FOR MANY, THE PRICE OF
BEING A PRACTICE OWNER
IS TOO HIGH. You are driven
to deliver a high-quality service.
That means a well-run practice that
delights most of its clients, most of
the time. But the true cost of that is
the investment the owner must
make – with
their time.
I’ve met
hundreds of
practice owners
and many of
them are tired.
They have
invested 60 to
80 hours a week,
every week, into
their practice over decades. And it’s
slowly wearing them down.
Why do they do it? Because they are
passionate about what they do. But
also because if they didn’t put in this
time, the business could not operate
to the high standards they have set.
Within the UK we see this as a
badge of honour. “No, I’m far more
tired than you are because I only
got three hours’ sleep…again,” has
become something to boast about.
What a bizarre way to spend your
life. You see, delivering a high quality
of service and a practice that clients
love is absolutely the right thing to do.
But only at the right price, because
if you wake up one day, and you’re
aged 60, and your kids have grown
up without you noticing, and your
husband/wife has created a life for
themselves that isn’t reliant upon you being there at all…surely that’s not the
aim of the game?
Whatever religion or belief system
you subscribe to, surely there’s more
to life than building a business and
collecting a sizeable bag of golden
coins? He or she who dies with the most points…
still dies.
One of
the worst
crimes you
can commit is
to be so busy
making a living
that you forget
to make a life.
And that’s why
you need to
fully systemise your practice. In fact, you need to
make yourself redundant; to make the
practice thrive regardless of
whether you
are there or
not.
The true
test of this
is whether
you could go
on a three-
month holiday,
without any
contact with
the practice.
What would
happen?
Some
would do just fine. Some would fall over. For most
practice owners the business would tick along, but problems would pile up.
And there’d be a nice pile of headaches
waiting for you on your return.
Well that’s not really a business.
That’s a well-paid job. And it’s a job
that’s going to suck the best years out
of your life. You are not there for the
business. It’s supposed to be there for
you. Too many practice owners set up
on their own in order to seek freedom
and control…and then lock themselves
within the prison they have created.
A truly successful practice will give
you three things:
- Enough money to consistently have
the lifestyle you desire. - Enough time to do the things you
really want to do (cut the connection
between hours worked and money
earned). - Freedom to focus on your family.
The goal then should be to eliminate
the thing that gives you stress; that
creates 80-hour weeks and extreme
tiredness.
That thing is noise. Clutter. Pointless
revisiting
of the same
problems time
and time again.
“Boss, can you
just…” “Boss, this
doesn’t work…”
“Boss, have
you got five
minutes…”
It feels
rewarding
to jump in
and be the superhero. To fight the fires and fix the problems. But every time you become
the superhero, you inadvertently feed
the noise monster. Instead, your goal
should be to set up the practice so it can prevent or fix 99% of its own
problems.
And that means you personally only focusing on two things:
- Clinical work that you choose to do.
- Leading the business to its future.
To achieve this, you systemise the
practice. You have to imagine you
were going to operate 50 locations
across the UK.
You can’t be in each one every day.
So you build an operations manual;
a set of rules that your staff follow.
A set of principles and procedures,
according to which something is
done.
This is how franchises operate.
It’s how they achieve consistent
standards. Far from constraining your
staff, this gives them freedom because
they no longer have to second-guess
what you want (your staff are never as
clear as you think they are about what
you would like). You are giving them
a rule book they can operate within.
For most, that’s quite exciting.
There are five steps to make this happen.
- Step 1: Identify which areas need a system. A good way to do this is to
inventory what works well. - Step 2: Prioritise the top three.
Focus on some of the biggest wins.
You might look at a system for
generating prospects or following
them up. Maybe for new client intake
or reminders. Perhaps collecting
social proof such as testimonials. Or
managing projects. Or even a system
for creating systems. - Step 3: Break the process down
and document it. - Step 4: Have a trial run. Set up
measurements and reporting that tell
you when the systems have fallen
over. - Step 5: Re-visit. And then tackle smaller systems.
Get this right and your business will be dramatically more efficient,
in a way which doesn’t rely so much
on you. That delights clients and
hits your high standards without you
personally having to pay the price.
