Building a team of advisors and consultants are necessary when growing a successful practice. Nitin Chhoda explains the steps needed in order to choose the right and knowledgeable advisors and consultants so that your business will thrive.

One of the secrets of the world’s wealthiest and most influential individuals is that they surround themselves with experts in a variety of fields.

Physical therapists don’t have to be knowledgeable about the stock market to invest wisely, but they do need to surround themselves with people who have attained a superior level of expertise in that field.

The Role of Advisors and Consultants

Assembling a team of advisors and consultants is essential for physical therapy marketing, management, and the financial health of any clinic.

Advisors and consultants of physical therapy marketing and management provide valuable information on a variety of topics and can assist therapists in critical decision-making processes, from the installation of an electronic medical records (EMR) system to the best time to expand a practice.

Navigating the financial environment in the new economy requires physical therapy marketing practices and strategies that pool information and data from a wide array of resources. Physical therapy marketing is a key element for successful physical therapy clinics and is reliant upon accurate information.

Physical therapy is a specialized field and when assembling a team of advisors, it’s essential that those experts have extensive experience within their profession and are qualified to dispense advice on a variety of physical therapy concerns, from investments and expansion to the addition of new patient services including physical therapy marketing.

Select Knowledgeable Advisors and Consultants

Therapists know that attaining a seven-figure income is dependent upon their clinical skills and the success with which they market their practice. A knowledgeable team of consultants and advisors provide valuable advice and assistance for all aspects of physical therapy marketing.

Busy clinic owners often don’t have time to assemble and evaluate necessary data. A carefully chosen team can perform those services for the therapist and provide insight into potential patient numbers, past and future marketing efforts, and the local economic climate.

Many choose to outsource their consultancy needs to outside companies, an option that can prove very costly. For those with smaller practices and limited budgets, selecting a local firm may be a better alternative.

Two excellent but often-overlooked resources is the local chamber of commerce and small business bureau. Both offers free services that can be utilized for physical therapy marketing and management, increase referrals and establish the therapist as a specialist in his field.

Use Your Network

Networking and leveraging beneficial connections with friends, family and colleagues provides a wealth of low-cost and no-cost opportunities.

Don’t overlook the potential available among staff members and clients for physical therapy marketing opportunities.

They may know someone with special expertise or have hidden talents themselves.

Feedback from all those resources can provide valuable insight into weaknesses within the practice and where physical therapy marketing efforts could be more successfully employed.

Be a Master of Physical Therapy Marketing

In today’s economy, physical therapists must be masters of physical therapy marketing and gurus of patient care to ensure full client scheduling and to stand out from others offering the same or similar services.

Hiring a team of consultants for physical therapy marketing is a pricy proposition, while knowledgeable consultants can often be found within the community in which the practice is located, providing therapists with the means to plan ahead and allocate expenses for the future sustainability of the practice.

Nitin Chhoda says that facing a lot of challenges like maintaining your income goals can be tough at times, but this should not stop you from moving forward.

He insists on improving your physical therapy marketing strategies in order to get more patients, which will help make your business thrive even during the economic crisis.

These days, having the goal of surviving even just your physical therapy marketing goals seems to be enough to work towards.

The economy has not been kind in recent years and small businesses have suffered.

If you are running a private physical therapy practice, you’ve probably already cut some of the expenses that you don’t want to cut, physical therapy marketing included, in an effort to keep your head above water. Is it possible that by setting your income goals first, you can maintain the practice even in tough economic times?

Don’t Give up on Staff

One important thing to keep in mind is that the staff even in physical therapy marketing alone is the life-blood of the practice. If there is no staff, the patients can’t be seen. And when patients are not seen, the practice doesn’t make any income.

Some businesses cut staff because it is the first and easiest big expense to cut back on. However, time and time again, this has been proven to be bad for physical therapy marketing plan and business.

Efficiency is Important

Improving efficiency is always a good thing – especially when you have less income to go around. But cutting back on staff can burden the rest of the team in a way that actually decreases efficiency.

You also lose the investment you’ve made to train your staff, which means that when things get better, you’ll pay to get things back up to speed while patients are waiting to be given appointments.

If anything, consider cutting a few hours for each physical therapy marketing and business staff member. By making these small changes, you can stem the outflow of cash while at the same time preserving your ability to pick up business once it comes back.

You Are a Staff Member, Too

So if you do take steps to reduce costs by cutting hours, do the same for yourself.

Your income goals should always align with expenses at home and in your business as well, physical therapy marketing included, but your clinical goals have to be more long term than your personal income goals.

Setting a good example for your staff will be critical to keeping up morale when things look bleak. And no staff member will be happy to have hours cut and their paycheck reduced.

At the same time, you’ve got to keep yourself happy, right? The staff, including the owner of a practice and physical therapy marketing management, will keep the practice alive. Your hard work should be rewarded and your role acknowledged.

Neither you as the owner, nor your practice as a whole, can afford to lose sight of the important income goals that have been set. But during tight financial times, it may be necessary to re-evaluate your goals to the new reality you face.

Don’t be Afraid of a Physical Therapy Marketing Push

Another way to boost your chances is to make physical therapy marketing a goal. When there are fewer potential patients, and even fewer patients who can pay or who have health insurance, you have to be more aggressive in your strategies to bring them to your practice.

It may be that you have to invest in physical therapy marketing, even when it feels like you can’t afford a marketing budget.

Budgeting for your physical therapy business income goals seems complicated. However, as you understand its importance in order to achieve your target income, you will realize that budgeting can be fun. Nitin Chhoda explains how creating a budget for your practice can be simple and enjoyable.

Let’s say that you’ve already set a schedule with a skilled financial planner either for your personal goals or physical therapy marketing plan and other business concerns.

And you know exactly what your income needs to be this year, next year, and into the future until you retire, at the age you want to retire.

As the owner of a physical therapy practice who commonly uses physical therapy marketing, you should be able to estimate how much you’ll need to bring in to fund the practice as well as to pay you the income you are hoping to make.

And figuring out just what your clinical goals should be will make budgeting straightforward.

Budgeting Can be Fun

Everyone says they hate budgeting and they hate spreadsheets. They don’t like to look at reports and they feel that their accountant is probably laughing at them for being inept at the financial side of things.

Don’t be afraid of physical therapy marketing budgeting. It may sound funny, but if you give yourself the right incentives, budgeting can be fun.

The Success of Your Business is an Incentive

As the owner of a physical therapy practice with a good physical therapy marketing plan, your incentive is going to be the success of the business and the income goals you’ve set for yourself. How do you reach those goals if you aren’t willing to spend time budgeting? And what exactly does it mean to budget?

The simple break down is that building a budget is just looking at your current and future expenses, then figuring out how you’re going to pay those expenses. Where will your income come from? How many patients per day do you need to see for the practice to succeed?

What will your physical therapy marketing strategy be? Will physical therapy marketing actually bring in enough patients to justify the cost? It probably feels like there are an infinite number of questions like these and that finding the answers will be hard and will take a lot of time. It’s going to be easier than you think. And the time will be time well spent.

Eye on the Big Picture

Sometimes that initial budgeting session is a bit of an eye-opener. Maybe you realize that to pay yourself the target income you’ve set, you’ll have to see hundreds of patients per week.

Or maybe you’ll realize that each physical therapy marketing staff member is going to need to be paid more than you realized, if you want a really skilled staff doing an efficient and quality job every day.

As the owner, it’s your job to look at the practice from the bigger picture viewpoint. Will you have to adjust your income goals so that you aren’t making quite as much initially?

Short-Term to Long-Term Goals

Maybe the trade-off for a good physical therapy marketing campaign will be worthwhile. In the short-term, it may be more important to invest in physical therapy marketing or staff rather than yourself.

Because what you do in the short-term is going to have a big effect on the long-term. If you make those tough choices today, you may be able to make your long term income goals a reality.

Creative and effective physical therapy marketing is essential to your physical therapy business. Nitin Chhoda emphasizes reasons why marketing your practice is not actually an expense, unless you already have a big number of patients coming in.

All of your physical therapy marketing goals should be broken down into manageable pieces. While it is important to start with a big picture, long-term visions for the practice, your goals are what will take you there.

Make some five-year goals as well as your retirement goals. Consider the short-term goals of the practice as well as long-term goals. If you can see a broader set of goals, you will always know what you are working towards.

But to get there, you’ll have to break things down into smaller and smaller pieces of your physical therapy marketing plan and business that are actually attainable.

If you know when you want to retire and how much money you want to have in your retirement account by that time, you can figure out just how much money you need to make each year. But will your clinic support that figure for you the way things are going right now?

Physical Therapy Marketing: More Important Now Than Ever

Some managers and owners of small private practices opt to cut the physical therapy marketing budget at the first signs of trouble. It seems that physical therapy marketing is often overlooked because there seem to be so many more important things to do and to budget for.

However, getting through a financial squeeze may depend on the effectiveness of your physical therapy marketing campaign.

Naturally, if you’re not having trouble bringing in new patients, physical therapy marketing may not be a necessity. But the thing about a physical therapy practice is that most clients only need or want your services for a set period of time. So each time a patient moves on, you need to be ready to fill that space with a new client.

Physical Therapy Marketing Techniques

There are a couple of physical therapy marketing tactics that work fairly well for people in this particular market.

The first is to aim your physical therapymarketing campaign towards clients who simply want to get healthy and stay healthy.

Reminding folks that they can benefit from physical therapy even when they are not injured can be powerful.

The second strategy is to engage other healthcare practices in a mutually beneficial referral agreement.

Physical therapists are used to getting referrals from surgeons and specialists, but these days the referrals are going the other way around, too.

Physical therapy is sometimes the first form of healthcare that a patient tries when something doesn’t seem quite right. When the physical therapy practice determines that their patient needs another kind of doctor, you should know who you are going to refer your patients to.

Incorporating Short-Term Strategies into Long-Term Goals

More than anything, remember that every part of your physical therapy marketing campaign should support your short- and long-term goals. A steady stream of patients translates into a steady stream of income.

If you can keep your long-term personal income goals in mind, you can design your practice so that you get the best results for everyone involved. Patients and staff will benefit from a physical therapy marketing campaign that keeps goals in mind.