By Simon Hocken, Lead Coach: Business, Practice & Clinical Leadership
Recently, two clients contacted Breathe for help with buying and starting a practice…
A client I’ve known for many years, who sold his beautiful private practice in the South-East (very successfully) a couple of years ago and has worked in it since as an associate, contacted Breathe. He now wants to buy and further develop another practice.
The second enquiry came from a young couple who want to establish their own practice (also in the South-East) and they want advice on whether to buy or start a squat…
Thinking about these two it occurred to me that the rules have changed about how you go about doing this. Up to around 3-5 years ago, whether you were going to buy or squat, the process looked something like this:
- Find a good location and a nice, appropriate building.
- Find the money to buy/set up and the working capital required from day one.
- Find some good people to work with or train the ones you’ve got.
- Decide which services you want to offer and at what fees.
- Do a bit of marketing to tell folk about what you do.
In 2012, this simply isn’t enough and if you have taken this path, your project will either be growing very slowly or worse, failing. So, in order to massively increase the chances of success, these are the tactics you will need to address:
- Create a Business Plan and a Business Model and find out what your model (how it makes a profit) is most sensitive to. Decide whether your project is worth doing in terms of “return”.
- Decide how you will differentiate your practice from your competitive set. Be clear about the Proposition your practice will make to its target market.
- Position your practice in relation to your competitive set in terms of the quality of outcomes the practice will deliver and the fee level (as perceived by your prospective patients).
- Work out who makes up your Catchment (those that live/work within a commutable distance of your practice) and who will form your Target Market within this catchment.
- Agree/borrow the Funding required to buy/set up and fund the Working Capital required from day one.
- Find a good Location and a appropriate Building which is future proof for at least 10 years in terms of size and site.
- Decide which other fee earners you will need and the shape and quality of your support team.
- Consider which Systems you will need in place from day one.
- Create a unique Client Journey
- Build a three year Strategic Marketing Plan and a one year Functional Marketing Plan with monitoring and way points.
- Create a systemised Sales Process
- Decide how you are going to measure your progress against your business plan, which KPI’s will you use and when.
Every step of this formula will help increase your chances of success. If you would like some help in understanding or implementing these steps or If you would like some help with:
- reinventing your practice
- starting a practice
- buying a practice
Then email me or call my direct line:
t. 07770 430576
e. simon@nowbreathe.co.uk