The past year and a half has been a wild ride with hiring not only my first staff PT, but a full time office administrator for my physical therapy clinic in Austin. Last week my office admin resigned and gave me her 1 month’s notice. So I decided to do a podcast episode on all I’ve learned in the past year since hiring my first office administrator, re-negotiating my payment arrangement with my first PT, how I will do things differently moving forward, and how you can avoid the mistakes I’ve made and replicate the successes.
More specifically, I discuss these cash-based practice topics:
- What to look for in your first administrative assistant or practice manager (HINT: It’s not a unicorn!)
- Why financial management before you hire staff is critical for successful growth
- Why keeping the long-game in mind can help reduce stress
- Why I’m re-doing my website this summer
- Why online marketing campaigns are a give and take, up and down, necessity in the long run
- My plan for the next several months, including my new podcast that’s in the works
Interested in the cash-based private practice model?
>> Click Here to learn how to start your own Cash-Based Practice <<
Jared,
Just finished listening to this podcast (58). Thanks so much for your material like this! I’m in process of launching my cash PT practice by the end of the month in Knoxville, TN. I’ve worked hard on the website, hopefully something that can help generate leads like you mentioned. Check it out here: simplypt.co
I’ll be looking out for your new website also.
Quick Question: My next big step will be attracting people to website through ads SEO stuff. This quite frankly intimidates me as I’m a novice here. Any suggestions on outsourcing? Did you say that Patient Sites can do this all for you?
Also did you say you would gladly spend $400 in ads for 1 patient? That sounds like over half your gross profit?
Thanks for your time!
John-Mark
Thanks for your questions and you’re very welcome! Glad my podcast can help.
PatientSites aren’t currently managing Facebook/Google Ads though I’ve heard through the grapevine that is something they may do in the future. I’m in the process of looking for someone/agency to manage my Ad campaigns so I can’t give any concrete recommendations other than to not try to figure it out and manage it yourself while trying to start a practice.
Yes, if my average patient is worth $X to the clinic, then technically, spending up to X to acquire that patient is a tactic some businesses are fine with because most patients become word of mouth referrers and at least 10% of them end up sending another patient (or more) that will earn the clinic another $X. I know it sounds crazy to most to be willing to spend even half of average profits to acquire a customer but when you look at the true CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), you’ll still come out ahead in the end. I’ll add though that this approach works best with larger businesses that have a lot of customers to help even out the dips that occur when a patient you spent money to acquire comes in fewer than the average amount of visits … you have to have the cash savings and cash flow to weather those dips without having to pull back on your Ad spend.
SO it sounds like you are saying that you would spend $400 to attract a new customer, because long-term they are likely to contribute back into the clinic, but you wouldn’t want to average $400 per patient. Thanks for your feedback Jared- just got finished seeing my first paying customer at Simply Physio!
Not 100% sure I’m fully understading your reply so I’ll just reiterate .. if my average customer is worth $400 in revenue, then over the long-run I should be willing to spend up to that amount to acquire a new customer because word of mouth is such a strong component of this business and over time many of those “break even” customers will send many other customers I didn’t have to spend additional $ to acquire
AND HUGE CONGRATS ON YOUR FIRST CASH-PAY CUSTOMER!!!