How to Turn a Revenue Slump Into a Breakthrough in 3 Simple Steps

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When your revenue tanks, it’s easy to panic. All successful entrepreneurs have been there at one point or another. 

But what if I told you there is a calm, strategic approach to addressing revenue slumps that allows you to bounce back with confidence? 

Today, I’ll walk you through my tried-and-tested three-step method for addressing (and fixing) revenue problems. From conducting a postmortem analysis to turning your business around in just 30 days, this method provides a clear pathway to sustainable growth. And the best part is it will give you the confidence you need to face problems head-on without panicking! 

Tune in. 

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Key Takeaways: 

• 00:00 Intro 
• 01:52 Running a postmortem 
• 07:17 Building a pathway 
• 12:19 Executing the plan 
• 18:10 Leaning on your community 
• 20:12 Outro 

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Transcript

Revenue Tanks: What Next?

Speaker 1 1:40

How am I going to get out of this ? How am I going to turn this around ? And let me tell you you're a physician CEO . You can turn this around . You can turn it around . You started your business from scratch , you got it to where it was , and then the revenue tax you could get it back up . Hi docs , welcome to the EntreMD podcast , where it's all about helping amazing physicians , just like you , embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms . I'm your host , dr Una .

Speaker 1 2:13

I used to think that once I figured out how to create revenue in my business , I would have sorted out all my confidence problems , right , like . I would know how to do things , I'd be relaxed , I'd finally arrived , and one of the things that happened , you know , for instance , the first year that we hit two million in revenue was , all of a sudden , this fear came over me Like , what if you can't maintain this ? What if you can't grow this ? What if you drop back to a million in revenue and you're found out that you didn't really know what you were doing and all of that stuff . And I addressed that , right , like . So it was a very shocking discovery for me right , but the thing is that you know there might be seasons in your business where it seems like your revenue tanks . Your cashflow is not there . Maybe you didn't get to pay yourself even after you've done really well and after you've done really well for a while . And I want to show you on this episode what to do when your revenue tanks , when your cashflow tanks . And having this way of thinking puts you in a position where you can grow , and you can grow confidently . And when challenging times show up in your business or you anticipate they're going to show up , you know exactly how to handle them , so that consistent growth can be what your business experiences .

Speaker 1 3:20

Okay , and I'm going to walk you through three things . This is something . This is one of the episodes . You probably want to have a notebook and a journal and all of these things and really lean into it . It's going to be a total game changer . So three things the first thing here is going to be running a postmortem , like getting the diagnosis what exactly is going on here ? Because the fact that your cashflow is less , it doesn't mean maybe you didn't have enough volume . It doesn't mean you didn't have enough new patients or new clients that like . We don't know what it means until we look at the numbers .

Speaker 1 3:52

Okay , and I want to give you a few examples of the things that could be going on . The first thing that could be going on is it could be that you made heavy investments in your business because you're preparing for growth , okay , and so that could look like . I've had clients who , you know , did additional locations to a private practice . Right , that's something that is a heavy investment , but it's required for growth , right , and the investment precedes the growth . Or it could be maybe you didn't get a new location , but maybe you moved into a new location , a bigger location . I've had clients who did that . They had six exam rooms , whatever . They had it for a few years , they had outgrown it and they had to get more space . That puts you in a place where you're going to make a lot of investments . Sometimes people find themselves paying rent in two locations as they're trying to work through it and all of that stuff . Right , that's a heavy investment .

Speaker 1 4:38

Maybe you're in a specialty , you have a private practice and you're in a specialty where it's very equipment heavy . These are , you know , the machines and all of that stuff . They're really expensive and all that . Or maybe you invested in team . You know , maybe you're a coach and you hired a high capacity team member , maybe a business manager or something

Running a Business Postmortem

Speaker 1 4:56

like that , or you hired more coaches . Or you're a physician and you hired another physician in your private practice . Right , you have a private practice and you hired another physician . Again , that is an investment that will precede the return on investment .

Speaker 1 5:09

Now , if that is the case , now what you want to do is really separate out the numbers , like . What is the like ? If I took out the heavy investment that I needed to make that hasn't started re-yielding an ROI yet , what is my , what do my numbers actually look like ? Right , and it's important to do that because you want to see is that the only problem ? Are we having multiple problems ? You won't know till you look at it . So you take out , let's say you take out the physician's salary and maybe the support staff that you had to hire to support that physician . They haven't started pulling their weight yet and all of that . If I take all of that out , how are we doing ? Is it comparable to where we've been ? Are we ? Maybe we're even growing , right , if you take that out , right ?

Speaker 1 5:48

So you want to take a look at that first and then see , okay , another reason why you know , when you run a postmortem , another thing you may find is you may find that there's low volume of business , right , like , so the money coming in , the revenue coming in period is just it's dropped like it's dropped significantly , right ? So in the first instance we gave with a heavy investment . Your revenue may even be more , but you had so much , you know capital expense or you know investments for growth , that it looked like you didn't grow Right and the cash flow is like shot , right . In this case you just didn't bring in the revenue period , right , and it could be a number of things . Maybe you didn't have , you know , enough new clients , or maybe you didn't have enough repeat clients or repeat patients . Or maybe you know you typically have a lot of upsells or you have you're a surgeon , so I've had , you know , surgeons in private practice where they saw the same volume of patients , but now they have more medical and more follow-up and less surgeries , and they saw the same volume of patients , but now they have more medical and more follow-up and less surgeries , and so the revenue is significantly less , significantly .

Speaker 1 6:54

So you want to take a look at that Like is that what happened ? Or maybe it's just that you know it's low team productivity . This is the one you always want to look for , and so maybe there's somebody in charge of referrals they didn't do their job . And there's somebody in charge of , you know , making sure there's repeat clients or repeat patients , and that person didn't do their job . Or you have somebody in charge of marketing and they completely dropped the ball like low team productivity , and the bigger your team is , the more important this is . So you want to take a look like did everybody pull their weight ? What are the levers that bring revenue into my business ? Is everybody pulling their weight ? Because if they're not pulling their weight , you still have their expense , but you got no ROI right . And then now you know what to fix . Why is this important ? Because until you do this , you do not actually know what the problem is and you can't fix it because you don't know .

Speaker 1 7:39

When you do a postmark , what else could you discover ? You could just discover that there's a lot like increased expenses . Okay , so we just have a lot more expenses so not quite capital expenses , like the first example we gave , but you have more , or you have unproductive expenses , and I'll explain what I mean I mean by that . You have expenses that are not creating an ROI whatsoever in your business . Maybe they mattered in the beginning of the business , they don't matter anymore , but you're still paying for them . Now , notice that I put that as a lower example , because a lot of times it's not quite that . A lot of times it's the top number , but , yeah , that could be one of the reasons , and then it could be any combination , right ? So , for instance , the person who did the really heavy investment they may have been totally distracted by a new location , or moving to a new location , or getting a new team member onboarded and all of those things that they actually stopped doing , all the things that would normally bring in revenue . So now you have the heavy investment , now you have the low volume of business . You see what I'm saying . So , again , this piece is so crucial .

Speaker 1 8:41

Not doing this is like seeing a patient . The patient is like you know , doc , what's wrong with me ? And you start telling them what's wrong with them without doing a proper history , review of systems , exam and all of those things . You cannot make a diagnosis without doing this . It is worth the time it will take you to do it , okay , okay , so that's the first thing is run a postmortem so you can get the diagnosis . The second thing is , now that you have a diagnosis , you want to work on a solution . You want to work on a pathway . Okay , like , what is my path out of that stuff , plus overhead and all of those things , and so your cashflow is shot . What is the pathway ? Well , the pathway is filling up that person's schedule . That's the pathway . Now there are other pathways . Right , we could ramp up other producers who can bring in revenue while this person's schedule is being built . But again , that's a pathway .

Speaker 1 9:42

Now , maybe you know how to fill up your schedule . You have a good reputation in the company , in the community where you find yourself . You've used ads before and you know how your ads respond . You have a referral base , a really good referral base that you can talk to and they'll send you people . You have a ton of patients who are overdue for appointments . You can reach out to say , hey , we can get you in this week and all of those kinds of things , and all of those kinds of things , like .

Speaker 1 10:07

So you just map that out , like , okay , this is what we're going to do to overcome that problem and when you're done , you look at it like if we did these things , that we decided to do these five things we decided to do , what are the chances it will fill up this person's schedule ? Maybe , say , 80% . It's like , boom , okay , let's go Right . Maybe it's not that . Maybe you know you moved in , you had a low volume , right . It's kind of the same

Creating Your Recovery Pathway

Speaker 1 10:26

thing If we had a low volume . The question becomes what are the top three things that filled up our schedule in the past ? Like , wonderful , now let's go do those three things , let's go all in on those three things again , and maybe there's some loaf hanging fruits you can add to it . So then you build out this strategy , you build out this pathway . This is how we're going to get out of this .

Speaker 1 10:45

Maybe you moved into a new location again , right , and you're like , okay , what is the solution to this ? Like our old location is doing , our first location is doing fantastic . Like after we did the postmortem , we found out that's not even the problem at all . Like it actually grew . The revenue for that location grew , the profits for that location grew . Is the second one that makes it look like we have a cashflow problem ? Okay , wonderful . So then what are we going to do ? It means we need to fire on all cylinders to fill that place up . It means that if we have , for instance , if we have more volume than we can handle in the first location , maybe we pull a dock on the days they're not busy in the second location to come to the first location and see patients and stuff . So they're still bringing in revenue because it's one pot .

Speaker 1 11:30

Do you see what I'm saying ? So I can't give you the exact thing you would do , but once you have a diagnosis , you can then look for the pathway . So think about three to five things that you can do over a 30 day period , 60 day period that will really I like 30 , which will really rev everything up right , like you want to . You want to create that pathway and you may have this thought like , oh , I don't know what that pathway is and it's almost never true , especially if you're established . You want to tap into your own wisdom and say , knowing what I know , like , what are the top three things that would deliver X results ? Okay , and what are the top three things that are proven to deliver X results ? And then you come up with your own pathway . So that's the second thing we do , right , we build out a pathway .

Speaker 1 12:15

Maybe your expenses went way out of whack . Maybe somebody else , who cannot feel the pinch because they don't make the money , is responsible for spending the money , right . And you decide , okay , I'm gonna take that , that back , or I'm going to put parameters in place and stuff like that . I'm going to cut out the things that don't have an ROI . I want to say this you know very clearly when it comes to cutting out things that don't have an ROI , let me give you three things not to cut . I say this all the time on the podcast .

Speaker 1 12:42

The first thing you don't want to cut is you don't want to . Okay , now you want to make sure your team is a profitable team , right , you want to make sure they're all creating revenue and things like that , but you don't want to cut your team . You train your team or you remove underperformers , but you don't cut your team . And then , third thing you don't want to cut is your education . Right . Is your education when you find yourself in a position where it's more challenging ? That's when you want to lean in more , like I need to be in a community where I'm getting my business education , so I know what to do , I know how to respond to circumstances and all of those things . I'm continually upgrading myself as a physician CEO and things like that . Okay , so those are three things you don't want to cut .

Speaker 1 13:27

Okay , so we talked about running the postmortem Very important . I keep saying this because if this is not done , none of the other things matter . Okay , so I run a postmortem . Okay , I decide on a pathway . How am I going to get out of this ? How am I going to turn this around ? And let me tell you , you're a physician CEO , you can turn this around . Okay , you can turn it around . You start your business from scratch Most people , you start your business from scratch , no-transcript .

Speaker 1 14:19

And then our revenues tanked and stuff , and I said , okay , I don't like what happened , I don't like what's happening with the revenue , I don't like what's happening with the cashflow , and so what I found is that there there are a lot of you know , like what was responsible for the tanking is how I had low volume of business . So for a practice that may look like you know , we got really comfortable . We're like oh yeah , everybody just finds us by word of mouth . And here comes this competitor and we did not have the engine in place to respond to the competitor because we had grown fat and lazy , and we're just like , oh yes , we're just , you know , we're just leaning on our word of mouth , we don't have to do anything , right ? I got real humble real quick , okay . So I'm just giving an example .

Speaker 1 14:57

I got humble real quick and I said , okay , what is the diagnosis ? Here ? We are doing nothing to bring in new people . Nothing , nothing at all , okay . And I'm like , okay , fantastic , we shouldn't have done that . But we're here now . What do we do ? We're like , okay , great , we can hit the recaller , because we have a bunch of people who are overdue for appointments . We don't call them anymore because we're like , you

What Not to Cut

Speaker 1 15:14

know , we don't have to do anything and we just get all these patients .

Speaker 1 15:17

So we're going to hit the recaller . We're going to reestablish our relationships with our referral sources , right , and we're going to go back to posting on social media . We're going to go back to showing up on a YouTube channel where people are finding us anyway , and we're going to ask for referrals from our patients , right , not just from other doctors referring to us . And we're going to do these five things , and we're going to do it every single day for the next 30 days . And we're doing with intention . What is the intention ? New appointments on the books , right , okay ?

Speaker 1 15:44

So that then becomes a sprint that I run and in the beginning it will look like it's not working . Okay , so let me tell you that you know real quick here , in the beginning it will look like it's not working and then the more I do it , the more it will work . The more it starts to snowball , the more we create momentum and then we begin to shift that . Okay , so it's a little bit of a long game , like not long , like years or many months , but it's a little bit of a long game . You have to have the inner strength to just stay and see it through , right , okay , so that may be the thing . Or let's say , I got an additional location and I do the postmortem and it's just like there's just low volume of business , right , for the new location . First location , doing great , in fact , it even grew Fantastic .

Speaker 1 16:24

Okay , so what's the plan ? We'll keep the first location , as is Everything that's working . We'll just keep that working . And we come to the second location . We're like , okay , what could we do ? All right , we have , you know physician in this new location that's being underutilized , so they work four days a week . Maybe we'll have them work three days a week in the new location and then one day a week in the old location .

Speaker 1 16:55

Knowing that we we're like , okay , we make a database of all the referral sources , potential referral sources there , and then we just go at it . We just go at it to build and our goal is okay , over the next 30 days , we want to have three to six people who are who are active referrers for us , right ? That's the next thing that we're going to do . The third thing we're going to do is man , you know , maybe we even have a YouTube channel , for instance . That's already going , but we're now going to lean into it . What are the hot topics ? What are the things that our patients really want to know ? What are the things that are evergreen People are always asking about this stuff and then make our podcast , so our YouTube channel , so relevant that it's creating all this buzz for us and stuff like that .

Speaker 1 17:34

And we're going to look at our online reputation . We're going to really go hard , hard , hard on the Google reviews , right , and you can get Google reviews from the first location . It's the same , it's the same company and stuff like that . Right , so we're going to go after Google reviews and stuff like that . Go after social media , so we're out there , so people can see us , right ? Then for the patients who come into the office , we're asking everyone to refer patients to us and stuff like that . Like , I'm just making this stuff up , right . But think of it that way and we're like , okay , boom , get the whole team on board Next 30 days . Boom , this is what we're doing .

Speaker 1 18:06

But , guys , we not respond . We cannot take decisive action . We cannot respond casually to something as significant as our revenue tanking . Right , like so we , this is like , we're dealing with this with a sense of urgency , not frantic energy , that's not what I mean but urgency , right , which means this is important , this is timely , this is time sensitive and we're going to go all in , right . And so , when you think of this is just a simple , like , quick and dirty way to come up with a plan to respond to , that is just a simple , like , quick and dirty way to come up with a plan to respond to that .

Speaker 1 18:37

We have used this so many times Now in my private practice . We use it a lot in anticipation , right , like so in pediatrics , we know , in the summer , people talk about the summer being dead , nobody's coming in for appointments and all those things Not our experience at all . Because we anticipate it and then we build a plan like this and we put it in place to prevent that from happening . Right , and so does it work ? A thousand percent , yes , it works , and it works all the time . Right , but it's something that we need to do , and I do want to say this , you know , because sometimes you know , when things like this happen , there's a lot of shame around it .

Speaker 1 19:07

Right , like if I knew what I was doing , this wouldn't happen . If I was on top I needed to be this would have happened . This happens to the best of people , this happens to trillion dollar companies , and I want to invite you to not embrace the shame , to not take the shame , to not accept it at all . Just go like huh , okay , we're going to learn a new thing , we're going to learn how to run a sprint and we're going to learn how to turn a machine around , turn a business machine around , which is what you're going to do , which will be so exciting , and after you do it , and you do

Community Support and Time Management

Speaker 1 19:35

it with your team . Guess what ? You guys now have another skill that you can use , and now maybe even use it more for prevention , right , and you know , okay , we anticipate this will happen and we know what to do , we know how to respond to it . Okay , so that's what I would do . That's what I would do for that .

Speaker 1 19:50

As far as you know the the journey as an entrepreneur , as you go through this , I will also say you definitely want to lean on your community , right ? Like this is the reason why I'm such a huge advocate for , you know , physicians , being in community with physician entrepreneurs who are thriving , who are pushing , who are trying to become the best version of themselves , building their dream businesses and their dream lives , who believe in collaboration over competition like , really lean into the community and get the help that you need . I say this a lot , that I'd rather talk to somebody about a challenge that I'm having and have it done in five minutes than have to deal with something for five weeks or for five months , right , so you want to really lean into your community , and I think the last thing I'll say here is you know , when you're in this season as the physician CEO , one of the things you want to do is make sure you're an excellent steward of your time . Now , are you going to be an excellent student steward of your time ? A hundred percent of the time ? No , but that's what the intent needs to be , which means , for the times that you do show up for your business , you want to make sure you're in the 20% . You want to make sure you're doing the highest level activities and stuff like that , because it's game time . It's game time , we want to turn this ship around . We want to turn the machine around right . So I want to make sure you're doing that . So do this .

Speaker 1 21:06

And even if you're like , okay , this was really great , someday maybe , if I need it , I'll know what to do , I want to invite you to just practice it . Like , even if everything is going fantastic , just practice a 30-day sprint , like , let me jumpstart my business right . You can think of it that way . Let me jumpstart my business , let me get it out of cruise control . You know , think of it that way . Or maybe you need it , and if you need it , use it right . And that's what I want you to practice doing . If you feel like man , you know , I want to be in a community of docs who are doing just this . Of course , I will always welcome you to come into the Entremet Business School . I believe it and actually it is . It's the only . It's the only business school of its kind for physicians , for physician entrepreneurs who are crushing it right , and so so do that .

Speaker 1 21:52

But regardless , this is the deal . I want you to see yourself as a kind of person who can experience challenges in business and you can just turn it around . You can flip it around . You can just flip it around Now . It will take a minute . You're not going to flip it around in two seconds . That's not the way this works . But you can create a strategic plan , you can execute on the plan and you can blow your own mind by the results that you create . I am rooting for you , relentlessly rooting for you . If this helped you , just send me a private message on Facebook or Instagram . Let me know that it did . If you have follow-up questions , I'm so happy to answer them . Okay , rooting for you always . See you on the next episode .