If you’re struggling to grow your practice, you’re probably missing some foundational elements to your business. These elements are crucial to attracting clients and becoming more profitable. But finding out how to scale your naturopathic clinic can be difficult.
And that’s really disappointing. Especially considering more and more countries are recognizing naturopathic medicine as an established healthcare option.
There are now almost 100 countries with practicing naturopathic doctors. And in the United States, there are 25 jurisdictions that allow you to register as a naturopathic physician.
So if you already have your own business but are struggling to pay yourself what you deserve, that’s normal. There hasn’t been much support available to you.
But here are five steps you can take to give your business the best chance for future success:
- Establish a Business Plan
- Create a Cash Management Strategy
- Build Your Brand
- Invest in the Right Technology
- Hire the Best People
1. Establish a Business Plan
A business plan is like having a roadmap to profit. It gives you everything you need to start and scale your naturopathic clinic.
It gives your business much needed structure. And it gives you an idea of how your business should grow in the next three to five years.
This will help you predict opportunities to grow and anticipate potential setbacks like debt repayment.
There are two main business models: Traditional and Lean.
A lean business model is easy to write. But it only focuses on the basic business elements. When you’re planning for the future you want a comprehensive strategy.
At Every Single Bean, we recommend you take the time to fill out a traditional business plan. It’s main purpose is to establish goals and objectives for every part of your business. It will require you to thoroughly evaluate where you’re at now and assess what’s not working.
According to the US Small Business Administration, there are eight sections in a traditional business plan:
- Executive Summary
- Company Description
- Market Analysis
- Organization structure
- Services
- Marketing Strategy
- Funding request
- Financial Projections
Executive Summary
In this section you want to include your mission statement. What service do you provide and how does it help the people you serve?
Company Description
Describe how your practice is positioned to solve problems for your clients. What makes your naturopathic clinic unique? Maybe you’re more experienced, maybe you’re more equipped or maybe your approach has proved more successful. Write that down.
Market Analysis
Hopefully you already have a rough idea of what other naturopathic clinics are doing. But if you want to grow quicker, invest more time in competitive research. You should also be studying your ideal client. What problems do they have that you can solve? Why are they looking at a more natural alternative to conventional medicine?
Organization and Management
No matter how big your practice is, you need an organizational chart. We’ll elaborate more on this in the following sections. But you should know how each role is aligned with your mission and values. So when you’re ready to onboard staff, you know exactly what to look for.
Services
This is where you want to write down your personal approach to naturopathic medicine. If you’ve developed your own program to bring clients back to a state of health, then explain how it works.
Marketing Strategy
The secret to attracting new clients? Clarity. Create a marketing strategy that is simple in its messaging and comprehensive in its approach. We’ll go into more detail in the next few sections.
Potential Funding Needs
Identify how much additional cash you’re going to need in the coming years and what you need it for. Whether it’s to pay back debt, medical school loans or simply to build equity.
Financial Projections
You need to demonstrate how financially stable you are. If you already have a cash management system in place, you can use it to predict your financial outlook for the next few years. Use all your income statements, balance sheets and Profit First Instant Assessments.
Remember, you don’t need to use every section in your plan. But having one will give you a more comprehensive strategy going forward.
2. Create a Cash Management Strategy
Every growth plan requires funding. The best way to do that is to find money within your business.
At Every Single Bean, we use the Profit First system. It helps you identify if your cash flow is being mismanaged and what the root cause is.
The Profit First formula is Revenue — Profit = Expenses. A bit backwards from what you’re probably used to. But this isn’t just designed to help you pay yourself more. It will streamline your cash flow as a whole.
Start by assessing the health of your business. Take a look at your profit and loss statement from your last full year. How much money did you make and how did you spend it?
Your P&L statement won’t give you all the information you need. But it will help you determine if your naturopathic practice is healthy or not.
While a profit and loss statement will identify any potential symptoms, you’ll need to go deeper to get at the root cause.
The next step is filling out your Instant Assessment form, which you can download here. This will help you measure your actual cash transactions.
Once you know what was working and what wasn’t working, you can design a better way of allocating your finances. This is where Every Single Bean comes in. We help you break everything down and customize a cash management system that makes you more profitable every month. To get started, give us a call here.
After you figure out where your money is going, it’s time to build efficiencies. The key here is understanding the difference between revenue and profit. Focus on what’s actually making you money. And stop any part of your business that isn’t.
When you have a cash management system that is focused on your bottom line, you’re able to predict your growth. You’ll know when to expand, when to hire and how quickly you can erase debt.
3. Build Your Brand
Now that you’ve given your clinic a strong foundation, it’s time to work on building your brand.
Your marketing needs to get you new business. The problem most business owners experience is they make it too complicated.
If you have no clue how to get started, then here’s what you need to know.
Every great marketing plan includes a sales funnel. It’s a way to reach people and turn them into paying clients.
If you’ve followed our blog, you’d know we recommend Storybrand’s sales funnel. They use five crucial pieces of marketing collateral to help your business grow.
- A one-liner
- A website or landing page
- A lead-generating PDF
- An email nurture campaign
- An email sales campaign
A One-liner
Your one-liner might be the single most important part of our marketing funnel. It helps you summarize your business into a couple sentences. But it does it in a way that shows people the value you bring to your clients.
Here is our one-liner:
When it comes to running the business-end of their practice, many naturopathic doctors feel uncertain how to make and manage money the best way. At Every Single Bean, we help you set up and follow a system that brings clarity and direction to every financial choice you make.
A Website
When people have problems, they look for solutions. A good website positions you as the answer. It should capture your story and invite potential clients into it. If you’re designing your own website, remember to keep it simple. Any person that looks at it should be able to understand what you do, how it helps them and how they can do business with you.
A Lead-generating PDF
Think of marketing like a conversation with your clients. You don’t want to introduce yourself and then immediately transition to asking them for their contact information. A lead generator is how you demonstrate value without being pushy. It could be a checklist or actionable document you offer someone in exchange for an email address. This is how you built trust.
An Email Nurture Campaign
Once you build up an email list, make sure you’re nurturing those leads. The nurture campaign is intended for you to build relationships with people over time.
An Email Sales Campaign
Your email sales campaign is how you leverage your relationship with people to turn them into clients. This is completely different from your nurture campaign. Its sole purpose is to close the sale.
4. Invest in the Right Technology
A big mistake a lot of business owners make is reinvesting into the business too quickly. One of the ways they do that is by adopting technology that isn’t profitable.
What does that mean?
Any technology you use — from point-of-sale systems, bookkeeping programs or billing software — needs to improve workflow. It should make your job as a business owner easier.
If it doesn’t. Then don’t use it.
5. Hire the Best People
No matter how big or small your clinic is, you need a strong company structure and clearly defined roles.
If you start small this will help you and your employees juggle multiple jobs.
As you grow, this structure will help you determine who you should hire next and when.
Here’s what you need to consider when you’re designing the structure of your naturopathic clinic:
- What are the different roles it needs to be successful
- What are the connections between each role
- How can they work together to make decisions and solve problems
- How can clear lines of communication help you achieve your company’s goals
- What are the available positions you need to make the clinic more efficient
It’s important to start by identifying roles so you can build accountability early. Then when your clinic expands, everyone will know what their main focus is and who they can go to for help.
This will keep you agile and flexible. So if you have to downsize during a global pandemic or you need rapid growth, you can make those decisions much easier.
But remember, every person you bring into your business should be aligned with your mission and values. Hiring the wrong person will only hurt your business.
Still Need Help to Scale Your Naturopathic Clinic?
These five steps will set you up to scale your naturopathic clinic. But it will require a lot of work. The key here is to stay focused on what makes the most financial sense.
At Every Single Bean, we know what it takes to become instantly profitable. And once you’re profitable, you’ll be able to scale your business much faster.
We’ve helped naturopathic doctors across the country enjoy healthy profits from their practice and we even offer a free guide to help you get started.
But if you’re looking for hands-on help from a certified professional, give us a call. We’d be happy to show you how you can scale your naturopathic clinic quicker and experience the freedom and financial reward that comes from a profitable business.