10 Traits to Becoming a Healthcare Entrepreneur — Part 2

6. Create a practice that you love and one that loves you back

On our daily radar we need to be thinking about growing our business 10X. We all need mentors so that we can have someone help us understand what will allow us to go to the next level. It’s time to have a business that you are proud of that you can hand off to your kids or one that you can sell. It’s time to create a business that leads to amazing lifestyle outcomes, not one that creates more work.

You are deeply skilled at practicing medicine, public speaking, generating marketing campaigns but how many of you have a business that is systematized and automated so that you are generating income while you are restoring yourself on vacation? How can you increase income in your business? Realize that as business owners your purpose is not to increase revenue but that the revenue is what is necessary for you to stay in business.

You opened your clinic so that you could infuse your passion into the world. My challenge to you is to realize that your job is to oversee your role as the business owner and get just as passionate about that as your would if you were in the treatment room with your patients. This will feel very foreign for many of us because we are taught that we should sacrifice ourselves as doctors. My early mentor would often remind us that our lives are now devoted to being doctors, if we are with family, on an airplane, vacation or wherever. I realize that we need to feel our purpose deeply but if you don’t take the time to unplug and step away from it then your life’s happiness will be determined on one thing: “Being a good doctor.”

What happens when you realize that you need a career change? Who are you then? What happens when you go on vacation? Will you be able to unplug?

7. Own a Business not just a Job

Two things that you will want to have at the forefront owning a business are: 1. Ongoing Training and 2. Getting a steady flow of new, high quality leads. If you are looking to grow our practice into a business then you have got to have a desire to dig in and become an entrepreneur who can create an organization that can run with or without you being there. It’s easy to jump in and fix everything. You’ve got to be able to run and own your practice and without making it your full-time job.

This takes a lot more focus and discipline then you ever imagined! I thought that I would be able to put the key players in the right area and then I could step away. Here’s what I found: I had to have continual training in place on a weekly basis or else policy started to drop and quality suffered.

One of the first places in my practices that stats decline is in leads. A lead is someone who inquires about your services, products or programs through email, phone calls, health fairs, corporate wellness participants or even from newspaper ads. Your leads are the lifeblood of your practice. We have consistently found that each lead is worth $1,000.00. That means that if we have 200 leads in a month, we will generate $200k in revenue. We then look at how much money it typically costs per lead and we have found that number to be roughly $100 per lead.

Most of you would never dream of spending $100 just for someone to call your office. So you have to ask yourself this: Stop for just a moment and write Yes or No to this question, “If you could have a consistent investment where someone promised to give you $10 in return for every dollar that you spend, would you do it?” Unless you need me to slap you aside the head, you said Yes. Some of you will tell me, “I don’t do any marketing, all my patients come from referrals.” This is true if you want to have just a JOB, not a BUSINESS. You are now a healthcare entrepreneur and have to move beyond the personality driven practice and start thinking bigger than yourself.

8. Increase the Conversion of Leads to ROFs

Do you always have to spend money to generate leads? Absolutely not but if you have followed our marketing campaign strategies then you will see that you are adding in incredible value 3 times before someone ever shows up at your office. This can be done with:

1. A free report on a topic like chronic pain or thyroid health.
2. Free online videos that enlighten your potential patient to the services you offer.
3. A discount off of their initial evaluation, so instead of charging $300 for this visit, charge $100 for example.

Handle each phone call and email with the intentions of closing each person who calls. Follow the script over the phone and control the conversation by letting the person know what to expect when they come in. The biggest mistake that we do on the phone is to not create a relationship first. Without a relationship we can’t fully educate and orient the potential patient about the value of the visit and the expertise of the providers.

9. Raise Rates/Bundle Fees

The fastest way to increase revenue is to raise your prices 10%. Go do it and then come back. Took less than 5 minutes, right? I’ve raised my fees as much as 30% and didn’t have any negative feedback. Patients value your services and will make it work.

The second way to give yourself a raise is to bundle your services into one fee for a program. This will increase the speed of which you generate revenue and will keep a much better office flow. Please comply with all state rules and regulations as some states do require an escrow account that fees come out of as services are rendered.

If patients are on a payment program then set them up on a weekly payment system rather than monthly. I believe that being fully transparent about the cost of the program upfront is 100% more ethical than the method of “lets try a few treatments and see how you do.” Seeing how someone responds to your care is like saying, “I am Buddah, and I will do all the healing.” It puts enormous pressure on you, and it gives your patient zero accountability! So give them an entire program that is 3 months to 12 months long. Bundle all the labs, services, herbs and office visits into that one program so that you can get the results they came to you for. Then the better they do, the less you have to see them, which is much better than the 3 or 4 treatments per week for 4 months then twice per week, etc, etc…burnout. This is when I find you hiding in the back office because you don’t want to see that patient yet again this week!

The next order of business for you is to start accepting credit cards. I am still shocked at how many of you don’t have a merchant account to take credit cards! Get a damn Square and yes take all types of cards. The fees aren’t fun but I would rather pay 3-4% than risk not getting a patient the care they need. You also need to get set up with an outside lending agency. Use Care Credit, Help Card or simply have a Citi Bank 800 number to call and help them get set up with a credit card. So raise your fees for all of your services and programs, get a merchant account and a outside financer, and then bundle all of your services into a one-time fee and you will double your income in a month.

10. Master Public Speaking

Think about the influence you have when you are in front of a group of people. If you want freedom then master public speaking. Your impact from an hour spent in front of 10-50 people, is much greater than being confined to a 10’ by 10’ room in a one-on-one consultation.

Have a goal to weekly speak in front of 20-30 people. That’s an hour and a half of my time. We spend $1-$2k to promote the event and close 70-80% for ROF’s at the event and then close 60-70% on wellness programs or stem cell therapy. I choose to do 2 main things in my office: 1. Public speaking and 2. ROF’s. Because that is where I have the biggest ROI (return on investment…I didn’t know what that meant a few years ago either). My team loves to handle the patient care and they rock it.

We have over a 90% success rate with our patients! Where else can you get those kind of results? I provide the love, purpose and resources for my clinics by generating lots of new business through speaking engagements and by cultivating new ideas to keep the community engaged in their health. After all, having a steady flow of new patients who are eager to change their health is the life-blood of your practice.

If you want to own a business and not just a job then master these 10 things as fast as you can!

Read Part One: 10 Traits to Becoming a Healthcare Entrepreneur

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