Primary care providers play a pivotal role in delivering essential healthcare services to communities. By empowering these frontline healthcare professionals, we can improve patient outcomes, enhance access to care, and strengthen the overall healthcare system.
Primary care is essential to the care of the population, yet fewer people are accessing it due in part to an increasing shortage and maldistribution of primary care physicians. That was the focus of an Oct. 20 virtual briefing hosted by Primary Care for America, a diverse collaboration of key partners (including the American Academy of Family Physicians) focused on educating policymakers and health policy influencers about the value of comprehensive, continuous, and coordinated primary care.
Aside from training more primary care physicians, the health care system must do two things to solve the primary care workforce crisis, said Yalda Jabbarpour, MD, director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Primary Care, who presented at the briefing.
1. Create and pay for high-functioning teams, which can expand the capacity of primary care. (See “Taking Team-Based Care to the Next Level” and “Making a Business Case for Team-Based Care.”)
2. Adopt technology to expand access and efficiencies in primary care — without adding to physician burden. Virtual visits, asynchronous care via patient portals (if team managed), and artificial intelligence show great promise in this regard.
“But teams and technology take money and more investment in primary care,” said Jabbarpour, citing data showing that, for every payer, investment in primary care has been too low and falling over the last decade. “Higher investment in primary care can result in practice changes such as more robust teams and better integrated technology that can expand the workforce we have.”
Invest in the success of primary care providers and transform your patient experience with innovative solutions. Schedule your free consultation with Kevin Rausch to get all your questions answered regarding your practice: billing, sales, marketing, practice operations strategy, & more! Book here.
Nurse triage is revolutionizing patient care by improving efficiency and accessibility. Nurse triage systems help alleviate wait times, enhance patient satisfaction, and optimize healthcare resources by prioritizing patient needs and directing them to the appropriate level of care. Check the benefits of implementing a nurse triage model, highlighting its impact on patient outcomes and healthcare delivery.
Prior to widespread implementation of the electronic health record (EHR), non-face-to-face patient contact with the primary care clinician’s office was traditionally limited to telephone calls during office hours or patient voicemail messages after hours. Practices used telephone triage and medical advice protocols to ensure that patient calls or messages would be managed in a standardized way by the appropriate person in the practice.
Today, EHRs offer the use of patient portals, which allow unfettered patient-initiated messaging to the clinician at all hours of the day. This marks a major step forward in patient communication with the health care team but also marks a significant increase in indirect patient care needs. In primary care, these patient queries cover the gamut of health care needs, including appointment or referral requests, referral status updates, financial or insurance questions, result clarification, clinical advice requests, and medication requests (new or refill). Additionally, traditional phone calls are converted to EHR messages, which adds to the EHR message burden. While protocols and procedures on how to best manage patient telephone calls are well established, similar systems have not been widely adopted for electronic communication from patients.
This article describes how an academic family medicine practice designed and implemented a system for optimally managing electronic patient messages. Our multiple part-time clinicians comprise approximately 8.8 clinical FTEs managing a panel of 16,000 patients. The clinical team also includes 15 registered nurses (RNs)/certified medical assistants (MAs)/licensed practical nurses (LPNs), two triage RNs, two licensed clinical social workers, and one clinical pharmacist.
KEY POINTS
Patient portals mark a major step forward in patient communication with the health care team, but they also mark a significant increase in indirect patient care needs.
Practices should reconsider the clinician’s role in message management.
By clarifying rules for routing and replying to patient messages, workflows can largely be handled by nursing and support staff.
A NEW WORKFLOW FOR PATIENT MESSAGES
Before this intervention, all patient messages went directly to the clinician, who then decided whether to handle a message personally or forward it to another team member. As the volume of messages increased and response times increased, this strategy of having the clinician review all messages became non-viable.
Our first step in developing a new work-flow for managing patient messages was to assemble a small multidisciplinary work team with representatives from administration, nursing, and clinicians. The over-arching goal was to develop a consistent, systems-based approach to patient messaging and to get “the right message to the right team member.”
The group surveyed clinicians about their message preferences. Overall, clinicians preferred that all messages be reviewed and filtered first by a non-clinician team member. Clinicians only wanted certain messages routed to them — mostly medication questions about directions for use, side effects, or dose adjustments. For messages involving symptoms not improving despite treatment, their preference was to not have the message routed to them but to have the patient scheduled for a follow-up visit. Most other messages could be handled by staff or converted to a visit.
Using the clinician survey results, the team reviewed the different types of messages available in the patient portal (new complaint, medication refill, billing question, etc.) and determined which message types should go to which team members first. Input from nursing staff was essential in ensuring that the most appropriate message ended up in front of the correct person.
The next step was to expand the practice pools for message routing. (See a selected list of practice pools.) All patient-initiated messages would first land in a general practice pool, and an RN would read and review all messages from this initial pool. We used RNs as the first-line filter for two main reasons. The first is practical. Our MAs’ and LPNs’ main duties are related to direct clinical care provided to the patients seen in the practice, whereas our RNs have more of an administrative/supervisory role. The second is clinical. If patient messages include issues that are clinical in nature, the RN is able to appropriately triage these patients for clinical visits. The team considered whether message filtering should be done by nonclinical team members; however, after discussion, the group determined there were no available nonclinical staff to do this work and a clinical team member was better suited for it. This first-line filtering is critical since patient messages are not first reviewed by a clinician.
After reviewing a message, the RN routes it to the appropriate team member/practice pool to handle and notifies the patient of the expected response time. For example, if a patient is asking about an active referral request, the RN can route the message to the “referrals” practice pool, which includes nonclinical administrative staff who manage insurance and referrals. A member of the pool will then handle the message.
To assist RNs with message management, our project leader developed reference documents and Smart Phrases. These phrases, also known as “dot phrases,” allow staff to easily insert commonly used chunks of text into their responses to patient messages by typing a period (dot) followed by a short user-generated phrase. (See the list of Smart Phrases.) The project lead and nursing leadership also offered training sessions for team members who would be reviewing and filtering messages. The practice did not hire additional staff. The nursing staff was up-trained to do this work, and it has been incorporated into their clinical responsibilities. We piloted the new work-flow using select clinician EHR in-baskets. Once refined, it was rolled out to the entire practice.
LESSENING THE CLINICIAN IN-BASKET BURDEN
The following example contrasts the old and new workflows and illustrates how the change has positively affected clinician workload.
Patient message: “Dear Doctor, you saw me six weeks ago, and at that time you put in a referral to podiatry, but I have not yet heard back.”
In the old workflow: This message would have gone to the clinician, who would have done two things: 1) message the patient back, letting them know that a team member would look into their question, and 2) forward the message to the referral coordinators. The referral coordinators often-times would then send information back to the clinician, who would then notify the patient of the referral status.
In the new workflow: This message is reviewed by an RN, who responds to the patient using standard language and forwards the message to the referral coordinator, per the routing rules. The referral coordinator reviews the file and contacts the patient with the referral status and any instructions. In this example, the clinician is only involved if there is an issue, for example, if the referral was never placed.
FEEDBACK AND LESSONS LEARNED
Informal feedback on the new workflow indicates increased clinician satisfaction, improved clinical efficiency, and improved staff satisfaction. Clinicians indicate that messages coming to them are more likely to be clinician-level issues and their individual in-basket burden has lessened. Overall, our team felt that message turnaround times decreased significantly and we were able to review and disperse more messages to the appropriate next location.
While we do not have formal feedback from patients about this process, we have found that the closed-loop communication from the RN has been helpful for letting patients know that their message has been received and what the next steps will be, which may include a visit with the clinician. Our nursing staff have noted some dissatisfaction from patients who felt they were receiving canned responses, so we encourage personalized messages as appropriate. Nurses can decide whether or not to use Smart Phrases.
If patients indicate that they want their message sent to their clinician, we do that and set expectations around a timeline for their response. Clinicians are free to respond however they choose. They often support the advice provided by nursing staff, which reassures patients.
This new workflow has put more onus on each team member at each step in the message management process. Nursing and clinical support staff have indicated that they now feel empowered to act on items they can own. This has resulted not only in better message management but also meeting patients’ needs in a timelier manner.
We anticipate that technology will continue to advance and improve additional aspects of in-basket management. Some EHRs may have an “auto-response” feature built in, which could help inform patients of expected response times or next steps. It is not hard to imagine that soon practices will be able to use “chat-bots” or other artificial intelligence modalities to filter or reply to messages, or to address patient needs electronically. Until such time, workflows such as ours can be used to relieve clinician burden and serve as a template to drive future change.
Transform your patient experience with innovative solutions. Discover how our platform can enhance patient satisfaction, improve efficiency, and optimize resource allocation. Schedule your free consultation with Kevin Rausch to get all your questions answered regarding your practice: billing, sales, marketing, practice operations strategy, & more! Book here.
Is your medical practice feeling the pinch? There are strategic steps you can take to reignite growth! Let us help you with effective revenue-boosting strategies specifically tailored for clinics and practices.
20 Strategies To Increase Revenue.
Increasing sales and revenue is a high priority for most companies. Focusing on your customers and how they respond to different sales and marketing strategies can help you decide how best to increase sales and revenue. Your marketing and advertising campaigns can attract new customers and maintain current ones, boosting your profits. In this article, we explain how you can increase the revenue and sales and ways to make sure that revenue helps you achieve your long-term goals.
What does it mean to increase revenues?
Revenue is the amount of money that a business brings in, including income from sales and any additional income from bank interest or investments. A company can increase its revenue by increasing sales, adding other sources of income and increasing the amount of money that each sale produces Related:What Is Revenue? Definition, Types of Revenue and Examples
What does it mean to increase sales?
Sales refers to the number of items or services that a company sells, so increasing sales means customers are buying more products. A company can increase its sales by reaching more customers, convincing customers to buy more often, improving its marketing strategy, offering prices that fit the market well and maintaining good relationships with customers.
How to increase revenues and sales
Here are 20 different ways to increase revenue and sales as a marketing or sales professional:
1. Set defined goals
Make quantifiable goals for how much you want to increase your sales and revenue. This way, you can decide how to approach your goals and which methods you’d like to use. You can also use these goals to motivate you and your sales team by tracking your progress and accomplishments.
2. Target repeat customers
Cultivate the relationships you have with dedicated brand customers. Increasing communication can remind your customers of your store and control the message that they receive. Consider reaching out by email or text to promote sales or inform them of new inventory. Many email systems also allow you to review metrics, like the number of recipients who opened your email or clicked on a link, which can help you determine how effective your communication choices are.
3. Target former customers
Bringing back former customers sometimes takes less effort than bringing in new customers. Maintain a marketing plan for former customers so you can target them differently than your current customers. You can appeal to them with specific incentives, like a discount for those who bring in outdated items when they buy a replacement or upgrade. Former customers can also give you referrals or reviews that bring in new customers.
4. Grow your geographic reach
You might expand physically by opening a new location. You can also expand the geographic range of your customers by increasing the distance you can deliver or provide services or adding advertisement initiatives in neighboring areas.
5. Refine your pricing plan
To increase revenue while maintaining the same number of sales, reevaluate your pricing plan. You may sell more items by lowering your prices and taking market share away from your competitors, or you could raise your prices if your brand is strong and customers believe in the value you offer. If you offer a subscription service, you might offer a pricing structure with just a few tiers to appeal to customers through a simpler shopping experience.
6. Add products or services
One way to increase the number of sales per current customer is to offer more products that your customer needs. You can consider adjacent products that a customer would buy to use with your product or a service your customers might need. For example, if you have a specialty pen company, you might offer notebooks and stationery too.
7. Bundle products or services
Bundling products can encourage your customers to purchase more because they can save money by purchasing more than one item at once. You can bundle internally by packaging items together and marketing them as a set, or you could offer a discount when customers buy multiple items together.
8. Upsell products and services
Adding a specific plan to sell higher-priced products can help you transform a single sale into a more valuable transaction. Displays and informational materials can help with this by showing a more expensive or upgraded option first and emphasizing its benefits over less-expensive options.
9. Add new payment forms
You may be able to increase sales by offering new payment methods that customers find more convenient. Check which payment forms the leaders in your industry are using, then set up any infrastructure to accept whatever you don’t currently, whether it’s credit cards, a cash exchange app or secure quick pay options.
10. Offer delayed payments
You could see increases in sales by offering a delayed payment plan, like a layaway program or installment plan. Installment payment plans appeal to customers by showing lower monthly payments rather than one large sum. For example, a furniture company could offer an installment payment plan for a $500 couch, where the customer pays 10 installments of $50 each.
11. Change shipping or delivery charges
Some customers may be willing to pay more for a product if the shipping and handling is free. For online sales, you might consider ways to build shipping and handling costs into the overall cost of the item instead of including two line items in the price. If you deliver products locally, you may be able to try the same method.
12. Offer subscriptions
You could generate more sales by offering a subscription service and reminding people to buy a new product regularly. Consider offering a discount if a customer subscribes to regular replacements or refills, which can automate sales for you and help the customer save money.
13. Offer discounts, rebates and coupons
Perhaps the most classic method to generate increased sales, offering discounts, rebates and coupons can help bring in new traffic and generate a feeling of achievement for customers. Discounts and coupons generate customer loyalty and repeat purchases by allowing customers to try new products that they later buy at full price. Rebates have a low rate of fulfillment, so you may not have to take the rebate’s cost off of the revenue from every item sold.
14. Create special incentives
If you have regular communication with your customers, you can use any occasion to build loyalty by offering holiday sales, birthday rewards and discounts or registries for special occasions like weddings or births.
15. Survey customers to understand your market
It’s important to know your customer base well, so consider offering a survey to find out your customer demographics. When a customer makes a purchase, you can ask them to fill out a short survey that can help you define your target audience and refine your marketing strategies. You can also send surveys to potential markets through social media or online ads. To encourage people to fill out your survey, you can offer a discount or the chance of winning a gift card.
16. Keep sales channel current
Regularly update your sales channel, including your online presence and your in-store displays. Even if consistency is a strong appeal of your brand, consider ways you can make each visit or sale new for the customer to generate curiosity about later purchases.
17. Change sales incentive structure
Changing your incentive structure for your salespeople can increase sales numbers by making your sales team more motivated. Finding new metrics or rewarding different kinds of sales numbers can inspire your sales team by giving them a new challenge. You might consider inverting your commission plan to give higher incentives to a certain group or offering bonuses for achieving goals within a certain amount of time.
18. Develop a public reputation for quality and expertise
Consider building your brand’s public reputation for quality or your team’s reputation as experts in the field. External endorsements by magazines and public figures can introduce your product to new customers, and if you are willing to create your own podcast, book or informative articles, you can build up a reputation of providing value to your customers in multiple ways.
19. Develop a reputation in your industry and community
Being active in professional organizations can help you grow your visibility and can be particularly useful for business-to-business sales. As a prominent figure in the industry, you can also build partnerships with other businesses to offer shared promotions or build a common customer base.
20. Review your online presence
Optimize your website for sales instead of clicks by determining which search terms and website design aspects are actually bringing in sales. Consider how you can optimize your site or rewrite your online copy to maximize those attributes.
Perform Practice Solutions can help you run your business with more efficiency and less stress. Learn more about our medical billing solutions. Schedule your free consultation with Kevin Rausch to get all your questions answered regarding your practice: billing, sales, marketing, practice operations strategy, & more! Book here.
Marketing isn’t just about flashy ads or catchy slogans. It’s the strategic process of connecting your business with the right audience on the right platforms. It’s running Meta ads that connect with your newsletter that end with a call to action to your landing pages, supported by an updated website — and a million other things that convey your message of health and support in excellence. This involves understanding your ideal customer’s needs and wants, showcasing your medical practice, and ultimately driving them to take action. We want to help you manage these things so that you can run your practice. Learn more about it below.
Professionals who work in a corporation’s marketing and promotion departments seek to get the attention of key potential audiences through advertising. Promotions are targeted to certain audiences and may involve celebrity endorsements, catchy phrases or slogans, memorable packaging or graphic designs, and overall media exposure.
Understanding Marketing
Marketing as a discipline involves all the actions a company undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. Networking with potential or past clients is part of the work too and may include writing thank you emails, playing golf with prospective clients, returning calls and emails quickly, and meeting with clients for coffee or a meal.
At its most basic level, marketing seeks to match a company’s products and services to customers who want access to those products. Matching products to customers ultimately ensures profitability.
Formal Definition:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. ”
—Official definition from the American Marketing Association, approved 2017.
What Are the 4 P’s of Marketing?
Product, price, place, and promotion are the Four Ps of marketing. The Four Ps collectively make up the essential mix a company needs to market a product or service. Neil Borden popularized the idea of the marketing mix and the concept of the Four Ps in the 1950s.
Product
Product refers to an item or items the business plans to offer to customers. The product should seek to fulfill an absence in the market or fulfill consumer demand for a greater amount of a product already available. Before they can prepare an appropriate campaign, marketers need to understand what product is being sold, how it stands out from its competitors, whether the product can also be paired with a secondary product or product line, and whether there are substitute products in the market.
Price
Price refers to how much the company will sell the product for. When establishing a price, companies must consider the unit cost price, marketing costs, and distribution expenses. Companies must also consider the price of competing products in the marketplace and whether their proposed price point is sufficient to represent a reasonable alternative for consumers.
Place
Place refers to the distribution of the product. Key considerations include whether the company will sell the product through a physical storefront, online, or through both distribution channels. When it’s sold in a storefront, what kind of physical product placement does it get? When it’s sold online, what kind of digital product placement does it get?
Promotion
Promotion, the fourth P, is the integrated marketing communications campaign. Promotion includes a variety of activities such as advertising, selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, sponsorship, and guerrilla marketing.
Promotions vary depending on what stage of the product life cycle the product is in. Marketers understand that consumers associate a product’s price and distribution with its quality, and they take this into account when devising the overall marketing strategy.
Types of Marketing Strategies
Marketing is comprised of an incredibly broad and diverse set of strategies. The industry continues to evolve, and the strategies below may be better suited for some companies over others.
Traditional Marketing Strategies
Before technology and the Internet, traditional marketing was the primary way companies would market their goods to customers. The main types of traditional marketing strategies include:
Outdoor Marketing: This entails public displays of advertising external to a consumer’s house. This includes billboards, printed advertisements on benches, sticker wraps on vehicles, or advertisements on public transit.
Print Marketing: This entails small, easily printed content that is easy to replicate. Traditionally, companies often mass-produced printed materials, as the printed content was the same for all customers. Today, more flexibility in printing processes means that materials can be differentiated.
Direct Marketing: This entails specific content delivered to potential customers. Some print marketing content could be mailed. Otherwise, direct marketing mediums could include coupons, vouchers for free goods, or pamphlets.
Electronic Marketing: This entails the use of TV and radio for advertising. Through short bursts of digital content, a company can convey information to a customer through visual or auditory media that may grab a viewer’s attention better than a printed form.
Event Marketing: This entails attempting to gather potential customers at a specific location for the opportunity to speak with them about products or demonstrate products. This includes conferences, trade shows, seminars, roadshows, or private events.
Digital Marketing
The marketing industry has been forever changed with the introduction of digital marketing. From the early days of pop-up ads to targeted placements based on viewing history, there are now innovative ways companies can reach customers through digital marketing.
Search Engine Marketing: This entails companies attempting to increase search traffic through two ways. First, companies can pay search engines for placement on result pages. Second, companies can emphasize search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to organically place high on search results.
E-mail Marketing: This entails companies obtaining customer or potential customer e-mail addresses and distributing messages or newsletters. These messages can include coupons, discount opportunities, or advance notice of upcoming sales.
Social Media Marketing: This entails building an online presence on specific social media platforms. Like search engine marketing, companies can place paid advertisements to bypass algorithms and obtain a higher chance of being seen by viewers. Otherwise, a company can attempt to organically grow by posting content, interacting with followers, or uploading media like photos and videos.
Affiliate Marketing: This entails using third-party advertising to drive customer interest. Often, an affiliate that will get a commission from a sale will do affiliate marketing as the third party is incentivized to drive a sale for a good that is not their own original product.
Content Marketing: This entails creating content, whether eBooks, infographics, video seminars, or other downloadable content. The goal is to create a product (often free) to share information about a product, obtain customer information, and encourage customers to continue with the company beyond the content.
What Are the Benefits of Marketing?
Well-defined marketing strategies can benefit a company in several ways. It may be challenging to develop the right strategy or execute the plan; when done well, marketing can yield the following results:
Audience Generation. Marketing allows a company to target specific people it believes will benefit from its product or service. Sometimes, people know they have the need. Other times, they don’t realize it. Marketing enables a company to connect with a cohort of people that fit the demographic of whom the company aims to serve.
Inward Education. Marketing is useful for collecting information to be processed internally to drive success. For example, consider market research that finds a certain product is primarily purchased by women aged 18 to 34 years old. By collecting this information, a company can better understand how to cater to this demographic, drive sales, and be more efficient with resources.
Outward Education. Marketing can also be used to communicate with the world what your company does, what products you sell, and how your company can enrich the lives of others. Campaigns can be educational, informing those outside of your company why they need your product. In addition, marketing campaigns let a company introduce itself, its history, its owners, and its motivation for being the company it is.
Brand Creation. Marketing allows for a company to take an offensive approach to creating a brand. Instead of a customer shaping their opinion of a company based on their interactions, a company can preemptively engage a customer with specific content or media to drive certain emotions or reactions. This allows a company to shape its image before the customer has ever interacted with its products.
Long-lasting. Marketing campaigns done right can have a long-lasting impact on customers. Consider Poppin’ Fresh, also known as the Pillsbury Doughboy. First appearing in 1965, the mascot has helped create a long-lasting, warm, friendly brand for Pillsbury.
Financial Performance. The ultimate goal and benefit of marketing are to drive sales. When relationships with customers are stronger, well-defined, and positive, customers are more likely to engage in sales. When marketing is done right, customers turn to your company, and you gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. Even if both products are exactly the same, marketing can create that competitive advantage for why a client picks you over someone else.
According to MarTech, a digital marketing provider, the world will spend $4.7 trillion on marketing by 2025. This estimate includes an increase of $1.1 trillion from 2021 to 2025.
What Are the Limitations of Marketing?
Though there are many reasons a company embarks on marketing campaigns, there are several limitations to the industry.
Oversaturation. Every company wants customers to buy its product and not its competitors. Therefore, marketing channels can be competitive as companies strive to garner more positive attention and recognition. If too many companies are competing, a customer’s attention may be strongly diluted, resulting in any form of advertising not being effective.
Devaluation. When a company promotes a price discount or sale, the public may psychologically eventually see that product as worth less in the future. If a campaign is so strong, customers may even wait to purchase a good knowing or remembering what the sale price was from before. For example, some may intentionally hold off buying goods if Black Friday is approaching.
No Guaranteed Success. Marketing campaigns may incur upfront expenses that hold no promise of future success. This is also true of market research studies, where time, effort, and resources are poured into a study that may yield no usable or helpful results.
Customer Bias. Loyal, long-time customers need no enticing to buy a company’s brand or product. However, newer, uninitiated customers may. Marketing naturally is biased towards non-loyal patrons as those who already support the company would be better served by further investment in product improvement.
Cost. Marketing campaigns may be expensive. Digital marketing campaigns may be labor-intensive to set up and costly to maintain the scheduling, implementation, and execution of the plan. Don’t forget about the headlines that promote Super Bowl commercial expenses in the millions.
Economy-Dependent. Marketing is most successful when people have capital to spend. Though marketing can create non-financial benefits such as brand loyalty and product recognition, the ultimate goal is to drive sales. During unfavorable macroeconomic conditions when unemployment is high or recession concerns are elevated, consumers may be less likely to spend no matter how great a marketing campaign may be.
What Is Marketing?
Marketing is a division of a company, product line, individual, or entity that promotes its service. Marketing attempts to encourage market participants to buy their product and commit loyalty to a specific company.
Why Is Marketing So Important?
Marketing is important for a few reasons. First, marketing campaigns may be the first time a customer interacts or is exposed to a company’s product. A company has the opportunity to educate, promote, and encourage potential buyers.
Marketing also helps shape the brand image a company wants to convey. For example, an outdoor camping gear company that wants to be known for its rugged, tough goods can embark on specific campaigns that embody these traits and make these emotions memorable to prospective customers.
What Is the Purpose of Marketing?
An important goal of marketing is propelling a company’s growth. This can be seen through attracting and retaining new customers.
Companies may apply many different marketing strategies to achieve these goals. For instance, matching products with customers’ needs could involve personalization, prediction, and essentially knowing the right problem to solve.
Another strategy is creating value through the customer experience. This is demonstrated through efforts to elevate customer satisfaction and remove any difficulties with the product or service.
What Are the 4 Ps of Marketing?
A commonly used concept in the marketing field, the Four Ps of marketing looks at four key elements of a marketing strategy. The Four Ps consist of product, price, place, and promotion.
What Are the Types of Marketing?
There are dozens of types of marketing, and the types have proliferated with the introduction and rise of social media, mobile platforms, and technological advancements. Before technology, marketing might have been geared towards mail campaigns, word-of-mouth campaigns, billboards, delivery of sample products, TV commercials, or telemarketing. Now, marketing encompasses social media, targeted ads, e-mail marketing, inbound marketing to attract web traffic, and more.
You can also book your free consultation with Kevin Rausch to get all your questions answered regarding your practice: billing, sales, marketing, practice operations strategy, & more! Book with Kevin Rausch here.
Don’t shut down your practice — sell it! Selling your business is a significant life decision, and asking the right questions is crucial. Here we can learn more about your motivations for selling, explore your ideal buyer profile, and guide you in understanding the financial implications of this major step. Kevin Rausch has done this scores of times — let him help you with the prep and process so you can capture your biggest returns. Book a free consultation, not only for sales questions as it relates to your practice — but anything else you are struggling with from marketing to billing. BOOK HERE.
Learn more about Perform Practice Solutions Sales Consulting HERE.
Sell Your Business? 3 Must-Ask Questions To Avoid Regret!
Did you know that the moment you decide to sell your business could be the moment you secure your financial future or set yourself up for regret? Let’s ensure it’s the former.
Consider Sarah, who turned a small café into a local favorite. After years of hard work, she decided to sell but received low offers. In the years prior, she hadn’t pondered the critical questions about what her business was worth and when would be a good time to sell.
Whether you’re aiming to create your next masterpiece, gain financial or time freedom, or retire peacefully, Sarah’s exit experience emphasizes the need for preparation. Many owners either postpone thinking about their exit or skip thinking about it altogether, leading to rushed decisions or seller’s remorse (yes, that’s a thing!).
So, let’s make sure you’re well-prepared to make the most important decision of your life as a small business owner.
Question 1: What is my business worth right now?
Determining your business’s true worth is key to a successful exit. Since M&A experts focus on larger enterprises, you’ll likely need to manage the initial valuation yourself. Use a free, reliable online tool (like this one, from bizval founder Graham Stephen) to compare your business against recently acquired similar ones in your industry. A valuation is not just empowering but crucial for strategically planning your next steps.
A business in the professional education space I worked with was turning over just above $1 million a year. Initially, they underestimated their recurring revenue streams and customer loyalty. After a thorough valuation, their business’s worth increased by 25%. This valuation attracted more serious buyers and set a new benchmark for their selling price.
Question 2: How much do I want when I sell?
This question is the important one for sellers. Especially if they haven’t been saving much or paying themselves a steady salary. When answering the question on how much you want to sell for, consider calculating two different numbers:
Walk Away Number’: the amount of money you receive from the sale, after you’ve paid taxes and expenses. If you’re feeling the urge to start your next entrepreneurial masterpiece, selling for your Walk Away Number might mean you’re doing so at your prime, filled with energy and ideas.
‘That Number’: the amount of money you need to secure your lifestyle for the rest of your life, along with other specific financial goals. If you want to free up cash to pay off debts (like your mortgage), start a new project, reinvest it in other assets, or enjoy life unburdened by any financial obligations, you want to sell for that number.
Question 3: How much gas do I have left in the tank?
After answering the first 2 questions, 93% of small business owners come to the conclusion there is a gap between what their business is worth and what they want to sell it for. So the question arises as to how much energy do you have left to close the gap? Apart from the numbers, your personal feelings and energy level are important to navigate towards a life-changing exit. Read about the 7 signs it is time to sell your business.
If life’s curveballs are coming at you fast (health issues, a divorce, or a move) you might not have the time or the energy to close the gap between your valuation and that number. When that happens, selling is not just an inevitable choice, but a necessity for your well-being.
If retirement is on the horizon, you probably have a bit of energy left to push the gas for a little longer, multiplying the value of your business as much as you can, only to enjoy the leisure time, new hobbies, and your comfortable and fulfilling retirement you have longed for.
If your business is no longer bringing you joy, that might be a sign to step out too. Like Maya, a successful entrepreneur earning around $1.2M a year. She felt unfulfilled despite her financial success. She had enough energy left to make 3 crucial changes, multiplying the value of her business as a result. When she sold a mere 2 years later, she got That Number (and then some more), and could honor the desire to create her next masterpiece.
Conclusion:
Selling your business is a significant decision. This article highlighted 3 key questions to consider when pondering selling. Remember, it’s crucial to start asking these questions early, enabling you to sell on your terms and plan for what’s next.
Are you considering selling your physical therapy practice? Don’t navigate the sale of your business blindfolded! Let us craft a personalized plan to reach your goals. Contact us at (833) 764-0178 and visit our IG @performpracticesolutions.
Whether it’s a PT clinic, chiropractic service, therapy practice, or any other endeavor, every successful business begins with a dream – a vision for a product, a service, or a way to make a difference in the world. But nurturing that dream from a fragile seedling into a towering redwood takes more than just passion. It requires knowledge, strategy, and a willingness to adapt and grow. We can teach you how — and give you the tools to succeed.
Starting a business requires more than just a great idea
To build a successful business, you need more than a good—or even great—idea. You have to be well organized, flexible, and creative, and develop a knack for paying close attention to the details while never losing sight of the big picture. You should also be prepared to make some personal sacrifices. Whatever type of business you have in mind, these nine basic tips, with links to additional advice, can help you get it started and keep it growing.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Starting and growing a business requires good organizational skills, creativity, and constant focus, among other essentials.
It’s important to be aware of your competition, particularly the things it is doing that you might want to adopt or improve upon.
You’ll almost certainly end up working harder for yourself than you would for someone else, so be prepared to make some sacrifices in your personal life.
9 Tips For Growing A Successful Business
1. Get Organized
To achieve success as a business owner you first have to be well organized. That will help you complete tasks efficiently and stay on top of the many things that need to be done. A simple way to get and stay organized is to create a to-do list each day. As you complete each item, check it off your list. Remember, too, that some tasks are more important than others. Aim to tackle the high-priority ones first.
There are many online resources that are available to help. They include tools like Slack, Asana, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. That being said, a simple Excel spreadsheet will meet many of a small business’s organizational requirements, especially in the early days.
2. Keep Detailed Records
No matter how busy they are, successful businesses take the time to keep careful accounting records. By doing so, they know where their business stands financially and can often get a better (and earlier) grasp of any potential challenges they might be facing. Investopedia periodically rates the best accounting software for small businesses.
Many businesses today keep two sets of records: one physical and another in the cloud. That way, a business owner no longer has to worry about losing crucial data if something unfortunate happens, like a fire, computer virus, or other calamity.
3. Analyze Your Competition
To be successful, you can’t afford to ignore your competitors. Instead, take the time to study and learn from them. Larger companies devote significant resources to obtaining this sort of competitive intelligence.
How you go about analyzing the competition can depend on the nature of your business. If you’re a restaurant or store owner, you may simply be able to dine or shop at a competitor’s place of business, ask customers what they like or don’t like about it, and gain information that way.
If you’re in a field with more limited access to your competitors’ inner workings, such as manufacturing, try to keep up with the news in relevant trade publications, speak with any customers you share in common, and obtain and scrutinize whatever financial information a competitor makes publicly available.
4. Understand the Risks and Rewards
Another key to being successful is taking calculated risks to help your business grow. Besides contemplating the potential rewards if you succeed, a good question to ask is: “What’s the downside if this doesn’t work out?” If you can answer that question, you’ll know what the worst-case scenario is. If you could live with that scenario, and are prepared to take the necessary steps to manage the risk as much as possible, you might want to give it a go. Otherwise, this could be a good time to consider other opportunities.
Understanding risks and rewards includes being smart about the timing of starting a business or launching a new product. For example, the severe economic dislocation during the COVID pandemic provided some businesses with new opportunities (say, manufacturing and selling protective gear) and others with difficult-to-overcome obstacles (such as running a restaurant with constraints on indoor dining).
5. Be Creative
Always be looking for ways to improve your business and make it stand out from the competition. Recognize that you don’t know everything and be open to new ideas and different approaches.
Keep an eye out for opportunities to expand your current business or develop related enterprises that will lead to additional revenues and provide the benefit of diversification. The history of Amazon provides a good example. The company started out as an online bookseller and grew into an e-commerce giant, selling just about everything. Today it has a growing brick-and-mortar presence, as well. Among its many subsidiaries are Amazon Pharmacy, Amazon MGM Studios, Whole Foods Market, and Zappos.
6. Stay Focused on Your Goals
The old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies to building a business as well. Just because you open a business doesn’t mean you’re going to start making money immediately. It takes time to let people know who you are and what you have to offer, so stay focused on achieving your goals.
Even many small business owners who ultimately achieve success won’t see a profit for a few years and will have to rely on borrowed money (if they can get it) or their own savings to support the business until it can become profitable. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to finance a business.
That being said, if the business is not turning a profit after a reasonable period of time, it’s worth looking into why that is and whether the business needs to go in another direction.
7. Provide Great Customer Service
Too many businesses forget the importance of providing great customer service. If you deliver better service for your customers, they’ll be more inclined to come to you the next time they need something instead of going to your competition. High-quality service is one key to obtaining competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Some businesses refer to this as a taking a consumer-centric or client-centric approach.
In fact, in today’s hyper-competitive business environment, service is often the major differentiating factor between successful and unsuccessful businesses. This is where the saying “undersell and overdeliver” comes in, and savvy business owners are wise to follow it.
8. Be Consistent
Consistency is a key component to success in business. You have to keep doing what is necessary to be successful, day in and day out. This will create long-term positive habits that will help you make money in the long run and create satisfied customers from day one. Customers value consistency, too.
9. Prepare to Make Some Sacrifices
Having your own business often requires putting in more time than if you were working for someone else. That can mean spending less time with family and friends than you wish you could. The adage that there are no weekends and no vacations for business owners can ring true for anyone who’s committed to making their business work.
Owning a business isn’t for everyone. If, after an honest self-evaluation, you decide you aren’t cut out for it, you’ll save yourself a lot of grief, and probably a lot of money, by pursuing another career path.
What Is the Fastest Way for a Business to Grow?
Businesses will grow at their own rates, and many times this is out of the control of the business owner or workers. However, there are some aspects to running lean that may help a business grow quickly, such as focusing on a small product line, scaling up at a manageable pace, and providing some sort of obvious edge over your competitors.
How Do You Increase Sales?
Increasing sales can come from a few different places. You can raise ad expenditures where advertising has already proven effective, proactively solicit referrals from existing clients, build a direct-to-consumer email list, and others. You can also expand your product portfolio, but if the new additions underperform, that will negatively affect your bottom line.
What Makes a Startup Successful?
Business success is a difficult concept to quantify, but if it means generating returns for stakeholders, startups can be an excellent way to deliver returns. The best startups have a good product or service that is scalable. A well-run startup will understand the overall market and its particular place in it, be able to pivot quickly, and be ready to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.
The Bottom Line
Growing a successful business is hard work, and not everyone succeeds at it. According to 2022 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of new businesses fail during their first year, 50% fail during the first five years, and 65% fail during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or beyond.
If you want to be among that 25%, paying attention to these nine tips is a good start, but certainly not exhaustive. To own and run a successful business you’ll want to be in a state of constant learning and adapting.
Don’t just survive, thrive! Let our Perform Practice Solutions experts analyze your unique needs and craft a personalized plan to reach your goals. Book your meeting to speak with our CEO at no charge on the best course of action for your needs: https://calendly.com/KevinRausch and visit our IG @performpracticesolutions for more tips and info.
Concierge PT is trending—and it offers lots of benefits for both providers and patients. For example:
👉 Providers can choose to offer hours that accommodate their specific patient population.
👉 A subscription-based model also offers a more reliable income stream.
Concierge PT eliminates the stress of patients worrying about insurance coverage, enabling them to receive all sorts of pre-op interventions.
For those with high-deductible insurance plans or plans with very little PT coverage, concierge services can sometimes wind up costing the same or, in a handful of cases, even less than going through insurance.
Do you practice the concierge model? Do you know someone who does? Please let us know in the comments!
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Perform Practice Solutions helps clinic owners nationwide adjust to the changing and challenging reality of practice ownership. With its innovative coaching platform, transparent billing platforms, and marketing services, Perform Practice Solutions provides frustrated and hard-working owners with an alternative way forward. It's not easy, but it is possible.
