Transcript
Kim Rosenlund (00:05):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the PT pod with PRN. I'm your host, Kim Rosenlund, and I have a very special guest with me today. This is Brett Raasch, our Executive Vice President of Operations. Brett's been with us. How long have you been with us now?
Brett Raasch (00:22):
It's been almost exactly a year.
Kim Rosenlund (00:24):
All right. I mean, fantastic. It's been awesome getting to know you. Brett came with us through an acquisition last year, Spine & Sport out of San Diego. And I got the pleasure of having some of his team join my team and it's been outstanding. So I thought today we would talk to Brett and see kind of how the first year went and see what kind of advice, some takeaways, some learnings that he had during the integration period that we can share with you guys. So Brett, how do you think things have been going the first year looking back?
Brett Raasch (01:06):
Yeah. Well, thanks, Kim. Thanks for letting me be here today. Yeah, it's almost our one year anniversary. And so when we sold Spine & Sport Physical Therapy to PRN, it was an exciting time for us. We all of a sudden became the largest provider of physical therapy services in California with over 130 clinics. Took us to 275, 280 clinics throughout the company.
Kim Rosenlund (01:30):
That was a big acquisition. Biggest one in my career.
Brett Raasch (01:34):
Yeah, it was amazing. But it was a tremendous decision and opportunity for our employees and our teams. It really started to become more about not can we grow more, but how can we grow better? And when we started to look for a partner and the alignment that we captured with PRN truly was amazing.
Kim Rosenlund (01:56):
It had to be tough. I mean, you guys, I feel like were pretty sought after.
Brett Raasch (02:01):
Yeah.
Kim Rosenlund (02:01):
So how did you pick PRN out of so many?
Brett Raasch (02:06):
Yeah. It was a tremendous time in the market for us and in the physical therapy space. Had a lot of different opportunities that we looked at. Well, some of it does come down to pricing. There's always that aspect with a transaction piece of it, but there's also the aspect of alignment and culture and building relationships with the executive and the leadership team that knew that you weren't really exiting the organization. You were really looking at what's going to be next in the phase of growth and development. And we really wanted an organization that had similar alignment that we had. And that alignment was based off of not just pure EBITDA. PRN really saw that saw more in the PT profession than just pure EBITDA. They saw the opportunity for clinicians, for outcomes, and for our employees. And that was really important to us. And so in choosing PRN, it gave opportunities to our employees to grow within the organization, to grow on your team, to grow throughout the organization, to have a bigger platform, to grow professionally and personally.
Kim Rosenlund (03:20):
I think that's been one of the coolest things to see is getting to know so many of the Spine & Sport folks and to see that so many people come over and be really happy with the integration. And with PRN, like we just came off of CSM and it was the first time Spine & Sport and PRN had done that conference together and we had a blast. And it was so rewarding to see the smiles on the Spine & Sport faces and how much fun we had. So because you always kind of hear the nightmare integrations and integrations are definitely difficult, but maybe talk through that. How did you keep that culture and how did you get them to buy in kind of to the PRN way? Yeah. Talk me through a little bit how that integration, how you did that as a leader.
Brett Raasch (04:10):
Yeah, it's a good question. I think it first starts with alignment with the organization like PRN, the organization at the executive and leadership level. That was paramount that myself, our team aligned with you, with AJ, our CEO, the different department heads. That was really critical to our success through the integration. PRN really approached it with tremendous humility, which was meant a lot to me because it really determined like a strategic thinker in how do we attack this integration? How do we really collaborate with together?
Kim Rosenlund (04:53):
It wasn't cookie cutter, right?
Brett Raasch (04:56):
No. It was a lot of work.
Kim Rosenlund (04:56):
Right. I remember being very flexible, very collaborative. Yeah. Where in the past integrations have been very like, this is the way it goes. And that's when it can kind of go south.
Brett Raasch (05:07):
The collaboration I think is what contributed to a lot of our success. A couple of things that we had at the onset where we really wanted this to be about our people. We really wanted this to be about our organization, our employees, and our people. And that was really paramount to a lot of the success we had too. We kept that at the forefront of everything.
Kim Rosenlund (05:26):
Yeah. Well, it shows because I mean, everyone's stuck around.
Brett Raasch (05:29):
Yeah.
Kim Rosenlund (05:30):
And the opportunities that people had to grow and to see your people get promoted into leadership roles and take on more responsibility, that's a testament to your leadership that everybody trusted you.
Brett Raasch (05:46):
Yeah.
(05:47):
Well I appreciate it. It wasn't me. It was our team. We have an amazing team. We have an amazing team at Spine & Sport. It's even better now that we've partnered and sold to PRN. And now that we have this, just a tremendous amount of amazing people that we can really do things better now. It's not so much that we were exiting in my mind. It was really, how can we continue to partner and grow together into the next phase of our business?
Kim Rosenlund (06:15):
Yeah.
Brett Raasch (06:16):
Where can we go next?
Kim Rosenlund (06:16):
Have the resources to do better and get better. What did day one look like?
Brett Raasch (06:24):
Day one was actually, if I think about day one, I would say it was steady. And that steadiness was actually really, really engaging and empowering. Nothing changed. Our clinics were still the same. Our patients were the same.
Kim Rosenlund (06:40):
That's interesting because I feel like you always hear that in acquisitions you hear, "Oh, nothing's going to change." And then the world turns upside down and it's everyone's worst nightmare.
Brett Raasch (06:49):
It really is.
Kim Rosenlund (06:49):
So how did you make sure it wasn't this colossal change?
Brett Raasch (06:53):
Yeah. I think again, it goes back to we had put together a tremendous amount of integration meetings. Both sides were very well prepared day one between PRN and Spine & Sport. We had all sat down as a leadership team and said, "Okay, what do we want day one to look like? How do we find that steady state?" And we came into it with that collaborative kind of bigger thinking picture so that we made it seamless. It was not seamless. There was a lot of work to do.
Kim Rosenlund (07:20):
For sure.
Brett Raasch (07:21):
But there was an empowerment to it because we knew that our patients were still walking in. It was the same. Our clinics looked the same. Our employees were the same. Now we got the opportunity to impact our employees even more and better than we were able to do at Spine & Sport.
Kim Rosenlund (07:34):
And I felt like you guys did a great job on the communication side. I know I got to be a part of some of the socials and some of the town halls, and that was such a great experience. And I felt like we were out there, we were engaging, all the leadership kind of showed up to make sure the employees felt comfortable. Talk to me a little bit about that, that communication process and how important that was to you.
Brett Raasch (08:00):
Yeah, it was really important. I mean, as any probably founder or CEO, and I wasn't the founder of Spine & Sport, I was the CEO. I got the great opportunity to be the CEO for over four years, but anybody in that founder, CEO role knows that the business starts to become part of your identity and letting go of that identity requires trust.
Kim Rosenlund (08:24):
Yeah. And it's not easy.
Brett Raasch (08:26):
It's not easy. Yeah. But it was something that we all had to look in the mirror. We had to work on that collaborative effort to kind of work towards that communication. And we started to meet as a leadership team. We created a great path with you and your team on what that communication looks like to our employees. We had weekly town hall meetings. We had integration schedules. We did a very methodical plan on this is when we're going to convert to our electronic medical records. This is how we're going to do it. This is how benefits are working. This is the great education aspects. So we took that to heart with our town halls, our massive amount of communications, our social events that we had out, all the PRN leadership team came to those.
Kim Rosenlund (09:10):
They were great. Yeah.
Brett Raasch (09:11):
Which meant a lot to our employees. So I think that was our, again, it goes back to, that was our primary focus, were our employees, our clinicians, and our kind of outcomes and that whole side of our business.
Kim Rosenlund (09:25):
What were some lessons learned now that you look back? Is there anything you would have done different? Is there like a key takeaway or a lesson?
Brett Raasch (09:33):
Yeah.
Kim Rosenlund (09:35):
You think it's just really people? I mean, you talk a lot about how important it is just focus on the people.
Brett Raasch (09:40):
It really is about the people. I think we could always have done better with the people side of it. I think we can ... We did a really, really good job, but I still look back like, "Ooh, I would have done this different this time." I think it was really more of, it wasn't an exit for us. It was really more of what's the next steps and really looking at how can we continue to grow and foster together. So I don't ... Looking back, one thing that I would change ... Oh, gosh.
Kim Rosenlund (10:14):
I could see though where it's hard to find something because from my perspective, you went about it the right way, right? The expectation that was set was that, "Hey, we're here to grow and partner and do things better." So I feel like, would that be your advice to someone who's...
Brett Raasch (10:30):
Yeah.
Kim Rosenlund (10:30):
Who's looking to sell or looking to partner?
Brett Raasch (10:33):
Yeah, I think it's really, you got to go into it with a lot of trust. You have to go into it with ... I fortunately knew the PRN leadership team for a number of years, had a tremendous amount of respect for them, similar culture, similar values, finding that right partner is imperative. There is a transactional pricing piece to it, but that partnership really is one of the key components. And then going into it with that trust and going into it with that idea that it's not an exit, it's an ongoing effort to continue to grow and thrive in the business and having that people first culture that PRN has and I identify with and our Spine & Sport teams identified with, that was important to us. And as long as we kept that employee relations, that culture and at the forefront of every decision we made, it was easy.
(11:25):
Was there some hard ones along the way? Yeah. But it always, if we kept the forefront of our employees and we communicated, no matter if it was hard or easy, that was important.
Kim Rosenlund (11:37):
Well, it shows. I mean, it's probably the most successful acquisition/integration I've been a part of in my 20 years doing this. I've been part of probably over a hundred integrations. And I want to thank you for being probably one of the best former CEOs that has joined our leadership team and have done it with a lot of grace. And that approach has contributed to our continued success.
Brett Raasch (12:06):
Yeah. Well I thank you.
Kim Rosenlund (12:06):
It's been great. So it's been a good year.
Brett Raasch (12:09):
It has. It's been a great year. So happy one year anniversary. It's amazing. It's almost to the day and yeah, super excited about the path we went down, excited to see our future, excited to continue to grow our business. I think we've got a great opportunity in front of us, great teams and employees combined, and I'm excited to see what we can all do together. So thank you for that.
Kim Rosenlund (12:32):
Yeah. Thank you for joining.