What You Should Spend Money On in Your Private Practice

Getting the most out of your money when starting your practice.

Let’s say we have a tight budget, who am I kidding, we all totally have a tight budget! With this tight budget we need to be mindful of how and where we spend money in your practice. I don’t want you to feel frozen or that you can’t do anything fun in your practice and I also want you to make sure you are choosing to what you invest in wisely.  In this blog post I want us to talk about what you truly need to invest in the beginning of your practice and how to evaluate purchases. Keep in mind you will have to spend money in your practice. Also, be ok getting outside your comfort zone to when investing in your practice. The best advice I ever got about investing in my practice was from Chalene Johnson, she said,”Scared money don’t make money!”

Spending and Evaluating

You have been planning your office or you are already moved in and seeing clients- yahoo! Now let’s get you making MONEY! We first need to understand what each client is really worth. Let’s say you charge $100/session (easier math), how long will that client work with you? After the initial sessions do they keep coming back 3 times in a year? So that client is worth about $400.

Initial session $100 + 3 sessions per year = $400

Let’s say we want to figure out if we should invest on marketing material and how best to get the word out about your practice to the local community. We need to next calculate the ROI. ROI (Return on Investment) is forecasting what you expect to get back on your investment. Before you invest on different service you want to know how long it will take to make that money back.  This math might get a bit more complex and I want to walk you through it because it is important. Here is an AMAZING website that has all the math done for you by Joe Sanok

“Scared money don’t make money!”

We know that spending money on your practice is going to happen. And now you understand what the ROI is for each thing. So how do you decide what and where to invest your practice money?! There are two ways to invest – in you as a clinician to work on being even more the bomb or on marketing and getting more clients. Personally, I like to make sure each year I have a good mix of both. I have said it a few times my real job in running a practice is marketing and my second job is being a bomb clinician.

Being the bomb clinician or adding to your bomb-ness is an investment that we sometimes forget about when we are worried about paying the bills.  Next conference, course, or consultant you hire take time to evaluate how that will help grow your practice and your clinical skills. Is this what you are needing right now? How will this investment help you be more bomb?

Marketing dollars need to planned out and very targeted to get your clients. Think back to your ideal client. If you need help in figuring this out check out this blog post on how to find your ideal client. Where does your ideal client find information? What resonates with them the most in order for them to take action?

• Newspaper ad
• Radio ad
• Website
• Handout from the doctor or other clinician
• Social Media “Expert”
• Whatever the new thing is that is sparkly and shiny

Trust that you do know about your ideal client and that you do understand how they think and shop. That is where you should be spending your time and dollars on marketing.

Take Action Daily!

Here is a Resource for you to check out:

• http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/return-on-investment-calculator/