Building a successful PT clinic is hard, no matter what you heard others say. Especially, after many new private practice owners have decided to create their own businesses. It is challenging, but remember: it has never been supposed to be easy!
To succeed you need to struggle and carve new paths for success.
We’ve always tried to give you the best advice, tips, and insights on how to better your PT business, but today we’re taking a different approach by teaching you 7 of the most common mistakes, clinic owners like you make in the process that keeps them from growing.
Learn below what to avoid for a better outcome and long-term growth of your business.
Wanting to do all by yourself, it’s going to stop you from growing and not because you are not good at doing everything, but because doing everything takes time. You cannot do everything yourself, do it well and have time. You simply can’t because there is too much to do and everything needs its own time.
You cannot be a good physiotherapist and web developer, social media manager, photographer at the same time. You might be able to do each of them, but the quality of work you’ll put out would be not of the top value. You might be good at maintaining your physical therapy website, but you won’t have quality time left for your patients.
Instead, try to delegate more work to people who are professionals indeed. You will have more time left to offer the best service to your patients.
You will face the pressure to think as a business owner now and not just as a therapist. This can be too much for you too, but you can avoid all the pain and failures by hiring a coach or consultant who has gone the same path before and is able to walk you in the right way.
Generalization will hurt your business, not only in terms of your staff and the way you delegate tasks, but also in the way you position yourself out there in the market. Positioning yourself as a therapist great at everything will raise some eyebrows.
Picture this: Imagine if there was a lecturer to give all the subjects at university. Do you think the students would be satisfied with it? Do you think they would choose that university? We doubt because he couldn’t have been excellent in all fields. Sames goes for your clinic.
The less confusion you create in your business, the more clients you’ll get. When you focus and work with your ideal clients your clinic will be more prominent and distinguishable. Communicate your ideas clearly and create an unforgettable experience for your patients.
This doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck for the rest of your career in that niche or those types of clients, but it’s a starting point. Later on, you can slowly steer in another niche. It’s your business and you can always find ways to improve and start over.
There comes the old but gold quote of Benjamin Franklin. “If you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail.”
This couldn’t be truer. The costs of no-planning can be more expensive than what you thought. You will either pay in money, or with hours and hours of your time. Both are surely no at your advantage.
Planning is not as hard or insignificant as you could have thought. Without planning you could end up with your head on the clouds, expecting to have your ideal clinic set up within a few months and a stream of clients coming in.
But the truth is that you need to plan your way to there step by step. You’ll need to stick to your budget and be realistic about what you can afford and what not.
You might need to start off by renting a place before you can afford to have your own. Even renting space at a gym would be a good and reasonable start.
Good planning is more than crucial. You’re responsible for creating a team that solves patients needs. There isn’t just one task under your responsibility. You need to take care of:
It is not unusual for your relatives to be against you starting your own business, but if you take a moment to think about it: The people telling you to quit have probably never opened a business before. How could you base your decisions totally on their words?
You shouldn’t let those words demotivate you. Instead, listen to people who have had experience before. Network with other clinic owners and utilize sites such as Reddit to get real insights from people. You can even find retired clinic owners who know about the business more than you think.
Hiring the right people to take care of your marketing is crucial as well. Don’t just aim for the best marketing agency out there that advises you to dump a bunch of money into ads and gives you no information of how everything is going in the background. You need to have control of what is happening to your budget. Therefore, make sure you hire people that deliver for what they charge.
It’s totally normal for you to struggle with your budgeting. It’s not what you’re graduated for. But, the thing is that your business grows healthy only if there’s a good cash flow and more importantly, a back-up plan if things go wrong. You need a solid budgeting plan. Not only just when starting out, but throughout the year.
The best way to start a budgeting plan is by thinking long term first and then starting to plan backward. Think for 5 years and then think back to today. Your budgeting plan is a mirror of your growth curve. Planning long-term might be the key to your business’s constant growth, but be aware that budgeting doesn’t mean saving more than you should. In order to have consistent growth, you will need to be delegating your budget wisely to parts of the business that need it.
Marketing, for example, is the lifeblood of your practice. You might be getting patients from word of mouth referrals, but that is something you have less control than in marketing. Dedicating at least 5% of your gross income to marketing via online and offline channels is essential for growth and brand awareness.
Building a thriving business takes time. No matter how many times you could have heard this, it’s important that you put it into use. Together with time, there are other reasons that can seriously impact your decision-making:
The two these have time as a main factor. Patience is the key, but not just simply waiting for things to happen. You need to be working patiently with a vision in mind and investing in both the quality of your service and its marketing. There are legal processes you have to go through as well which require their time. Being it the health plan network enrollment, city permit, credentialing, etc. Be prepared to wait.
Growth won’t come within a week or two, or even a month as many expect it. Although it may vary from location to location, this is the truth.
Wanting to look professional and offer your clients the best service possible it’s okay, but it’s not wise to jump into it straightforward. You can upgrade. Later. Don’t make the same mistake many PT clinic owners have been doing by depleting their budget unnecessarily on equipment. Unless you want to end up with a bad debt, steer away from this expense.
Your focus at first should be on getting simple equipment and is multifunctional. There’s nothing with buying used equipment neither as long as it does the work. Your equipment needs to include therapeutic modalities such as ultrasound, TENS, kinesiology tape, along with other basic devices such as computers, treatment tables, etc. (Remember to pay special attention to showing these on your website since are a valuable asset.)
When we spoke above about networking with other physiotherapists, it can be translated into a good cooperation. Search in newspapers or online for Ads on PT clinics for sale. You’ll be able to get equipment on for good deals.
Once your cash flow is better you can upgrade your equipment. By doing the right research you would be able to cover the entire equipment for less than $9,000.
Building a business is the same as if investing in building a home for your family. You need to have a business plan, each person has his own role, and every one is essential to having a happy family.
This applies to your PT clinic as well, because you need to be committed the same way to it. You need to have a plan for each part of the business, from buying the right equipment to running successful Social Media Ads. Listen to the right people who believe in your vision and speak to you with arguments, not just personal opinions. You need to avoid the tempting actions that prevent your PT business from growing.
Most importantly, keep track of your progress in order to understand what went wrong and what worked. This way you can replicate what worked over and over again, and steer away from what didn’t work. Balance is always the key and keeping yourself aware of the market trends is important.
But, you don’t have to worry, because we can take care of that while you focus on providing your customers with top-quality service. Have a look at our packages for more information.
Do you want to supercharge your physical therapy marketing? Download our Free Evergreen Marketing Blueprint for Physical Therapists and start creating long-term assets that generate new patient bookings for years to come.