Every week I keep a few slots open to talk to clinic owners as it’s a great way for me to keep my ear to the ground and learn about what’s going on in the industry. It also gives them the opportunity to talk to me about some of the challenges in the business that they’re facing, and together, we discuss potential solutions (just drop me or Jennie an email if you want to be put on the list).
Through one of these slots, I met someone who’s incredibly well qualified, brilliant at what she does, and had invested heavily in the clinic. However, after over a decade of running her business and working every hour God sent (she was knackered), she was trying hard to hide the frustration that she knew with every ounce of her being that she would be financially and emotionally better off if she was employed by someone else.
She actually burst into tears while I was talking to her on Skype, and I really felt for her. One, because running a business should be fun. Hard work, yes, but fun and rewarding, too. And the second reason, because the issues that she’s facing are not uncommon – a lot of clinic owners are facing the exact same thing.
The problem is that while being super -skilled in their field, many were never taught how to run a business – nor did they learn the various skills that are required.
But that doesn’t mean that they never will. There are two options to start exploring right now. The first is that you could start attending training courses on specific subjects, like time management, marketing and sales, etc. – though it means a big investment of your time, and the combined cost might be too big a pill to swallow too.
The alternative is to find a mentor or a coach, and let them help and support you in developing a strategic plan to drive your clinic forward.
Personally, I’ve used coaching but I also spend one or two days every month attending courses and I’ve easily spent well over six figures in the last decade. But I love doing it, and as a coach, it’s essential to make sure that I’m at the very top of my game. However, for a lot of clinic owners, doing the same thing can be difficult. The person in question above though chose to do neither, and here’s why.
As a species we are overly optimistic about what we can achieve and what the future holds. The Gallup World Poll conducted research with over 150,000 adults from over 140 countries, to provide a representative sample of 95% of the world’s population.
The research found that 89% of individuals worldwide expect the next five years to be as good or better than their current life, and 95% of them expect their life in five years to be as good or better than their life was five years ago.
And that kind of positivity is great, but if you don’t invest in learning how to do things differently or have somebody guide you along the way, the chances are actually that the next five years will be very similar to the previous five years. If your business makes you so stressed now that it makes you cry, I hate to break it to you but it probably will in five years’ time.
Another reason why people are overly optimistic about how much they can achieve in five years is because it seems relatively far off, but it is actually only 260 weeks – and we all know how fast a week goes.
You can achieve so much in this time, however you need a really solid understanding of what your options are, so that you know how you can drive your clinic forward. Then, once you know what you want from your clinic, you need to develop an effective working business plan to provide consistent focus on what important actions you need to do, day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month.
By Alan Adams The Clinic Coach
