The Performance Doctor: Saving you $15,000 Pt 2

STAY UNCOMFORTABLE. I never thought I’d be reminding myself every morning that “comfort is the beginning of death.” It truly is.

DON’T GET COMFORTABLE.

There will be a day, week or month, that you’ll look into your schedule and you’ll see it 90% full. You are going to feel good about it.

You are going to feel busy.

You are going to feel comfortable.

At this moment, you’ve already messed up.

You assumed this is sustainable. You assumed you’ve made it because you have pretty much filled your books for the next 3-4 weeks.

A pre-filled book means NOTHING!

Your patients may call to cancel or reschedule.

They may not show up at all. Oh, this one hits your soul.
You start questioning wether you are a good doctor or if you should be in business at all.

You’ll spiral because of one patient.
Trust me, you will.

DO NOT GET COMFORTABLE.

Break Stuff Fast, Fix It Faster. Nobody has it together. Trust me, at times I also struggle with the best next step in growing my business. One of the best pieces of advice that I got from one of the business coaching calls I attended was the idea of “break stuff fast, fix it faster.”

Which means, launch before you are fully ready, figure out what is broken as fast as possible, and then fix it faster before anybody else catches on.

When I first introduced the hybrid rehab program I wasn’t sure how it was going to run completely. I wanted my patients to be able to reach me if needed so I gave my patients access to me all day. They could message me at any given time and I’d reply. That was a HUGE mistake. I had patients messaging me at 4:15 am, 7:45 pm and even some later than 11 pm.

This lasted about a week, 5 days to be exact. I sent out an email that all messaging would be reviewed between 8 am and 6 pm daily and would be answered within 24 hours. In the event they needed to schedule an appointment in person, they needed to call the office number.

This way, the only messaging that was discussed in our messaging app was regarding progressions, regression and biomechanics audits for certain exercises.
 

Get KNOWN. If you are new to a city, town, or in business in general. You need eyeballs on you.

The best way to get as many eyeballs on you is to get known, and very few people will find you through social media and google the first couple of months. Unless you started promoting yourself 3 months earlier 😉.

I am not saying you have to attend every single event, eat lunch out every single day, or spend hundreds of dollars in marketing. The latter does help if you do it right.

What I am saying is you can’t grow a practice from inside your practice in the beginning. You need to go out and meet other business owners, introduce yourself to everyone you come across.

Carry business cards with you — make sure your contact information is correct.  

Systemize EVERYTHING. Okay… maybe not everything.

Staying out of your comfort zone all the time can lead to burn out. But there’s a way to get things done without burning out. Yep, you guessed it develop your own systems.

Now, don’t go making complicated systems that only you can follow after 3-4 coffee cups.

Make a system that even a 5 year old could follow.

Then make sure YOU follow it every day. Eventually you’ll be able to automate this system to stay ahead of the game, without burning out.

One of the first things you can systemize are your patient notes. Write a check list of everything that needs to be in your SOAP, make sure you follow it with every patient. It will take you a few iterations, but you’ll narrow down your patients notes and within a couple of weeks you’ll be finishing a new note within 5 minutes.

Another aspect you can systemize is your content creation. It’s not as complicated as you might think. I’ve already broken down how I am systemizing my social media vault. You can copy my system here, or you can come up with your own.

Focus on your Fan. This was definitely one of the hardest parts for me. I want to help every person, and I know you do too, but it’s true what is said: When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.

So what is the deal about the Fan? I learned this idea from a copy writer I follow on X. His name is Kieran.

He talks about not creating content for the sake of building an audience, but to attract your audience. A big difference.

​Most people focus too much on ‘building’ an audience.

But you don’t build one.

You attract one.

People follow people with similar interests, and views. People follow people they respect.

Followers become fans the more connected they feel to your content.

Try to write to everyone and you write to no one.

Know who you want to attract.

But it’s not details like age and occupation that are important.
It’s thoughts and feelings.
Psychographics, not demographics.

In a nutshell:

People have problems. Those problems cause pain (short and long term). People have long-term dreams and short-term desires.

Write about that and they'll love you for it.

That’s how you build fans.