The EntreMD Podcast

How to Grow a 7-Figure Medical Practice in 4 Simple Steps (Tried & Tested)

• Dr. Una • Episode 410

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Do you want to grow your private practice to 7-figures? 

Then you’re in the right place! 

I’ve helped numerous clients crush their first million in revenue, and although no two practices are the same, over the years, I've found some common threads between them!

Today, I'll share the common threads I've identified in this comprehensive 4-step guide so that you too can grow your private practice to 7 figures! 

These tips will save you a lot of headaches on your journey, so make sure to check them out.

Tune in! 

Key Takeaways: 

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:01:34 Step 1: Change Your Attitude
  • 00:06:11 Step 2: Embrace Marketing and Sales
  • 00:10:53 Step 3: Become a Team Leader 
  • 00:13:14 Step 4: Manage Your Finances 
  • 00:17:56 Conclusion & Outro 

—

Additional Resources:


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  • EntreMD Business School Grow - This is our year-long program with a track record of producing physician entrepreneurs who are building 6, 7 and 7+ figure businesses. They do this while building their dream lives!
  • EntreMD Business School Scale - This is our high-level mastermind for physicians who have crossed the seven figure milestone and want to build their businesses to be well oiled machines that can run without them.

To get on a call with my team to determine your next best step, go here ...

Speaker 1:

One is too small a number for greatness. If you want to build a practice that will have a huge impact, that will create financial freedom, that will create time freedom and all of those things, then you're going to need a team.

Speaker 2:

Hi dogs, Welcome to the EntryMD podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you and race entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr Imna.

Speaker 1:

Well, hello, hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the EntryMD podcast. As always, I am super pumped that I get to be in your ears. I was sitting and thinking about many of the clients that I've had the privilege of working with, who have been able to crush their first million in revenue in their private practices, or have added a million to their private practices, and they started looking for the common threads between them, and what I came up with is four things that you need to do if you are going to grow a seven-figure medical practice. So let's dive into that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I want to preface this by saying this is something that is possible. This is something that I've watched so many doctors do. This is something I have done multiple times, and you know like you can hit your first, you can hit multiple, you can hit you know whichever number it is you want to hit. But I want us to look at four things that must change, four things we must do if we're going to hit that. All right, so the very first thing that we're going to need to do is have a change of attitude. Okay, have a change of attitude. There is something I mean.

Speaker 1:

I did this when I started off as an entrepreneur, I was in complete resistance, complete resistance. I'm like I'm a physician, I've paid my dues, I've done all this training, I've built this practice. For some of you, I've built this business. It shouldn't be hard, things should just work out and all of that. But this is a deal. There is nothing we did in our medical training that has prepared us to run a seven-figure medical practice. Like. It just doesn't translate. We are great clinicians. What we just did not get the education it takes to become great entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1:

And so the attitude shift is an attitude where you're like I am willing to you know, like I understand that I am a great clinician but my dues are not paid in full. I still need to become a great entrepreneur. I need to still have that evolution. I need to change, I need to learn new things. I need to probably invest in a business education. I need to change Right. So there's that initial place. It just has to happen, because if it doesn't, the things that are required to help you hit the seven-figure mark the marketing, the selling, the leading, the team, many of the things we're going to talk about today you're just not going to be willing to do it. It requires your evolution, and so the attitude is really I haven't arrived.

Speaker 1:

I'm amazing. I've learned so many things, I have so many skills, there's so many things I can do, but at the same time, there are all these things that I don't know, and it's the things I don't know that are stopping me from taking my practice to the seven-figure mark or multiple seven-figure mark, not the things that I do know. The things I know have brought me where I am. If I'm going to have a new experience, I need to change, and getting out of resistance is really liberating, it's really freeing, it's really empowering, because it puts you back in the driver's seat Right. You're no longer a victim, you're no longer passive in creating your own masterpiece. Like you know, I'm an active player here. There are things I can do. There are things I can shift.

Speaker 1:

The very first thing is a shift in attitude. It's a change in attitude. I have not arrived. There are things I need to learn. I still need to evolve.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I graduated from my pediatric residency. I'm like I've done it and it's like I can rest, I can settle. I don't. You know, I don't have to keep evolving, I don't have to keep changing. I don't have to keep learning all these things, but the truth of the matter is you do and you may say, oh man, but I don't want to do that. But this is the thing Taking the time to develop the skills, taking the time to evolve to become the kind of entrepreneur, the kind of leader who can grow a very successful, sustainable practice, puts you in a place where it gives you time, freedom, it gives you financial freedom, it gives you agency, it gives you autonomy, it puts you in a position where you can have a huge impact in the lives of your team members, your patients, your community and all of that. And so I want to invite you to embrace it, embrace the evolution required to become the kind of person who can lead a seven and multiple, seven figure practice. Okay, so that's the first thing. It's a new, it's a brand new attitude. And so what that attitude does? Things like well, I don't do marketing or I don't like speaking, and all of that, they kind of go away. Because now you're like, if that's what I need to learn to pull this off, then it's a skill I'll just learn Right. Like it puts you in a very different place, very, very different place.

Speaker 1:

Resistance to what is required to build a successful business is what makes the journey of entrepreneurship unbelievably painful. Unbelievably painful because the entire time you'll just be saying this is I don't want to do this, I don't think I should have to do this, but in the meantime it will be required, like, like, it just is what it is right. It's like being a physician you want to go to med school, you want to become a heart surgeon, but you don't want to do anatomy. Like there's just no path to being a heart surgeon without anatomy. There isn't a path right. And so their core things in entrepreneurship, there is no path to success without going through them. For instance, when people tell me I just don't, I'm not, I don't like selling, I'm like you need a job, right, and and the truth of the matter is, in life we all need to sell, right. Like to get a two year old to stop having a temper tantrum in Walmart, it takes selling. You're going to sell them on it. You're going to sell them like okay, let's not do this, and here's why whatever, right. And so you just want to embrace what is required, and it's a change of attitude that will get you there. So that's the first thing. The second thing, you know we're talking about four things you need to do to grow a seven figure, seven figure practice. The second thing is really embracing marketing and sales.

Speaker 1:

When I started my journey as an entrepreneur, I looked at sales and marketing like something, you know, sleazy, manipulative. High sales, you know, like strong arming people into doing what they don't want to do, like that kind of scenario. That was my interpretation of sales. And so, for me, I'm like, first of all, I don't believe in strong arming people. I want to work with people who would be a great fit to work with me, right, so I'm looking for the right people. And then, secondly, my nature. I'm not. I'm not an aggressive person, so I look at that as something I will not do, and I'm a professional. We don't do things like that, right, like we're professionals. And the reason I didn't want to market and sell is because I didn't have the right definition, I didn't have the right picture of marketing and selling.

Speaker 1:

Now, the way I look at it now, and the way elite entrepreneurs look at it, is this there are people in this world who have a pain that I am uniquely designed to fix, and so marketing is what I do to make people like that aware that I exist. And selling is the conversation I have, where I'm helping them see that I'm the woman for the job, and they get, and I give them an invitation to say yes, and they get to say yes, and then lives get to get changed. And so marketing and selling is the ethical thing I do, because I am gifted with the ability to solve a problem that somebody else has. And the truth of the matter is, if I do not market and you do not sell, they're going to stay in pain. Most likely they're going to stay in pain or they're going to stay in pain for longer because I did not reach them. When you look at it that way, it is your moral obligation to market and to sell.

Speaker 1:

Now some people may say well, my private practice, you know, we grew by word of mouth, I never had to do anything. But this is the thing, right. You don't want to build a business that works on is on cruise control, it's on luck, right? Because the question becomes If you have a pandemic, will that strategy work? If the hospital comes and creates two private practices around your practice, will that strategy still work If there's some change in the insurance system, will that strategy still work? If it will not, why would you build a business on one leg when it's a table that should have four legs? And so you want to build into your private practice multiple streams, multiple ways. It can thrive, no matter what. That's what we do with everything else. So I would not build a practice on that kind of luck, because things can change and when they do change, you want to be in a position where it may shift some things, but it doesn't put you out of business and you can still thrive through it. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So marketing and sales is something to embrace. It is something that is your job as an entrepreneur. To either do it or make sure it is done, okay, it is your moral obligation. So when you think about you run a private practice. You're a pediatrician and there are people who maybe they won't have access to the level of care you can deliver because you don't know they're there. They don't know you're there. But this is the kicker, though If there's somebody who is a lot less competent and is even harming children, who is out there marketing and selling, they will go to that person. They will not come to you because they don't know you exist. And so if you truly believe in your practice, you truly believe in your business, you truly believe in the impact, then your job is to show up and keep going like I'm here. This is what we do. This is a problem we solve. These are the problems you have. This is what life can look like on the other side of working with us. You're inviting them to come work with you, go here, schedule an appointment, and all of those things.

Speaker 1:

The pathway to seven figures, the pathway to adding seven figures, is marketing sales. So those are two things that now, because, one, we have the right attitude. Then, two, we don't resist these things anymore. We do them. We do them because it's part of the pathway. So that's number two. Number three, number three is you want to become a true team leader? Okay, a team leader. Now could you hustle your way in private practice? You actually can. So I hustle your way to a million. No, you're gonna need people, but this is the idea. You can build a practice off of you or you can build a practice through others.

Speaker 1:

And it was John Maxwell who said that one is too small a number for greatness If you want to build a practice that will be like, that'll have a huge impact, that'll create financial freedom, that'll create time freedom and all of those things, then you're going to need a team. The thing that will bring about some of the most overwhelming blessings in your business will be people. Right, you get the right practice administrator, the right MA, or the right doctor, the right whatever. That is right. But again, the people who the thing that will give you the biggest headache in your business will also be people. So people is kind of is this area of business people run away from, but it has the biggest ROI. There's no such thing as a great company without great people, and Great people is not just tied to Hiring the right people, it's being the right leader who can lead the right people and can unlock all the things that are inside of them that are gifts to your business. Right, and so I cannot tell you how many times I would find, you know, like People who own private practices running away from team meetings, running away from holding people accountable, running away from sitting down to do the dirty quote-unquote dirty work of Clearly defining their role, clearly defining the outcomes they're responsible for, and all of that Coaching their people up like I don't, I don't, I shouldn't need to coach them.

Speaker 1:

They should know what to do. That's just not the way things work. Like it's just not the way things work. So, taking on that role again, no longer being in resistance like this, is what I do. I lead a team and together we're having this big impact for creating financial freedom. We're doing all of those kind of things right. So the time to lead is here.

Speaker 1:

If you want to be this person who is running, who is going this seven figure, multiple, seven figure practice, okay, now the final thing, the final thing you need to, you need to do is really embrace the concept of Growing and managing your finances. So I will tell you, my husband's background is in, it is in accounting, and when we started our private practice and not when we started for many years we're talking seven, eight, seven, eight years when it came to the finances, looking at the numbers, the profit and loss statement, taxes, all of those kind of things, I'm just like out of them, like that's above my pay grade. If you have any questions about that, go ask my husband for a tax. I'm like where do you want me to sign? Like I, you know, like I break out a hypes thinking about a profit and loss statement, but this is the deal. This is the deal if there's no margin, there's no mission. The fact that we see patients doesn't mean we get paid right. I think there are things that need to happen right, and so we really need to Embrace All of it like is end to end. So.

Speaker 1:

So let me let me run the scenario here. Like, for instance, your front desk people are they collecting the co-pays and are they collecting deductibles? Do you know what those metrics are? Right, if you have a team of doctors working with you, are they completing their charting and their super bills, or whatever, are sent over so the billers can work on them in a timely manner, whether that's 24 hours, whether that's 48 hours. That's why that's end of day for you. Whatever that number is right. Your billers. Are they sending out the claims every day? Are they reworking the claims every day?

Speaker 1:

What does your air look like? Like you know what. What does that report look like? Right, you know? Like your collections, like the people who have personal balances, are those being collected? Are people being sent to collections? If that's something you do, like what is happening there, right. Then when it gets into the bank.

Speaker 1:

What is the profit and loss statement? What does your cash flow look like? Right, what are we doing as far as you know? Taxes like tax liability and all of those things like. These are things yes, we did not do them in our medical training, but we're entrepreneurs now. Right, like, and so this is part of what we do, and you just want to start from where you are.

Speaker 1:

It may seem so overwhelming, because it felt very overwhelming for me in the beginning and I truly I was in resistance. Right, I do not do number one. Well, I do not do it fully, but I had to come to this point where, okay, you need to know this, you need to be able to speak the language of finance, like. I mean, like, if you think about it like a regular Non-medical practice, you will not expect somebody to run a multi-sever figure of business and not understand the language of money. Like they tell you oh, I don't care about the money piece, I you're like are you crazy? Right? And so you want to get comfortable having the conversations. You want to get comfortable holding people accountable. You want to have, you want to be comfortable making data-driven decisions, where you're like okay, this is what our cash flow is looking like and, because of that, this is what we need to do.

Speaker 1:

You need to embrace, embrace all of that, right. Embrace all of that, and these are the things that will set you up to not only hit the seven-figure mark, because you can do many things to hit that, but do you want to hit it? Do you want to stay there? Do you want to continue to grow? Do you want to grow in a sustainable way? Do you want to grow in such a way that you're not creating a burnout situation? Do you want to grow in such, in such a way, that you're leveraging your team? And so you know, growing does not mean losing more and more of your time. It may even mean gaining back your time because of the way you lead your team right, the way you lead and unlock your team.

Speaker 1:

So if you want to build that kind of medical practice, then these are the things you embrace. The embrace changing your attitude. You embrace marketing and selling. You embrace the concept of being a team leader, right. So you're not just embracing entrepreneurship, you're embracing leadership, too, right? And, like I said, the people will be your greatest gift. My team is like the greatest gift ever across my companies, like these are these are the greatest gifts ever, right? And then really embracing this concept of managing finances, managing ongoing finances, getting comfortable talking about money, getting comfortable leading your team to talk about money and all of those things. And you know, this is this is an episode I want you to, you know, to take and maybe listen to.

Speaker 1:

If you have, like, a leadership team and stuff like that, and still, and Lean into it, and even if all you do is, in each of these four areas, you just make one change, you start the process. You started the process of building a different kind of practice, a practice that is more profitable, a Practice that has a huge impact, a practice that does not create burnout for you across, that creates time, freedom and all of those things, right, so I want you to really lean into it. And Maybe I will give you one more thing, and it's just the relentless belief in what is possible. Right, because you know people say well, you know private practice is dead. Well, let me tell you, private practices dead is a statement that has been there since I got into private practice 14 years ago, right? And so clearly, it's not dead now.

Speaker 1:

Is it challenging? Of course it is, and that's why we're having these conversations. Right, there is challenging, but there are things that we can do to thrive. And so, as you work towards it, the picture you want to have in front of you is a picture of what is possible, a picture of your practice thriving, a picture of having a great team, a Picture of all of that, because we are architects of our practices, we are architects of our businesses, and what that means is you think about what an architect does. They create a perfect picture of something that doesn't exist yet. Right, they do that, and then they reverse, engineer and come and build it.

Speaker 1:

While you are the architect of your practice, you are the architect of the masterpiece that can be your practice, and you want to kind of have that picture of what it could look like and then reverse, engineer and work through it and create it. Now, can you do it? There's evidence, because many people are doing it. So if they can do it, then there is, there is evidence that this is a possibility. You're not just crazy, right, and I want you to embrace that, right. So that's what I have for you today, but I do have a favor to ask of you.

Speaker 1:

Right, if you listen to this, you'll find out that the podcast. We do not come to give you fluff of any kind. We come to give you valuable things I can start implementing In your businesses and creating transformation right away. Okay, so I want you to take this episode and for every doctor you know who is in private practice, just say, hey, I listen to this is kind of cool. Why? Why don't you take the listen? Because this episode has the potential to stop practices from going out of business, helping physicians build private practices that don't create for them real practices that create that financial freedom for them. Build practices that help them really impact our world and, as you know, there is such a need for physician led medical practices. Right, and you can help them fly. So you can use this huge part of the Calgary that is bringing change throughout the physician community and we need all hands on that. So please share this with your doctors in your life and I'll see you at the next episode.