Kara Kelley, founder and CEO of Clinical HR, who shares her extensive experience in leadership and human resources within the dental industry. Kelley discusses her career trajectory, emphasizing the importance of speaking and leadership skills in business success. Her story begins with unexpected shifts in her career path, leading her to embrace public speaking and eventually establish her own firm.

Kelley stresses the significance of aligning with businesses that share your values, a lesson learned through personal trials, including a pivotal termination that propelled her into entrepreneurship. The discussion delves into strategic communication during the pandemic, highlighting how Kelley's proactive approach helped her consultancy thrive by prioritizing service over profit.

Throughout the podcast, Kelley provides actionable advice for business leaders on leveraging speaking engagements to enhance their visibility and credibility. She champions the idea of cultivating a positive corporate culture as a cornerstone of business strategy, which not only attracts but retains top talent.

Want to learn more about Kara Kelley's work? Check out their website at https://www.linkedin.com/in/karadkelley/.

Connect with Kara Kelley on LinkedIn at https://www.clinicalhr.com.

Key Points with Timestamps

• [00:00:46-00:01:12] Introduction of Kara Kelley, her background and involvement in the NSA.
• [00:01:36-00:02:09] Kelley discusses the role of effective communication in business leadership.
• [00:02:16-00:03:24] Kelley recounts her first speaking engagement and its challenges.
• [00:06:07-00:06:30] Transition from employment to starting her own business.
• [00:11:25-00:12:11] Pandemic response and the shift to focusing on HR consulting.
• [00:16:34-00:17:52] The importance of public speaking for business owners and the impact of speaking on client acquisition.
• [00:23:09-00:24:50] Kelley speaks on compliance, culture, and their roles in business sustainability.

Transcript

00:00:06:10 - 00:00:16:12
Craig Andrews


00:00:16:13 - 00:00:46:12
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Kara Kelley. She is the founder and CEO of clinical h.r. she found her place in dentistry through a meeting of serendipity and initiative and has spent over ten years advising practice leaders on the things dental school forgot to teach them. Her passion for making the workplace more human is rivaled only by her passion for a good cup of cold brew coffee.

00:00:46:14 - 00:01:12:13
Craig Andrews
You know, I got to know Kara through NSA, which is not the National Security Association. It is. But this is a different NSA. Less secretive, less lethal. but still killer. And what does? It's the national speaker's association. And so we have a real pro on the show today. And, not only is she a member of NSA, but she's the, chapter president.

00:01:12:15 - 00:01:36:14
Craig Andrews
And so I'm really looking forward to to this discussion. If you're in business, if you're in business and you're running a business, you need to listen to this show. Because one of the things that we're going to talk about is the importance of getting your message out in different ways, of getting your message out. And you're probably not using all the ways that you have available.

00:01:36:16 - 00:01:40:12
Craig Andrews
So anyway, listen up. Kara, welcome.

00:01:40:14 - 00:01:45:08
Kara Kelley
Thank you for having me. Yes. and I say we are the we are the speakers, not the listeners.

00:01:45:10 - 00:01:46:21
Craig Andrews
Oh, I love that.

00:01:46:23 - 00:01:50:23
Kara Kelley
I, I don't like to say about National Speakers Association.

00:01:51:00 - 00:02:07:04
Craig Andrews
Yeah, I'm still new to it. And it's, you know, it's such a delightful, group. I missed the, you know, the monthly meeting, you know, the recent monthly meeting. I had full day strategy with a new client. They were paying me. So that was kind of important.

00:02:07:06 - 00:02:09:17
Kara Kelley
It was fantastic. And it'll be in the vault.

00:02:09:19 - 00:02:16:16
Craig Andrews
It'll be in the vault. But. So when did you start speaking?

00:02:16:18 - 00:02:41:17
Kara Kelley
So I started speaking professionally back in 2019. my first real job. I supposed, after I finished my degree, I was working at a CPA firm that serves dental and small medical practices. And we had been asked by a state organization to present a practice finance day on their business program. Well, despite the fact that I was working at a CPA firm, I'm not an accountant.

00:02:41:19 - 00:03:02:18
Kara Kelley
I am an HR person. I have a business degree, but it has a concentration in HR. I now have senior certifications for HR through most of both of the certifying institutes in the country. But at the time, I didn't have those. And and I was I was there doing business development, I was doing internal HR, I was not speaking, and I was certainly not speaking about accounting.

00:03:02:20 - 00:03:24:05
Kara Kelley
and out of the seven hours of content, I ended up delivering three and a half. The first one being accounting one on one for dentists. Then I did a presentation on mitigating fraud and embezzlement. and then I actually did a business planning presentation with an HR focus. So my, my first paid speaking engagement was 3.5 hours of content in front of a very intimidating group of people.

00:03:24:07 - 00:03:45:17
Craig Andrews
Oh, wow. Wow. You know, it's it's very. I, I've given a talk where I talk about how to get yourself, how to promote yourself to podcasts and what have you. And, and I talk about the importance of tapping into a story. I said, I don't care how boring you think you are. You actually have something interesting in your background.

00:03:45:19 - 00:03:52:11
Craig Andrews
Except if you're a CPA. Sorry, your life is irredeemably boring.

00:03:52:13 - 00:03:55:10
Kara Kelley
Well, I'm not a CPA, I'm HR. We've got all the good stories.

00:03:55:14 - 00:04:11:07
Craig Andrews
Well that's it, that's exactly it. But you're saddled with these people that just, have a propensity to being boring, and. And so were you. You were. Were you speaking about them? So what were you talking about when you first started, speaking publicly.

00:04:11:09 - 00:04:32:24
Kara Kelley
So I really I was, helping helping doctors, manage their businesses better. Was that first presentation that we did. and then, you know, after. Well, we want talk about something boring. the first real speaking I did for myself was really during the pandemic. was talking about fCRA, and we all remember that acronym family's first coronavirus response act.

00:04:33:03 - 00:04:54:01
Kara Kelley
I did probably about 30 or 40 presentations that year in 2020 on that, because we had a lot of groups that were unfamiliar with it. We had a lot of business owners that were unfamiliar. and they they needed to know the information that they needed, which of course was constantly changing. Like, I would literally not bother to update my presentation till the morning of that because they were changing so quickly.

00:04:54:01 - 00:05:01:17
Kara Kelley
And I would always disclaim during the presentation that they may very well be changing something right now. So none of this might be relevant in the next hour.

00:05:01:19 - 00:05:11:03
Craig Andrews
You know, I remember that. I remember getting on some webinars where attorneys were giving talks about basically what you had to do for your employees to stay out of trouble.

00:05:11:05 - 00:05:15:07
Kara Kelley
Absolutely. I mean, I'm not an attorney, but I was definitely doing those presentations.

00:05:15:09 - 00:05:22:23
Craig Andrews
Wow. Wow. Now, that was also a critical time for you starting your business.

00:05:23:00 - 00:05:46:08
Kara Kelley
It was. So, I suppose, the continuation of the 2019 first paid presentation story. after I presented that one later on that year, my then boss and I were talking about putting that content on an online course because this was, you know, before the pandemic and before we all got burnt out on online courses. no, it was a great idea in fall of 2019.

00:05:46:10 - 00:06:07:03
Kara Kelley
so we started talking about doing that and he said, yeah, and we could put some of your HR stuff on there too. And I was like, well, people don't really go to a CPA firm to learn about HR. So if I was really going to put together some HR content, I really would love for it to be my own branding, my own thing, my own LLC, and possibly set up an LLC to do the education piece to do speaking.

00:06:07:08 - 00:06:30:10
Kara Kelley
And he said at the time, yeah, great idea. so I did that. I did that the end of November of 2019 and, didn't really do much with it. I built a website and I had, decided, you know, I was going to do some courses. I was starting to work on things like that. And all of a sudden I was getting invitations to be on podcasts and to speak at organizations, including the one we spoke at the the year prior.

00:06:30:12 - 00:06:48:16
Kara Kelley
And my work at the firm started drying up. all of a sudden and mind you, I say this with knowing that I hadn't really been all that happy working there the last six months. I was also still, in addition to the other things I was doing, still doing some marketing for the firm, and I was really running into you as a marketing person.

00:06:48:16 - 00:07:06:13
Kara Kelley
Might understand this. running into I didn't really believe in the mission of the firm anymore, and I didn't believe that we were really offering the level of service we could be. I was the person who was kind of the gatekeeper. So I got all the complaints, and I got all of the people who had said, they're trying to email my boss for three weeks and can't get a response.

00:07:06:13 - 00:07:22:02
Kara Kelley
And so I was really struggling with even doing that portion of the job. And so I went. I was, burnt out and I was tired of doing these things. These are things that I had told my boss I didn't want to keep doing. and yet I was still stuck with it. So the last like, six months or so, I was there.

00:07:22:02 - 00:07:48:16
Kara Kelley
I was not really happy to be there. So I probably wasn't 100% the best employee, or I wasn't giving that 110 I'd been giving prior. so when the end of February 2020 rolled around and I wake up on a Monday morning with an email in my inbox that was sent about 4:00 that morning, titled Termination of Employment with no actual reason given, just termination of employment after seven and a half or so years, I was kind of relieved.

00:07:48:18 - 00:07:52:21
Kara Kelley
Actually, the first thought I had was, man, I have time to go to the gym today.

00:07:52:23 - 00:08:12:05
Craig Andrews
But what a horrible way to I mean, you know, cutting somebody loose. It's it's never, you know, it's it's never great. I guess it's sort of like, you know, surgery on a cancer tumor. There's there's only bad and less bad, but that just seems like a horrible way to do that.

00:08:12:07 - 00:08:30:00
Kara Kelley
I mean, I wasn't surprised that it was a horrible way to do that. I had been responsible for January 2nd terminations from for people who had been asking about Christmas bonuses the year prior and getting told that, oh, it's coming on the next paycheck, it's coming on the next paycheck. Oh, it'll come in January and then January 2nd.

00:08:30:00 - 00:08:40:10
Kara Kelley
I walk in and he says, hey, we need to let this person go this morning. So honestly, terminations weren't really his strong suit to begin with. It wasn't terribly surprising.

00:08:40:12 - 00:08:56:18
Craig Andrews
Well, can that make you feel that the how does it feel horrible that you're sitting there telling people, oh yeah, yeah, your bonus is right around the corner. And and the bonus came in the form of a big sickle in the Angel death.

00:08:56:20 - 00:09:22:04
Kara Kelley
That was really not one of my favorite terminations. And there again, I had had a couple others at that firm that I really kind of as an HR person, you know, you're kind of a shame to have to carry those things out. But at the end of the day, you're advocating for the business, and if that's what the business owner wants and feels is best for the business, you as HR or, you know, have to do as best you possibly can to make that, an easy conversation, to make sure that that person is taken care of when they're exiting.

00:09:22:04 - 00:09:25:00
Kara Kelley
But you still, at the end of the day, have to do it.

00:09:25:02 - 00:09:32:00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, that ties back into what you were saying a couple months ago about marketing and business that you believe in.

00:09:32:02 - 00:09:35:02
Kara Kelley
And and that was one of the reasons why I didn't.

00:09:35:04 - 00:10:09:12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's and it's hard and I think it doesn't matter what you're doing. you know, and so you and I are business owners, we have clients. And at the end of the day, we we choose our clients, and we have to choose. you know, I know for me, when I'm marketing and business, I don't have to believe everything they believe, but I have to believe that they are a net positive one society.

00:10:09:14 - 00:10:33:00
Craig Andrews
And. And even if I disagree, you know, on some point, you know, it's my job to help them. You know, as long as I believe it's a honest, you know, honest message from their perspective, I have to decide, am I going to get behind it or not? And if I if I'm not, then I have to make that choice to not take them on and internal.

00:10:33:00 - 00:10:50:12
Kara Kelley
So I didn't really get to just say, well, I guess I'm not going to do the marketing. And it was crazy because we had even hired an outside marketing company who wasn't doing anything, and my boss was making excuses for them. And like, we've paid them five figures and they haven't done anything. And he said, well, you know, it's just where we're prepaying for future marketing.

00:10:50:12 - 00:10:56:02
Kara Kelley
They'll they'll do things next year. And I'm like, that's not helping us right now.

00:10:56:04 - 00:10:59:08
Craig Andrews
Were they, were they friends of family?

00:10:59:10 - 00:11:02:17
Kara Kelley
That was like the husband of a client or something like that? Yeah.

00:11:02:17 - 00:11:06:24
Craig Andrews
There we go. yeah. yeah. Yeah. Seen that?

00:11:07:01 - 00:11:09:06
Kara Kelley
People you can't really hold accountable, right?

00:11:09:08 - 00:11:12:05
Craig Andrews
Yeah. They do it again and again and again.

00:11:12:07 - 00:11:25:12
Kara Kelley
Indeed. but that was the end of February of 2020. And so I, you know, I thought, okay, I have, I have some time, I have a couple weeks I can go ahead and, focus on what I was really wanting to do. It can build out these courses and figure out how to launch all of this.

00:11:25:12 - 00:11:30:13
Kara Kelley
And none of that happened because three weeks later, we had a pandemic.

00:11:30:15 - 00:11:32:03
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00:11:32:05 - 00:11:49:16
Kara Kelley
So that was either going to be the absolute best time to start an HR consulting firm or the absolute worst time. And I decided to go with the first one, and just make it work. funny enough, I started getting a lot of calls from some of our former clients, people who who just needed help. They.

00:11:49:16 - 00:12:11:24
Kara Kelley
I was on the phone, you know, at midnight with some of these clients. They were just in tears having to lay their team off. And I was trying to do the best that I could to support them. You know, set the business part aside and just really support the people that I've served the last seven years. and then we had this legislation that was coming out and changing on the daily and, and I started putting some things together to kind of help people better understand that.

00:12:11:24 - 00:12:24:03
Kara Kelley
And like a week or so after that and my new corporate email account, I get an email from my former boss asking if I will do a webinar for the clients that we served.

00:12:24:05 - 00:12:26:07
Craig Andrews
He he asked you to do a webinar.

00:12:26:07 - 00:12:28:16
Kara Kelley
He reached out and asked if I would do a webinar.

00:12:28:18 - 00:12:31:19
Craig Andrews
Oh, this guy has brass.

00:12:31:21 - 00:12:45:04
Kara Kelley
I had so many people that told me that I should not do that. And I said, you know what, though? I'm a professional, so not only am I going to do it, I'm going to go do it. Well, I'm going to do it for free. And I ended up with, I think, four clients at the end of it.

00:12:45:06 - 00:12:56:06
Craig Andrews
Wow. So, you know, that's such an important lesson. It's, you know, especially as a business owner, it's so easy to let your ego get in the way.

00:12:56:08 - 00:13:02:23
Kara Kelley
And I could have easily ignored that or said, absolutely not. Or are you out of your freaking mind?

00:13:03:00 - 00:13:06:21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Boy, that guy has brass.

00:13:06:23 - 00:13:30:00
Kara Kelley
Indeed. the the full circle to that story. I have a speaking engagement coming up now, and I know by the time this gets released, it'll have passed. But it's a event that we had exhibited at for several years. We spent and we spent several thousands of dollars exhibiting at this particular event. And I haven't been back since 2019 because, of course, the pandemic shut them down for 2020.

00:13:30:00 - 00:13:54:09
Kara Kelley
And I even think 2021 and they've just started bouncing back. But I am returning this time for the first time in five years as a speaker. and I'm getting paid what we used to pay to be there, so. And oh, by the way, my boss, former boss, is going to be an exhibitor at this conference. So honestly, that I think was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me professionally, because I would have never taken the risks that I've taken.

00:13:54:09 - 00:14:01:00
Kara Kelley
I would have never done the things that I've done in the last five years. had I not gotten an email in my inbox that said termination of employment.

00:14:01:02 - 00:14:17:10
Craig Andrews
Wow. So but before we move on, I'm really curious, what did what was your strategy towards the pandemic? You know, what what did you do during the pandemic that you felt like made the difference between you making it and not making it?

00:14:17:12 - 00:14:35:22
Kara Kelley
service first, I helped people. I realized that my profession wasn't going to be there for me to have a business if I didn't serve them during that time. you know, we had dental practices that were shut down for months now. Me being in Texas, we practically didn't have one. We were maybe shut down for like eight weeks.

00:14:35:22 - 00:14:58:12
Kara Kelley
But I had some practices I was working with that were shut down for 4 or 5, six months, depending on what state that they were operating in. And so serving them as best I could to where they would still be there, you know, helping them make the right decisions toward what they do with their team, whether it's laying off their team or, or a flat termination, letting them draw unemployment or continuing to pay, all of those things that, you know, factored into that year.

00:14:58:14 - 00:15:05:11
Kara Kelley
And so I wanted to make sure that that we were still here, and so I really focused on serving the people that needed at the most.

00:15:05:13 - 00:15:14:18
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I'm vaguely remembering there were some nuances about whether you laid people off or terminated them in terms of the benefits you would receive.

00:15:14:20 - 00:15:32:24
Kara Kelley
Yeah. There. and and people did it both ways, you know, lay people off. then and just how whatever it was, you wanted to let them draw on employment because that's what it was there for. And I had some practices that were like, you know, we have some reserves we could continue to pay our people. And, and we didn't know how long this was going to go.

00:15:32:24 - 00:15:50:17
Kara Kelley
So I said, let them draw on employment. They're actually getting more off unemployment than what they would have been making. So save your reserves because again, just like what I was, what I was just saying, it's the same thing. I told them, if you don't have a practice for them to come back to because you've depleted all of your resources, then you're not helping anybody.

00:15:50:19 - 00:16:01:04
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Wow. Wow. So now you know. So here we are, what, five years later? Now you're a paid speaker.

00:16:01:06 - 00:16:03:05
Kara Kelley
Yes.

00:16:03:07 - 00:16:25:24
Craig Andrews
How did, So, I guess, you know, in in the time we have left, a couple of things. One, things I want to make sure that we talk about is why business owners should be speaking. And then the next question is, should they be paid speakers, you know, and so there's, you know, if you're not in the know, all of this is very confusing.

00:16:26:01 - 00:16:34:01
Craig Andrews
So, so let's just start there. Why should people in business be speaking?

00:16:34:03 - 00:16:58:06
Kara Kelley
I feel like every business has a message, has a mission. and depending on the type of business you're in, you know, if you're retail and all, you're doing a sales, then then maybe you don't necessarily need to speak, but maybe you're speaking on things like videos and to showcase your, product. But if you're a service based business, if you're an expert that people are paying for your knowledge and paying for your time, I really strongly feel that you should be speaking.

00:16:58:08 - 00:17:19:00
Kara Kelley
I actually have a group called HR Consultants Mastermind. It's got about 2700 members in it right now. And, we do a monthly happy hour in just about every single one of those. I have people ask, how do I get clients? How have you gotten clients? and I'm able to tell them very honestly that between referrals and speaking, I don't do a lot of marketing, not traditionally.

00:17:19:00 - 00:17:34:15
Kara Kelley
I don't do a lot of advertising, I'll put it that way, because I'm able to get myself in front of people and position myself as the expert, and they want to work with me. not only that, because I'm so very, very clear on what my message is and who I am and who I serve and how I serve them.

00:17:34:17 - 00:17:52:09
Kara Kelley
Most of the people that call for a discovery call, already know what they want and already know that they want to work with me. They just want to hear some of the logistics and the details. I very rarely have a call where someone's just poking around saying, you know, hey, I just want to learn a little bit more about what you do and tell me about yourself and any of that.

00:17:52:11 - 00:18:09:16
Kara Kelley
because I've been able to speak and and get that message out and get those services out and detail, you know, what it is I do and who I serve and how I serve them. so I really feel like that's an important skill for business owners to have, not just from a marketing standpoint, but really, you know, just getting their mission and message out.

00:18:09:18 - 00:18:34:00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And what I've found personally, you know, so I last year was my big year of getting on podcasts, even before I launch my own podcast. And what I found was about 30 episodes in not my podcast, other people's podcast. I was like, you know what? There's a better way to say what I'm saying. And we're just judged by the feedback that we get from the host.

00:18:34:02 - 00:19:01:03
Craig Andrews
you know, I said, I remember one time I said something a certain way, and the host laughed like, oh, that's good. Yeah. Because you want people laughing. It releases, it endorphins, when you laugh, it releases endorphins, which does good things, which ties to revenue somewhere down the way and and so just getting up there and practicing I think is so important.

00:19:01:05 - 00:19:20:13
Kara Kelley
Agreed. Well, and and really like I said, narrowing your focus on some of these things, it's another thing that I talk to my HR consultants about who HR people are very skilled in, very talented, and have all the things that they can do. But whenever you're talking to a potential client, they start glazing over after about 4 or 5 of all of those things.

00:19:20:15 - 00:19:33:08
Kara Kelley
the more you are able to repeat your message and the more skilled you become as a speaker, the more concise you can be and clear. And being able to communicate that very, very well to your potential clients, I think it's very helpful.

00:19:33:10 - 00:19:40:15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So every every business end by a in a service business especially should be speaking I feel.

00:19:40:15 - 00:19:41:20
Kara Kelley
Yes.

00:19:41:22 - 00:19:44:09
Craig Andrews
okay. Well how did they get started.

00:19:44:11 - 00:20:05:19
Kara Kelley
Well if they are very uncomfortable with speaking like if they just cannot get in front of people, there are some organizations that are very low cost organizations. things like Toastmasters, for example. I actually after I did my first paid speaking engagement that early 2019, speaking engagement, that was the first thing that I did. I said, well, if I'm going to get paid for this, I should probably get good at it.

00:20:05:21 - 00:20:25:08
Kara Kelley
So I went and joined the Toastmasters club that was right around the corner from the office that I was working at at the time, and ended up becoming president of that. By the way, as apparently I can't help myself or something like that, or more like, really? People are like, oh, you would be great at this. And I'm like, but I've not been here for a year.

00:20:25:08 - 00:20:27:23
Kara Kelley
Okay, sure. Sounds like a great idea.

00:20:28:00 - 00:20:29:07
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00:20:29:09 - 00:20:52:01
Kara Kelley
but that was that was something that really, I felt helped me, especially their table topics. If you've ever been to a Toastmasters club, table topics is they've been table topics, master, that gives you a question or a statement and you have like two minutes to answer the question. So that really helps you from rambling. it helps keep you concise and makes you think on your feet and makes you not sound rehearsed.

00:20:52:03 - 00:21:12:01
Kara Kelley
Because that's the other thing, is that some people have their elevator pitch, but they are have this elevator pitch memorized, and when they start delivering that elevator pitch, they go into this like a newscaster voice or and they just do this very, very, meticulously memorized speech, which is not super engaging for some people. So that does really help you become a better communicator.

00:21:12:03 - 00:21:31:21
Kara Kelley
So that's one place I would start if you are are completely terrified of public speaking. And since it's, you know, the number one fear in the country, followed closely by death, it is very valid to be afraid of public speaking. if you are looking to do this for your business, however, I would highly recommend looking at organizations like National Speaker Association.

00:21:31:23 - 00:21:51:13
Kara Kelley
the motto of NASA is be a better speaker, build a Better Business. And so if you're looking at making it part of your business, or actually making it into a business, getting paid for it, I would look to some of the local chapters, especially if you're just getting started, and go connect with people who are already doing this and who can help you get to that point.

00:21:51:15 - 00:22:09:11
Kara Kelley
not everybody gets paid to speak. There are plenty of speakers who are professional speakers, but they do it fee waived because what they're speaking on, is, is really to get them business, get them coaching clients, get them consulting clients or it goes with their business model. And it's not necessarily the business model in and of itself.

00:22:09:13 - 00:22:26:11
Kara Kelley
And there's no right or wrong way to do any of this. You can certainly speak fee waived. You could do, you know, speak for a lower fee for, the option for clients or option and get video option to get, the list of the attendees. There's a lot of different like, kind exchanges that you can do, for speaking.

00:22:26:13 - 00:22:44:15
Kara Kelley
But then you also, of course, have the ones who are, you know, five figure keynotes on stage that that everybody thinks of when they think professional speaker. but that's not everybody. myself personally, I'm more of a facilitator. Trainer. And so yes, I keynote yes, I coach consults, but for the most part, I really love facilitating.

00:22:44:17 - 00:23:01:05
Kara Kelley
I'm certified in this. I'm certified in five behaviors of a cohesive team. And so I love going to organizations and working with groups of leaders to help facilitate that type of content and really help them grow. I feel like I can do a lot if you give me, you know, 4 to 6 hours to work with a group of leaders versus 30 minutes on stage.

00:23:01:06 - 00:23:02:16
Kara Kelley
For me personally.

00:23:02:18 - 00:23:09:10
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, what are some of your signature talks that you're giving now?

00:23:09:12 - 00:23:33:02
Kara Kelley
So the ones I'm going to be doing this week coming up, I have compliance and culture tend to be the two types of topics I work on. one of mine is management myths. Why you shouldn't get your H.R. Advice on Facebook because I see so many Facebook groups for business owners and office managers, and they have a lot of ideas of what they think these 85 year old laws say, I'm like, this is really been around for a while, shouldn't be up for debate.

00:23:33:02 - 00:23:50:07
Kara Kelley
But, you know, there's things that people don't understand or some nuance to it that they haven't learned or they heard it incorrectly at a conference somewhere or whatever the case may be. And I have literally built an entire compliance presentation based on the things that they're consistently getting wrong. the other side that I really love speaking on is culture.

00:23:50:12 - 00:24:17:05
Kara Kelley
I have an e-book that I deliver as Legion, and then just give it to my clients for free, called Compete with Culture. it was it was originally supposed to have been an article. I tell you, I don't have a book, and I'm not quite sure why. Because I started writing this article in 2022 and it was going to be titled, 22 Things Dental Practices Should Stop Doing in 2022 to compete with culture, because for them, they don't have benefits like some of the big companies do.

00:24:17:06 - 00:24:32:13
Kara Kelley
They're not able to offer health insurance immediately upon hire. They're not able to do flex time or, you know, unlimited PTO or things like that. They have patients that that are on a schedule. They need people in the office. They can't have most of them work remotely. So they have to compete with the things that they have.

00:24:32:13 - 00:24:50:23
Kara Kelley
And the number one thing that is going to to drive people to want to work for them and want to stay working for them is going to be their culture. So I was making this list of 22 things that they need to stop doing to compete with culture. And I get to the bottom of this article and it's like 3000 words and I'm like, oh, this is the longest blog post in the history of ever.

00:24:51:00 - 00:25:04:03
Kara Kelley
So I went back and I rewrote it the way I had wanted to because I'd already been doing it, you know, kind of a little bit shorter than I wanted because I knew it was going to be so long. So I went back and read it the way I wanted. It was about 6000 words, and so I rebranded it as an actual e-book.

00:25:04:05 - 00:25:23:03
Kara Kelley
and use that for Legion. but that has now spun itself into, a keynote, which is also turning itself into like a three hour workshop. So it's the brand that I love speaking on, because that's, I think, one of my favorite topics. I think that has the biggest impact. I think you don't need to, to be as concerned with the compliance side.

00:25:23:03 - 00:25:32:11
Kara Kelley
When you've got a culture where people actually want to work, you don't have to have these super rigid rules to keep people in line. When you've hired the right people and got them in the right place and are treating them like adults.

00:25:32:13 - 00:25:51:05
Craig Andrews
You know, that's so profound. There's so profound. I know for me, I mean, you know, my story. I was, you know, I was in a six week coma and, and then first couple weeks after I woke up, my mind was mush. And when my wife finally told me what my team had been doing, I was like, it was overwhelmed.

00:25:51:06 - 00:26:14:02
Craig Andrews
I was overwhelming, and they didn't do what they did because they were afraid of how I would respond when I came back, because nobody believed I was coming back, they all believed I was a goner. But that's really what you're talking about. With culture. You wouldn't build these type of cultures where the people do exactly what they should, whether you're there or not.

00:26:14:04 - 00:26:26:10
Kara Kelley
Yeah, absolutely. And you seem like you had built a team that really wanted to step up for for you, for the business, for themselves, even rather than just saying, well, it's time to start job searching.

00:26:26:12 - 00:26:32:03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And that was the obvious right answer at the time, because nobody thought I was going to make it.

00:26:32:05 - 00:26:51:13
Kara Kelley
Well, you see a lot of that in M&A as well. And mergers and acquisitions where the practice gets sold. And oh my gosh, they got surprised by there's a new owner and they've never met them. Believe me I'm from the HR side I work with the the buyer pretty frequently. And the buyer will say things like yeah, I just bought this practice last Tuesday and I'm going to go meet the team on Monday.

00:26:51:15 - 00:26:56:23
Kara Kelley
And I'm like, so you've hired people you've never met. That's going to end well.

00:26:57:00 - 00:26:58:11
Craig Andrews
How much did you spend?

00:26:58:13 - 00:27:16:23
Kara Kelley
Yes. but oftentimes they get surprised. The team gets surprised that there is a new owner because the seller hasn't said anything because their representative, their advocates are telling them not to, because, oh my goodness, for sale will fall apart if people leave. So the team ends up getting surprised and some of them will immediately stop, start job searching.

00:27:16:23 - 00:27:23:14
Kara Kelley
Some of them have been waiting to retire till that doctor's old, and so they are just out the door. within the first month or two.

00:27:23:16 - 00:27:36:22
Craig Andrews
My, All right. So one last, question. what's the most salacious HR story?

00:27:36:24 - 00:27:43:19
Kara Kelley
Oh, okay. So let's say do you want sexual harassment or do you want something fun from last year?

00:27:43:21 - 00:27:48:07
Craig Andrews
Your choice. It sounds like it's hard to lose with those choices, right?

00:27:48:09 - 00:28:07:03
Kara Kelley
probably one of my best stories from last year. I have a client who has a mobile dental clinic, and so they have different dental vehicles that go on various sites. And they had one at a conference last year, and I get a call Monday afternoon. They said, you know, hey, my one of my team members was at a conference this weekend and there was some misconduct.

00:28:07:03 - 00:28:30:13
Kara Kelley
And so we let them go this morning. We need you to help draft a termination letter. I said, okay, you know, tell me a little more about what happened. Like, they tell me, they start getting into and they're like an oh, by the way, there's this one other thing. We got a call from the sheriff's department from the county that the conference was held in, and apparently this employee had used the mobile dental vehicle to solicit the sale of drugs and prostitution at like 2:00 in the morning on Saturday.

00:28:30:15 - 00:28:32:14
Craig Andrews
Oh, boy.

00:28:32:16 - 00:28:45:19
Kara Kelley
I said, well, here's the good news. It's not actually the reason why you fired them, because this happened after they let's person go that they found this out. That's not actually the reason that you fired them. So we don't have to include it in the termination letter. But good luck with that.

00:28:45:21 - 00:28:51:01
Craig Andrews
Wow wow. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Fun.

00:28:51:03 - 00:28:53:09
Kara Kelley
That's probably one of my better ones with that that year.

00:28:53:11 - 00:29:01:22
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well Kara this has been great. This has been site for, how should folks reach you?

00:29:01:24 - 00:29:21:10
Kara Kelley
well, if they are an email type person. Kara. Kara at clinical air.com, and I honestly, I, I share myself. I'm not concerned by 128764866 if you're more of a text person, most of my clients and people in my world are on Facebook as well. And so HR Kara Kelly is my Facebook.

00:29:21:12 - 00:29:24:24
Craig Andrews
All right. Well, thanks. Thanks for coming on, Leaders and legacies.

00:29:25:01 - 00:29:31:02
Kara Kelley
Well, thank you for having me. This was great. I love your podcast and I love what you're doing here. this is a great legacy for you to be sharing.