As a practice owner, I experimented with well over a dozen different compensation and bonus plans.

I was trying to land on something that:

• led to teamwork vs. competition.
• drove positive, patient-centered behaviors.
• felt motivating and achievable, while also pushing for growth.
• was generous and abundant without undermining profitability.

I tested various metrics as "bonus triggers".

I was never entirely happy with any of them.

We tried revenue, treatment conversion, units.

They all felt like they were rewarding "metrics" over patient experience.

Encouraging a more "salesy" culture than I desired.

Words Matter

When we're focused on "revenue", we look at patients and see dollar signs.

When we're focused on "units" or "conversion" it's pretty damn hard to go into a consultation and not bring in your own agenda.

Not to mention, it's off-putting for many patient-centered clinicians.

So, what do we do?

A lot of owners just play it safe and pay their staff a healthy flat salary.

Others do a profit share at the end of the year.

But...

The problem is that even though these approaches are simple and ethical, they don't focus the team on the daily, weekly, and quarterly goals of the practice.

Where your focus goes, your energy flows.

If we're not focusing our people on the performance metrics that lead to growing our practice, we can't help more patients, expand our mission, or help our team achieve their own visionary goals for their lives.

The Goldilocks Solution?

Ultimately, I landed on a simple system that checked all the boxes.

It's patient-oriented, and can be structured to be motivating, generous and profitable.

What's the bonus metric?

"Patients Helped"

The mindset of a "Patients Helped" goal is notably different from unit, revenue, or conversion goals.

As a practice, we were collectively focused on how we could serve the most humans in the highest and best way possible.

Help more people and everyone wins.

We set team-based monthly, quarterly, and annual goals.

This way even if we have a bad month, we can catch up for the quarter and year.

Based on our break-even, we had "low-goals" and "high-goals".

The impact on teamwork was huge.

One of our providers had a major house repair. Everyone banded together to reach our high goal so she could pay for her repairs that month.

It's simple, but also customizable.

We also offered time off alternatives to cash bonuses for the folks who valued time over cash.

Our FOS was fine financially, and chose to spend more time with her grandkids, while our younger audiologist was thrilled to pay down student loans with cash bonuses.

Want to Build Your Own "Goldilocks Bonus System"?

Next Wednesday inside of Practice Amplifier I'm going to be diving deep into the specifics of the "Goldilocks Bonus Framework".

We'll be building out bonus systems for Practice Amplifier members live, and breaking down all of the nuances.

During March I'm opening the doors to Practice Amplifier for up to 15 growth-oriented practice owners who want to build a 7-figure, owner-independent practice.

If you're interested in joining us, hit reply and I'll share the details.