Shifting Your Mindset: From Physical Therapy Professional to Business Owner

It is no longer good enough for you to be a good physical therapist.

To succeed you are going to have to learn how to be good at being a business owner.

Your potential for success and growth is dependent on it.

 

This is my manifesto. After coaching countless physical therapy clinic owners, I have come to believe this to be true. One of the most significant factors in becoming a “good” business owner is to adopt a new identity and mindset. You need to see yourself as the owner of a business, to see your practice as an entity above and beyond yourself, as a separate and valuable asset that needs to be professionally managed and optimized. If you don’t professionally manage this entity, your business, who will?

What does it mean to have a business owner mindset?

When you have a business owner mindset, you see yourself as a CEO or director of your clinic’s success. You view your practice as an entity that needs to be professionally managed and optimized.

Why is this important? You have already invested your valuable assets to own your own clinic. You had a dream that you wanted to create a clinic that would be different. You wanted the associated freedoms that come with business ownership. Why wouldn’t you want to protect your investments, your dreams, and realize the future you want? Only you are in charge of your destiny and that of your business.

The benefits to you.

When you adopt the business owner mindset, you will have confidence like never before, confidence that you will attain what you set out to accomplish when you first started your physical therapy business. 

How can you do this?

When you see yourself as a CEO or director of your clinic’s success, you act differently. You are much more than a physical therapist in your clinic. You understand that you are responsible for its success.

Here is what you can do:

-          Create a five year vision of your practice, a vision of what you want your practice to be, or become, in five years. Have you ever asked yourself what you want your practice to be in 5 years time?

 

-          Each year, set specific goals that define what you need to accomplish that year in order to realize your vision. Ask yourself what you need to do or change to bring you closer to your vision. Do you need to develop some critical systems? Do you need to more effectively use the space you have?

 

-          Each quarter, assess your progress, and set new goals for the following quarter.

 

-          Each day work on the business and focus on how to build a stronger, healthier business. For example, think about how to improve on a system that is not working well, and then change this system. Once a system is working well for you, it won’t require your attention, time and time again, as the problem keeps presenting itself.

One thing to remember:  There are two kinds of goals a CEO sets: goals to improve the operations of your clinic, and goals to build and grow your business.

When you have a business owner mindset, you elevate your vision, thinking and tasks from the day-to-day to the future. You think deeply about important strategic matters. You focus your time and energy on your clinic’s direction, systems and people.

Why is this important?

Many of you have told me that you would like to reshape your business, so that it is not so dependent on you being there all of the time, and so you don’t always have to be filling in when a physical therapist gets ill or leaves. You want your clinic to operate more independently from you.

The benefits to you.

Your goal as an owner is to design and shape a business that serves you and works independently from you – a business that is system-dependent and not owner-dependent. You will work fewer hours than you currently do and be confident that when you aren’t there things will run smoothly. You will have the freedom to balance your life. You will be a more joyful and prosperous business owner.

How can you do this?

-          Make a commitment to focus ON your business more, to make it a healthier business. Focus your mind on the direction you are taking your business. For example, are your marketing strategies bringing more clients? Focus your mind on how to make things operate more smoothly and easily. Are your front desk staff effective at collections?

-          Instead of shuffling papers or doing the bookkeeping, spend time trying to make your practice different, better, more profitable, and systems-oriented. For example, help develop a new client intake script/process for your office manager to be more effective.

-          Every single week take several hours to think about your business and to determine what your highest pay-off tasks are. By this I mean those things that will give you a high return on your time investment. Things that once done will not only make things easier today but over time as well.

  

When you have a business owner mindset, you lead and delegate. And you change the metaphor in your head from physical therapist and employee to leader of your staff.

Why is this important?

It is not only important, it is a necessity. You ARE the owner of this business, and you are the only one to take this leadership.

The benefits to you.

You will not only be free from the shackles of doing everything but you will have more productive staff. They will be more productive because they know that the practice is being managed and led well. They know they are also part of something bigger, and this is a beneficial for them, too. Your staff will be engaged in building your business with you.

How can you do this?

-          One great beginning place is to consider each and every task you do in your clinic and to assess its value. What I mean by this is to consider that as the CEO you get paid at least the equivalent of $200 an hour to professionally manage this separate entity and valuable asset – your business. Ask yourself before you touch any task, “Would a CEO do this?” Or ask, “Is this task worth me doing at a cost of $200 an hour?”  Don’t spend a dollar’s worth of time on a dime decision or task.  Ask “Who else can do this task?”  Learn to delegate often.

-          Don’t major in minor things.

-          Instead of creating “to-do” lists, create “not-to-do” lists, to help keep your thinking and activities elevated on the strategic level.

-          Quit trying to manage details, and start managing your people. Guide their focus and priorities, but let them do the work.

-          Be a leader instead of a doer.

If you don’t focus on the entire business, no one else will. It will just drift or run aground.

Think about these undeniable outcomes for you when you have a business owner mindset:

You will feel freedom from the clutches of being so busy all of the time and yet not moving forward. You will be actively creating the life and business you always wanted. You will have purpose to all you do. You will be in charge of your own destiny. You’ll have a work/life balance at last!

 

Prosperous Physical Therapy

Copyright @2009 by Erika Trimble All Right Reserved



By: Erika Trimble

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