It is very important to establish your own income goals, that way you will know if your business is thriving or not. Nitin Chhoda stresses the value of creating income goals and how it affects your physical therapy marketing plan.
Planning a physical therapy marketing strategy, as well as running and maintaining a private practice is most of the time a full time job.
Most private practice owners act as either a principal therapist or the primary manager.
With a host of responsibilities, from patient care and support to employee fulfillment and retention and physical therapy marketing, it can be challenging to find a balance. And the place where balance is often ignored is in regards to your income.
Know Your Income Goals
Most private practice owners do not bring in the income they had hoped they would, because any time there is a shortfall anywhere else within the practice, the owner is the first one to pick up the slack.
This is true of most small business owners. Because the business, and physical therapy marketing, is yours and your responsibility, you might be willing to make a lot of sacrifices, especially during those first few years that are so critical to the long-term success of the business.
Hopefully, you’ve already come up with a business plan, physical therapy marketing included, and you are at least on your way to becoming a money making physical therapy practice.
But if you are struggling, or if you’re still deciding how you’ll manage all your expenses, thinking about physical therapy marketing, physical therapy software, and retaining skilled staff members will be critical to increasing revenue. And with increased revenue, you can look forward to finally reaching your income goals.
How to Set an Income Goal
In any small business, it’s easy to leave yourself out of the income stream. Some people think that the opposite is true, that physical therapy marketing and small business owners give themselves the lion’s share of income, just because they can.
But it turns out that in many private physical therapy practices, the owner is not the one making the most money, especially at first. The owner is also the one who is shouldering the debt of the business, so even if they do pay themselves well, that income comes at a cost.
So how can you decide what a fair and reasonable income goal is for you as a private practice owner?
As with any financial planning, start with your expenses like physical therapy marketing plan.
Create a Great Plan
Some people prefer to start with their previous income level and have a goal of giving themselves a certain raise each year. But truly the most important financial planning advice is that your income level doesn’t matter unless you are comparing it to your expenses.
If you can figure out exactly how much it costs to live your life the way you want to live it, you have an easy income goal to reach for.
How much money do you want to be putting away for retirement, for your business or physical therapy marketing, and when will that retirement be? In some ways, these questions are very hard to answer on your own.
Financial planners have their profession for a reason. Setting particular financial goals including your physical therapy marketing and business can be complex, especially if you really take into account all of your expenses as well as all of your desires.
But this process really is just a math problem, and all math problems have a correct answer. It’s up to you to find that answer.
