Daniel Fava: When you think about what's draining you in your practice, is it really the clinical work? Probably not. For most therapists, it's everything around it, the admin, the paperwork, the notes after hours. My guest today is Damian Adler, psychologist and co-founder of Zanda, a practice management platform used by tens of thousands of practitioners worldwide. He's lived this himself. All right, so welcome back to the podcast, Damien Adler. How are you doing?
Damien Adler: I'm doing great, yourself?
Daniel Fava: I am doing, I'm doing great, I'm doing good. I mentioned before we hit record here, we're heading into our summer months ⁓ here in Atlanta. So our kids are winding down with school. So that means half days and camps and all balancing of life and business, which is fun, but I'm good. It's a good day. How are you doing? In this conversation, we get into why so many practices end up running their owners ragged, how to build a practice that actually supports you and not just your clients, and the small doable steps you can take to get the joy back, even if you're feeling buried right now. But first, let's hear about our sponsors.
Damien Adler: Yeah. No, I'm doing wonderfully. Thank you. we're you can hear from accent. I'm in Australia. So the other side, we're heading into our into our winter and also have some decent school holidays coming up, although not quite the same as your your summer, of course. But everything is is going really well. Thank you.
Daniel Fava: Awesome, awesome. And so you are you're joining us again. This is your second time being on the podcast. you know, welcome back. I always enjoy when when I get to, you know, catch up again with with folks who've already been on and so will link in the show notes to your previous episode and interview that we did where I know you shared a lot about your story ⁓ how you founded Zanda and kind of the reason for that. But ⁓ if could just kind of briefly touch on who you are and what you do and a little bit about your story. we jump in just for folks who haven't listened to that episode.
Damien Adler: Yeah, absolutely. I'll give the super condensed version. So I'm a psychologist by trade. So that's the background I come from. along the journey, my wife is also a psychologist. We built a private practice ⁓ in doing so, realized the importance of, you know, ⁓ and say on top of the administration side of running a practice. And long story short, we there wasn't any great software out there. so we initially started, you know, partnered with my brother who ⁓ a tech background and, know, right from the very start decided, okay, let's if there isn't something that exists that serves practitioners, well, let's see if there's a market and appetite for it. ⁓ so that a good 15 or so years ago I think. And I started here, now we are all over the and US and Canada being, you know, where a lot of, in fact, a lot of our operations and everything happens out of the US and Canada is simply because there's a lot of practitioners there and a lot of practitioners taking, well, they the same difficulties all over the world. And so things have changed a lot from those early days of running that prior practice.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. I bet. I bet. And about how many ⁓ private practices are you all serving now?
Damien Adler: actually, I need to check on that. But it is ⁓ and thousands and thousands. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is is thousands and thousands. I think there's something like 40 something thousand or something users and, you know, on the on the platform. And yeah, and, you know, primarily focused around the sort of core markets, US and Canada, ⁓ UK and Australia seems to be. ⁓ But I think I think we're somewhere.
Daniel Fava: Wow, that's great. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: in terms of globally that were utilized in around something like 23, 25 countries, something like that. it, thank you.
Daniel Fava: That's awesome. Well, congratulations. And I think that that, I mean, that just, kind of the reason why I asked is like, surely you, not only ⁓ in private practice, but now you're also talking to so many private practices and serving so many private practices. So, you know, obviously you've got, experience and wisdom and you, you see ⁓ what are going through and sort of, ⁓ you know, the, the rate of ⁓ burnout all of the things that we see happening in really any, you know, business, any small business that you're building. you're seeing that kind of day in and day out so you really understand where people are at.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's something that our education system globally does not prepare practitioners well for. think generally, you know, prepares well for the clinical side of work. And I think people, you know, usually are well equipped for that. But when it comes to the day to day running of a business and all the things that go with that include the importance of making a profit. You know, like
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: Those things, is no, generally most sequences don't include anything ⁓ meaningful that's useful. So it's sort something that we're really passionate about ⁓ is, you said, having been there and seeing it close up and now working with people around the world. It's the same pain points pretty much everywhere ⁓ we go. No one doing paperwork. ⁓ No one doing admin. ⁓ No one handling the muddy side of things.
Daniel Fava: Right, right. Yeah.
Damien Adler: You know, and all those things actually get away, you know, from the sort of pure enjoyment and the passion that usually drove people into the health space. so, you know, our goal, you know, as Zander, as a practice management system is to one by one, you know, we've been doing it for a while now, is remove the friction points, make it easier, make it smoother, make it, you know, just bring back the kind of
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: bring back the joy and people to do what they do best. ⁓ ⁓ kind of our driving thing.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's awesome and I'm sure that that's really rewarding and fun to see when your platform, what you do is really freeing up people to enjoy, like you said, enjoy the work again. That's exciting.
Damien Adler: Yeah, and we're looking at it's a personal, you know, belief, but you know, it goes throughout that practices should be built like by default as a practitioner. We build things by from a practitioner perspective to service patients, right. But I think practices should be built in a way that does, of course, patients, right, but also looks after
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: and delivers and supports the practice owner and the practitioners as well. Because, know, those things you mentioned before, if you don't do that, you know, you get a lack of enjoyment, you get that burnout, you get that drop in passion. And worse case scenario, you get people who leave the profession, you know, and, and then that sort of, think, robs, you know, it sounds, I don't mean it sounds sort of idealistic, but it robs, you know, the community of that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Right.
Damien Adler: like of that person's skill and their training and everything if they up leaving. So by, know, it's really a tangible thing when we sort of think about how to design practices in a way that delivers for the owner. And we see the same kind of patterns, you know, and that's one of the things of, you ⁓ know, privilege we have of being able to work with lots of different people. We see the same patterns in successful practices. And then conversely, we see the same sort of patterns.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: practices that find themselves sort of snowed under or you know and so it's it's ⁓ it's good fun yeah.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Let's start there with that. So let's talk about what are some of the things that you see when someone comes into Xanadworld and they're like, my practice doesn't ⁓ me. I'm just running. Everything is for my clients. Everything is all about ⁓ What are some of those things that maybe they have? set up in such a way that is going to burn them out or maybe they just haven't set up at all, you know, that's going to help them not burn out.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes like we can, we can take it back almost to a foundation thing of what does the practice owner want from their practice. ⁓ And that's something that I think people often don't think enough about ⁓ you know, think about ⁓ should the practice deliver to them, what's meaningful and I don't mean just professionally, it's professionally and personally, kind like we touched on at the start about, you know, we all have ⁓ lives outside of our professional
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Damien Adler: roles. And I think in starting a private practice, I think about what does that ⁓ you know, in terms of what do I want out of it? ⁓ you know, is it flexibility? Is it, you know, financial freedom? Is it choosing the right, the clients that match for you? Is it about being able to focus on your, you know, niche or niche, you know, that you're after?
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: And so I think I would encourage everyone to start there. It doesn't matter if you've been in practice for 10 years, you can sort of think about that now still, right? Because we often just sort of slide in and find ourselves somewhere. So there's no wrong time to do that. But just, you know, have your things. I think getting that kind of foundation, you know, right. And then the next kind of, I think, thing is about thinking about what success, it relates to that, but what does success sort of look like?
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Damien Adler: And sometimes people can get caught up, I think, on the wrong ⁓ right? So you can get, people get caught up on, maybe they look at growth in terms of, they're expanding their practice, they might think about, you know, how many clinicians they have, or, you know, does their website have a long list of people that are part of the practice or that are ⁓ you know? But really, it's got to anchor back to what's important to that person. ⁓ so I would say the next kind of thing that people, you know, don't...
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: defined or well don't think about is the values that are important to them in terms of growing that practice and the sort of people they want sort of in that practice. ⁓ So sometimes you see these kind of like almost like vanity know, like people are looking at kind of size or they might even be looking at top line, ⁓ ⁓ much revenue, you know, a practice can generate, but you know, you can certainly boost your top line ⁓ be not profitable.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: Right. So if you're, know, there's lots of reasons that can happen. But I think that's something that people don't architect well sometimes is, you know, OK, what is it that I'm trying to build? What's meaningful to me? What does what does success look like? You know, does it mean I see some clients, see a lot of clients, see no clients? Does it mean I've got freedom to spend time with my kids? You know, one of the reasons I left, I used to work in the public health system, you know, for
Daniel Fava: Right. Yeah.
Damien Adler: quite a few years, which is not sort of uncommon pathway into prior practice. But one of the things I realized is that the further I stayed there, the more I'd be, and even if I got more and more senior, the more I would be there at work and have very little flexibility. I'd have fixed hours and increased responsibilities and thought, that wasn't aligned with my idea of family life. And so that was one of the drivers for going to private. So that can be different for everyone, but I think you're doing that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Damien Adler: Then I think the next thing that sort of gets in the way and this is really around the operates, ⁓ or is where people run into trouble and if they do it well, they can obviously get all the benefits but they don't sort of set up the administrative side of and their practice operates usually in very idiosyncratic kind of way. based around either them or maybe they have like a key admin person knows everything about how that practice operates and maybe does an amazing job, but it's not actually a system that anyone else could take over or understand and it's maybe not automated much as it could. And that leaves the practice really vulnerable because if something happens to that, if it's a primary practitioner or something happens to that key admin person ⁓ or then either the revenue collapses or the...
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: the practices in all sorts of trouble. so where we see people get caught out, they will be scaling perhaps or starting to grow, they're getting some success and maybe hiring some more people, but they're not taking a step back and doing some of those things to set up the practice administration in the right way, set up their pricing the right way, set up even the guidelines and boundaries around how to keep things contained.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: from it can kind of snowball, right? Because people get, it becomes a vicious cycle that without the right systems, then they're so caught up in the clinical work and the admin work that they feel like they don't have time to step and can almost lose perspective other than something feels wrong. I'm working all the time. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Damien Adler: doing my clinical notes out of hours, I'm staying back, I'm doing all these sorts of things. it, know, so I think most of the time people drift unconsciously, you know, into this territory. And, you know, I think that's real, ⁓ you it's a trap and it's a commonality. yeah.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've, know as I'm like, you know, listening to you talk, I know that there's. There's times in my own business building where I feel, you know, those, those same challenges, you know, when you, you, you get going in a business and you do something one way and it's just, especially if you're starting out, you know, solo, you're kind of like, I'm just the one who does it. And so this is the process. This is the way of doing it. And so there's a, there's definitely like mindset shift and also like future thinking shift that, that you have to go through when you're thinking about.
Damien Adler: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: Adding more whether that's an admin or more clinicians, know more team members you have to think okay How do I make sure this process is repeatable for anyone who comes in? You know people can come and go and leave and you got to be able to quickly get somebody So, you know there's been for me there's over the last few years been a lot of ⁓ SOP is Documenting things and making sure that my team knows like hey, you got to get this in writing
Damien Adler: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: and make sure that someone can access that. And thank God for AI, it's just so helpful to create SOPs because it really makes the heavy lifting so much lighter. So if you're not using AI for that, get started.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah. I was actually just going to say like we built a feature in Zander, a manual feature that's built in right so that for this reason so that can set up all your SOPs and everything in there. And we built that a couple of years know, probably maybe three years ago ⁓ before really. So so we actually hired like specialist ⁓ writers write, you know, SOPs for health practices. And we drafted preloaded the system was 100 and something. the people could go in there and they could start with something. So that was confusing. Now we've built AI into that. ⁓ So can just go in there and say, that's how fast things move. But it's spot on. And ⁓ the ⁓ component is you can just talk to, ⁓ you can verbally talk to the AI say, want to develop it. People sometimes I notice are still
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: sort of in a mindset of sitting there and typing it out and, know, do it. mean, just have a conversation ⁓ with it and say what you want and let it.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I like to, I like to just record it, you know, that just like a, ⁓ my own zoom, you know, just share screen and record. And then I'll take that train. I'll take the transcript and load that all into AI. then you've got a video plus, you know, actual written here are the steps. It's super helpful. And it's kind of, it's kind of fun to do. Like I like that stuff in my own business. It's fun. It's fun to do. Yeah.
Damien Adler: Yeah. It's amazing, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes I think people need a little they just need to play, you play with it. Feel it's OK to feel a little bit sort of uncertain and you practice and you try sort of, you know, different things. ⁓ I think that that sort of leads into ⁓ area that we see people ⁓ sort run into is that they may have a practice management system, but they don't and leverage it.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: fully and that's a real issue. people will have a practice management system, they're essentially using it as a glorified, you know, scheduler. That's about it, right? Like, ⁓ and, you know, depending on the practice management system that you've got, but chances are it can do a lot more than what someone be currently using it for, right? And so really sort of
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: Again, we notice that as a pattern is that the practices that are running the smoothest ⁓ are growing and are happy and they're, you we to find they're utilizing, when we look at the feature deck that they're using like at a Xander, like they're using things like automations and they're doing all everything kind of automated. They're utilizing the AI, you know, ⁓ side things. They're using the client bookings and self payments and integrated insurance, all those things that sort of come together and just reduces the entire admin load. ⁓ Whereas I think, you know, and they could be using competing systems. ⁓ not even, it's just even look at the system that you're using and see what it can actually do for you. ⁓ ⁓ if you need help, like you reach out to whoever supplies that system ⁓ you and ask for a walkthrough or hey, how can I optimize? ⁓
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: the and see what it can do, because then that reduces that admin. And if your letters are, you know, you like speaking AI, if you can hold a have a clinical session, press record, have AI do the transcript and then do the notes in your style. And that means now, instead of having that, you know, whatever 15 minutes it might take to write your clinical notes per session after you're done. You know, just a small thing like that is
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right.
Damien Adler: makes an amazing difference to how people feel. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of, it's a lot of time saved and you can focus on, cause sometimes it's hard to find the time like, oh, I know that this system's broken or I need to write this SOP, but I've got all these notes I need to write, you know? And so it's got leveraging these tools, I think is, you know, it's really important.
Damien Adler: Exactly. Yeah. But I think it's important to know as part of why I think this topic is a really good one for us to talk about is because it's a very common experience. Like what you just articulated there, I think is a very common experience that people feel that and then feel a little overwhelmed to try it out and they're not sure. And that's the norm often rather than the exception. And people often then feel a bit self-conscious sometimes about that. And then I want to...
Daniel Fava: Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: That's what I feel like. So if someone's feeling that way, I'd say, there's no silly questions. ⁓ Learn what you can and I would say doing it just a little bit by little bit. Like if you look at your practice and you think, ⁓ where do I start? Like just find something that is taking you extra time or a task that you're repeating or ⁓ even task you just don't like doing. ⁓ Just something off your plate ⁓ you like doing. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: Automated if you can, delegated if it can't be something automated in your system. ⁓ You know, it makes such a difference.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanna go back to something that, when we first started talking about this topic, really started with sort of like the foundational sort mindset pieces of you gotta what you want, and what does look like? one thing that I and kind of what I'm... kind of piecing together as we're conversing here in just my own experience, me, that's kind of like seasonal, like almost like, not seasonal, more like, like it's a quarterly exercise, you know, where ⁓ can take a step back and of define that, like, okay, like last quarter or last year, I said, this is what I want, ⁓ and is what's important, and this is what success looks like. ⁓ Has changed, you know, and...
Damien Adler: Okay, yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: And then, you know, sometimes these challenges come up too. Like we're talking a lot about, you know, the things that suck our time or drain our energy. those things come in, you know, during, you know, six months of business running. And then when you pause, at least for me, you know, when I take that step back and I don't always do this well, like I really, like I was just thinking the other day, like, man, I need a full day ⁓ just do high level. ⁓
Damien Adler: Yeah
Daniel Fava: learn more AI ⁓ stuff and also look at my business, you you take that step back and you kind of, have to redefine that, you know, because things, life changes, you know, I've got family with two young boys and so like our seasons change all the time. And, and sometimes it started to feel like, I've got, I've let this kind of on its own course without intentionality, you know? And so I just wanted to kind of make that point, you know, for someone listening who's like, ⁓ I do have all this admin stuff or it doesn't feel fun ⁓ you know, hit that pause
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: button and try to schedule that time with yourself to define these things. What does success look like for the next year? And what are some of the processes that I need to create in order to, you know, get me to where I want to be? Just want to make that point.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, think you hit on a key thing there too about you just said ⁓ some time, right? I'm just going to really emphasize, ⁓ Because what you what you were just saying, like is I think wonderful advice and the ⁓ where it will fall down is that if people don't actually set the time to do it because like it keeps rolling over. you you set it for as soon as you can. But then. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah, right.
Damien Adler: go into your calendar and schedule that for in a quarter and a quarter after that and a quarter after that and block it out because then your patient that time is preserved. Your patients won't get all filled up. You'll actually that's there. And when people do that, it really closes the gap between that's a good idea to actually people, you know, people doing it. And but it is a different mindset. I think to just briefly I'll add to that was the
Daniel Fava: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: I think sometimes if you're have partner, have close friends, sometimes actually asking, bouncing off them too, right? Because they'll pick up on ⁓ things like, when you're seeing stress, like what's working, what's not. Finding out whether the schedule that you're running actually works for them. ⁓ Because can also be the thing you're getting caught up in the business side of things.
Daniel Fava: Mmm, yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: so checking in that can also then be important input in terms of designing your practice to go, okay, well, like if I'm working flat out, like maybe that's great financially, maybe it isn't, who knows, depending, ⁓ but that working for those, ⁓ you for my ⁓ partner whatever as well and, you know, and kids. So, yeah. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to bounce that off of them and get that feedback because you can again like without intentionality you can just keep running the machine and keep going and like what's the payoff there, the drawback, the impact to your relationships.
Damien Adler: Bye. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you're only like we sat on the start like, you know, you're only good to your to your patients, you know, you're only able to provide service if you yourself ⁓ like it's that old analogy that you hear, but it's so good as you know, like the aeroplane, you put your own oxygen mask on first, okay. Yeah, that type of thinking that's I know it's a cliche, but but it's true, right? I think it is. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah.
Damien Adler: We need to do that and build with intentionality, you say, build a practice that supports you and then it's become sustainable and ⁓ enjoyable.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Well, as we, you know, kind of wrap up our conversation here, Damien, I guess my last question for you is, know, if ⁓ is listening and they're feeling like, yeah, business, my practice really is not supporting me right now. It's of running, running ragged. Like ⁓ are some sort of words of encouragement or just shifts, mindset shifts that they can make to kind of get out of that and bring that joy back into what they do.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah, I think first of all, it's just that normalization that, you're not alone, right? This is a very common thing. And often it says very good things about you. It says that you're focused on your patients, you're focused on everyone else and you need to, you know, focus on you a little bit and that's okay. So that would be my first sort of like, you know, take home. second, I think is, you you start a list, a like list, but you know, start a list of all the things that are kind of, you know, that are bugging you or you think you could improve or that you're not, you know.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: enjoying don't be overwhelmed by the length of that list. Just get it out there. Like get it written down somewhere. It doesn't matter. Old school notebook is fine. That doesn't matter. Whatever does it for you. And then ⁓ start breaking it down. You know, so ⁓ people get overwhelmed, you know, and that's that's again normal just so break it down, you know, and just start with things that are either easy to do initially or things that are to have the most impact or that you feel you can do. ⁓ And then I think finally sort of
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Damien Adler: you know, schedule some time, getting into the routine and scheduling time of that, you know, working on your business rather than in it. So you can bit by bit chip away at those things, but just starting small and ⁓ what is doable. And then it's amazing how that will compound. And before you know it, you'll be feeling a lot better and more in control and ⁓ making sure you're getting the life that you wanted out of.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: out of your practice.
Daniel Fava: Awesome. Well, thank you for that, Damien, and thank you so much for your time and being back on the show here. Where do you want to send people to learn a little bit more about you and the great work that Xanda's doing?
Damien Adler: Yes, if you go to Zanda Health, zandahealth.com, you'll be able to find us there and ⁓ can learn more about our backstory and learn more about if you're interested in Zanda, can start free trial or you can talk to our team or whatever we can do to help, let us know. Our team are very, very friendly ⁓ and they ⁓ talk tech they talk. every day. So we hire very specifically for people that understand practices and are not going to bamboozle with technical stuff. So ⁓ they're there for you.
Daniel Fava: That's good. Great. Awesome, awesome. Well, we'll put all that stuff in the show notes. People can find you all. you so much for your time, Damian. ⁓ for folks who are listening, if you need help with your ⁓ presence, leveling up your website, being found in SEO, and now of course, AI, ⁓ Practice Elevation would love to help you. So you can head over to privatepracticeelevation.com slash kickoff and schedule a 15 minute call. Thanks so much for listening and go elevate your practice.
Damien Adler: level.
Damien Adler: I'm doing great, yourself?
Daniel Fava: I am doing, I'm doing great, I'm doing good. I mentioned before we hit record here, we're heading into our summer months ⁓ here in Atlanta. So our kids are winding down with school. So that means half days and camps and all balancing of life and business, which is fun, but I'm good. It's a good day. How are you doing? In this conversation, we get into why so many practices end up running their owners ragged, how to build a practice that actually supports you and not just your clients, and the small doable steps you can take to get the joy back, even if you're feeling buried right now. But first, let's hear about our sponsors.
Damien Adler: Yeah. No, I'm doing wonderfully. Thank you. we're you can hear from accent. I'm in Australia. So the other side, we're heading into our into our winter and also have some decent school holidays coming up, although not quite the same as your your summer, of course. But everything is is going really well. Thank you.
Daniel Fava: Awesome, awesome. And so you are you're joining us again. This is your second time being on the podcast. you know, welcome back. I always enjoy when when I get to, you know, catch up again with with folks who've already been on and so will link in the show notes to your previous episode and interview that we did where I know you shared a lot about your story ⁓ how you founded Zanda and kind of the reason for that. But ⁓ if could just kind of briefly touch on who you are and what you do and a little bit about your story. we jump in just for folks who haven't listened to that episode.
Damien Adler: Yeah, absolutely. I'll give the super condensed version. So I'm a psychologist by trade. So that's the background I come from. along the journey, my wife is also a psychologist. We built a private practice ⁓ in doing so, realized the importance of, you know, ⁓ and say on top of the administration side of running a practice. And long story short, we there wasn't any great software out there. so we initially started, you know, partnered with my brother who ⁓ a tech background and, know, right from the very start decided, okay, let's if there isn't something that exists that serves practitioners, well, let's see if there's a market and appetite for it. ⁓ so that a good 15 or so years ago I think. And I started here, now we are all over the and US and Canada being, you know, where a lot of, in fact, a lot of our operations and everything happens out of the US and Canada is simply because there's a lot of practitioners there and a lot of practitioners taking, well, they the same difficulties all over the world. And so things have changed a lot from those early days of running that prior practice.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. I bet. I bet. And about how many ⁓ private practices are you all serving now?
Damien Adler: actually, I need to check on that. But it is ⁓ and thousands and thousands. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is is thousands and thousands. I think there's something like 40 something thousand or something users and, you know, on the on the platform. And yeah, and, you know, primarily focused around the sort of core markets, US and Canada, ⁓ UK and Australia seems to be. ⁓ But I think I think we're somewhere.
Daniel Fava: Wow, that's great. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: in terms of globally that were utilized in around something like 23, 25 countries, something like that. it, thank you.
Daniel Fava: That's awesome. Well, congratulations. And I think that that, I mean, that just, kind of the reason why I asked is like, surely you, not only ⁓ in private practice, but now you're also talking to so many private practices and serving so many private practices. So, you know, obviously you've got, experience and wisdom and you, you see ⁓ what are going through and sort of, ⁓ you know, the, the rate of ⁓ burnout all of the things that we see happening in really any, you know, business, any small business that you're building. you're seeing that kind of day in and day out so you really understand where people are at.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's something that our education system globally does not prepare practitioners well for. think generally, you know, prepares well for the clinical side of work. And I think people, you know, usually are well equipped for that. But when it comes to the day to day running of a business and all the things that go with that include the importance of making a profit. You know, like
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: Those things, is no, generally most sequences don't include anything ⁓ meaningful that's useful. So it's sort something that we're really passionate about ⁓ is, you said, having been there and seeing it close up and now working with people around the world. It's the same pain points pretty much everywhere ⁓ we go. No one doing paperwork. ⁓ No one doing admin. ⁓ No one handling the muddy side of things.
Daniel Fava: Right, right. Yeah.
Damien Adler: You know, and all those things actually get away, you know, from the sort of pure enjoyment and the passion that usually drove people into the health space. so, you know, our goal, you know, as Zander, as a practice management system is to one by one, you know, we've been doing it for a while now, is remove the friction points, make it easier, make it smoother, make it, you know, just bring back the kind of
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: bring back the joy and people to do what they do best. ⁓ ⁓ kind of our driving thing.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's awesome and I'm sure that that's really rewarding and fun to see when your platform, what you do is really freeing up people to enjoy, like you said, enjoy the work again. That's exciting.
Damien Adler: Yeah, and we're looking at it's a personal, you know, belief, but you know, it goes throughout that practices should be built like by default as a practitioner. We build things by from a practitioner perspective to service patients, right. But I think practices should be built in a way that does, of course, patients, right, but also looks after
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: and delivers and supports the practice owner and the practitioners as well. Because, know, those things you mentioned before, if you don't do that, you know, you get a lack of enjoyment, you get that burnout, you get that drop in passion. And worse case scenario, you get people who leave the profession, you know, and, and then that sort of, think, robs, you know, it sounds, I don't mean it sounds sort of idealistic, but it robs, you know, the community of that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Right.
Damien Adler: like of that person's skill and their training and everything if they up leaving. So by, know, it's really a tangible thing when we sort of think about how to design practices in a way that delivers for the owner. And we see the same kind of patterns, you know, and that's one of the things of, you ⁓ know, privilege we have of being able to work with lots of different people. We see the same patterns in successful practices. And then conversely, we see the same sort of patterns.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: practices that find themselves sort of snowed under or you know and so it's it's ⁓ it's good fun yeah.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Let's start there with that. So let's talk about what are some of the things that you see when someone comes into Xanadworld and they're like, my practice doesn't ⁓ me. I'm just running. Everything is for my clients. Everything is all about ⁓ What are some of those things that maybe they have? set up in such a way that is going to burn them out or maybe they just haven't set up at all, you know, that's going to help them not burn out.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes like we can, we can take it back almost to a foundation thing of what does the practice owner want from their practice. ⁓ And that's something that I think people often don't think enough about ⁓ you know, think about ⁓ should the practice deliver to them, what's meaningful and I don't mean just professionally, it's professionally and personally, kind like we touched on at the start about, you know, we all have ⁓ lives outside of our professional
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Damien Adler: roles. And I think in starting a private practice, I think about what does that ⁓ you know, in terms of what do I want out of it? ⁓ you know, is it flexibility? Is it, you know, financial freedom? Is it choosing the right, the clients that match for you? Is it about being able to focus on your, you know, niche or niche, you know, that you're after?
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: And so I think I would encourage everyone to start there. It doesn't matter if you've been in practice for 10 years, you can sort of think about that now still, right? Because we often just sort of slide in and find ourselves somewhere. So there's no wrong time to do that. But just, you know, have your things. I think getting that kind of foundation, you know, right. And then the next kind of, I think, thing is about thinking about what success, it relates to that, but what does success sort of look like?
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Damien Adler: And sometimes people can get caught up, I think, on the wrong ⁓ right? So you can get, people get caught up on, maybe they look at growth in terms of, they're expanding their practice, they might think about, you know, how many clinicians they have, or, you know, does their website have a long list of people that are part of the practice or that are ⁓ you know? But really, it's got to anchor back to what's important to that person. ⁓ so I would say the next kind of thing that people, you know, don't...
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: defined or well don't think about is the values that are important to them in terms of growing that practice and the sort of people they want sort of in that practice. ⁓ So sometimes you see these kind of like almost like vanity know, like people are looking at kind of size or they might even be looking at top line, ⁓ ⁓ much revenue, you know, a practice can generate, but you know, you can certainly boost your top line ⁓ be not profitable.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: Right. So if you're, know, there's lots of reasons that can happen. But I think that's something that people don't architect well sometimes is, you know, OK, what is it that I'm trying to build? What's meaningful to me? What does what does success look like? You know, does it mean I see some clients, see a lot of clients, see no clients? Does it mean I've got freedom to spend time with my kids? You know, one of the reasons I left, I used to work in the public health system, you know, for
Daniel Fava: Right. Yeah.
Damien Adler: quite a few years, which is not sort of uncommon pathway into prior practice. But one of the things I realized is that the further I stayed there, the more I'd be, and even if I got more and more senior, the more I would be there at work and have very little flexibility. I'd have fixed hours and increased responsibilities and thought, that wasn't aligned with my idea of family life. And so that was one of the drivers for going to private. So that can be different for everyone, but I think you're doing that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Damien Adler: Then I think the next thing that sort of gets in the way and this is really around the operates, ⁓ or is where people run into trouble and if they do it well, they can obviously get all the benefits but they don't sort of set up the administrative side of and their practice operates usually in very idiosyncratic kind of way. based around either them or maybe they have like a key admin person knows everything about how that practice operates and maybe does an amazing job, but it's not actually a system that anyone else could take over or understand and it's maybe not automated much as it could. And that leaves the practice really vulnerable because if something happens to that, if it's a primary practitioner or something happens to that key admin person ⁓ or then either the revenue collapses or the...
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: the practices in all sorts of trouble. so where we see people get caught out, they will be scaling perhaps or starting to grow, they're getting some success and maybe hiring some more people, but they're not taking a step back and doing some of those things to set up the practice administration in the right way, set up their pricing the right way, set up even the guidelines and boundaries around how to keep things contained.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: from it can kind of snowball, right? Because people get, it becomes a vicious cycle that without the right systems, then they're so caught up in the clinical work and the admin work that they feel like they don't have time to step and can almost lose perspective other than something feels wrong. I'm working all the time. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Damien Adler: doing my clinical notes out of hours, I'm staying back, I'm doing all these sorts of things. it, know, so I think most of the time people drift unconsciously, you know, into this territory. And, you know, I think that's real, ⁓ you it's a trap and it's a commonality. yeah.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've, know as I'm like, you know, listening to you talk, I know that there's. There's times in my own business building where I feel, you know, those, those same challenges, you know, when you, you, you get going in a business and you do something one way and it's just, especially if you're starting out, you know, solo, you're kind of like, I'm just the one who does it. And so this is the process. This is the way of doing it. And so there's a, there's definitely like mindset shift and also like future thinking shift that, that you have to go through when you're thinking about.
Damien Adler: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: Adding more whether that's an admin or more clinicians, know more team members you have to think okay How do I make sure this process is repeatable for anyone who comes in? You know people can come and go and leave and you got to be able to quickly get somebody So, you know there's been for me there's over the last few years been a lot of ⁓ SOP is Documenting things and making sure that my team knows like hey, you got to get this in writing
Damien Adler: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: and make sure that someone can access that. And thank God for AI, it's just so helpful to create SOPs because it really makes the heavy lifting so much lighter. So if you're not using AI for that, get started.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah. I was actually just going to say like we built a feature in Zander, a manual feature that's built in right so that for this reason so that can set up all your SOPs and everything in there. And we built that a couple of years know, probably maybe three years ago ⁓ before really. So so we actually hired like specialist ⁓ writers write, you know, SOPs for health practices. And we drafted preloaded the system was 100 and something. the people could go in there and they could start with something. So that was confusing. Now we've built AI into that. ⁓ So can just go in there and say, that's how fast things move. But it's spot on. And ⁓ the ⁓ component is you can just talk to, ⁓ you can verbally talk to the AI say, want to develop it. People sometimes I notice are still
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: sort of in a mindset of sitting there and typing it out and, know, do it. mean, just have a conversation ⁓ with it and say what you want and let it.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I like to, I like to just record it, you know, that just like a, ⁓ my own zoom, you know, just share screen and record. And then I'll take that train. I'll take the transcript and load that all into AI. then you've got a video plus, you know, actual written here are the steps. It's super helpful. And it's kind of, it's kind of fun to do. Like I like that stuff in my own business. It's fun. It's fun to do. Yeah.
Damien Adler: Yeah. It's amazing, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes I think people need a little they just need to play, you play with it. Feel it's OK to feel a little bit sort of uncertain and you practice and you try sort of, you know, different things. ⁓ I think that that sort of leads into ⁓ area that we see people ⁓ sort run into is that they may have a practice management system, but they don't and leverage it.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: fully and that's a real issue. people will have a practice management system, they're essentially using it as a glorified, you know, scheduler. That's about it, right? Like, ⁓ and, you know, depending on the practice management system that you've got, but chances are it can do a lot more than what someone be currently using it for, right? And so really sort of
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: Again, we notice that as a pattern is that the practices that are running the smoothest ⁓ are growing and are happy and they're, you we to find they're utilizing, when we look at the feature deck that they're using like at a Xander, like they're using things like automations and they're doing all everything kind of automated. They're utilizing the AI, you know, ⁓ side things. They're using the client bookings and self payments and integrated insurance, all those things that sort of come together and just reduces the entire admin load. ⁓ Whereas I think, you know, and they could be using competing systems. ⁓ not even, it's just even look at the system that you're using and see what it can actually do for you. ⁓ ⁓ if you need help, like you reach out to whoever supplies that system ⁓ you and ask for a walkthrough or hey, how can I optimize? ⁓
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: the and see what it can do, because then that reduces that admin. And if your letters are, you know, you like speaking AI, if you can hold a have a clinical session, press record, have AI do the transcript and then do the notes in your style. And that means now, instead of having that, you know, whatever 15 minutes it might take to write your clinical notes per session after you're done. You know, just a small thing like that is
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right.
Damien Adler: makes an amazing difference to how people feel. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of, it's a lot of time saved and you can focus on, cause sometimes it's hard to find the time like, oh, I know that this system's broken or I need to write this SOP, but I've got all these notes I need to write, you know? And so it's got leveraging these tools, I think is, you know, it's really important.
Damien Adler: Exactly. Yeah. But I think it's important to know as part of why I think this topic is a really good one for us to talk about is because it's a very common experience. Like what you just articulated there, I think is a very common experience that people feel that and then feel a little overwhelmed to try it out and they're not sure. And that's the norm often rather than the exception. And people often then feel a bit self-conscious sometimes about that. And then I want to...
Daniel Fava: Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: That's what I feel like. So if someone's feeling that way, I'd say, there's no silly questions. ⁓ Learn what you can and I would say doing it just a little bit by little bit. Like if you look at your practice and you think, ⁓ where do I start? Like just find something that is taking you extra time or a task that you're repeating or ⁓ even task you just don't like doing. ⁓ Just something off your plate ⁓ you like doing. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: Automated if you can, delegated if it can't be something automated in your system. ⁓ You know, it makes such a difference.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanna go back to something that, when we first started talking about this topic, really started with sort of like the foundational sort mindset pieces of you gotta what you want, and what does look like? one thing that I and kind of what I'm... kind of piecing together as we're conversing here in just my own experience, me, that's kind of like seasonal, like almost like, not seasonal, more like, like it's a quarterly exercise, you know, where ⁓ can take a step back and of define that, like, okay, like last quarter or last year, I said, this is what I want, ⁓ and is what's important, and this is what success looks like. ⁓ Has changed, you know, and...
Damien Adler: Okay, yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: And then, you know, sometimes these challenges come up too. Like we're talking a lot about, you know, the things that suck our time or drain our energy. those things come in, you know, during, you know, six months of business running. And then when you pause, at least for me, you know, when I take that step back and I don't always do this well, like I really, like I was just thinking the other day, like, man, I need a full day ⁓ just do high level. ⁓
Damien Adler: Yeah
Daniel Fava: learn more AI ⁓ stuff and also look at my business, you you take that step back and you kind of, have to redefine that, you know, because things, life changes, you know, I've got family with two young boys and so like our seasons change all the time. And, and sometimes it started to feel like, I've got, I've let this kind of on its own course without intentionality, you know? And so I just wanted to kind of make that point, you know, for someone listening who's like, ⁓ I do have all this admin stuff or it doesn't feel fun ⁓ you know, hit that pause
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: button and try to schedule that time with yourself to define these things. What does success look like for the next year? And what are some of the processes that I need to create in order to, you know, get me to where I want to be? Just want to make that point.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, think you hit on a key thing there too about you just said ⁓ some time, right? I'm just going to really emphasize, ⁓ Because what you what you were just saying, like is I think wonderful advice and the ⁓ where it will fall down is that if people don't actually set the time to do it because like it keeps rolling over. you you set it for as soon as you can. But then. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah, right.
Damien Adler: go into your calendar and schedule that for in a quarter and a quarter after that and a quarter after that and block it out because then your patient that time is preserved. Your patients won't get all filled up. You'll actually that's there. And when people do that, it really closes the gap between that's a good idea to actually people, you know, people doing it. And but it is a different mindset. I think to just briefly I'll add to that was the
Daniel Fava: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: I think sometimes if you're have partner, have close friends, sometimes actually asking, bouncing off them too, right? Because they'll pick up on ⁓ things like, when you're seeing stress, like what's working, what's not. Finding out whether the schedule that you're running actually works for them. ⁓ Because can also be the thing you're getting caught up in the business side of things.
Daniel Fava: Mmm, yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: so checking in that can also then be important input in terms of designing your practice to go, okay, well, like if I'm working flat out, like maybe that's great financially, maybe it isn't, who knows, depending, ⁓ but that working for those, ⁓ you for my ⁓ partner whatever as well and, you know, and kids. So, yeah. ⁓
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to bounce that off of them and get that feedback because you can again like without intentionality you can just keep running the machine and keep going and like what's the payoff there, the drawback, the impact to your relationships.
Damien Adler: Bye. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you're only like we sat on the start like, you know, you're only good to your to your patients, you know, you're only able to provide service if you yourself ⁓ like it's that old analogy that you hear, but it's so good as you know, like the aeroplane, you put your own oxygen mask on first, okay. Yeah, that type of thinking that's I know it's a cliche, but but it's true, right? I think it is. Yeah.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah.
Damien Adler: We need to do that and build with intentionality, you say, build a practice that supports you and then it's become sustainable and ⁓ enjoyable.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Well, as we, you know, kind of wrap up our conversation here, Damien, I guess my last question for you is, know, if ⁓ is listening and they're feeling like, yeah, business, my practice really is not supporting me right now. It's of running, running ragged. Like ⁓ are some sort of words of encouragement or just shifts, mindset shifts that they can make to kind of get out of that and bring that joy back into what they do.
Damien Adler: Yeah. Yeah, I think first of all, it's just that normalization that, you're not alone, right? This is a very common thing. And often it says very good things about you. It says that you're focused on your patients, you're focused on everyone else and you need to, you know, focus on you a little bit and that's okay. So that would be my first sort of like, you know, take home. second, I think is, you you start a list, a like list, but you know, start a list of all the things that are kind of, you know, that are bugging you or you think you could improve or that you're not, you know.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Adler: enjoying don't be overwhelmed by the length of that list. Just get it out there. Like get it written down somewhere. It doesn't matter. Old school notebook is fine. That doesn't matter. Whatever does it for you. And then ⁓ start breaking it down. You know, so ⁓ people get overwhelmed, you know, and that's that's again normal just so break it down, you know, and just start with things that are either easy to do initially or things that are to have the most impact or that you feel you can do. ⁓ And then I think finally sort of
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Damien Adler: you know, schedule some time, getting into the routine and scheduling time of that, you know, working on your business rather than in it. So you can bit by bit chip away at those things, but just starting small and ⁓ what is doable. And then it's amazing how that will compound. And before you know it, you'll be feeling a lot better and more in control and ⁓ making sure you're getting the life that you wanted out of.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Damien Adler: out of your practice.
Daniel Fava: Awesome. Well, thank you for that, Damien, and thank you so much for your time and being back on the show here. Where do you want to send people to learn a little bit more about you and the great work that Xanda's doing?
Damien Adler: Yes, if you go to Zanda Health, zandahealth.com, you'll be able to find us there and ⁓ can learn more about our backstory and learn more about if you're interested in Zanda, can start free trial or you can talk to our team or whatever we can do to help, let us know. Our team are very, very friendly ⁓ and they ⁓ talk tech they talk. every day. So we hire very specifically for people that understand practices and are not going to bamboozle with technical stuff. So ⁓ they're there for you.
Daniel Fava: That's good. Great. Awesome, awesome. Well, we'll put all that stuff in the show notes. People can find you all. you so much for your time, Damian. ⁓ for folks who are listening, if you need help with your ⁓ presence, leveling up your website, being found in SEO, and now of course, AI, ⁓ Practice Elevation would love to help you. So you can head over to privatepracticeelevation.com slash kickoff and schedule a 15 minute call. Thanks so much for listening and go elevate your practice.
Damien Adler: level.
