Grow Your Practice Podcast

This is the final part in a 3 part series on how you as a private practice owner can successfully scale and grow your business while still providing expert care. Here we are, finally the 3rd part of this series. In part 1 you found out about the number one limiting belief that's holding you back from working yourself out of your practice. In part 2 you found out how the different levels of private practice PT owners handle growing and scaling their business. We also talked about listing out your responsibilities and how to work yourself out of a job. Remember: The goal is to work yourself out of a job. To create LESS work for yourself, not more, while increasing your income. Today we're going to give some examples and stories to illustrate the power of handing off responsibilities in your business. Turning over responsibilities can be powerful. It not only frees up your plate, but it can also allow you to discover untapped assets in your business. Remember in part 2 how we talked about the difference between the Major Leaguer and the All Star private practice PT owner? The All-Star goes out of their way to attract rock stars. Staff members who can not only do their jobs, but can recognize problem areas AND actively propose and implement solutions. In other words they don't create more headaches for you, they drastically reduce them. Once you start surrounding yourself with rock stars it'll take a huge load off your plate, and your business will explode. I'll use an example to illustrate this. How To Get A 100% Conversion Rate On Tuesday we ran a promotion. We had 56 come in for a free screening and 45 converted to a full plan of care. This is the highest number we've ever had. In fact of the 11 that didn't schedule, 8 are waiting on physician scripts. So it's really 3 people who didn't convert. It was a super successful conversion. I was pretty impressed with our results. However this changed when I heard about Dan's story. Dan is one of the PTs that works with us. As well as working with us he is also a devout follower of what we teach at BPTM. Dan, during this promotion, saw 13 free screenings and converted all 13 into a full plan of care. Just in case you didn't see that that's a 100% conversion rate. I was blown away. For more visit: http://breakthroughptmarketing.com/grow-practice-still-maintain-quality-care-part-3/

This is the 2nd of a 3 part series on how you as a private practice owner can successfully scale and grow your business while still providing expert care. Last week we talked about the simple mindset that can be sabotaging your business. The mental script that’s stopping you from scaling up your business. Today we’re going to go one step further. We’re going to show you how to start taking action to scale up your business. The problem is simple. You want to scale up your business, but without any drop in quality. The Four Levels of Private Practice PT Minor Leaguer This is the private practice PT owner that just got started. They are in charge of seeing all their patients. They don’t have a lot of money. Major Leaguer This is where most private practice owners that I’ve talked to tend to get stuck. They have maybe a dozen staff, yet are still integral to their business. Major Leaguers do well financially but don’t have a lot of time. All-Star The All-Star has solved the problem of little money AND little time. They have a good solid business, and lots of leisure time. They tend to have really good staff in place. Hall of Famer The Very Top. This is where all private practice PTs want to be. They are teaching others, they are into advocacy. They help out at local universities or help other private practice owners. They are in such a position they can give back. For more visit: http://breakthroughptmarketing.com/how-to-grow-your-practice-and-still-maintain-the-same-quality-of-care-part-2/

This will be the first of a 3 part series on how you as a private practice owner can successfully scale and grow your business while still providing expert care. As a private practice owner you might be facing a thorny problem. A problem that might get you into a lot of trouble. It's something I had to work through, and I've heard from a lot of other private practice owners who are struggling with this as well. The problem is this: How Can I Scale My Business, or Grow My Business, But Yet Keep The Same Level of Expert Care? Or in other words, how can I grow without having a decline in quality? How Many Balls Can You Juggle? Just think about how many different roles you have to take on as a private practice owner. Let's look at a few: Internal Marketing (marketing to your past patient base) External Marketing (marketing to people who've never heard worked with you before) HR & Personnel Finance & Billing Legal Policies & Procedures Logistics Goal Setting & Planning Management The list goes on. We're not even including the different sub roles of being a physical therapist itself. For more: http://breakthroughptmarketing.com/

How Systematized Is Your Practice? Are you still trading time for money or are you working to completely automate your practice? It's the step that allows you to move to the next level. It's the point where the success of your practice doesn't on you trading time for money, but where your business makes money without you. If you've ever said "I want to work ON my business, not IN it" then this is the step we're talking about. That line comes from E-Myth by Michael Gerber, and it's the next phase to focus on after you’re in control of getting new patients. It's the phase where you start building systems to automate your practice. For instance, 2 weeks ago we had a workshop with 35 registrants. Tomorrow, I'm hosting another workshop with a potential 57 registrants. This all came about with minimal marketing effort on my part because I have systems in place and a team to help me automate. And I'm going to show you exactly how you can do the same thing.Why We’ve Got To Stick Together... Visit www.breakthroughptmarketing.com

f you’re reading this, then the chances are that you’re a physical therapy private practice owner, and you have one burning problem…. You want more ways to market your practice. You want more patients and you want them yesterday. You want more referrals, more direct access patients, and more business from your past customers. If that’s the case, then you’re in for a treat. In this article and the video below you’re going to find out some of the best ideas I’ve found over the years in marketing my practice. Ideas which grew Madden PT 600% in 30 months. The 3 Target Areas There are three “target markets” that you can focus your efforts on to get more patients. These are… Marketing To the General Public Marketing to Past Patients Marketing to Physicians

Today are going to talk about automation. It is a huge buzzword within private practice physical therapy right now and I think that there are some misunderstandings about it and exactly what it can do for us as private practice owners. Quick question, how would you like it if you had 250 people email you and say, “I’m in pain right now.” It would be pretty remarkable, right? That would be a lot of conversations to have. Even if you converted 1 out of every 50, you would at least have 5 patients on your schedule right now just by responding to them and having a positive conversation about what is going on for them. A lot of the times when we are thinking about automation, Facebook marketing, or email marketing, there is this misconception that the software or the program is going to do everything for us. I'm here to tell you that that is dead wrong. Automation simply starts the conversation. However, it is really up to us to put the work in to close those leads: To have an engaging conversation with those potential patients Convert them over to our physical therapy services Convert them to our physical therapy products as well.

It will mainly be useful to you if you’re looking to sell your business in 2 to 5 years. It can also be something to think about if you’re just “toying” with the idea of selling your private practice. I got in touch with Paul Welk, an attorney over at Tucker and Arnesberg, on what private practice owners should start looking at if they want to exit. He shared with me the following 15 selling points 1. EBIDTA First thing to look at is your EBIDTA. This stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. It’s really a fancy way for accountants to describe your profitability. How much profit does your practice make a year? There’s a lot of technical information out there on EBIDTA, and there’s no way to do the topic justice in this article. 2. Multiple The very next thing to think about is a multiple.The concept of a multiple is simple, you can think of it like this: Value of Business = EBIDTA (annual profit) x Multiple. This multiple varies across industries. However in private practice it’s determined by the size of your business. A smaller practice with an EBIDTA of $100,000 a year, may have a multiple of 3. 3. Willingness To Remain If you as an owner just wants to sell and leave, then this reduces the value of your business. Especially if you’re doing a lot of patient care. This is because you have intrinsic value to the business. So if you’re doing the bulk of patient care and you aren’t willing to remain, then you’re going to have difficulty justifying the value of your business. 4. Number of Locations 5. Desirability of Location 6. Diversity of Referral Sources This is something we talk a lot about here at Breakthrough PT Marketing. If you rely upon one orthopedic surgeon for referrals, then it isn’t good for the value of your business. If however physicians only make up a quarter of your referrals, and you have over 200 referral sources, then your business is of much more value to a buyer. 7. Accounts Receivable and Aging This is really about billing. If you have a lot of money owed to you, and it’s old, let’s say it was due 120 days ago, then this will harm the value of your practice. If however you are paid promptly and any money due is less than 30 days, then this will improve the value of your business. 8. Owner Reputation This is self explanatory. The higher your reputation, the more valuable your business. 9. Staff If you have a high staff turnover, and you’re hiring a new PT every 2 months, then it’s going to harm your value. Put yourself into the shoes of the buyer. Which would you rather have? A high turnover staff, or a stable staff who are good at their job, have integrity and are reliable? 10. Non-Competes. 11. Years in Business 12. Profitability and Trending. 13. Payer Mix. 14. Growth Opportunity 15. EMR Platform For the full description visit: http://breakthroughptmarketing.com/15-ways-to-increase-the-value-of-your-practice-in-2-to-5-years/

Does PQRS seem like a major headache to you? Just more paperwork without any bump? Let’s look at it a different way. Here I Go With Another Sales Funnel Example Anytime that we are using direct-response marketing or content marketing and we are attracting people in… there is basically a 6 step process that we want to be thinking about our businesses. Step #1 is Lead Magnet. So this is…you have seen me do this where I’m offering a free video or a book or a free report something like that. Very low value, low time commitment, low ask and they get it for free. That just allows us to have an ongoing conversation with that person. Step #2 is Trip Wire. That is something with a little more commitment. Still something that is low-barrier and inexpensive…like a consultation or whatever. It kind of ramps them up…it gives that person a soft landing into our Core Service, it changes our relationship with time from prospect into buyer. Then #3 is Core Service. That is the 97001, 110, 140 if we are billing insurance. Or if we are playing the “cash pay only” deal, then it is whatever we charge per visit. Then Step #4 is Cash Pay, which is back-end services that we have. Step #5 is Return Path and Step #6 is Referrals PQRS Magic: Turning a Pain Into an Opportunity. Something magical happens now with PQRS and new Medicare regulations where we have to go through and track 9 different things. What we have to do on that first Medicare visit is ask the patient to step on the scale. We have the height chart and we look it up and 75% of the time we are saying, “Hey, your BMI is over 30. You need to handle this.” At least for us in the beginning, we were thinking “Wow, this is a really awkward situation. We are Physical Therapists. We are not nutritionists. We don’t have in-house…our 8,000 square feet is packed with PT. We don’t have anybody else in-house, so we need to refer out. This is a real pain in the neck.”

Are you dictating to your staff? Or are you empowering them? The difference can make a huge difference in your work environment. Two Types of Management, Two Radically Different Outcomes Recently I was reading a book, Smarter, Better, Faster by Charles Duhigg. It is an awesome book if you haven’t read it. In it, he talks about 5 different types of management. Two of them our the Authoritarian and the Trust/Empower style. I heard somebody else in the physical therapy space talking about the importance of us to give scripts to our staff. While I agree that it is good for us to be constantly testing what we say to patients and move in the right direction, I think it is a lot more important that we look at the type of management and we decipher that and decide on the type of management that we want to have for long term stability of our private practice. Rather than just handing scripts to our staff. Personally, I don’t want employees that regurgitate everything I say to do. I don’t want robots. I want staff that thinks. When we tell staff EXACTLY what to say, it does a couple of things that are really, really negative. Number one is it puts more stress, again, on the PT. So unless you are going out and you are buying scripts (ridiculous by the way), and handing them to your staff. That doesn’t really make sense to me. Its an authoritarian and it doesn’t work for me. Because again, it puts more stress on the PT and makes them more reliant on us. If you are like most practice owners and are implementing systems or automating things, we want to get away from that where everything is reliant on us. Our answer to everything being reliant on us is for us to dictate what our staff is going to say. Not good.

Why are you in PT? To help patients, provide for your family, maybe something different? Hear How I Learned The Most Valuable Button Of My Career So about 5 years ago, I went to a business event here in Harrisburg. There was a guy who was a syndicated newspaper columnist. His name was Jeffrey Gitomer....He's had 7 different books on the New York Times bestseller list for business and sales including The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Red Book of Sales. Biggest takeaway? He said we all can can have a voice. It is basically the gold rush of media and now we all have a chance. We are at the dawn of the information age. Just because things are snowballing really, really fast and now we have Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat... and a lot of different social media platforms. The most important, the most valuable lesson that I got out of that event with Jeffrey Gitomer was this: Hit record. Once I started doing that and I committed to doing that, it changed my life. Here is what I'm going to tell you: I'm not a polished speaker. I'm partially balding and my hair is graying. My teeth are crooked because I didn’t wear my retainers when I was 14 years old. There are a lot of problems wrong with me but I’ll tell you this... there is nothing that I'm doing that you couldn’t do.