning a living doing something you don't particularly love.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Well, you're still profiting. You're just profiting off being employed doing a job that you don't love. It's still money that's coming to you.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Um it's just coming from from someone else.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

From someone else. You're not having to, you're not having to decide your worth. It's been determined by, you know, the job description. So it might even be helpful to fast forward imagining it not working out and what you would do instead, and then just get comfortable with being uncomfortable around the basics of becoming a true business owner and someone who really, yeah, who really thrives. And I think that sort of lends itself to, you know, putting a price on your value, which we have touched on and some of the ways in which you might determine that. But in terms of adjusting your value or

Fully Booked Then What Changes

SPEAKER_01 38:20

adjusting your pricing or changing your pricing structure, I think it's very normal to start off as a, you know, a new graduate or new to clinic to just sort of have an hourly rate for, you know, for what you're doing. And hopefully our conversation today has perhaps, you know, pushed you to think a little further about what that hourly rate truly should be and the true costs of business, the true costs of being a practitioner, the cash flow challenges of holding inventory that will expire. Um, some would have higher demand than others. But let's say you have gotten to a point now where your books are relatively full and you are consistently um booked at some point you can no longer trade time for money. It's just humanly impossible. And you therefore then have to some decisions to make around do you just stay there and continue earning that hourly rate or shift your business model, shift how you support patients, shift your hourly rate if you want to do that. What do you see as the next steps a clinician should think about when they've kind of capped out on the amount of hours they can provide?

SPEAKER_02 39:37

So fundamentally, this is a supply versus demand thing. And so supply and demand graphs are supposed to the price is where you intersect. Um and so when you've you've got this supply and demand graph, when you've got a lot of supply and not much demand for it, then you're not going to be able to price expensively. If the you have a huge amount of demand and not enough capacity to be able to service it, then you've got people who would like to give you money who are not able to because you you can't. And so there are two obvious answers. One is you decrease the demand, and you do that by raising price. And so if you had 100 people that wanted to see you and you can only see 50, um, and but you increase your price by say 30%, and now all of a sudden you only have 50 people who want to see you, then you're wildly more profitable. So you decrease demand by um changing your price. The other thing that you can do, um, and this is really going into business, is increase your supply. You figured out how to attract every um all the patients towards you enough that you are unable to do any more work. So maybe you could figure out how to do the same thing for someone else. And so maybe there's another practitioner who's now in your stable working for you, and then your job progressively becomes more and more marketing. But fundamentally, those two things change your the amount of um people that you you can see um by bringing someone on or increasing price. The other thing that you can do is you can change your model, and so you could do all sorts of things like you could do a one-to-many type thing. Well, I don't have enough time to see people individually, but maybe if there's a group class, maybe I could do seminars and uh or whatever it is, that would absolutely work. Uh, we had some challenges, which you alluded to, I think, a little bit in the in the introduction, um, and that when I was starting off, I ended up uh you know having a bunch of people who who wanted to see me, and I played around with the pricing thing and put that up, and there were still people there, and then I didn't have enough time for them. And I desperately want to help people. I mean, it is a bit of a cliche to get into this business because you want to heal, but it kind of is the truth for most of us, I think. Um, and I did realize that my ability to get them results, it wasn't contingent on the information that I was giving them. I was giving them good information, but they're humans, they've got to follow through with it, and so they need support. And either that means more of my time to give them more resources and follow up and keep them on the on the path, or my solution was well, bring in someone else who that's their job. And so I um recruited B, my um first health coach, and then her job is to support them. I give them clarity, she supports them between us, we get results. And that isn't the right way to do healthcare, that's just what we stumbled upon, and then we ended up building it into a program, and so that someone comes and sees their practitioner and their health coach, they had unlimited consultations, they can have as much time with the health coach as they like, and so we're selling time to them and they pay us uh one price for that whole program. That's just the way that works for us, it doesn't necessarily right for everyone, but you can be creative in the way that you deliver your services. It does not have to be the same as everyone else. There's something nice and safe about doing the same as everyone else, in that if everyone else is doing it, it kind of works. There's also something about finding your own niche or your own spin and your own work.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Yes, absolutely. I am a super fan of your business model. I really admire it. And I think truly it's like it is what's missing, I think, generally speaking, because we are what we are really in the the business of is changing people's habits. And habit change is hard as human beings. It's much easier to default to poor habits than raise your standards and actually really develop a new one. And that requires a lot of encouragement and support. And, you know, um being able to access something like that, I think is just sheer genius. And I think to be able to grow something where you have got someone specifically to do that is incredible. And also, you know, other practitioners might consider other ways of being able to do that, which might be weekly group calls with every patient for a little, you know, get together and being able to charge a bit more of a premium price for this weekly touch. Point, or for some, it might be utilizing um AI to automate check-in emails and follow-up questionnaires and check-ins or you know, pre-recording videos saying, hey, just checking in on how you've done with this. If you're not there yet, keep going, or if you are well done and think about this next thing before we see each other in a week's time. You know, there's as you said, this we're only limited by our imagination and we really need to find something that fits where we're at right now and what we see the needs as. Um, I think one thing I am really glad to see is the shift from practitioners charging for single sessions to packages. I think that is now becoming somewhat the norm. Um, and for anyone who's maybe not there yet and maybe is questioning what why you'd even do that. It'd be like going to this is what I tell my clients. So if whenever I'm having a connection call with a patient who asks if I do one-off sessions, um, to me, that is potentially indicative of their level of commitment to changing their health for a start. But second of all, um, it's also a totally fine question to ask, but I sort of say to them, it would be like me paying for one session with a personal trainer and then wondering where my abs are. You know.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Oh, that's a good line, Amy. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

You can borrow that. You can all borrow that. Thank you. But like if you're serious about getting abs, you're right, okay, how long is this? You're gonna talk to the the trainer, how long is this gonna take? How many times do we go to the gym? What are the exercises? You know, when how often do I check in with you? And you're committing to a series of sessions of some description to achieve a result. And that's really what packages are about. It allows you to get momentum, it allows you to have the next session booked in without, you know, someone forgetting to, you know, book it in. They've already paid for it. And actually, it's better for both parties, I find it's really demoralizing for patients to forget, you know, leave too much time in between, run out of motivation, steam, you know, run out of supplements. They don't get what they want. And as a clinician, it's so disheartening to then constantly be going back to ground zero for each patient because they've they keep dropping the ball. Um, so I think it's kind, um, but also in terms of revenue, I work in three to six month blocks. It's like I've got X amount of spots for clients in this three-month spot and I fill them and then I, you know, I'm marketing for three months ahead now. I don't have to think about filling my diary for the next week or the next

Systems To Retain Refer And Grow

SPEAKER_01 46:30

month.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

So a couple of things there. Um, firstly, is you've got the gift of the gab. And so you understand uh people and psychology, and thus you're going to be very good at sales. And this is a and this is a wonderful thing. And you and I have the privilege of being able to speak from being 15 years down the path. Yes, and having having been through all of that, but we couldn't just start here. And so I would encourage all of you who are listening who uh would like to be able to have more money from your uh from this being your your main endeavor to think about your experience constantly when you're out in the world in a service environment and think, what was it about this service that made it great for me? What about this ticked me off that didn't work? And what we're doing is just a service business and business has been solved, or it's been there are there are principles and processes. And so if you're going into a place and they've got uh a beautiful atmosphere, remember what was that like? And if you get a follow-up touch point before and after your your lesson and or your or your whatever it is that you're doing, and then you get an invoice cleanly, it's easy to pay. Um, they're sending you things, they're reminding and following you up at the right time for you to book in for your next appointment. These things make our lives easy, and on the receiving end, they're wonderful. You know, half the time we don't go back to service appointments that we should just because we forget or we get busy and they send a reminder like, oh yeah. But flip that and put that back on the practitioner mind and we get in our little heads and we're thinking, oh, they're not haven't come back. Is that because I did a terrible job? Am I not worthy? Am I not valuable? Um business has solved it all. You just put the systems and processes in there, learn from your great service experience and replicate this for as many patients as you can as you can, and they'll come back.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yes, they will come back. And I think that's such a good point around watching how you engage with other businesses, what you love about it, what you don't like about it. You know, obviously learn from your own mistakes. And I think if you've been in this profession long enough, you'll likely have gone and seen another practitioner yourself too. I certainly did when I was affected by mold illness, and it was really interesting to see her systems, how she did things. Um, it's a great way to learn. And of course, mentoring is a nice way to do that too. Uh, but certainly there's there's so much you can do, whatever stage of business that you're at. Um, and there's always room for growth and improvement. And even when you feel like you've just got everything the way that you want, at some point your goals might change, how you want to set up your life versus how much you work might change, and you'll need to revisit all of these things. I know in the um webinar that you did with Designs for Health, you also go in deeply to referral systems, retention systems, and operational systems. And I think we probably don't have time to sort of deep dive into those today. But first of all, if these are things that you don't know what they are, or you don't know how to set one up, or don't know why you need to set one up, you don't already have them, please go and listen to the webinar and actually explore those. Because if you've been in business for more than a few years, congratulations, you made it past that first two, two-year critical part. And that growth is really going to be supported by implementation of these types of systems to, you know, get um clients to return, um help them refer you to get new clients, and also systems to help you manage your time, appointment reminders, and things like that. But before we wrap up today, Jave, is there anything just overarchingly you want to say about any of those systems or or them as a collective?

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Um well, I think all of those systems are uh are things that need to be in place if you're if you're in business. I'm I'm saying I'm I'm gonna really beat this horse until until we we kind of get it. And the temptation is to spend your, if you're not busy, to spend your time getting more knowledge. And if then more knowledge doesn't get you all business, um that's a problem. That knowledge, you will never finish your search for knowledge, ever. There's always more to know, and the more you learn, the more you realize that um the less you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

But the money part isn't it it expands forever. You need to get the amount of money that you need to you know satisfy your quality of life and your and your goals. And you need to do that by selling your service and your product, etc. And so if instead of the temptation is to read more books, I want to read a book about breath work, I want to read a book about this, for every book you read that is about being a clinician, read a business book. Do that until you don't need to worry about the money anymore. And then don't worry about it. You you've learned enough. But just a very little amount of reading will give you a really large payoff. And so I really would recommend people um do that. And the book that started it for me uh was The EMIF by Michael Gerber, E for Entrepreneur Myth, not um like email type thing. Yeah, uh, and that is kind of business principles and fundamentals, and so there's things in there about retention systems and um and referral and and and whatnot, or go have a listen to the um to the webinar. But I guess I just really try and impress onto people that business isn't magic, it's not mysterious, it's just unknown if you haven't learned something about it. But you can easily learn about it and it'll make more difference to your ability to keep on healing as a thing that you do spending your time than it would for you to um skill up and educate on something else. Not that you should stop educating.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

Sure. No, no, no. We're not discouraging you at all from the lifelong learning. Yeah. But put your energy, distribute it in such a way that it actually supports your your growth, financial growth, because the more money you make, the more time and a money you have to invest in your learning and also in the mentoring and sharing of it as well, and passing that on, and which is legacy, you know, you're looking at what kind of you know, mark are you leaving on the profession. Gosh, Jabe, there was so much good stuff in this episode. And whether or not, you know, you who are listening are just starting off on your journey, or perhaps you've been business for some time, I think we can all benefit from that reminder that being a healer is a business. And being a human in this world, you have to make money. You can either make money by working for someone else or you can make money by working for yourself. And it's not wrong to be profitable and to do well working for yourself. And it's necessary. Yes, it's necessary. And if that concept makes you uncomfortable, there's some money mindset work to be done around that. But reminding yourself that the more money you make is just simply a green flag that you're making more impact in the world. And if you're missing any of these fundamental pieces in business, uh, certainly pick one and start there. And maybe even just start with the emeth. But I really like just to kind of summarize all of that, your that that thought that just scraped through before the end of this podcast. And for every book you read on, you know, energy healing, shiatsu, acupuncture, breathwork, grounding, circadian biology, read a book on business or marketing or entrepreneurialism, whatever that is, that will feed and nourish your business far more powerfully and allow you to do more of what you love, which is helping people and learning more about how to be a great healer.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

So, Jane, Amy, can I just put one little spin on that? Of course.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Let's say that you are wanting to be a healer. And I don't know, because it depends on where you are in your career. But let's say you've got 10,000 hours worth of time, maybe it's only 2,000, it doesn't matter. 2,000 hours worth of time that you spent at university in reading in your own practice, leveling up your game on how to be a natural health practitioner. If you spend another two hours and you've got 2,000 hours, you know, that's like you know, 0.1% extra practitioner knowledge. If you've got zero learning on business and you do those two hours on business instead, that's all new. To make this business stuff happen until that's even 10% of the knowledge that you've you've got, and you'll be wildly shocked at how much of a difference that makes when 80% of what it is that you do requires business skills.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

That yeah, that really puts it into perspective when you lay it out like that. And I think I understand why naturopathic colleges can't also train you in business necessarily. Um, but it would be nice to have a bit more of a business in a box type um education unit. And but for now, that's just something that we have to do for ourselves as clinicians, you know, on an ongoing basis, really, there is always more to learn there too, and always more to refine. So thank you for that last-minute pearl of wisdom, Jave. It was an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. And thank you so much for taking us through really what it means to be a healer, which means to have a business in the healing space and what's required in order for that to work. And to our audience, thank you for joining us today. And remember, you can find all of the show notes and the links that I mentioned and other podcasts on the Designs for Health website or in the show notes below. I'm Amy Skilton, and this is Wellness by Designs.