331 – The Leap from NHS to Private Practice with Funmi Obi

Jul 12, 2024

Today, I am thrilled to have Funmi Obi from ChilternWellbeing Foot and Ankle Clinic in Hayes, UK. In this episode, Funmi shares her inspiring journey from working within the NHS to establishing her successful private practice.

Funmi’s story is one of resilience, passion, and the pursuit of excellence, offering valuable insights and motivation for podiatrists at any stage of their careers. Whether you’re contemplating a similar transition or simply seeking inspiration, this episode is packed with wisdom and practical advice.

Funmi’s Career Tip

Be clear about your vision for your career.  And don’t be fearful about fulfilling that vision. Podiatry as a profession, is a small profession, there are a lot of people that you can reach out to that can help you.  I think that there’s no need to be in a kind of silo by yourself.

Dream big and just go for it, but make contact with people and ask for help, and then people will help you to achieve what you need to achieve.

If you would like to contact Funmi, she can be reached at funmi@chilternwellbeing.com

If you have any questions about this episode or future episodes, you can contact me at tyson@podiatrylegends.com

Saturday, the 24th of August, 2024, CAIRNS. 

The Power of Persuasion: The Mindsets, Strategies, and Tactics that Enhance Leadership Success and Profitability with Dave Frees

This LIVE one-day event with Dave Frees will be life-changing. It is rare to have this calibre of speaker in Australia, let alone Cairns, so I suggest doing whatever you can to attend. There are only a limited number of seats available, so I would not sit on the fence too long. REGISTER

Schedule a FREE 30-minute Zoom Call with Me.

If you have questions about your podiatry business, team, personal goals and career direction, organise a time to talk with me. I’m here to help in any way I can. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose.  

I recommend following the link below to my calendar and scheduling a free 30-minute Zoom call. I guarantee that after we talk, you will have far more clarity on what is best for you, your business and your career.

My SCHEDULE – https://calendly.com/tysonfranklin/podmeeting30

FACEBOOK GROUP Podiatry Business Owners Club – https://www.facebook.com/groups/podiatrybusinessownersclub

MY BOOK is available on AMAZON

It’s No Secret…There’s Money in Podiatry – https://amzn.to/3JhO9cz

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. With me today is Funmi Obi from ChilternWellbeing Foot and Ankle Clinic in Hayes, in the United Kingdom, which, in case you’re wondering where Hayes is, it is 16 miles from London. And I’ve done a few fact checks here.

[00:00:20] You’ve done your research. I’ve

[00:00:20] done

[00:00:20] my research. It’s 45 minutes by car, 16 minutes by train, so why would you drive? But if you choose to walk, it will take five hours. So Funmi, how are you doing today?

[00:00:34] Morning, thank you very much. I’m doing really well, thank you.

[00:00:37] I told you I was going to have an interesting introduction for you. So, thank you for coming on the podcast.

[00:00:42] I’m looking forward to this and I’m going to ask you a question. I haven’t asked anyone this question for a little while. Why did you decide to do podiatry? So

[00:00:56] my, my journey into podiatry wasn’t [00:01:00] straightforward. So it was a second choice. A very good second choice. Yeah. But it was a second choice.

[00:01:05] , I’d always wanted to do medicine, always wanted to be a doctor, and that, that fateful day of results, things change, and I had to think on my feet. I couldn’t go back home and say, oh. Well, this is the situation.

[00:01:19] Yeah.

[00:01:20] Not, if you’re not, if you’re from an African family, anyway, it doesn’t work like that.

[00:01:24] So I, I called UCL then explain the situation, turn my phone off. I went into London straight and they told me about podiatric medicine. It’s in medical school. And then I’d read about podiatry before in the UCL prospectus when I was applying for med school, it looked interesting.

[00:01:44] And so I went for the interview and I got a place. And I’d always thought that, oh I do podiatry and then I’d switch after that was the plan. I’d do podiatry, then I’d switch, I’d go back to med school and it would all be great. And I actually fell in love with podiatry. [00:02:00] I really enjoyed my degree.

[00:02:01] I enjoyed all aspects of it, the clinical aspect. And and then I said, okay, I, I just, let me work as a podiatrist for a year and just see how it, And 18 years, I’m still here.

[00:02:13] Still there? Can I go back a step? I need to go back one step because you opened the door.

[00:02:20] What’s the pressure of being from an African family?

[00:02:24] The expectation to succeed. It’s not a bad thing. Oh no, not at all. It’s a gentle encouragement to succeed. And in whatever you do. So it doesn’t matter what you, what profession you choose to be in or what you choose to do.

[00:02:39] You just have to do it really well. Okay.

[00:02:42] It sounds similar to a lot of immigrant families. like Asian families, Indian families. And I know like back in the day when I was at school, we had a lot of Italians and Greeks, and there was this big expectation that those kids did well at school, went on to university.

[00:02:59] Because their [00:03:00] parents had worked hard to give them a better opportunity than what they had.

[00:03:02] Absolutely. And most of the times, , a lot of families or ethnic families or immigrant families are coming into, different countries with not much. But, , one thing that was always kind of drilled into me is that, your education is your key.

[00:03:16] It’s your access, as all my dad would say, , it’s your access. It opens doors. Yeah. So it’s really important, , that you focus on that. , that’s something nobody can ever take away from you. So that was the kind of ethos in our home. , even my mom, she’s , at 69 did her PhD.

[00:03:32] So that’s the kind of, yeah, so that’s the kind of family. Everyone is very highly educated. So, it wasn’t really, I wouldn’t say it’s a pressure, it’s an expectation, but I think it’s something that has it’s so part, very much part of my fabric. Yeah. I think that’s what has helped me, , to get to where I am now and made it so easy for me to, , not wallow in my own sorrow that my my kind of, my [00:04:00] career has changed.

[00:04:01] It was like, okay, what do we do now? Let’s make this work and let’s get on with it. And then let’s just make it, make the career the best I can make it, which is what we’re doing.

[00:04:11] Okay. So because you went for medicine, didn’t get a bit straight away, you pivoted and did podiatry. Your family was like, you’re doing something.

[00:04:20] As

[00:04:20] long as you go to university and you qualify for something, at least that’s going to open certain doors, which may lead to other doors later.

[00:04:27] I think it was, I think it was, yes, there was disappointment, but I think it was the, they were more impressed with how I handled the situation. I think it was, I think demonstrating at that young age, I guess, how old are you?

[00:04:42] 17, 16, 17 when you’re doing your A levels, 17, 18. I think they were more impressed. the way I just managed the situation and gone on with it and came back and delivered the news. This is what I’m going to do. And I’m going to do this and I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. And I think even now as a parent myself, my child [00:05:00] said, did the same thing or said the same thing.

[00:05:01] I think I would be very impressed, , with that, , showing that determination, , that’s really important. So

[00:05:07] did your husband have the same upbringing with the same pressure?

[00:05:12] Yeah, he’s, yeah he’s African, but he’s Nigerian, like myself yeah, and equally well fit and very successful and humble about it.

[00:05:21] Yeah. , I think it’s just a thing. I think most , from speaking out of place, but most kind of Nigerians you speak to, they typically are doing quite well.

[00:05:29] That’s good to hear. So how many PhDs are there in your family? There’s a

[00:05:34] few. Ah, there’s a few

[00:05:35] mum’s not the only one. There’s a few throughout the family. So was there pressure on you that once you finished podiatry to do more study and get a PhD as well?

[00:05:49] Yeah. I’ve done my MSCI, I actually really enjoy studying. Yeah. , I would like to do a PhD at some stage. I think at the moment, running a business with two young kids [00:06:00] definitely not the time.

[00:06:01] but I do enjoy learning. I enjoy putting into practice what I’ve learnt and I think it’s really important to to learn. I think when you become stagnant, you become very frustrated. And I think even as podiatrist, , I do have that insatiable appetite , to do courses and to read where I can.

[00:06:23] And it doesn’t even need to be podiatry related stuff. , , I listen to podcasts are different things and, , just to keep my mind alert, , because it’s, I think it’s important to be so well rounded as a person , that means you can have a conversation with anyone you meet on any level, and it becomes easy.

[00:06:41] Yeah, it was one thing uh, that my friend Dave Frees, that was last week’s episode, but he was one of the first people that mentioned me, listen to podcast completely outside of your wheelhouse. Listen to things that you would just would not normally listen to is that you’ll be surprised what you will learn.

[00:06:58] Yeah,

[00:06:59] [00:07:00] and I remember this one particular podcast. It was about being more efficient in the household.

[00:07:05] Okay,

[00:07:06] it was really weird. So I thought I’m gonna listen to this.

[00:07:09] Weird? That’s not weird.

[00:07:10] I know, but for me to listen to that, I thought this, okay, this seems like this is outside my wheelhouse.

[00:07:15] I listened to it and do you realise I learned it only takes like less than two minutes to empty your dishwasher.

[00:07:22] That’s all you picked up. Oh

[00:07:23] No. I picked up a pile of stuff, but what it was when they were talking about efficiency around the household and it just happened to be, two sisters that were actually doing this podcast.

[00:07:33] I can’t remember the name of it, but I really enjoyed it because they were talking about, , when you’re out in the shed and you’re doing something, this will be how to make things more efficient.

[00:07:42] But what

[00:07:43] you learn there, I went, Oh, that’s interesting. You could actually apply that to your podiatry business.

[00:07:48] Absolutely. I think, yeah, absolutely. I think that being if being efficient, is probably one of the most important [00:08:00] skills, , that I think I have or try to have, , because even just, we could maybe trivialize running a household, but to

[00:08:07] be able

[00:08:09] to manage all of that and then put your game face on.

[00:08:16] Go to work, and then you’re becoming, , the podiatrist, you’re the business owner and you’re the employer, and then switch back. I think that what if you’ve mastered that skill, then yeah, you’re good.

[00:08:29] So I want to get back onto your career. When you graduated, you went and worked for the NHS.

[00:08:36] When I got my registration, I locum for a little bit. Then I started working in the NHS in kind of November 2005. Um, And I stayed in the NHS for a long time. I think I went part time quite early. I went part time quite early. I think I realised quite early on that the full time nine to [00:09:00] five wasn’t really for me. So I think within about a year as a band five, I went part time.

[00:09:06] What’s band five?

[00:09:08] I’ll say that’s like your new graduate podiatrist.

[00:09:11] Oh, so band five is new. It’s just new.

[00:09:13] New fresh out of university particularly.

[00:09:17] And then how long do, before you go to band four, band three, two and one?

[00:09:21] No, so it goes band five, band six, band seven. Oh, it goes out the other way? Yeah, clinical need, yeah. Okay. And then band 8 is senior management level, and mind

[00:09:30] director. I’ve heard that mentioned so many times when people are talking about NHS, band 7, band 8.

[00:09:34] I thought it went all the way up to number one, but no, it’s actually back the other way.

[00:09:39] So you start off with band five podiatrist and and then within two years or so, then I went to band six stayed as a band six for a long time because in the NHS sometimes it’s, well, that time it’s quite difficult to get a band seven role.

[00:09:52] So when you’re a band, when you become a band seven, you’re now a clinical specialist. So that could be either in MSK and [00:10:00] diabetes whichever one of those roles you want to go into. And then, yeah, then I stayed as a band seven for a long time.

[00:10:08] Oh, so you did make your way to Band 7?

[00:10:11] Yeah. So I was MSK clinical lead for, in multiple trusts for maybe, I don’t know, maybe 10, 7 years?

[00:10:19] Yeah. Across different trusts, I think. Yeah. So, and then I left the NHS two years ago.

[00:10:26] So going back one step again, did you say that when you started the NHS, you only did it part time though? And you were working somewhere else?

[00:10:35] Yeah. I started full time. , as much as I enjoyed it back then, I just felt that I, the opportunity came somebody was they needed someone to take over their clinic.

[00:10:46] It was a podiatrist that was moving to Canada. Yeah. And it was really close to me. And one of My good friend, she was locating somewhere and she said, Oh, there’s a, , just spoken to this lady and she wants to relocate to Canada and her [00:11:00] clinic is close to where you live.

[00:11:01] Like, what do you think? I was like, yes, this is what I’ve been looking for. Yeah. And I went part time and and yeah, it’s and from there I’ve always, I always worked part time. I always had run like a one chair clinic from the beginning.

[00:11:15] And it was in a private practice?

[00:11:17] Yeah. Yeah. It was in a multidisciplinary clinic.

[00:11:19] So first of all, I started off, it was in like a chiropractic clinic, just rented a room. And then I moved to a bigger multidisciplinary clinic, which was an osteopathic clinic. And I was just the only podiatrist there. So everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve been the only podiatrist there. Just running my own thing from that room.

[00:11:36] And then , three years ago, I just had enough of that. They outgrew that and decided to open a proper clinic and employ staff.

[00:11:46] Okay, well we’re going to get on to that, but can I ask a question about, what is the fear of private practice in the United Kingdom? Because when you see some of the Facebook pages, , and you’ll see new and recent [00:12:00] graduates and they’ll be posting something that’s almost like there’s a bit of apprehension about going into private practice.

[00:12:05] They feel like they must go and work in the NHS or they’re a bit frightened, like private practice seems a little bit scary compared to the NHS. Is there a reason for that?

[00:12:15] I think, , bad news travels fast, doesn’t it?

[00:12:17] And I think maybe I think maybe some people have worked in private practices and they haven’t had the best experience. The NHS. Private practices are two very separate entities, , as someone that’s straddling across the two, I completely can see that. When you’re working in the NHS, it’s very, it’s almost very protected.

[00:12:39] You have your, everything’s almost done for you, but you have your clinics, you do your clinics, you finish your clinics, you do your notes, and then, , you’re either doing today I’m doing general, today I’m doing diabetes clinic, or today I’m doing nail surgery.

[00:12:53] It’s all very structured.

[00:12:55] Okay,

[00:12:56] but when you come into private practice, it’s [00:13:00] very, you’re very exposed, aren’t you? It’s very, you have to, you’re thinking on your feet all the time. You don’t know what’s, and also , people are paying for your services, which requires a lot more of yourself.

[00:13:12] It’s not just about being brilliant clinician, , you also need to Be at least a, some type of nice person that somebody would want to see. You need a good, you need a personality. You don’t just need good hands. Yeah. And I think also private practice, the hours can be longer. , so it’s not necessarily the easy way. I don’t think it’s an easy, an easier gig at all. I just think it’s very different. And I think maybe people have heard, , not so great things about private practice, but now that I’ve fully switched, I wouldn’t be able to go back.

[00:13:45] Yeah, I think it’s changing though.

[00:13:46] Like I’ve had a lot of UK podiatrists on the podcast. Nearly all of them have worked in the NHS at some stage.

[00:13:55] I personally think it’s not a bad thing. Let’s be honest, even though, yes, , I’ve left [00:14:00] the NHS, but where else would I have been able to get the breadth of patients that I’ve seen over the years. I would never see these types of patients in private practice. The experience that I’ve been able to get from all the different types of clinics or the different types of pathologies coming in, all of the the connections with other clinical teams, , the having meetings, especially if you’re hospital based, , you can’t get, you won’t, you can’t replicate that experience in private practice. It’s a very different entity. And I think it’s potentially wise to at least go try it, , see all those patients, Get your hands dirty,

[00:14:43] get your feet wet,

[00:14:45] see, be under that kind of pressure, see all of those, all those complex cases.

[00:14:52] And, you’re doing a general clinic and someone’s coming in with this, , horrific wound and, , so I think it’s, Yeah. That experience I [00:15:00] think is good. , I think I, I can say that working in the NHS all that time has, been a benefit.

[00:15:05] I can never say it wasn’t a benefit. So what’s

[00:15:06] funny is you really lit up when I asked you that question, which I think is great. So why did you leave? Why did you what happened? At what point did you go, I need to go and work for myself. I want to go into private practice and leave the safety net of the NHS.

[00:15:25] The thing about that safety net. is that if you’re somebody that wants to grow, and this is my personal opinion, this is not the opinion of any other person, just myself, I felt limited. I felt that I’d reached the point where I didn’t feel like I was growing anymore personally. And I think I became, started to become quite frustrated.

[00:15:49] For example, like when you’re running your own business or when you’re working in private practice. If a patient needs something, you can get it for them, or you can complete their [00:16:00] package of care, they, as long as they can ready to pay, you, all the solutions are there, at your fingertips, you’ve got them in your clinic, you’ve got your orthotics, you’ve got your, you can, if they want their custom orthotics quicker, you can get them in five days.

[00:16:14] You’ve got your shockwave, everything is that is within your facility and I think in the NHS, things just take a little bit longer. Everything takes time. And so I was becoming a bit frustrated with delays and politics and things like that. So I just reached a point where I was becoming more and more frustrated at not being able to reach my own full potential.

[00:16:39] And and I’ve been feeling like that for quite a long time. I’d probably say a good 10 years. I’ve been , I was working in Haringey and I used to do a lot of the student placements when I was working at what used to be called Kensington and Chelsea or CLCH now.

[00:16:52] Yeah. And I got to Haringey and I saw a student I was on placement with me way back when. And he was like, Oh, you’re still here? [00:17:00] You’re still in the NHS? I thought, Oh

[00:17:01] dear.

[00:17:03] Because I’d been talking about it.

[00:17:05] About

[00:17:05] leaving and I think that really stunned me. I was like, Oh God, I need to now do something about this.

[00:17:11] I’m still here. I need to go. And then also, I think the biggest catalyst came was when COVID hit and remember how devastating that was? Yeah. And when you just saw how many people didn’t wake up the next day, died, Some people that were healthy, people were dying, and the numbers of people that were dying.

[00:17:39] And we had quite , a very tragic loss within our family as well. And I just thought to myself, you know what? Every this has happened and I’ve been given the opportunity to wake up today. I’ve been given I’m here where a lot of people are not here. Why am I wasting this opportunity?

[00:17:57] We really, it was so profound. I [00:18:00] just felt that this thing that I’ve been so fearful of is actually something I shouldn’t be fearful of because what’s the big deal if it went wrong? I’ve been so fearful of setting up a business and it was really unnecessary fear. And I just felt, you know what, I’m going to do it.

[00:18:18] Because I may not be here tomorrow.

[00:18:20] That’s true. I always say that to people. Working out what’s the worst that can happen. What’s

[00:18:24] the worst thing that can happen? , and also I felt that actually, I think it’s almost like, , I’ve been working for so long in the NHS, and I felt like my confidence had taken a nosedive.

[00:18:36] I think when you’re doing the same type of repetitive job, and you’re doing the same mundane day in, day out I just, you start to lose a little bit of confidence in yourself. And I think that was one of the issues that I had. And I, and after, , when COVID was happening and I just thought, actually.

[00:18:53] It’s not that I’m taking my family’s money and giving it to someone to run a [00:19:00] business for me. I’m taking my family’s money and I’m giving it to me to make something great. So what’s the risk? If I know what I can do and I know what I can achieve, I know what I’m capable of, actually the risks are really minimal, especially if, I felt that I was I was more confident in my ability.

[00:19:18] I’m like, you know what? I’m not hedging my bets on anyone else. I bet I’m betting on myself. I can do it. Let’s get going. And I remember like my hairdresser Michelle, and every time I’d see her every kind of six weeks and, I’d be talking about, Oh, I’m going to set up a business and I’m going to do that.

[00:19:34] I wonder if she said to me. You’re here talking and people are signing. Every time she goes, you’re here talking, you come here and talk, you talk talk. And people are signing contracts, they’re signing leases. I don’t want to, don’t come back, don’t come back and see, don’t come back here in six weeks if you haven’t got something to say and I’m like, wow, okay.

[00:19:59] But I [00:20:00] think one of the questions that people should ask themselves is what’s the worst can happen if you don’t jump at the chance? If you could have become miserable. Well, you can stay in the NHS and if you weren’t happy there, what was your mental state going to be in 20 years time if you just kept doing the same thing?

[00:20:17] Yeah. But it may not even necessarily be. job itself that you’re dissatisfied with, I think it’s being dissatisfied with yourself, because if you haven’t reached your full potential and you know you haven’t reached the full potential you start to become quite bitter.

[00:20:33] You need to be clear as to what you actually, I think goal setting and just being really clear as to what, yeah, I wanna be a podiatrist, but what type of podiatrist do I want to be?

[00:20:41] What act, what do I actually want to achieve? And I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I was, I guess I was too fearful of. Enacting on it or go going for it. And then it just became bigger and more frustrating and more irritating. And then I just reached that. [00:21:00] I was really irritated. Ask anyone around me

[00:21:02] oh, no but it makes sense. Everyone knows they should be doing something and they keep saying, there’s still things in my life that. And I jokingly say to my daughter, who’s 20 soon, Yeah, when I grow up, I’m really going to figure out what it is that I want to do. And we sort of laugh about it, and, but sometimes, I think if it’s something you’ve mentioned, More than half a dozen times, and you’ve been telling people you’re going to do something the longer it goes before doing like when I, before I wrote the world’s greatest podiatry business book, It’s No Secret There’s Money in Podiatry, back when I had hair, I spoke about that book for probably 10 years before I wrote it. And then eventually I bumped into someone who was an author and he said, you keep saying you’re going to write this book, but when are you going to do it?

[00:21:49] You need those people in your life. You need a cheerleader. I went

[00:21:53] bugger off. But then it was six months later, I had written the book.

[00:21:59] You [00:22:00] need, I think, what’s missing.

[00:22:01] I think if you, one thing I’ve learned now, if you have a desire to do something, you need to surround yourself with people that are equally excitable and energetic and progressive, because now I’m, I’ve always been a really big cheerleader for anyone that wants to do something exciting or they’ve got a an idea, , and I’m even, I’ve become a bigger cheerleader for them now that I know that I wasted 10 years, , because if I guess if I had somebody behind me that you can do it, just do it, just go for

[00:22:37] it.

[00:22:37] But you didn’t waste it. Just remember you didn’t waste 10 years.

[00:22:40] If you think about the amount of podiatrists that you helped along the way of that 10 year period, by you staying in NHS who have now got great careers because they had contact with you. Then maybe you were supposed to be in the, that’s where you were supposed to be over that 10 year period.

[00:22:58] Yeah yeah. I, okay, [00:23:00] first of all, I’d probably say, yeah, that is completely the wrong word. I shouldn’t have said wasted, actually. That’s probably more of a reflection on just the frustration that I felt at the time. But no, I wouldn’t say wasted at all. I don’t think I could take all the glory for their career success at all, no, but no.

[00:23:15] But I have met a lot of students over the years and what’s always nice is that when I see them at conferences or, see them at, at events, it’s always nice to catch up and have a chat. So I feel that At that time I just loved that, that interaction with students and encouragement and teaching and, learning helping them learn.

[00:23:37] So if in any way I was able to impact their careers or just make them love podiatry, then that’s a job well done. But yeah, I won’t take all the glory for that. But yeah, that, that was a really good part of, my role that I had over the years. And just really. Yeah, encouraging people, it’s a great profession, there’s so much, we’re quite lucky the remit for podiatry is [00:24:00] so large and I think that’s what I would just install in the students that, this, you can do this and this is so much fun, just, and always just get in contact with me if you need me.

[00:24:08] So yeah, so I, yeah, let’s scratch that word, not waste it. Scratch that word, waste it. . I think probably what ate in the back of your mind too, was when you said that some of these people came back and they said, are you still in the NHS? Oh yeah. They probably realised working with you how good you were.

[00:24:24] And just assume that you probably would have left and gone on and done something else. Yeah. So because you helped train them, they just expect that you’ve got to move on yourself, but you didn’t. So yeah definitely not wasted. So scrap that word from your vocabulary. Scrap that word. Yeah, no, not at all.

[00:24:41] No, thank you for that. That’s true. No it’s been a good journey. And as sometimes my husband will always say, if I used to moan about my day, and he’ll be like your NHS work gives you credibility. Stop moaning. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:24:54] Just saying for me personally I think if you’ve got that itch and you want to do [00:25:00] something different, just, yeah.

[00:25:02] But when you were in the NHS, you did a lot of stuff in MSK. So you specialised in that area. So what you learned there, you’ve probably carried over into private practice big time.

[00:25:13] Yeah, absolutely. I think that skill set. Yeah, which, and having that breadth of the patients that I had has been really, it’s been really beneficial. So obviously with the clinic I’m trying to navigate it to become, more of an MSK based clinic which, because obviously that’s the area of podiatry that I love the most.

[00:25:32] We still have a general caseload, but , I think eventually that’s where it will go. So yeah, in the NHS, I think just, , those, the skills that as managing teams and doing audits and, you know speaking to orthotic companies and, putting training in place for for the teams.

[00:25:54] So all of those skills have been really useful. And I’ve been able to translate a lot of them to private [00:26:00] practice. It

[00:26:00] was a hard transitioning, like going from, like you said, the NHS, where a lot of things were done for you to then having your own business. I’m sure there was a lot of freedom too, where you could just make decisions and things didn’t have to ask anybody.

[00:26:16] But at the same time, it would have been even just a mental transition.

[00:26:21] It’s, it was a shock. It was a shock, but it was the, for me, I was at peace because it’s something I’ve wanted to do, and then it’s done. So I was really, I was very happy about it and satisfied with it. It’s been a, It’s been quite, it’s been a large learning curve.

[00:26:39] I won’t lie. The skills required to run a business are so different. And when I think that the main difference is when you are like maybe running like clinical need or you’re, sourcing orthotics or, , those kinds of things you’re working with NHS budgets. It’s not your money, but [00:27:00] you’re still very conscientious of the budget.

[00:27:02] But it’s not your money when you’re now, but it’s now your money. It’s a bit different. It’s very different, , because ultimately if things fail, , that’s the stakes are slightly higher. So yeah, it’s been a massive learning, learning curve. I’ve had to think on my feet.

[00:27:19] I’ve had to get help. I’ve had to do courses and boot camps and, Like that bootcamp I did with you. Yeah. And but it’s been fun. I think, do you know what I think? I think you almost have to be a certain type of person to want to run a business. I don’t, I think you have to be wired in a particular way because the amount of it’s not linear, is it?

[00:27:40] There’s so many different thick curve balls that can come your way. And also the biggest. challenges consistency to be consistently good. You can’t, , because you’re being consistently good means that, , you get good reviews, you get repeat business patients are satisfied, they [00:28:00] recommend other people.

[00:28:01] So me being consistently good is not so, is okay, but everybody around you needs to be consistently good or your team needs to be consistently good all the time. I

[00:28:11] , but what you said about the personality type, I think it takes a certain personality type to want to have a good podiatry business.

[00:28:20] I think there’s other personality types that can just open a podiatry business and it can be rubbish. But what either they don’t care or they can’t even, they don’t know that it’s rubbish because. They don’t know, they just turn up, they do what they gotta do, they don’t get good reviews, but they don’t care, they just, they might be good podiatrists, but they just can’t run a business, and sometimes, they’re the ones that I jokingly, take the mickey out of sometimes, when I go, I know I care more about my patients and making money, I’m like, why don’t you just say you’re no good at business.

[00:28:54] Because to me, if you’ve been in podiatry 10, 15 years, you’ve got your own business, you’re driving a [00:29:00] crapped out car, you’ve got a massive mortgage and you’ve got no money behind you. You’re no good at business because you should be doing better.

[00:29:08] Yeah. I think, I guess it depends on what people’s motivation is. When they’re trying to open a business. I guess everyone, I think people you speak to, everyone’s motivations are slightly different. Some people want freedom. Oh, I totally get that. Quality of life.

[00:29:25] Some people want to make lots of money. I think but I think most people you speak to them, well, what they say, how genuine that is, I don’t know, but people lie.

[00:29:33] , I think people lie because I reckon If you open up your own business, you might want to do it for more freedom.

[00:29:39] I totally understand that. But yeah, really, freedom only goes so far.

[00:29:49] You need to pay your bills.

[00:29:50] You’ve got to pay your bills. You’ve got bills that you’ve got to pay. And you’ve got to reinvest money back into your business. Because if you really want to look after your patients, [00:30:00] you have to make money so you can reinvest it back.

[00:30:04] into the business. So you can buy other toys that you can do things that you can’t do if you don’t have money.

[00:30:10] But I think it’s, , when you’re part of the medical profession it’s not really a thing to to talk about the money. , I think it’s almost impolite, , , because Especially if you are working in the NHS or you’re not working privately.

[00:30:29] Let’s be honest, you’re not there for the money as such. There’s other careers that pay so much more. So you, to even get into that type of career choice in the first place, you obviously have an affinity with. People and wanting to help people and improve people’s quality of life.

[00:30:49] So it’s almost feels, I think, as a profession, not just podiatry, but I think all medical.

[00:30:54] Oh, I agree. It

[00:30:55] almost feels very sinful or exploitative to [00:31:00] talk about the money, but you do need to pay your bills. I always

[00:31:04] look into that. It’s one of the things like my book It’s no Secret…There’s Money in Podiatry, at no stage do I talk really about making money in the book.

[00:31:12] Yeah. All

[00:31:13] I talk about is ha about setting up a good business. And if you set up a good business, money is a byproduct of just having business. Yeah, absolutely. Business. And then I think if you don’t like money, if you really don’t like it, you have multiple options.

[00:31:26] You can give it away to charity. Or you can send it to me. Yes. . I don’t mind it. I have no problem with it at all. So if you don’t like it, send it to me. I will look after a, I will spend it for you. I don’t have a problem with that.

[00:31:39] It’s a mindset change, isn’t it? I think I’ve only had the clinic for three years, but the person I was in 2021 to the person I am now very different, , I remember I was still very fresh with, , very healthcare thinking, and now I’ve had to shift.

[00:31:59] Very [00:32:00] quickly into, yes, , my paramount goal is to improve my patients lives, , rid them of pain and, , be with them on that journey to recovery and, , just be a really good podiatrist. But also, if I want things like, shiny equipment. And oh, I want, , the really good podiatrists.

[00:32:20] If I really want to employ good podiatrists, I need the funds to be able to employ them. , if I want the building or the clinic to look aesthetically pleasing, that people come in and say, wow, that costs money. It does. So. I’ve had to grow up and think, , no, it’s true and be like, you know what?

[00:32:41] Okay, right. Let’s get out of this nHS thinking now I need to try and be a really good clinician and bring an income in that I can make this clinic look wow and make the patients all say wow and be like wow this is a really great place to have treatment because [00:33:00] the costs of running the business wow yeah I know wow it is shocking and I look at all anytime I go into any businesses now even if I go to a restaurant I look at it everything just looks different now you know because you can almost see behind The smiles and the, good mornings and everything.

[00:33:18] You appreciate how much

[00:33:19] it costs to, to just open the doors.

[00:33:22] Yes. Of a podiatry clinic. I don’t ask for discounts.

[00:33:26] No. I think it’s rude.

[00:33:28] I, before I’d be a bit cheeky, but now I’m like, no, that’s just rude.

[00:33:31] Like I said, just to open the doors of a podiatry clinic, to have a receptionist there, to have the lights on, to have water running, yeah, where you are, have heat, all that adds up.

[00:33:42] And sometimes you might even get someone who works with you and all they see is, oh, they see all this money coming in and go, Oh, here’s Funmi, you see a lot rolling around, a bed and all a hundred pound notes.

[00:33:52] I

[00:33:54] wish! But they don’t realise, especially first few months, first year or so, you’re not making any [00:34:00] money.

[00:34:00] No, and I think, I’m really blessed to have a really wonderful team. Yeah. I’m very transparent with my team. I will say, but things are really tight or things are really difficult. If they’re difficult. I don’t think there’s any point in painting this picture that we’re a flush.

[00:34:17] Yeah. , with money, , but then. At the same time, being transparent is really good, but also having action plans in place. So this is what we’re going to do. So this is where we need to get to. And this is what we’re going to do to get there. This is the goal. And then get everybody on board with that, , because obviously if the clinic thrives, everybody wins.

[00:34:38] , it’s more nice things we could do, there’s more dinners, there’s more, , more fun, like away days, , everything gets better. So it’s a win for everything, I can spoil them more, , the better we do, so.

[00:34:51] So we were talking off air and at the moment you’re looking for a new team member to join you?

[00:34:59] I am, yeah. [00:35:00] How’s that going?

[00:35:03] It’s not bad actually, we’ve had some applicants.

[00:35:05] Yeah.

[00:35:06] I think I said this before I’m gonna take it, I’m gonna take my time. With this recruitment, I really want the right

[00:35:12] way to get the right person,

[00:35:14] the right podiatrist, because I think sometimes when you’re you’re new to all of this, you make assumptions about people generally, because you don’t know, or you you need somebody now. I need somebody right now. And then you fill a seat. But I think we’re such a, we’re a really good team. And I’m not just saying this, but I’m just saying we are a really good team.

[00:35:40] Anyone coming to work with us would enjoy working at the clinic. So we just need, the right person, with a good spirit. Fun kind, good hands, obviously, and with a genuine willingness to learn, or just be really excited about podiatry, because, There’s no need to be [00:36:00] frustrated in your job. There’s no need to be frustrated in your job. There’s ways if, like things, that’s a good thing about practice, for example, , if you’re coming from far and, you don’t want to be stuck in rush hour, you don’t want to really, you don’t want to do a job before you’ve even got to work, okay, we’ll start later.

[00:36:17] You start at 10. Do you know what I mean? , there’s ways you can, make somebody’s life easier. It doesn’t have to be so rigid.

[00:36:28] Life’s too short to not be having fun with what you’re doing.

[00:36:31] Absolutely. I think yeah, that’s my thing. It doesn’t have to be rigid. If I wanted rigidity, I’d, stay where I was. Now it’s time to just have, but it’s true, isn’t it? I I know if my daughter has sports day where I can, I can start later and go to her sports day or, that’s a flexibility

[00:36:49] thing we were talking about before.

[00:36:51] Flexibility. When you have your own practice, it’s not always about money. It’s the freedom to come and go and

[00:36:58] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Which [00:37:00] is so important the therefore, don’t miss out on the most important things in your children’s lives or in your life. It’s something you want to do. So yeah, so we’re recruiting at the moment.

[00:37:09] So if anyone wants to reach

[00:37:10] out to you, what’s the best way to contact you?

[00:37:12] So, drop me an email.

[00:37:14] Yeah, give us the, yeah, give us the email address. I’ll put it in the show notes as well.

[00:37:18] Okay. Yeah. So funmi@chilternwellbeing.com yeah, you are, you’re right. It ’cause it’s a unique name.

[00:37:23] I will put it there. Phone me, which is

[00:37:24] F-U-N-M-I and it Yeah,

[00:37:26] it’s a silent n .

[00:37:27] Yeah.

[00:37:28] For me at children wellbeing com. And yeah, just drop me an email and then we can have, let’s talk, let’s just see whether, you can come in and come into the clinic. Come and shadow us. Come and see what we do.

[00:37:39] See if it’s the place that you’d like to work. See if the vibe is good and then take it from there.

[00:37:46] Yeah, like I’ve known you for a little while now back when you did the reboot and we chat fairly often and I can just tell that where you work is a fun place. So, whoever [00:38:00] is going to join your team, this is just advice for anyone, is wait until you get the right person that’s going to be a good fit for your team.

[00:38:07] Because if you get the wrong person, it can just mess stuff up big time. And I’ve learned that from making mistakes where I’ll be so desperate just to employ someone that can wear a podiatry hat. And didn’t realize you’re throwing a poisoned apple amongst your good apples. It doesn’t take long to ruin everything.

[00:38:28] But also I think it’s also, I think now, I think even as an employer, I think it’s really important to know what you want as well. I’ve had good podiatrists, I’m really lucky. All the podiatrists that have worked in our clinic have been really great. I think it’s just, if I want that wholesomeness now and that that you really enjoy.

[00:38:46] For everyone to enjoy each other, yeah, a full time person that can come in and just be that last piece in the jigsaw.

[00:38:53] Yeah, but we used to do the same thing when we were recruiting because our clinic was heavily involved in MSK biomechanics. If somebody [00:39:00] applied for the job and they said, oh, I love high risk feet and diabetic foot ulcers I wouldn’t employ them.

[00:39:07] Because it wasn’t what I was looking for. It wasn’t what you were doing. I knew that 80 percent of the work, or 70 percent of the work was going to be MSK related.

[00:39:15] Yeah, so it wouldn’t

[00:39:16] fit. So having someone that didn’t have an interest in that area straight away was a red flag. No point employing them.

[00:39:21] I could, but then it would have just frustrated me. And it would have frustrated them as well. There was a better job for them out there somewhere.

[00:39:29] Yeah. And that’s just being honest, isn’t it? Yeah.

[00:39:32] I’m not wasting anyone’s

[00:39:33] time.

[00:39:34] I know. So I want to thank you for coming on the Podiatry Legends Podcast. Do you have any words of wisdom before we wrap up?

[00:39:41] Is there any? Say there’s a new graduate out there at the moment. I have not done this for a long time. They bump you at a bus stop and they go, you’re on the Podiatry Legends Podcast. Yeah. What’s one bit of advice that you would give them?

[00:39:56] I would say, be clear about your [00:40:00] vision for your career. And don’t be fearful about fulfilling that vision. Podiatry as a profession, is a small profession, there are a lot of people that you can reach out to that can help you. And I think that’s what I would say. I think that there’s no need to be in a kind of silo by yourself.

[00:40:23] Dream big and just go for it, but make contact with people and ask for help. That’s what I would say. And then people will help you to achieve what you need to achieve.

[00:40:35] That is good advice. It’s like the quote on my back wall. Your next connection will be the one that changes your life.

[00:40:39] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You need to put yourself out there. Oh, yeah.

[00:40:43] I just think that’s why you need to go to events. You need to get a little workshops, conferences. If you can’t go to the bigger ones, then go to some of the smaller ones that other people are holding and just connect with other people.

[00:40:56] So Funmi, I want to thank you so much for coming on the Podiatry Legends [00:41:00] Podcast sharing part of your story. And this has been a lot of fun. So thank you very much.

TRANSCRIPT (UNEDITED) 

[00:00:00] Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. Podcasts designed to help you feel see and think differently about the podiatry profession.

[00:00:09] Today is a solo episode and the reason I’m doing a solo episode because there’s a topic that I think is overlooked by a lot of business owners, not just podiatry business owners, I think business owners in all industries. And that is creating a disaster folder. I think every business needs to have a disaster folder.

[00:00:33] And if you’re thinking, what is a disaster folder? It is a folder where you record potential disasters that could happen in your business and what you do to not mitigate that from happening, but what you do once it has happened. So, yes, you should have things in place that you should always try and lower your risk of disasters happening, but there’s things that will happen in your business that are out of your control, and when it does [00:01:00] happen, everybody on your team needs to know exactly what to do next. If, if every problem becomes really business owner dependent, you never get a break from your business. Your team needs to be able to make decisions.

[00:01:17] And they need to know they have your support when they make these decisions. And it’s based on what is in your disaster folder. And if it’s all documented and they follow the disaster folder step by step all the way through, then they have nothing to be concerned about. Cause they followed all the steps and you know that everything has happened properly.

[00:01:36] So here’s a scenario that I want you to stop and think about. What would you do if you arrived at work tomorrow morning and your premises was not there? What would you do? And when I mean not there, I mean it’s been burnt to the ground, or you’ve had a cyclone, it’s just, it’s, it’s just not there, it’s disappeared.

[00:01:54] What would you do?

[00:01:56] Do you actually have it mapped out, what you would do? [00:02:00] Does your team know what the game plan is? Do they know what to do next? And could they implement that game plan, If you were not around, if you’re away on holidays, could they straight away implement it? Now I know the building burning down is an extreme example, but sometimes I think you’ve got to talk in extremes so that the point is really driven home.

[00:02:20] Or if you are away, does your team know at least the first few steps to get things underway until you actually return?

[00:02:28] So I’ll give you an example. In Cairns, we get a lot of cyclones. And most years we’re always preparing for it. That’s just what we do. We’re in a cyclone area.

[00:02:38] And I had actually prepared for that, knowing that potentially We could turn up to work after a cyclone and the roof be blown off the clinic or the clinic has been damaged in some way that we could not work there. I did have a game plan in place and some of the things I wrote down here, I had other locations mapped out, medical [00:03:00] centers, Physiotherapy clinics that I knew.

[00:03:03] I went around to other places and I actually said to them, Hey, if for some reason my clinic became damaged and I needed somewhere to work from very quickly, could I use one of the rooms in your center? And they said, yes, and went great. So I mapped that down. These are the places you call first that we can actually find a room.

[00:03:21] And the other reason I chose a medical centre and physiotherapy clinics was because they also had examination benches, which meant we could use them straight away with our patients.

[00:03:31] We also had a list of other vital equipment that we needed, a list of stock that we needed straight away, and where you can actually get them from. I’d also reached out to a number of other podiatrists I knew, not just locally, but around Australia and Queensland that I said to them, if something ever happened, could I rely on you to supply me with certain stock items by this time?

[00:03:55] And they said, yes. So I had them all listed down as well. So straight away, [00:04:00] if I was away on holidays and my team turned up and there was damage to the building, for whatever reason, Forget about cyclones. If it was a cyclone, I’m probably in town. But if it was fire damage, something like that, and I’m away.

[00:04:11] They knew what to do in the next steps. They had a list of people they could call. Straight away, they knew what stock items we needed, what equipment we needed, and there was a list of people that we could actually call upon to get them, and suppliers. I had a list of suppliers on who supplied what, where they were, how fast they could actually get it to us.

[00:04:27] So straight away, they could, Take advantage of this list that I’ve done, get the ball rolling, and if I was able to get back and help out, I got back. But if not, at least they could get things started. They weren’t all just sitting around going, Oh, well, it looks like we’ve got a couple of days off until Tyson gets back.

[00:04:43] No, I wanted them to get the ball rolling, so when I came in, there was some momentum already started. Advantage we also had though, when there were cyclones, especially like in Cairns, is we get a few days warning. So when there’s a cyclone off the coast, it doesn’t just hit over night and we’re, Oh, wow, [00:05:00] that was a surprise.

[00:05:01] We know it’s coming. And we’re, we’re prepared for it as a team. We would normally have a conversation about it as well. So I think in your area where you are most places, there’s some form of natural disasters that will happen. Make sure you have a game plan in place and what you do step by step when that happens.

[00:05:19] Now look, we’re hoping for this is like insurance having your disaster plan. Disaster folder is almost like having insurance. You don’t want any of this to ever happen, but when I go some through some of these other things that I’m going to list, you’ll go, okay, yeah, these have happened or yes, potentially they could happen.

[00:05:38] The whole idea of the disaster folder is to create an extensive list of things that can go wrong. And having a team on board, knowing what to do next. I’m going to run through a few other things, oh, now there’s a quote that I want to share with you as well by Dennis Waitley and it was, plan for the worst, expect the best and be prepared to be surprised. [00:06:00] Now, I’ve lived by this quote and some people have said to me, Oh, don’t you think, , planning for the worst is negative?

[00:06:07] And I disagree because I think it’s a smart move. I think planning for the worst that could happen, which is exactly why we take out insurance. But think about it seriously. The reason you take home insurance, It’s because you’re, you’re betting the insurance company, something’s going to go wrong, but they’re betting you something won’t.

[00:06:27] So pretty much you’re, it’s not negative to take out insurance. It’s, I think it’s stupid not to take insurance. I don’t think planning for the worst is a negative thing. I think planning for the worst is a smart thing to do, but if it never happens, you can go.

[00:06:43] Thank God that didn’t happen. That is a bonus.

[00:06:45] And I’ll tell you a funny story. A friend of mine, Dave Frees, that you’ve probably heard me mention. Well, he’s been on the podcast and I talk about him every now and then. And I go to his event every October in Arizona. And I was with Dave Frees one day. [00:07:00] And he, he wasn’t feeling too well. He wasn’t sure if he had a flu, a bug, or what was going on, but he was, he was feeling quite ill that he felt like he was going to be sick.

[00:07:09] So we went out for lunch and while we’re out, while we’re having lunch, I was cutting my food quite small and I was chewing it a lot. And Dave said to me, you seem to be chewing your food a lot more than normal. I said, well, Dave, it’s because you’re sick and you don’t know exactly what it is. I have this fear that whatever you have, I might get and I might be sick and you already said that you have thrown up. Now, I’m chewing my food really, really well. Just in case I do throw up, I want it to come out a lot easier than having chunky bits of food because I’ve scoffed it down too fast.

[00:07:45] And he actually said, that’s really, really smart thinking. Now, it never happened. I was fine, but at least I was prepared for the worst. But I expected the best and, I wasn’t surprised about anything. I didn’t get [00:08:00] sick, which was absolutely fantastic.

[00:08:01] Now the, the other part too, there’s always going to be new things that are going to crop up that will be added to your disaster folder that you might think you have everything in there. And just when you think you have everything in there, Something else might happen.

[00:08:13] You never thought about that. Like I said, I’ve got a list we’re going to run through and hopefully I cover a lot of items, but yeah, going back four years ago, who would have thought a simple little, uh, virus. would have thrown us all into turmoil. Yeah, when COVID hit, nobody planned for that.

[00:08:29] When I had my disaster follow, there’s no mention of COVID in there at all. So something like that was very unplanned. I think was something none of us could have planned for. But what did you learn from it? And I think If you haven’t done it already, you should sit down and think, what did I learn from that experience?

[00:08:48] What could I have done differently? Could I have handled things a little bit better? But document things. If something like that ever happened again, which hopefully it’s unlikely, but if something like that did happen again, have you got stepped out? Does [00:09:00] everybody on your team know what you’re going to?

[00:09:02] Once again, that’s like building, burning down. That was, that was a major sort of event. So it’s unlikely that something like that is going to happen again.

[00:09:11] And they always say that adversity is a great opportunity to, to learn.

[00:09:16] Now, the best part about adversity, no matter what type of adversity is, it is an opportunity to learn. And I think it’s really important to realise whatever’s happened in the past, you can’t change the past, so you should not focus on it. And that’s in all aspects of life. What you can control is what’s happening right.

[00:09:34] now, which will have a direct effect on what happens in the future. So if you’re listening to this podcast now and you’re thinking, Oh yeah, should we have a disaster folder or not? Should we start one? I think you should, because what you do today could pay dividends in the future because it’s something that you’ve got to understand.

[00:09:53] And no matter how you want to dress this up, shit happens. It is just one of those things. It’s part of life [00:10:00] that things happen unexpectedly and when it does, those that are prepared, win. Now, going back to the COVID example. I know when COVID happened, if I still had my podiatry clinic at the time, I don’t think I would have been too concerned financially because I always prepared.

[00:10:23] I had my clinic set up in a way and had bank accounts set up and I used to move money in there over a number of years, that I had enough money in there that my business could run for probably about 12 months. With no income coming in, and that was just a backup plan that I always had. So no matter what would’ve happened with Covid, I would’ve financially been prepared for that.

[00:10:41] I would’ve kept my whole team on. Nothing would’ve changed for them, which meant they could have afforded their lifestyle on that as well. I wouldn’t have had to let anybody go. That is all preparing for shit happening and you just can be prepared that when it happens, those that are prepared will win.

[00:10:58] Those who are not prepared, and I know [00:11:00] people, not just, I mean, in podiatry podiatry, that had businesses that they lived week by week or month by month. And when COVID hit, they, I know a few of them that closed down. I know a few that really struggled and I know some that are still trying to recover because they spent all the money when the good times were happening and they didn’t prepare for a downturn.

[00:11:22] So I always say cash is king and it’s one of those things that you need to have a good cash reserve behind you. And if you do have a good cash reserve behind you, you’ll always make really smart decisions. When money is tight and you’re under pressure, you know that you can sometimes make bad decisions or poor decisions.

[00:11:39] And it’s like, you take your dog for a walk. This is what I mean about preparation. You take your dog for a walk. When you take your dog for a walk, you take poo bags. Why do you take poo bags? It’s because you know. Your dog is probably going to poo. Now I see people walk in their dogs and they don’t have a poo bag.

[00:11:56] I’m thinking, did you not prepare or do you just not care? [00:12:00] When it comes to your business, it’s the same thing. You know that certain things in your business are going to take a poop. So be prepared with your poo bags. This is what the disaster folder is all about.

[00:12:11] And you also got to prepare for.

[00:12:13] adversity. Now, depending on what country you’re in, if you’re in a country that plays rugby union, you will know of the All Blacks. Now the thing with the All Blacks, they are the most successful sporting team in the history. When you look at their win loss rate, they are just far and above anybody else.

[00:12:34] And It’s just, they’re always an amazing team to watch play no matter who they’re playing. And yes, they do lose occasionally, which surprises everybody. And if there’s any Kiwis listening to this, uh, podcast, they’ll be going, yeah, All Blacks. They know how good they are. But the thing with the All Blacks.

[00:12:50] It’s partly due with their team culture. They have a fantastic team culture, and I’ve got a separate talk all about the All Blacks team culture that I’ve done, not on this podcast, I’ve just done previously. [00:13:00] And, but like most successful sporting teams, they prepare for adversity. They prepare for bad weather.

[00:13:08] They don’t just play the game and train in perfect weather conditions all the time. They prepare that one day it might be really hot, it might be really cold, it could be raining, and they modify their game based on what is actually happening around them. They have to prepare and plan for a player being sent off unexpectedly and being down one man.

[00:13:31] So instead of having 15 people on the field, they might have 14 or sometimes 13. And when that happens, they know that they’ve got to adapt the game. Oh, wow. We’ve had two players turn off. What do we do now? They would have planned for this in training. If they had a key team member injured during the game and they come off, okay, they still got 15 people, but everybody has had to shuffle to a different position, especially if that person was [00:14:00] a key player.

[00:14:01] They don’t sit and go, Oh, geez, we’ve just lost our, our captain and a number one player. Oh, well, it looks like we’ve lost the game now. No, straight away they shifted. And the reason they do that is because they do it in training. And this is why your team needs to understand what your game plan is. How the disaster folder works.

[00:14:20] What you have lined up for different things. If everybody is on the, is in, in your team knows the plan, they’re preparing for adversity, when something happens, everybody knows how to shift and shuffle. No different to if a podiatrist rang up suddenly and said, I’ve had a car accident on the way into work.

[00:14:37] Now what? What does everyone do? Do they just drop their lolly bag or are the things in place that you’re actually going to run through? And I’ll go through this in a sec.

[00:14:44] And the other part about the All Blacks that I think is really important, and this is something that I read about them. They practice and they drill for the worst situations. Which is player being sent off in injury, bad weather. They practice it. They might have it all happening in one game, bad weather, [00:15:00] key players injured and people sent off, but they expect the best outcome and by doing that they sometimes surprise themselves.

[00:15:09] I’ve watched some games this year in the NRL, in the rugby league. And there’s been teams that have had two or three players sin binned or sent off during the game, yet they have still ended up winning the game. And the reason they’ve done that is because they’ve got to practice and drill. This is what happens when in this scenario, we will do this.

[00:15:29] This is where we’ll move players around. And when they’ve done that, they’ve ended up winning in the end through planning for adversity or preparing for adversity. planning for the worst, expecting the best, and then being surprised with the outcome.

[00:15:42] So I’ll run through what was in my disaster folder, just so you’re aware. And the first thing I had in there was I had goals and objectives of my podiatry clinic. I wanted the team to know what the goals and objectives were of my podiatry business. I [00:16:00] had an explanation of what the purpose. of the disaster file was all about.

[00:16:03] I wanted them to understand why this folder existed. I had the responsibilities of every team member and the reporting process. Who reported to who? I think that’s really important. There needs to be, there needs to be a hierarchy on what’s going to actually happen. , I had end of day preparation and what needed to be done before the next working day and why each of these things was actually necessary.

[00:16:28] I had a patient appointment ranking system. So I don’t believe that all appointments are equal. Depending on how you have your clinic set up. But for the way that my business ran, we saw a lot of biomechanical sports people and we still saw routine foot care, but certain types of routine foot care could wait another couple of days if needed.

[00:16:51] Whereas someone who needed nail surgery, to me, that was more of a priority. Or somebody had a sports injury, that was more of a priority. So we had our [00:17:00] patients all ranked. So if something happened, if somebody called in sick, we would look at who was booked in and we would maneuver things around based on that.

[00:17:07] And we would talk about it on a regular basis in our team meetings. We also made sure that we had the business owners contact details there. I think it’s really important that every team member knows how to get hold of the business owner. We had all the emergency contact details,

[00:17:25] in our folder we also had the details of all our supplies and every year that was updated. And I had this other thing that we used to call the annual, nut and screw review. So one day a year, and I did this myself actually, but I still had it in the schedule to do one day a year I would go into the clinic and my job was to go around with my spanners and tighten every single thing that had a nut or a screw attached to it.

[00:17:53] And you’d be surprised how many things loosen up over a year, whether it’s the bottom of chairs, [00:18:00] the back of some benches. It could be table setups. It’ll amaze you. And we used to have this, uh, little bowl that sat in, that sat in our kitchen. And it said, if you ever find a nut or screw or bolt anywhere, do not thrown away.

[00:18:15] Pick it up, put it in that bowl. I guarantee I’ll know where it goes, or when I’m going around doing my review of my nut and screw review, I will find where that actually needs to go.

[00:18:26] The next thing, the next section we actually had in the folder was our electrical section, which what happens when, uh, there’s no power when you arrive at the business. So your team member arrives, they open up the door, they go to flick switch and there’s no power. What do you do? Or the power goes off during your normal hours of operation.

[00:18:45] What do you do then? Or there’s just an electrical fault, whether it’s lights, light switches, power sockets. If something looks a bit dangerous, you don’t want anyone playing around with it. You need to call someone straight away. And who is your preferred electrician? And do you have a backup electrician if the [00:19:00] first one is actually unavailable?

[00:19:01] And even if you have illuminated signs or lighting outside of your business, it might be security lighting. If something’s faulty there, you the sooner you get onto it, the better. I think there’s nothing looks worse than when I see a sign that a business. Like a podiatry clinic that has illuminated signage and one letter is out and you look at it and you go okay, maybe it’s just gone out, but a week later it’s still out, a month later it’s still out, two months later you see a second light out, six months later those two lights are still out and you go, to me that doesn’t reflect very well on that business. You’ve gone all the effort having an illuminated sign, yet nobody is actually keeping an eye on it. And so that’s something that everyone should keep an eye and who do they call when that actually happens? You probably find that business, the business owner may not be around and all the team members, they all see it, but they go, we don’t know who we’re supposed to call.

[00:19:53] So they just don’t do anything about it at all, and it reflects poorly in the business. The next section we had was on plumbing [00:20:00] and that related to your toilets and bathrooms, the sinks and basins. Any outside issues or leaks and who is your preferred plumber? And our plumber was also our roofing guy.

[00:20:13] So if we had any leaks in the roof, our plumbing person and roofer was also in that particular section of the folder.

[00:20:20] So the next section we had was what we called, , technology. And this was , we actually had an IT guy who, our consultant, and we had them come into our clinic and actually do a presentation for our team. And it was surprising, one, how much everyone actually enjoyed that, but he ran through scenarios with them on when this happens with a computer or you got this fault, what do you do?

[00:20:46] And, and I remember once one of the receptionists calling me saying, Oh, internet’s not working. I’m like, Oh, okay. And so then I’ve gone into work and then you found out, okay, the internet wasn’t working on their machine. It was [00:21:00] working everywhere else. It just wasn’t working on their machine. Or they’re saying there’s a problem with the network, but then, or there’s a problem with the computer, but then it wasn’t plugged in.

[00:21:10] Now don’t laugh at that because you probably, we’ve all had that happen. But there’s some of the things we had in the technology section where what happens if you do have a computer crash or there is a breakdown, what does the team do? If there’s a fault with the modem that you, there is no internet.

[00:21:25] What do you do? Now these days it’s great because you can easily hotspot in so many different ways, but if there’s a modem fault, if there is no internet, if there’s a Wi Fi problem, what do you do? If you have iPads set up, what if they’re not working? Where do you get them fixed? If there’s website errors, I used to look at the website as part of your technology.

[00:21:44] I used to look after our website. So most of those things I would actually always be looking at. And maybe your team doesn’t look at your website, but they need to, if you don’t look after the website yourself, Somebody on your team needs to be looking at it because it’s not uncommon for [00:22:00] links just to break or pages just not to work.

[00:22:02] Don’t know how the gremlins get in there, but they actually do.

[00:22:06] If you have a telephone system and there’s faults there, who do you call or who do you contact? Printers and scanner faults. Any If you do have an IT consultant, make sure their contact details are there, that your team can jump straight on board and actually call them if there’s a problem.

[00:22:24] And if you have a security system in your business, if you’ve got security cameras, the way that that’s set up, if there’s a problem, if there’s a fault, who do you call to make sure everything is actually on track?

[00:22:35] Oh, just a side note too, when it comes to technology, I think it’s really important that to never rely just on one person. When it comes to the IT technology and websites of your business, you need to have multiple contacts because if you’ve got somebody who’s designed your website for you, and it’s like a one man or one person operation, and all of a sudden they [00:23:00] decide, I don’t want to do this anymore.

[00:23:01] I’m going to become a barista. What do you do? So you need to have a backup plan. If you were, if the website person goes, who do you go to now? You could go to podiatryclinicwebsites.com. That’s always a good place, but just be prepared.

[00:23:16] we had an it guy who was fantastic, never let us down. And that was all great, but I did have a backup plan if for some reason they got hit by a truck and I needed to get somebody else in.

[00:23:27] So always be prepared for that.

[00:23:28] So, and the next thing that we actually had in our section or in our sections was just about equipment. And you might be thinking, Oh, okay, well, what did you have in the equipment? And this was like, well, because it’s not just our podiatry benches, our televisions that we had set up, there were faults there.

[00:23:45] What do you do? These days, if there’s a problem with your TV, you’d probably throw them away and buy a new one. They’re cheap enough. But our autoclave, who looked after that? Everybody needed to know. Your hydraulic chairs and benches, dust extraction units and grinders. If you have a [00:24:00] treadmill, who comes to fix your treadmill if something goes wrong? And other just miscellaneous items in your clinic, if that breaks or something goes wrong, where do you actually get it fixed?

[00:24:13] Now, this is a big one. This was. Uh, the section that we just call their ProArch team, and this is what do you do if the receptionist calls in sick and cannot work? And is it a short term problem or is it a long term problem? Does everybody know what to do? What happens if the receptionist just resigns suddenly or you’ve let them go suddenly?

[00:24:35] What happens if a podiatrist is sick? What happens if a podiatrist resigns suddenly? Oh, I’m leaving at the end of the week or I’m finishing up in two weeks. Are you prepared for this? What if there’s an injury to a team member? I had podiatrists who had been fixing up a window or doing something at the window, broke, sliced the hand and they were off for a [00:25:00] couple of weeks.

[00:25:01] You couldn’t plan for that, but we had, did have that in the disaster folder, so we knew basically what to do. And this comes back to some of the earlier sections about ranking your patients. Because these things, they’re not all in silos, each of these sections. They all do actually relate to each other. The last thing I’m going to mention in this part is just about, if there’s complaints to the podiatry board, or some other health organisation.

[00:25:30] What do you do when a complaint from a patient comes into the clinic or is sent to the registration board and the registration board then contacts the podiatrist? What do you do? And I’d had team members who this had happened to and they just went to water. They didn’t know what to do. They, they were in panic mode.

[00:25:52] I’m saying to just settle down. You’re innocent until proven guilty. And looking at what you’ve done here with the patient, you’ve done nothing wrong. [00:26:00] So there’s nothing to be concerned about, but you still need to have a plan in place because what if they did do something wrong? Are you prepared for that?

[00:26:09] So these are things that you need to think about and the things that you need to consider and then plan putting things in place in case something like this actually goes wrong.

[00:26:20] Now some of the other sections that we, , had is legal issues. So, there was a section in there for that. We had another section for window and glass breakages. There’s urgent and non urgent. So if glass gets broken, especially if it’s an outside glass panel that come into your clinic, that’s pretty urgent.

[00:26:39] So who are you going to call when that actually happens? And, uh, how much are you prepared to spend to get something like that fixed? Now, I know if it’s a security issue, you want it fixed fast. You need to have a list of people that you can contact pretty quickly. And also your car parking. What if there’s a car, if there’s a car park for your patients and there’s a car [00:27:00] actually blocking the entrance?

[00:27:01] What do you do? You’re going to get the thing towed away. There’s unauthorised parking, but even cleaning and maintaining your car park, I think should be in that disaster folder because things can happen. I remember a neighbour’s tree falling down into our particular car park, not only did it damage the fence, but also blocked part of the car parking.

[00:27:23] Straight away, what do you do? And it might be funny, you might be thinking, well, how do you prepare for that? How would I even think of some of the things that are going to happen? This is what I was talking about, where your disaster folder is developed over a period of time.

[00:27:37] I’ve given you a list of things here that you could listen to this, take some notes and go, okay, I’m going to start putting some things in place. Some of the more important ones, a tree falling over from a neighbour’s house into your car park may never happen. But there will be other things that will happen that you will, you just won’t even think about.

[00:27:55] But when they do happen, as soon as they happen and the dust has settled, start [00:28:00] documenting. If this happened again, how would we actually handle this process? Would we do it the same way or would we handle it differently? We’d had cars in our car park get broken into, staff car park, and sometimes patients.

[00:28:11] Over the years, it didn’t happen all the time. But when it happened, what was the process that we actually went through with contacting the police? These are things that when they happen. That’s when you start adding it to the disaster folder we had been broken into. So when your clinic gets broken into, what’s the steps that you go through?

[00:28:31] Should you be touching anything or should you be leaving it until you call the police, but you still got to run a business. What’s your protocol on doing all that? What are you checking on to see what’s been taken and what has not been taken? These are things you need to discuss as a team. So everybody is basically on board.

[00:28:45] And some of the last things that we actually had in our disaster folder. Were just general items like handyman. We, we had a couple of handyman that we could get hold of just to do odd jobs around. Sometimes. We had some water damage once in the ceiling, [00:29:00] damaged some of the plaster, so we got something in just to fix up that plaster work.

[00:29:05] I’ll tell you, having a couple of hand handyman available are a godsend. We have council details in our disaster folder, where if you have a landlord or there’s a body corp, you want to have all those details readily available. Because if something goes wrong, you need your team to be able to contact the landlord or contact the body corp if it’s applicable to them.

[00:29:25] Unless you’re the landlord of your own building. And other documents. We had our insurance documents in our disaster folder. So when something happened, we knew exactly we’d look. And every year when things were updated, that’s where we’d go to. And the last thing we actually had in our disaster folder, which I think everybody should have, because I know everybody runs around looking for these things, is equipment warranties.

[00:29:49] We’d have all our warranties for all our equipment, everything. In that same folder, because if something broke, we straight away, we’d go to there, we could look up the warrant. We knew if [00:30:00] it was still under warranty and it would get replaced or, you know, it’s out of warranty. Is it worth fixing? Or do we dump it and get something new?

[00:30:09] So I know there was a lot in that. And I was talking to a podiatrist the other day and I was telling him about this disaster folder. And I told them that I was going to do this podcast. And they told me a couple of things. They said, Oh, have you thought about including this? Which I hadn’t. One was they had to.

[00:30:24] Let go of an unsafe podiatrist. A podiatrist was doing something in the clinic that was very unsafe for the patients and had to let them go. Suddenly I went, that’s a good one. Didn’t have that one. They had another team member who had some major psychosis, just had a mental breakdown in the clinic. And thinking, nah, never had that one happen either.

[00:30:44] So that’s something else you can actually add. They did mention burglary and the other part, this was actually a really interesting one that they mentioned. They had the business set up in a particular, in, inside another business. So it could be, you could be renting a room. Say for example, let’s say [00:31:00] from a physiotherapy clinic, you had a room rented there.

[00:31:02] Everything’s going fantastic. But then all of a sudden that physiotherapist, Well, that business has gone into bankruptcy and that front door has been locked and you are not allowed access to it because the receivers have taken it all over and this actually happened to them. It wasn’t a physio clinic, it was another sort of business and they could not get in there to get their equipment out and all of a sudden all the patients couldn’t be treated, they couldn’t get hold of their equipment and it, I think she said, took something like a week before they could get in there and finally get this stuff out.

[00:31:32] Now, if you’re set up in that way, if you have clinics set up in multiple places, this is something you should probably think about. That if something like that happened, do you have a backup plan that almost goes back to my original thing, when I said that if you turned up and the building had burnt down?

[00:31:46] If there was a cyclone and part of the roof had been blown off, what happens if you turn up and there’s locks on the door and you’re not allowed in there? You need to find another location, you need to do it fast, because you need to be treating your patients, because that’s the only way that you make money, and just keep [00:32:00] the ball rolling.

[00:32:02] So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions, please Please send me an email, tyson@podiatrylegends.Com, or you can send it tf@tysonfranklin.Com. So I’ve got the Podiatry Legends website and there’s also the Tyson Franklin website. And just let people know in the UK, if you happen to be listening to this, I will be doing a one day podiatry Marketing 2025 Workshop in Liverpool on Monday, the 3rd of February. It’s going to be the day before the foot and ankle show that runs for two days on the 4th and 5th. If you want to know more about it, please send me an email tf@tysonfranklin.com. I’ll put you on my priority list. As more information comes up, everyone that’s on my priority list or the people who are subscribed to my newsletter will get all the information first.

[00:32:55] There’s only going to be 20 spots available. So [00:33:00] if you’re on my priority list, you’re going to find out all the details first and be able to register first. Then it’ll be people who are on my newsletter. If you don’t currently get my newsletter, go to my website, tysonfranklin. com. You can subscribe through it from there.

[00:33:13] I think you can from the podiatry legends website as well. Anyway, that’s it for me this week. I want you to look after yourself, look after your family and I will talk to you next week. Bye for now.