One of the best things that can happen to any clinic owner is something going wrong.
To be clear, we're talking on the business side of things, not something with a patient.
This is something hard for most people to wrap their heads around but take this to heart…
Businesses grow because of failure, not despite it.
At their core, a business exists to solve a problem in a market, whether we're talking about ketamine infusions for depression, iv nutrition for optimizing health, or anything else.
For a problem to exist, something has to be wrong. Pretty straight forward right?
The same principle applies within a business. We need to expose different problems to build a better business.
- Leads aren't being followed up with appropriately.
- Services aren't being explained in a way, so patients understand why a treatment will benefit them.
- An inefficient intake process causes patients to wait longer for their appointment.
- Marketing videos that don't connect with your audience so don't get engagement or conversions.
Problems will be unique to each business, but there will always be a problem to solve.
And it's incredibly tempting to ignore those minor problems. After all, I'm sure most of us have seen it when working at a big company.
You might be able to get away with it for a while, but eventually, those problems compound into something too big to come back from.
Who remembers Blockbuster?
They had a major problem, Netflix was changing how people rented videos. They thought decades of success meant they already knew best and were too big to fail.
They had to close 9,000 stores in a few short years, and only one remains in Bend, Oregon.
We grew up in an education system that demanded near perfection and also told us if we didn't get it right the first or second time, that was it. No more opportunities to get that A, hone that skill or learn the information.
In business, we have to change our thinking. It's about progress over perfection. Your goal should be a little bit better each time, and keep working on it until you get it right.
If you're not good on video or social media, don't give up and say this doesn't work. Get better at it.
If you only call a potential patient back one or two times and they don't answer, don't give up. On average, it takes 10-15 tries before they pick up.
If calling doesn't work, try texting. That's the world we live in now.
The most successful businesses are the ones who welcome challenges and problems and focus on fixing, improving, and adapting as the world changes.
Focus on the journey, not the destination, and keep making continuous strives for improvement.
Cheers
– Jason Duprat, MBA, MSA, APRN, CRNA
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