00:00:09:00 – 00:00:56:14
Jay Shorr
Welcome to Shorr Solutions, the podcast. And I’m your host, Jay Shorr, CEO and founder of Shorr Solutions. We are a team of national and award-winning practice management consultants with experience running a multimillion-dollar cosmetic, dermatology, and plastic surgery practice. We’re here to share strategies and insights that will help you grow your practice efficiently and profitably. In each episode, we’ll explore the steps and actionable insights to guide you through your journey to increase efficiency, boost revenue, and decrease costs. Tune in and discover how to improve your patient experience and take your aesthetic practice to the next level.
00:00:56:16 – 00:01:58:09
Jay Shorr
Welcome to another episode of Shorr Solutions, the podcast, and I’m your host, Jay Shorr. Well, today I have two very special guests with me today. They are part of La Familia from Shorr Solutions. First, I have Paige Hamilton, who is our advertising and marketing coordinator, and Cristian Devoz is a client success Manager and Business analyst. Our topic today is hire for potential, not for perfection. Bringing on an intern. And the reason that I have both Paige and Cristian, in no particular order, on this is that they’re very crucial members of my team, and we have others. However, Paige and Cristian first started out as unpaid interns while they were in college for college credits. And it’s a very interesting story how this all happened, which we’ll get into. But first, Paige and Cristian, thank you for being part of our podcast today.
00:01:58:15 – 00:01:59:17
Paige Hamilton
Thank you for having us.
00:01:59:18 – 00:02:01:11
Cristian Devoz
Yes. Thank you Jay, it’s a pleasure.
All right. So, first thing I’d like to start off is why should you add an intern to your team? There are usually 4 or 5 different reasons, but I want this to be a real casual conversation. And since Paige, you are the newest member of our team, Cristian’s old hat already. He’s in his third year already. All right. And, Paige, you’re fresh with us six months, right, as a graduate of the University of Florida. Go, Gators. All right, for those of you who don’t know, it’s it’s. I can’t do it and I think you have to do it with the left hand on top. Right.
00:02:38:21 – 00:02:39:06
Paige Hamilton
Right over left.
00:02:39:08 – 00:02:57:19
Jay Shorr
Right see, I didn’t see I went to Temple University, but I learned something from former interns, too. There’s a way that you have to snap your hands. Not. Not with the left on top, but with the right on top. I learned that from my grandson, actually. Who is a graduate of UF. So let’s start with you, Paige. Why should you add an intern to your team?
00:02:57:20 – 00:03:45:05
Paige Hamilton
So an intern is in college. They’re taking classes. They’re gonna offer a fresh perspective, new ideas. They’re going to be able to apply new knowledge that they’re obtaining right away. They’re eager to learn. This is something that they’re doing willingly. If it’s an unpaid internship, it’s basically volunteer work for them. They are gaining experience. So they’re going to have a lot of ideas to bring to the table, and they’re going to give you help. You can hire multiple different types of interns so they can help you alleviate some areas in your practice where you might need some extra help. They’re going to increase efficiency, and they’re just going to be a really good team player to bring to the table.
00:03:45:05 – 00:03:51:14
Jay Shorr
So as the more seasoned member of our intern group, Cristian, what else is there?
00:03:51:16 – 00:04:44:21
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. Well, if it is an unpaid intern, it will definitely be cost effective, at least initially. If it is somebody that you want to have for the long run initially, that’s going to be cost-effective while you train them what you teach them, the way that you do things in your practice and then once they graduate from that internship, at that point, if you’re going to offer them a position whether it’s a part-time position or a permanent full time position, they already know your business. So you kind of got a head start with this person where you initially didn’t have to necessarily invest a lot of money, but more time, and you had to obviously have other staff members, coach and teach and mentor this new person. But then once that’s all over, now you hire this person and they’re going to get a head start because now they already know your practice. They already know how you do things. So it’s going to be beneficial for them because now they’re going to start getting paid, but also for you because you were able to save money at the beginning of the internship.
00:04:44:23 – 00:04:51:08
Jay Shorr
So what happens? Maybe I’m jumping ahead of you. What happens when you do this and they decide to leave?
00:04:51:13 – 00:05:50:09
Cristian Devoz
Well, you have a phrase that I really love from Steve Jobs, and it’s about training, right? And how people sometimes or somebody asks Steve Jobs, what do you do if after all these training, your staff leaves, and then he asks what if you don’t train them, and they stay, and it’s the same principle. It’s always going to be a risk. You never know if somebody is going to decide, you know what, I’m good. Thank you for the credits. Thank you for the experience. I’m going to move on. You can do very little about that. However, that’s where you also have to be very mindful of who you’re looking for and what you’re looking for when you’re interviewing potential interns because you want to be able to, from the very get-go, let them know, hey, this is who we’re looking for. We’re looking for somebody who is not just coming for credits, who’s not just coming for the experience, but who can potentially stay with us long term, somebody who’s going to be a team player and who can actually see themselves being with us at the practice, hopefully for many years. And that’s something that you have to kind of establish from the very beginning when you’re looking for the intern.
00:05:50:09 – 00:06:11:09
Paige Hamilton
And maybe you’re just hiring them for one project because you could hire an intern if you only want them for one semester, and you know you have a big project coming up, you need to hire someone. You need extra hands. But maybe you’re not expecting them to stay long term. Then you can just hire them for the one project, and then maybe it turns into something more once you get to know them and see if it works or not.
00:06:11:10 – 00:06:36:13
Jay Shorr
Paige, how much mentorship, though, did you need? You know, and we’re going to get into your expectations before your expectations now. But how much mentorship did you need coming into a totally new field, a totally new company? You’re not even a college graduate yet. You are now, but not yet. Talk to us about what you were looking for and how the expectations get met for that.
00:06:36:17 – 00:07:19:22
Paige Hamilton
Yeah, so definitely as an intern, going back to that perspective, you want a lot of coaching and mentorship and guidance because they’re young college kids. They likely have no experience, little to none. If they have any, it’s likely to be either from a past internship or a club in college. So, going from working a part-time gig at a fast food restaurant or in retail or something like that, to then transitioning to the real world industry, professional world that they want to be in after graduation. It’s completely new for them that they are going to need a lot of mentorship. Yeah.
00:07:20:00 – 00:07:25:19
Jay Shorr
Let’s talk about filling your pipeline. Cristian, the value of interns to help you fill your pipeline.
00:07:26:00 – 00:08:53:11
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. And once again, I’m going to quote one of the phrases that you say, because, you know, I never stole an idea that I didn’t like, right? You always say that you used to overstaff every single time at your practice. And I think that’s very interesting because a lot of people will say, well, you have, you know, save on expenses, and totally you should be saving on expenses. But when it comes to your HR, you should also always have a little bit of over-staffing. And an intern allows you to do that. So you’re basically raising someone from the ground up, teaching them your way in the practice. And as you help them grow and educate them and train them now, they can continue to support you in different ways. So it could be somebody that starts helping you with the marketing, but they get to know the practice, and now you realize that they also have really good skills with patients, maybe you can have them call the patients for follow-ups. You can have them schedule patients, so you can kind of grow them. And if it is someone who is actually interested in, you know, going into the medical field, you can even help them and provide them with stipend so they can study and get certified, whether that’s, you know, to be an assistant like a physician assistant or just any role that will help them to continue to grow medically in the practice, does it all depends on what kind of professional they want to be, of course. And then you can see where in your practice you can feed them in. So they can continue growing and filling the pipeline so that if somebody else steps down from a role, they are already trained, they already know what to do, and they can go and fill in the need.
00:08:53:12 – 00:09:24:13
Jay Shorr
Let’s do a segue and I’ll go back to you, Paige. The first semester internship that was offered to you was unpaid. All right. And then the second semester internship was paid. All right. And then, of course, you came on as a full-time employee the day after you graduated college. You know what a wonderful thing to know that you’ve already got your job before you even graduate. Why did you take an unpaid internship for several months?
00:09:24:16 – 00:10:29:01
Paige Hamilton
Yeah, so that’s definitely something that you have to think about when applying for internships, whether you’re willing to take one as an unpaid internship, or if you’re looking for one that is strictly paid. And I’m not going to lie, when I was looking, I was preferring one that was a paid internship just because I knew it was going to take a lot of time and I wouldn’t have as much time for a different part-time position. You know, once I weighed the pros and cons of it, an unpaid position, still being able to get college credits for it, and be able to have that as a class and getting the experience, it’s worth it. It’s a good pay off that you’re not getting paid, but you’re still gaining a lot of invaluable knowledge and experience. And I mean, for me, in my instance, that it turned into a full-time position right after graduation, which doesn’t happen for a lot of people. So, you know, had I not taken that, I could still be searching for work, I could still be searching for a job right now. So yeah, definitely works out.
00:10:29:02 – 00:10:30:00
Jay Shorr
How about you, Cristian?
00:10:30:05 – 00:11:21:16
Cristian Devoz
Well, for me it was definitely about the experience. I was excited because one of the things I asked you when I met was, what do you advise somebody who wants to be an entrepreneur one day, somebody who’s a young professional who wants to grow and who wants to be a businesswoman one day like you, Jay. And then you said to me, well, you need to, you know, work for somebody who is doing what you want to do and you need to find yourself a mentor. And then, of course, you can do internships. And even if you don’t get paid, at least get experience and you’re actually getting an education for free when you look at it in that way, because you’re getting that internship, you’re getting real experience without having to pay for it. A lot of people have to pay to go to college and to be able to get an education. And then of course, if it is paid, as Paige was saying, a is a plus, obviously. But in my case it was all about the opportunity. And then you have to sacrifice a little bit to get bigger things. And in my case, that was the case.
00:11:21:16 – 00:11:52:07
Jay Shorr
And now going into like a third year, you’ve gotten the unpaid internship and then a paid internship, and then a promotion to come on full time and a raise, and then another raise and then another raise. And for those out there listening, Cristian actually will become a partner in Shorr Solutions on January 1st. So here it is, several years ago, coming from a collegiate intern to a partner in three years is a great track record, if I might say. All right.
00:11:52:12 – 00:11:54:04
Cristian Devoz
Well, I’ve had a great mentor.
00:11:54:06 – 00:12:01:01
Jay Shorr
Thank you. So let’s talk about the different types of interns that you can hire. Paige, you’d like to start with that.
00:12:01:09 – 00:12:56:11
Paige Hamilton
So I started as a marketing intern. So that is definitely something that a lot of practices will need help with, especially a marketing intern is, you know, they’re the college students. They’re keeping up with the trends. They know how to work social media. Hopefully, if you’re looking, getting the right intern. But a marketing intern is really easy to take over some of those roles that you might need help with creating copy, creating social media posts. They can do email campaigns. They can create ads, different things like that. Basically, any of your marketing you can delegate to an intern with proper training, of course, but basically any position in your practice that exists, you can hire an intern for. And there just kind of there as an assistant, a helper, learning the ropes so you can have them in your front office, your admin, you can have them helping answer the phone, check people out, doing paperwork.
00:12:56:13 – 00:14:44:07
Cristian Devoz
Yeah, I mean, what Paige said is on point about the marketing. And you can basically hire an intern for anything that you need at the practice. But of course, you know, there are specific segments of your business where they could potentially go. It could be business development, for example. It could be an intern that is maybe majoring in business management and somebody who has strong Excel skills or financial skills and who can help you when it comes to numbers, maybe that person can become your bookkeeper or do that kind of role where they’re helping continue to develop the business side of the practice. It could be a marketing intern, as Paige said. It could also be a clinical or a pre-med intern. So somebody who maybe wants to go to med school and they want to start, you know, from the bottom, and maybe you can even help them with their education. As I mentioned before, with a stipend or even pay for part of their college so they can actually get that level of education, get trained, get certified, get their license, and then of course, become a provider for you. And that sounds like a, you know, it’s a it’s a journey. It’s not going to happen from one day to the next. But if you have the right person and you find somebody who is eager to learn, who is loyal to you and who has made it very clear that they want to stay with you very long term, at that point, I would say that would be, you know, an investment worth to be made. And then, of course, administrative interns could also help when it comes to paperwork, and what Paige was saying. It could be checking patients in, checking them out, and providing an extra layer of service for the patients. We always say that when a patient walks in the door, you should always be standing up at your front desk. People should stand up, greet the patient, and welcome them to your family. It could be that intern who is that first smile that the patient is getting in contact with when they walk into your practice. So things like that. You can find basically anything in the practice that you feel you could delegate to someone else. That could be done by an intern.
00:14:44:07 – 00:15:46:16
Jay Shorr
Very good point, now that leads me into, what should you look for when hiring an intern if not for prior experience? Now, the reason I’m asking this question is we are now currently looking for an intern, and of course, who better to lead that team than two of my staff members that both came from interns, so they know the journey that they had to take, and most certainly both Paige and Cristian. You’re not doing the work today that you did when you were an intern, all right? It has really elevated into more of an administrative and managerial role of having your own product lines to manage. So, Paige, let’s talk about what we need to look for when we’re looking for somebody. Because we’ve interviewed a lot of people for internships. And it really it comes down to one per semester. We only have one at a time. And Cristian was that one when he started. And then you then became the intern. And now we’re looking for another one.
00:15:46:18 – 00:16:13:21
Paige Hamilton
Yeah. So, going back to what type of intern is the first thing that you need to establish and decide what position that they’re going to have. And then from there, I would obviously you’re going to post the job description and what they what you’re looking for and what role they’re going to have. And then the applicants, when you get them in, you should be filtering them by what is their major, what is what are their goals.
00:16:13:21 – 00:17:24:13
Paige Hamilton
If they’re if you’re looking for a marketing intern, maybe you wouldn’t hire someone who is in like political science and they want to be a lawyer, because what are those really have to do with each other? You know, if you’re looking for someone who wants to do marketing, you should have a marketing or an advertising or a PR major. So their education is going to be kind of the first sign that you can start to filter someone out by what is their major, what are they taking, good classes, or they have a good GPA. And then also school involvement. What clubs are they in? Are they involved in something that is along the same track of their major? If you’re looking for a medical intern, have they done past internships? Are they in medical clubs? So those are very easy signs just to look for on the resume. And they should also list certain skills. You want someone who is a good communicator. You want them to be organized. And I know people can just say that they are no matter what, but hopefully, you know, if they are putting that on their resume, hopefully to some degree it is true versus someone who maybe didn’t think.
00:17:24:14 – 00:17:26:14
Jay Shorr
What else, Cristian?.
00:17:26:16 – 00:18:14:14
Cristian Devoz
We want to look at, is this a person who’s going to be a team player? Are they going to be timely with the things that we assign them to do, and do they have the right attitude? I think attitude is very, very important to me because we don’t really want to hire somebody who is not going to have the kind of vibe that we have. Like we are very happy people, very funny people, and we try to have a good time when we’re working. We work hard, we play hard, and if somebody comes in and they have a serious face or they seem to be just not in the right attitude, that’s going to be a red flag to me. They are not going to be a good cultural fit. So that’s something that you should always keep in mind. What is your culture in the practice? And whoever you hire should be someone that everyone else is going to get along with. Because if you hire somebody who’s going to come in with a toxic attitude that can really damage your team and your the relationship between your team members.
00:18:14:17 – 00:20:52:03
Jay Shorr
Another thing to look for, and especially since most of the viewers of this podcast, audio and video are in the aesthetic and medical field, it’s important you brought up the term cultural fit. And what’s very important is we are in a very niche marketplace. All right. There are many people that do not believe in aesthetic beauty treatments. There are a lot of people that will be doing a job, whether it’s culturally, religiously, or morals and ethics. Understand that many times our business leads to semi or full nudity. Being in the med spa and plastic surgery business, and one of the first questions that I have asked both you, Cristian, and Paige before you took the job, are you okay with this? Because you will be confronted with it. It’s whether it’s in the med spa or whatever, but you’re going to see magazines. You’re going to see before and after pictures. If you’re so fortunate to be able to go to a conference and sit in on some of these presentations, you’re going to see things. And it’s very important that they fit within your culture and that you’re not easily offended by it. And it’s okay if it’s offensive to you. We just need to make it aware. And all of you listening need to make people aware. “No, I believe in holistic and natural. I don’t believe in that. Those fillers and I don’t believe in the lipos. And I don’t believe in all the lasers and the machines.” Then that’s not the fit for you. All right. Very important that I make sure to ask everybody that. It is fun if somebody has ever had those types of med spa experiences, you know, do they have any hands-on experience? What’s their professional development course? You know, do they have any networking opportunities that they can bring, people and things like that, to light to us? I want to know, what’s your career insight, what do you want to do, and what is the long-term opportunity? I prefer to hire interns like Paige and Cristian, but it’s important to find a fit for somebody that is also a team player because you heard me use the term la familia, and that’s who we are. In other words, each one of our team members will go out of their way to help one of their other fellow team members, and not “that’s not my job”. All right. That’s the easiest way to exit out of a business. That’s not my job. All right. Everything is our people’s jobs.
00:21:20:18 – 00:22:18:13
Jay Shorr
So how do we foster a successful internship program? You know, it’s very interesting because even though I thought, you know, this was all new to me several years back, we’ve had 5 or 6 different interns in the last six plus years. And I always want to know, how do we foster a successful one, because it’s not a one hit wonder that I want. I want this to be an ongoing program that we hired Cristian, we hired Paige, and hopefully will hire the next one, and also helps us to grow our team, because when it comes time to pay that intern, that was an unpaid intern when they accept the position, you’ve already beaten the gig out. Now, they’re inexperienced and I have to train them all over from the start. Well, yes, they’re going to be somewhat inexperienced because you’ve only let them have a certain amount of responsibility as an intern, but at least they understand your business a little bit. So, Paige, can you start off with how do you foster a successful internship program, because you and Cristian are going to be responsible for it.
00:22:18:15 – 00:23:48:06
Paige Hamilton
Well, something that I really appreciated, that I felt set me up for success was constant communication, very clear expectations. You know, I had really good training. And so that was very beneficial because we talked about the fact that, you know, college students don’t have a lot of experience. It’s a new world for them, a new professional world. And so being able to have like a mentor and someone to go to for questions and concerns and to check my work to make sure I was doing things right and just having somebody there that I knew I could count on, that was my support and the whole team. But at least you have like one person, you know, that’s like kind of more
you’re comfortable go to that is very important to be successful, that you want your intern to feel comfortable and be able to go to anyone on the team. Like I knew that I felt like I could send a message to anyone, and that goes to show our culture and how we operate, but it definitely is for an intern, nice to know that is a little safety blanket for them to know that they have that level of communication with people. We also had weekly meetings, and so I knew that, okay, well, maybe if I wasn’t talking to someone every day, at least I could look forward to, okay, well, every Friday we have our weekly meetings. So if I had any concerns to bring them up, or we would just kind of regroup and see how are things going, how do you feel? So that’s really important. Make sure you’re checking in.
00:23:48:06 – 00:24:30:18
Jay Shorr
On the intern, before I get to you, Cristian. What’s interesting is when Paige said she has her go-to, depending upon the position that she came in, she came in as a marketing intern. So the person that Paige had to go to wasn’t me. However, when you did your internship, you had multiple people to go to. On the marketing side, you went to the marketing department, but on the business side, you had me and you and I worked together. You were on every call with me for a solid year before you were set loose to work with a client on your own. So let’s hear about your internship, about how you foster a successful program.
00:24:30:20 – 00:26:30:11
Cristian Devoz
Yeah. I mean, I want to make sure that when I communicate with my intern, I always talk about what I see them going, and I try to understand, first of all, where do they want to go? And then I will try to envision them into how that fits with where I will want them to go. And I would show them, hey, look, this is who we are. This is what we’re trying to do as a company. We want to grow our people. We want you to be a success story as well. In the case of a practice, if you haven’t done an internship program before, you definitely want to talk about where you envision your practice to be and how you envision them as being part of the legacy that you’re building. Making that interim feel like you’re not just here for a season, right? If that’s what you want. Of course, if you only want an intern for a project, that’s also fine. But if you want somebody who’s going to stay long term, you have to talk to them like a leader. And a leader always talks about vision and always talks about goals, and tries to always follow up with the intern and make sure that they are meeting those goals along the way so they can achieve their vision. And then, of course, allow them to work on meaningful projects or tasks. And when I was an intern, I remember that Denise, at the time, who was my manager, she will have me do things that up to that point I had never done before. And of course that was uncomfortable. That took me out of my comfort zone, but it also made me feel like, wow, I’m doing something meaningful for the company. I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. I have to do my best, so definitely give them that opportunity to work on meaningful things in the practice and then provide them with a mentor or somebody who can be there for each other so that we can learn from each other and grow together. And the person that is mentoring is going to grow as a leader. The person that is being mentor is also going to learn how to do things in the practice so that they can even potentially, if this person that was their mentor now gets a promotion, now they can, you know, get into their mentor’s shoes and now get that role. Right. So it kind of becomes that pipeline that we were talking about, where your staff can basically cross-train each other and they can grow as one staff member grows the next one as well. And it becomes this beautiful cycle of life.
00:26:30:13 – 00:28:45:00
Jay Shorr
It’s very interesting because when I was a young man right out of college, I got an internship, and the gentleman who was my mentor was going to be retiring in the next 4 to 5 years. And I kind of said the same thing to him, Cristian, that you said to me, how do I become a businessman and an entrepreneur like you one day? And he said, “Stick with me. You’re not always going to like what I say, and you’re not always going to like what I do. And you may not even like how I do it, but I’m successful and therefore times change.” And it’s kind of like what I’ve said with you, Cristian. Stick with me. I’ll make you a rich man, all right? Now, it doesn’t mean rich financially. It could mean meaning rich in virtue and rich in morals. Because as a team, we don’t do anything illegal, unethical or immoral. That’s one of our mission statements of the company that we are. All right, so, you know, the pipeline to future hiring, because when I hire people, I really prefer knowing that I’m going to be able to have these people long term. Paige, I’ve already gotten this answer from Cristian many, many times. All right. But you as the newest member of our team, I did not control your internship. Parts of our staff did. You know you had Cristian? You had Denni. And with Ana. But now you and I work a lot more closely together than ever before. As a non intern that has been an intern, how does it make you feel when you try your hardest to please me, or whoever your team leader is and you do everything right and then the response comes back, I don’t like that color, I don’t like, it’s too blue. It’s not blue enough. I’d rather it be white and print and not, and no black overlay or whatever. And you as a young woman have a whole totally different theory of how things should look versus this old bald guy. All right. But yet you’re told that doesn’t meet my fancy. All right. Now you have given some pushback as to why, but how does it make you feel? And how do you go about what do you do when that happens?
00:28:45:02 – 00:30:50:14
Paige Hamilton
You know, you have to understand that not everyone’s going to agree. You know, part of my job in marketing is design. And design is subjective. There’s not one right answer and the brand is you like for Shorr Solutions. We have a brand, but a lot of the brand is you and your face. So your preferences are kind of the last say so. So even though I might love it, I may have spent so much time doing something I thought was perfect. It gets back to you and you’re like, no, you know, like that blue, it’s not the right shade or, you know, this word is too big or something along those lines. It could be anything, but I would just have to take that feedback. And that’s part of like the learning process of, okay, well, I have to figure out what you like, what you don’t like. Do you like things left justified? Do you like things centered? You know, we just went through that. And now I know for next time that, you know, things should be centered. So it’s kind of just part of that learning curve that you have to be able to be flexible. And it’s not a criticism against me in my work. It’s just, you know, you have your preferences and, you know, and that’s me in design, in marketing. But that could be for anything too. You have to be able to take criticism and not get discouraged by it. You’re doing it to make me better and to make my work long term better. So it’s feedback and you have to take it as constructive and keep going. And not let it get you down. So, but you have to also, I would say a tip for like the people in charge of an intern is to make sure you’re telling them in the right way, which I feel like our team has been great about that. But you have to make sure that you’re not just constantly discouraging them, that you are also building them up and being like, you know, this is great, but maybe let’s just change one other thing. And honestly, every time I’ve gotten feedback, the end result ends up being better than how it started anyway. So it reinforces.
00:30:50:14 – 00:31:15:21
Jay Shorr
Here’s a quick example of an incident that Paige and I had just last week. And it was more of a conversation. And there’s no right or wrong. It’s how you were educated. And it became when you have multiple items and you’re putting a comma after each one. And then there’s the conjunctive word. And before the last item, does a comma go before the last one before the end, or does it not?
00:31:15:23 – 00:31:21:00
Paige Hamilton
And some people have strong beliefs whether or not the Oxford comma should be used or not.
00:31:21:00 – 00:32:46:21
Jay Shorr
Only for those of you listening, but I said I was a writing major in college, and I was educated by a professor a different way. And I just said, Paige, what is your opinion on this? And she comes up with the term, well, the Oxford comma, which most people won’t know unless you’ve been in advertising, marketing, or writing. There is no right or wrong. It was an opinion, and what Paige was saying before it’s in how you are coached has a lot to do with it. Was a discussion versus her being told, I don’t believe in telling my people what to do. I really believe in them telling me what to do, which is more the case today than ever. And I don’t mind being told what to do because we all have the same identical goal in mind. And that’s success for the team and success for the company. All right. So as we’re concluding, let’s talk about the pipeline to future full-time hires, and both Paige and Cristian. You’re perfect examples of that. Paige, let’s talk about the opportunity that was presented to both you and Cristian. Did you ever think that by taking a part-time ten, 15 hour a week unpaid internship, that it could potentially lead to a full-time career upon graduation? You’re a year out when this happens.
00:32:46:23 – 00:33:51:07
Paige Hamilton
Hmhmm. No. And this is what I was going through last year, when I was applying. I had my first interview. You know, I started the first few days of January. So, like right now, us looking for an intern is bringing me back to one year ago, and I would not have thought that it would have turned into what it is today. And honestly, you know, when I was going through the interview process, I really enjoyed the fact that you guys were saying, like, hey, these are success stories. This is our intern who is with us six years later and has grown all this way in everything. And in my head, did I think that that could be me? You know, I was hopeful, but at the same time I was like, okay, well, let’s just take it one day at a time and let’s see how this goes. So, you know, that was something that had caught my eye, is in the job description. It said, okay, the first four months is an unpaid position with the room to grow into a part-time position. That was something that stood out to me compared to other internships.
00:33:51:08 – 00:33:56:07
Jay Shorr
Pretty long time though, isn’t it? Not in the scheme of things now. But how about then?
00:33:56:08 – 00:34:29:09
Paige Hamilton
I mean, I was taking it as a it’s a semester. It’s my spring semester of college, so that’s how long I would be in a class for. So I was thinking, you know, even if it ends at the end of the semester, I would still be learning that same information, even more information than I would have been learning from a class, because a lot of my classes were situational. It was a professor who came up with a situation being like, well, this is a hypothetical solve the problem, create a presentation about it, where I knew if I was in an internship. I’m getting real world.
00:34:29:11 – 00:34:37:19
Jay Shorr
You know, some of the things that really happen in your everyday world with clients would have you ever been able to figure that out when you see what goes on inside a practice?
00:34:37:19 – 00:35:08:21
Paige Hamilton
Now, I’ve learned a lot. I didn’t know anything really about aesthetics in this industry. So it’s been a learning curve of even like with us, we’re B2B. So that was something that I didn’t learn in school. All of my classes kind of work B to C, so that was an interesting perspective of getting to see that, that I wouldn’t have learned in school. So it’s kind of just a take it as it is and learn and grow from it.
00:35:08:23 – 00:35:24:01
Jay Shorr
You went from an intern to a marketing assistant. All right. To a co-coordinator, to a business analyst, to a client success manager, to a partner. I mean, did you ever envision something like that several years back as an intern?
00:35:24:03 – 00:37:31:21
Cristian Devoz
Well, I dreamed of it. Then, you know, that I could, you know, one day be like, you and me work side by side, and of course, that happened, but that took several things for it to happen. Of course, I had to have the right attitude and the right kind of work ethic, and I was able to prove myself to you over and over. And, and you also had to have that desire to actually educate me and to teach me things. And you were very patient when I didn’t understand things. So I think that a lot of factors played into me being where I am today. And I will say this to our audience and to you, know, doctors and practice owners out there. You always have to think about your staff as what they are. They’re human beings. And yes, I understand them. Doctors get a lot of education and a lot of training, and they go through difficult things in their career and they learn to become very tough and very strong willed individuals. A lot of people don’t necessarily develop those in college, doctors. They tend to do so because of the amount of pressure and stress that they get under to get to where they are. That’s why he’s one of the most respected professions out there. And they always mention, but just know that these are human beings. Just know that when you talk to them, even though you are at this place, you have to talk to them where they are. So you got to kind of come down where that’s in terminology, where that’s in the way that you explain things to. Then where does being patient with a process of learning, because some people will learn faster than others, but if they get there, that’s what matters. But you’ve got to be patient sometimes with that process, getting them from where they are today to where you want them to be. It’s, it’s a journey and you just gotta, you know, be willing to take that journey with them and not just, you know, tell them what to do and then drop them and let them figure it out. You want to make sure that you provide a structured plan to them so that they know where they’re going to. So did I envision it at the time I dreamed of it, but it really came true when when I realized this is the kind of leader that Jay is, I can see that this is possible because of the amount of support that I have, and also that I was willing to to go down that path.
00:37:31:23 – 00:41:25:07
Jay Shorr
That is the key to it all. Cristian, both you and Paige, I have to be willing to put up with it and realize that I’m not going to get it all today. I didn’t even allow you to speak with a client for a year. You had to be on every call, listen to how I handle it, and then before you’re even given, you know, and it just so happened that we’re on calls, and a client asked Cristian the question. And that opened up the door where he answered the question, in Jay’s words, from Cristian’s mouth. And then I just let them loose. From that point on, figuring it out, the client has the confidence in him. Then I’m going to as well. So let me conclude with some, you know, talking points about transitioning an intern into a full-time position. The first one is establishing clear, you know, criteria for a transition, because you have to define performance benchmarks during the internship. You have to assess their skills, adaptability, and whether they’re a cultural fit within your practice. Number two, you have to offer structured feedback. It’s got to be polite. You can’t insult people even when they do something wrong, and conduct regular check-ins with your team to track their progress and provide guidance, share areas of strength and opportunities for the development, because there are so many ways to get there. For example, what is a thigh? Well, five is one plus four, three plus two, two plus three, ten divided by two. There’s many ways to get there. So offer structured feedback and really highlight growth opportunities by communicating potential career paths within the practice. Allow people to know that it just doesn’t end here. Showcase benefits and incentives tied to a full-time role. Lastly, almost involve your team. Don’t let you and the intern do this alone. Gather from your mentors or supervisors on the intern’s readiness. Find out if they’re ready to come on full time, or do they need more training? Encourage team members to support and welcome the transition so that the people that are the interns feel that they’re part of the solution, the sure solution. All right. How to put that in there, by the way. All right. And lastly, formalize the process to prepare a clear offer letter. And you have to have the job description a clear understanding of the responsibilities and expectations, and benefits. Because transitioning them through the same onboarding process as other employees has to ensure consistency, clear, concise insistence with good policies, procedures, and protocols. I call it the CCRC with the BPP. All right. All these things are what make a successful business question. The Vo Paige Hamilton, my former interns are ready now to supervise the new intern coming in in the beginning of 2025. Thank you so much for allowing us to have the opportunity to speak about interns in your business until Episode 123, which Paige will be creating for me shortly. All right, good luck and God bless. Don’t go anywhere just yet. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure to subscribe so you never miss the latest insights! New episodes are released every two weeks. For more valuable information and resources to elevate your practice, sign up for our newsletter. You’ll get the latest industry updates, expert tips and exclusive strategy straight to your inbox. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media at Shorr Solutions. If you’re ready to take your practice to the next level, schedule a free consult with our team today. Thank you for joining us on Shorr Solutions, the podcast.
