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Tired of being stuck in the trenches while watching others build empires? Welcome to the 50/50 Accelerator Podcast, where we're flipping the script on the traditional trade business model. I'm your host, Josh Patrick, and like you, I've spent countless nights wondering if there's a better way.
We bring you real conversations with business owners who've transformed their companies from time-sucking struggles into well-oiled machines. They'll share their exact blueprints—from finding reliable teams to creating systems that actually work. There is no theory, just battle-tested strategies that have helped them double their free time and cash flow.
Think of it as your weekly meetup with mentors who've cracked the code.
00:01 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Hey, how are you today? This is Josh Patrick and you're at the 5050 Accelerator podcast, and my guest today is Dr Michael Neal, who has a company called Build my Team, and it appears he's built himself a pretty darn successful business where he goes after dentists and other optometrists and helps them hire the right people for their team so they have less turnover. So instead of me wandering on about talking about Dr Neal, let's bring him on. We'll start the conversation.
00:38
Hey Mike, how are you today?
00:39 - Mike Neal (Guest)
I m doing great. Thanks so much for having me, josh.
00:45 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Oh it's my pleasure, and thanks so much for joining us. Let's start off with that. How did you decide? You're an optometrist, and you have another company that helps hire people. You can't really call you a recruiter because you do recruiting but you don't have the same model a recruiter does. Right, how did you make the move from being an optometrist into helping other optometrists and dentists hire?
01:16 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Well, first of all, we help anybody in a private practice in North America, so it's wider open than that. But how did I make that move? We were hiring the wrong way in our America. So it's it's wider open than that. But how did I make that move? We were hiring the wrong way. In our practice, we had colossal problems. One person after another was hired and left incredible turnover. We did everything wrong. We did oh boy.
01:40
I could go on and on, but it was really
01:42 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Let's be a little, let's be a little more specific about that because this is where, where it really gets to be fun is that you know, all folks are really successful in my experience have had some major, major issues in their life, or their business life Anyhow. That kind of got in the way along the way. So when you said you were hiring wrong, what specifically, what mistakes were you making?
02:06 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Well, we were hiring using resumes, and resumes for administrative and clerical team members don't tell you anything at all about what they're good at. They give a work history that's embellished at best and really isn't anything. That's a solid platform to make a hiring decision based on. However, it's all we had, so that's what we used and unfortunately, we got the results from those resume-based hires that you would think we would get. It was very, very frustrating. I cannot tell you how incredibly difficult that time was.
02:42 - Josh Patrick (Host)
I can appreciate that because I was at a similar place, and so what changes did you make in your hiring system and what changed with your results?
02:54 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Well, that's an interesting question. We created a hiring system. I took a look at how the Four Seasons, ritz-carlton, disney, how companies like that did their hiring, and it turns out they didn't use resumes like the rest of the world did. Resumes were used as part of the application process, simply for the contact information, and then they were all sent assessments. The Four Seasons is spectacular with that, with assessments, and so is Disney.
03:21
By using that approach, they figured out what people were good at and we took that and built on it at several different levels. So with the build my team approach, we don't use resumes for hiring. We essentially use an automated system that we created which determines candidates, natural strengths and talents, and what that does is it allows us to match the people who have the natural strengths and talents for the position that our clients are hiring for, so that we essentially end up with finding the right needle in a stack of needles. We get the round peg for the round hole, the square peg for the square hole. That type of approach, it's all the difference in the world.
04:04 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So when you do that, what is the? I mean, did you build the assessment yourself or do you use commercial assessments?
04:15 - Mike Neal (Guest)
We use. It's a combination of both. We assess the speed of learning. That is an assessment that we licensed from a company, but we had to put this all into our own process and wrapper. We found that there was not one single assessment or company we could work with that could provide the outcomes so specifically and so predictably that we needed, and so we built it.
04:42 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So it sounds like you know when we hire I've broken the hiring process down to three buckets we call it can do, will do and fit factors, and it sounds like what your assessments are focusing on are more what we call will do. It's a person willing to do the activities that are required for a particular job.
05:05 - Mike Neal (Guest)
No, I would disagree with that a little bit. We're not assessing them initially in terms of any position whatsoever. What our software does is it simply determines what their natural strengths and talents are within any workplace environment. So, for example, their speed of learning how fast do they learn? If you have somebody who doesn't learn quickly, it's a disaster in a role. If they learn too quickly, they learn everything, they get bored and they up and leave. So there's a sweet spot for that.
05:37
And then, as far as the rest of their strengths and talents, we're looking for things like how do they handle process? Can they follow process? Can they not follow process? Are they detail-oriented, are they not? What's their stress tolerance like? We have 37 pages of information that gets distilled down into a couple pages we call our insight report and that's the most salient information for our clients to make a hiring decision based on. The most salient information for our clients to make a hiring decision based on. And when we do it that way, we're running at approximately a 97% certainty that they can do the job, and from there we do a video interview that further refines that and gives us an idea as to how they would represent your practice or your small business, and when that's all said and done as to how they would represent your practice or your small business, and when that's all said and done, we send those finalist candidates over to our clients for review.
06:30 - Josh Patrick (Host)
And do you coach your clients how to interview properly?
06:36 - Mike Neal (Guest)
To a point. Interviewing, especially in healthcare, it doesn't come easily for a couple of different reasons. The docs tend to intimidate the candidates. It's just by the nature of it. They're not out to do that intentionally, but it's more of an authority and a positional issue than it is anything else. And on the practice manager side of things, if they're doing the interviews, they have 10 million things to do. They would love to have a day where they only had a million things to do, so it becomes challenging. Our approach is to take that insight, report, information and give them all the information they need to make the decision. However, we take it one step further. Like I said, we already know they can do the job. So at the point where they're interviewing those finalist candidates, they're just looking for the person they think would fit their practice best. We already know each of those people we send over can do the job. Well, you're looking at A players, b plus performers, that type of thing.
07:37 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah, I'm a big fan of what I call the B person, because they are happy doing the job and they stay in the job for a very long period of time. The problem I find with A players is they're always looking for that next promotion.
07:54 - Mike Neal (Guest)
To a point, and part of that is, it depends upon, of course, their comp and how tight of a fit they are to that position. But the reality is the small businesses need both. You, I mean, you benefit from a players, but you can't just have a players, you need some b plus. What you don't want is anybody lower on the the fit chain than that you need. It doesn't mean they're like c and d players of bad people. They're just not a good fit for the roles that they're in.
08:24 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah I agree with that,
08:26 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yeah.
08:27 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So where does uh fit fit into your hiring process, which we call, which is the values part of a company?
08:39 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Maybe refine that question a little bit further
08:41 - Josh Patrick (Host)
You know I.
08:42
What I find is that I can train people pretty easily. Yes, what I can't do is help them have a world view that fits in with my company. So, for example, if someone I'm interviewing and they tend to throw their old boss under the bus, yeah, which is a red flag that tells me that they're not going to be personally responsible.
09:06 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Oh yeah, it sure does.
09:08 - Josh Patrick (Host)
For me, personal responsibility is one of our core things. If I'm interviewing somebody and they keep talking in big words or we're using lots of jargon, they're not going to fit in well with our company, because one of our core values is simplification, where we take the complicated and make it simple. I sure don't want people doing the other thing around, which a lot of people in advice do so that's what I mean by that.
09:38 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Well, I think, in terms of the general fit, we have an initial consultation call with all of our clients up front before we start anything, and it's it's an interview from our standpoint to find out who they're actually looking to hire. And a lot of times that requires some some moderate or severe streamlining. Because they want somebody who could do 10 things. Those days are over. We need somebody who has primary. Because they want somebody who can do 10 things. Those days are over. We need somebody who has primary, secondary and occasionally a tertiary goal. So we refine that and then after that we talk to them about who they're looking for. Like what type of person, not specifically, but what will this person need to do in your practice to be exceptionally successful? And when we find that out, we build that into the job description and that becomes part of the algorithm that we're using to hire for the practice or the small business. I use practice and small business interchangeably.
10:34 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So how did you develop this? Because this is really sort of very sophisticated stuff which I haven't seen a lot of, and I've looked at a lot of hiring systems.
10:46 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yeah, how do we develop it? Necessity is a mother of invention.
10:51 - Josh Patrick (Host)
I understand, but I'm yeah
10:54 - Mike Neal (Guest)
it was trial and error to a certain extent. I mean, we tried, we never. This was never designed to be built, it was designed to be purchased. We thought that. I mean, I specifically thought that there should be some assessment processes out there that can do all of this. Well, they couldn't. The best we found was a couple instruments and a symphony. The thing with healthcare is it has extremely specific roles. They're extremely well-defined, and that makes it, on one hand, very easy to fill those positions If you can drill down into finding people with those characteristics and strengths and talents. And so we knew what we needed to do, but we weren't sure how to get that done. And that's where um, that's where the building process took a while to do, is very expensive, but at this point it is a reliable process which will just output the team members that you need for a healthcare practice.
11:56 - Josh Patrick (Host)
That's really cool. So let's talk about recruitment for a second, because I this is. I'm assuming that once you get somebody into the hiring funnel, that's where your system starts. Am I correct?
12:09 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yes. So as soon as they click apply for one of the positions that we post for our clients and it's all done in our clients' names. You'll never a candidate doesn't know about Build my Team. It's visible to them. Once they click apply, within five seconds their cell phone buzzes because they get a text from the client and it's all automated. So the candidate can start filling out the assessment process right away. And they do this all times of night. You get them at three in the morning, coming in all time times of day and night.
12:39
Um, and right off the bat, about 50% of them drop off.
12:44
That's because we asked them to lift a finger, we asked them to take action and, all joking aside, anybody who's done a lot of hiring just kind of has a giggle at that, because the people who apply the the approximate half who just drop off, they are the ultimate time wasters.
13:02
So we immediately save not half of the time frame or half of the elapsed time for a client, it's much more than that. These are people who aren't going to waste their time at all because they're out of the system and we exit them very gently and gracefully, but they're gone. And then the ones who start the assessment, um, they almost all finish it. They go through the process and by the end of that process we have their strengths and talents mapped um, and then our software will. I mean, the outcome on our software is literally a thumbs up. The people we put as many people through this process as possible for your position, and out of that comes thumbs up, and then we send them a video interview and from there we can make the final decisions as to who to recommend to the practice.
13:47 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So how do you get people to push the button to start off with.
13:53 - Mike Neal (Guest)
You mean to? Well, it's part of the application process, so
13:56 - Josh Patrick (Host)
How do you recruit people to apply?
14:00 - Mike Neal (Guest)
We don't have a pool of people. This starts from scratch for every single position, so it's published to over 20 different job boards, the job itself, and we get as many people as possible because we're going to reject almost all of them as part of the process. We're not looking for the people who can do the job, we're looking for the people who we know can't do the job and removing them. It's a different approach. It's kind of an upside down approach to traditional hiring and that's one of the ways that it's so much more successful.
14:29 - Josh Patrick (Host)
That's cool. So how long does it take someone to go through this process?
14:36 - Mike Neal (Guest)
It's about 15 minutes and that 15 minutes gets them invested in this. Then they do the video interview, which is a um, it's about another 10, it's 10 questions, I believe, and so they answer those questions and at the end of that our team reviews the video interview and these are people that um, that are really excited about this position. We don't focus on experience at all. We focus on people who have these natural strengths and talents and who can just hop right into the position. Like you said, super easy to train, especially when they learn this quickly and off they go, they're off to the races.
15:15 - Josh Patrick (Host)
I'm going to make another assumption. I may be wrong about it, but it appears that this is mostly software driven. Yes, and did you design the software and then find engineers to build it for you?
15:29 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, we have a development team. They are outsourced like almost all software companies, like smaller software companies are. They did a terrific job and we maintain it.
15:44 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So do you consider yourself? Or let me ask this in different way what do you consider yourself as far as a company? If you say somebody asks you what is the problem that you solve, what would your? Answer be
15:56 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Well, we find better people faster
15:59 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Okay,
15:59
Well that, yeah, I'm going to be rude because I ask this question all the time. Yeah, almost nobody ever gets it. You just describe what you do, but what's the problem that you solve?
16:09 - Mike Neal (Guest)
We find the a players, the b players for a practice, so you no longer have to stress at all about hiring. We take the whole thing off of your plate other than about an hour's worth of work. We can do this reliably and predictably for practices.
16:27 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So again, that's what you're doing, but I mean, this has been my experience is that for people to understand what your business is about, they need to know what the problem is that you solve, and it just appears to me the problem that you solve is keeping crummy people out of your company.
16:50 - Mike Neal (Guest)
And, yes, I would agree with that. That's an interesting take on it. The other thing is we can keep crummy people out of your company with virtually no work on your side, and that's the thing. Yeah, like hiring is a black hole for time, absolute black hole, and this stops that from happening and lets the business owner focus on creating value for the clients and customers.
17:14 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah, yeah, so what size practices do you normally like to work with?
17:22 - Mike Neal (Guest)
I think our largest practice would be somewhere around 10 to 12 docs. At some point, practices get to the level where they have a formal HR team, and that's generally. We operate in the space below the formal HR team, so all the way from a sole practitioner up to however many docs you want. But our focus is only on the administrative positions and team members. It's not on licensed positions. So we're not a service for hiring doctors. We're a service for hiring all the people that work with doctors.
18:04 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So how do you find your clients, Meaning that the practices. How do they find you?
18:11 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Well, easy build my teamcom, quite simply
18:12 - Josh Patrick (Host)
I'm a doctor, I'm out in the world. I want to hire people. How does that doctor find you
18:15 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Usually listening to podcasts. We do a lot of podcasts at the company, having those types of discussions. We've done some trade shows, but mainly the fun part about this is the podcast side of things. Just like this, we get to talk about what we do and sometimes provide some pretty fun examples on on how that works for clients.
18:46 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Cool. So what do you think is the? Let's talk about your business for a second. What is the biggest need that you see for your business?
18:52 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Finding more doctors that believe in this approach on how to hire doctors and practices I should say like private practices that are really sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over and getting the crummy results. As you said, happens for those folks is they hire one, they try one or maybe two people and then the light switch clicks in their head and they see the uh, just how much better this approach is.
19:23 - Josh Patrick (Host)
So, out of curiosity, do you um speak at a doctor's meetings or of those sorts of things?
19:35 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yes, I've done some smaller ones. None of the larger ones as of yet, but excited to do that. I think that'd be really fun.
19:42 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah, in my experience, that's the best way to get clients, because doctors I mean these are doctors I work with they seem to be time-starred for everything. Yes, yep, and they won't listen to a podcast unless they're in their car, and maybe then their podcast will be something that's not around you, but if you're at it, I mean, what you have is really unique. I mean, I've been working around business owners for 45 years and I've never seen a process that you have and it's perfect for small practices. Yes, because they don't have the bandwidth, nor do they have the technical skill in hiring correctly. Right, apparently, you've done that. And to find them to listen, it would seem to me that you'd be a really, really in demand sort of person at their meetings, because they do talk about practice management at these meetings, yep, and since you're a doctor, that gives you an in.
20:48 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yeah, it sure does. The thing docs, the really successful ones realize is that the team runs the show. Yes, the really successful ones realize is that the team runs the show. Yes, the doc gets all the credit for taking care of patients. The docs, you know, get the credit for taking care of the patients but they don't run the practice. They may be the owner of the practice, but somebody else is doing the managerial stuff, the operational tasks, the million transactions over the course of a particular period of time and once that light goes on for for owners, oh, the sky's the limit.
21:23 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah, that sounds really cool. So, Michael, unfortunately we are out of time.
21:28 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Yeah
21:29 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Goes by fast
21:30 - Mike Neal (Guest)
It sure does
21:31
Thank you, Josh.
21:31 - Josh Patrick (Host)
How did people find you?
21:33 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Easy. Build my team.com and there's a free consultation. Click the schedule a consultation link at the top of the page. Hop on with our team members and we will tell you whether or not we can help your practice and, if we can, exactly how we can do that
21:50 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Super.
21:51
And I appreciate you guys listening to this podcast today. So, since you are, I would highly ask you to please go to wherever you're listening to podcasts. Give us an honest rating review. If you love it, give us five stars. If you hate it, give us one star. And I'll cry, but maybe I'll get over it. Maybe I won't, but we'll see, and thank you so much for listening today. I really appreciate it. You are at the 50-50 Accelerator Podcast, where we help people think about what it takes to increase your profits by 50% while reducing the amount of time that you need to work by 50%, and using a strategy like Michael will help you reduce the time you need to work because it makes you more efficient. Thanks a lot. I hope to see you back here really soon.
22:41 - Mike Neal (Guest)
Thank you, Josh.