By Steve Small
I have seen and spoken to hundreds of clinic owners in my time building IDD Therapy. There are some common traits.
Generally lovely caring people. Well, you’d hope so!
Well meaning and good intentioned on the whole. And a few quirky ones as in all walks of life.
A common characteristic in most cases is that clinicians are what might be descried as reluctant business owners.
You want to use your skills to help people. That is rich and rewarding.
But patients don’t just form a lengthy queue at your newly painted door. Suddenly the monkey on your back is this thing called a business, which you have had no training in.
LIFE GETS EXPENSIVE
As we get older, life gets more expensive and at some point there’s this thing called retirement on the horizon and the UK state pension is only £230.25 a week!.
And so to do business.
When I started with IDD Therapy, it was going great in the USA. I naively thought that clinicians would fall over themselves to hand over their cash. I mean, IDD helps patients avoid surgery so why wouldn’t they?!
Thus began a somewhat reluctant journey to understand how clinicians treat discs, why there was this resistance to investments and why IDD was perceived to be traction.
That isn’t an overnight learning when you have no input or training about clinic business.
LEARNING ON THE JOB
I co-owned a clinic for eight years. On day one I didn’t have a clue, but you learn through doing. There are painful expensive mistakes along the way! But by the end when we sold the clinic I could start and build a clinic and carve out a niche in a crowded space anywhere.
These days when I talk about IDD Therapy I talk clinical and commercial.
If ONY I knew back then what I know now I wouldn’t have lost so much money or suffered so much!
Learning can be slow and painful, but it’s the only way to grow. Try building muscle without exercising or going to the gym …
Clinicians become business owners, reluctantly. A necessary evil with a painful learning curve.
But what I see with the clinics I work with, is the evolution. Were my parents alive, they would be incredulous about what I do now
(Once upon a time amongst other things I sold my own brand of candles in Congo – Papa Lune no less!)
I have learned so much and grown. I have learned myself and vicariously through the clinics I work with, from sole practitioners to large multi-disciplinary clinics.
For clinic owners, the business paradox can be stifling. More so than for people like me, I signed up for business, clinicians didn’t. I signed up to sell machines, and discovered I couldn’t sell machines without learning how to build a clinic business (which I knew nothing about!)
And for you, now you are a business owner, where next? What’s your next move …?!
Mistakes cost money and ignorance holds us back.
This is where the “I’ll do it when …” comes in.
There are many things I intend to do, when I just do this or I just do that.
With clinicians, it’s things like I must get around to doing my website. Or I’ll take on staff when I get new premises. I must start facebook ads … I must get a facebook page …
Some of the hesitancy of taking steps is ignorance of how to go about it or the fact that after seeing 12 patients in a day, you just want to collapse on the sofa.
And this is where the glass ceiling comes in.
Because without making time, without stepping outside the comfort zone, things stay as they are and you never get past a certain point. The proverbial hamster on a wheel.
The busier you get in the practice, the less time you have to work on it … boom bust!
And years literally go by.
BUSINESS OR JOB?
It’s worth considering, but if your business can’t give you enough income to live on if you’re not there on the tools, then you have a job and not a business. Which is fine, but the two are very different.
And so, the paradox kicks in. You want a business but …
What if associates and staff are a headache? If you look at any clinic you might aspire to be like, I am guessing there is a team.
There are ups and downs of teams, but as you grew into a better clinician after you qualified, if you take steps to grow as a business owner, you will get better at business, including being a good staff manager and leader.
There are aspects of the business I hate.
We do our own accounts but I just offloaded it to a book keeper. What a relief. Once we’re sorted with that, I can focus my time on the things that make us stronger as a business.
ANALYSIS PARALYSIS
It is ok to be nervous about things. But IDD aside, the biggest mistake I see is analysis paralysis. Deep thinkers who aren’t sure tend to procrastinate about moving the needle.
Some thoughts.
Want new premises in the future? Start looking around. Even if you’re not in the market today you can see the sort of place you want, understand what it needs so that one day you can do it.
NEW WEBSITE, get someone to build it for you. Plenty of companies like https://hmdg.co.uk/ where you pay monthly. You can always re-do it in the future.
PHONE Are you answering the phone yourself? If so you’re losing money because people want to talk now and book. If you are with a patient they can’t book. Best reception is good https://www.bestreception.co.uk/ I had this in my clinic, alongside a receptionist because every missed call is lost £$
NO ONLINE BOOKING (Are you crazy?!), Just get https://www.cliniko.com/ There are others but, as with many services, if you are going to spend nine months pontificating to save £5 a month, you’ve already lost thousands. Just start.
BUSINESS COACH. STUCK? Get a business coach to help you be clear on your values, vision and needs. Don’t spend six months choosing. You probably have an idea about who is out there, so just book in. The thing about business coaches is ALL will help you. And chances are once you get going, you will switch to different ones.
As you grow and your needs alter. Or maybe your coach will be with you until the day you sell or retire, though chances are they’ll be on the beach at that point!
START AND WORK IT OUT ON THE WAY WINS
I do a lot of personal development and half the time I feel I am useless and incompetent. But ALL the business leaders say, start and work it out as you go.
Because you can’t work it out as much as you think you need to, without actually doing the thing. When you start doing the thing, you see things SO much clearer. The next step is easy to see.
Delaying an action or decision costs clinic owners thousands.
If a patient tells you I am going to start my exercises in three months time, you’d say, what’s wrong with tomorrow?! Things don’t get easier when we put them off.
What I write hear applies to all aspects of a clinic business. Our business is of course the spine specialism.
If you have read this far hear, I guess some of this resonates. So have a listen to Osteopath Phil Heler from Buxton Osteopathy Clinic in Derbyshire. Phil doubled his business and paid for his IDD in a year.
PASSING TIME COSTS MONEY
Whether it’s IDD, getting staff or anything, the cost of waiting is literally £thousands. If you made an extra £25,000 a year in year one from a new venture, that may mean you would be in a position to retire a whole year earlier.
I made a decision a couple of years ago to pay an extra £100 a month to my mortgage. That means I pay my mortgage off one year earlier. I wonder what would have happened if I had started that ten years sooner. I won’t look back but delays cost money.
SMALL ACTIONS COMPOUND
Small things make a big difference and compound over time. You may be a reluctant business owner, but embrace it. When you do you get better at it and it even becomes fun!
Remember, one day you will either turn off the lights at your clinic with nothing to show for it or you will be renting it to someone or you will be selling it for a nice cheque.
That may be decades away. But the key thing is and what I learned having my own clinic, when you run a business in a way that you could sell tomorrow, then that instrument will be helping more patients than you are right now. AND, you will be getting a far bigger reward for your efforts.
It’s not a sprint so don’t panic. Just get that vision and work towards it.
About: Steve Small heads up an international network of clinics providing IDD Therapy spinal decompression. At Steadfast Clinic we help clinic owners help patients with unresolved spinal problems get their lives back, and in the process grow their practices.