How to compete Against Big Chain Therapy Clinics.
===
[00:00:00] welcome to my OT business corner of hand therapy secrets. My name is Hoang Tran. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And in this corner of hand therapy secrets, we're going to talk about business and how you can either one, start your OT clinic or to grow your OT clinic.
[00:00:19] Really committed to sharing my experience and processes so that maybe you, In your corner of the world can start something really amazing and great just for you and then be able to grow it. So I got this question from someone who wants to start their therapy clinic, but it's just really worried and concerned.
[00:00:41] How do I compete against chain therapy clinics? If this is not my favorite question, I don't know what is. I don't know if but. I own a therapy clinic in Miami, Florida, and let me tell you, there are a million chains. I am [00:01:00] literally flanked in all corners. All right. Oh, my therapy clinic with other small business owners.
[00:01:07] I have literally one therapy clinic right next to me. I hear their phones ringing. That's how next, that's how. My ass. They are with how close. And I can tell you, you can still make your business grow, right? There are therapy clinics against small therapy business owners against chain therapy clinics.
[00:01:34] And let me tell you, there's going to even be more clinics. I have been getting. From my students questions. These are all private emails. So obviously I'm not naming any names here. Because the world is really large, but there's more and more small clinics currently right now that have built out their businesses and in a way that now they want to just get rid of it.
[00:01:59] They just [00:02:00] want to sell it. They don't want to have any to it. do with their clinics anymore. They want to cash out. And right now, big chains are coming in and they're looking to buy it. And so these small businesses are getting eaten up, right? They're getting eaten up by these chain box run of the mill therapy.
[00:02:23] Companies essentially. And these people are just getting bigger and bigger. But as people get bigger and bigger, they don't always get better and better. Actually, majority of the time it gets really shitty before it gets better. I have an example. Not, not in the therapy world, just in another business realm.
[00:02:48] I'm currently in my short term rental property right now and my management company went through a big growth stage that made them go [00:03:00] public. These major changes made their customer service. So crappy, the people that have to deal with not good. And I'm looking to switch. I'm I've actually just made my decision of.
[00:03:16] Who I'm going with, so if this is happening in other parts, other businesses that is not therapy, this is happening in the therapy world to big businesses, big chain boxes are coming in, and they're buying up these small chain, these small businesses. And as those. Small businesses, those small clinics go through the growing pains.
[00:03:42] Staff will leave, customers will leave. And I think that in general if you have a. These big chain places, they can help people with real generic problems, or [00:04:00] maybe not so complex problems, or they're really what I call, a high volume. High volume, low cost, right? Types of clinics.
[00:04:13] Think of your Walmarts, right? Think of your Walmarts. Yes, lots and lots of people shop at Walmart, but there's a whole lot of people who don't shop at Walmart. And then we also know that reputation of Walmart as compared to other places and other, brands and companies. And so just to put it into perspective, there is so much space.
[00:04:38] There is so much space for us as occupational therapists. And it really is about how you Put yourself out there. One that you willing to put yourself out there by starting your business and to be willing to stay out there as you grow your business. And I have written down [00:05:00] four things. Really, that's maybe it's five.
[00:05:06] About, like, how do you compete against these therapy clinics, right? Like, how do you compete against what everyone quote unquote knows? And I don't say these things lightly. I've done them. I'm still doing them. So I'm not really just talking out of my ass. Some people are like, Oh, do this.
[00:05:26] And they're not doing it themselves. Like I'm currently doing this. This is how I grow my clinic so that I have staff. I have therapists. I'm looking for another therapist. Like I'm looking to grow that. I was looking to grow it three years ago, pandemic hit, and it really has slowed me down and shifted my focus a little bit, but I'm coming back around to it.
[00:05:49] I'm looking to grow and I'm literally doing. All of the things that I'm recommending to you. So it's not do [00:06:00] you know what I say? Not as I do, I'm doing it. I'm hoping that I'm leading essentially by example that I'm just not talking out of my ass. So how do you compete against them?
[00:06:14] For one, I recommend writing. I started writing years ago when I first started my clinic. 10 years ago, I started writing and if I could go back in time and show you these, you know what? I don't even have to go back in time. Y'all people can look it up on my website and you can see I have not taken anything down that I've written.
[00:06:38] If you look way, way back into my videos you will see my old stuff. One, I started writing and it's only as you do it that you get better, right? Because what do we therapists know about writing? We write notes, we write short term goals and long term goals, but we don't really write anything else.
[00:06:58] So I started writing [00:07:00] and I really highly recommend you start writing. I started sharing videos, right? Yes, you can grow a business without showing your face, but you... Can do it better and faster when you do show your face. So I started showing my face and creating essentially a brand personality is what they call it.
[00:07:27] And through these videos, I started sharing my perspective. I have a perspective of how I help people with different injuries. For example I believe that you can get rid of trigger finger without injections and surgeries. I can tell you that in my early therapy days when I was working with and for hand surgeons in the hospital, all I saw were injections and surgery.[00:08:00]
[00:08:00] So what was my recommendations? injections and surgery. So everyone who came to me, I was like, yeah, go get the injections, go get the surgeries, and we were, it was so common for us to treat post surgical trigger finger releases that you didn't even know it was possible to avoid surgery.
[00:08:23] Because everything you heard from the hospital, from other therapists that worked in the hospital for decades, right? Decades, they And we I didn't see anything about surgeries either, so I was very pro surgery before and now my perspective is because I got to see it, that I was actually able to get rid of someone's trigger finger without injections and surgeries because maybe they were one, they were diabetic.
[00:08:53] They're diabetic. Every time you get a cortisone injection, your sugar spikes up because that's what steroids do. [00:09:00] And so you're fixing one thing by messing up something else. And some people, they're working so hard to control their sugar. Why are we messing it up? The other thing is you can only get up to two injections before they're like just do the surgery because the more injections you have, the more it erodes around, at the tendons and stuff.
[00:09:21] And usually also shows that injections not helping. If you get more than two injections, it's not helping third. When it comes to the injections, a lot of times the surgeons think that the surgery is easy because the surgery takes. Less than five minutes. And so technically, yes, it is technically a very easy surgery, but your recovery process is still two to three months.
[00:09:54] It's still two or three months. And so some patients, right? Some clients, some people are [00:10:00] willing to say, Hey, what are some ways that I could actually avoid? And so I started to think about all these people. And do you know why? It was because I was an independent clinic and an independent person.
[00:10:17] And they were coming to me for independent device independent advice.
[00:10:26] And it was because they were very skeptical with the surgery. The surgeon just keeps recommending injection surgery. They don't even want me to go to therapy. And so you have to start sharing your perspective. I have a very key perspective on post surgical cases as well. I've seen a lot of them. I have a very specific perspective on how you should go into any kind of secondary surgery.
[00:10:55] Capsulectomies, tenolysis, these are secondary surgeries [00:11:00] and you have to go into them in a particular way to get the best possible results after. Do you know how I know this? Because I've seen it. I've done it. I've worked with it and I've seen when things go wrong and I've seen when things go right. And so I'm here sharing my perspective.
[00:11:20] And so I think that if you're competing against chain therapy clinics, you are developing your voice by writing, sharing videos, sharing your perspective. And then I started sharing what I do that is different. What I do that is different and because I am sharing that I don't enter into a trigger finger surgery lightly, I am considering all of the options.
[00:11:54] I am more intentionally thoughtful in taking my patients[00:12:00] fears, concerns, all that. fully into the recommendation that I have. They do come to see us against other chain clinics and majority of the time they're coming to us because they've been somewhere else and they haven't been satisfied. And so you, when you start your therapy clinic, you have the opportunity to create the type of clinic that you want. I'm speaking very specifically to maybe clinics that value quality over quantity, right? I want to provide quality therapy versus I don't necessarily want to be a clinic that sees four patients at a time.
[00:12:45] If you are starting a business where you want to be a high volume and low quality, like low price, then this. This isn't going to be for you because you're going to [00:13:00] compete against chain therapy clinics so that you can become a chain therapy clinic. This advice will not work for you. I just wanted to clarify that for a hot minute because when you are competing against volume to volume, you're not going to share what you do differently, that differently, right?
[00:13:20] From a therapy perspective. But if you're a therapist looking to provide quality. Over quantity. You're looking for low volume and premium pricing, then you're going to compete against chain therapy clinics differently. And that is this talk right here. That is this talk. If you want to be a quality therapy clinic with low volume and premium pricing, this video and talk is for you.
[00:13:56] I should have clarified that at the beginning, but at least we [00:14:00] clarified it now. But that goes into number four, which is that part where I'm saying, you've got to share what you're doing differently. So I share what I do differently. For example, One thing that I do completely differently than other people is just the way we answer the phone, right?
[00:14:18] Just the way we answer the phone the fact that I want my Assistant to talk to people Longer, right? So a metric of success in my clinic is how long did you talk to somebody? Because I don't like when you're calling a place and they're like, yep, you're, you want to make an appointment. What's your name?
[00:14:41] What's your insurance card your date of birth? Okay, you want to make an appointment? What do you want to say at 4? Okay, Tuesday at 4. No, I have Thursday at 9 a. m. You want that one? It's what kind of conversation is that if they're calling, they're like, yeah, I have a hand problem [00:15:00] and I need, my doctor said to get therapy.
[00:15:03] So I'm calling to make an appointment and then you don't get barely any information. So how's your therapist, how do they know how to help you? So just in the way we answer our phone differently is what sets us apart. The other thing that sets us apart really honestly is is the writing and the videos that I've created.
[00:15:27] In the past, I've made great videos. I've made really shitty videos. My therapy clinic YouTube channel is called Hand Therapy Seekers. And I have one video and people just blast me on it. It's terrible. They are just nasty and mean. spirited. But I still have to share that video. I still put it up and then every once in a while someone has a really nice, great comment and you know what's nice about it?
[00:15:59] They're just [00:16:00] asking a question and you know what? I go on, I answer it, and to me, I'm like, screw you. If you want to be nasty about it, obviously I'm not your person. I'm not your person. I'm not here just to show you an exercise without your understanding of why you're doing what you're doing.
[00:16:20] We're providing here a lot of times can be medical advice and it doesn't fit everyone. So if you're just looking for an exercise, go to someone else's channel. Cause I'm not here for that. And that's how I set myself up differently. I actually give a shit whether you're doing yourself right or not.
[00:16:39] So if you're just looking for something like. Go away, right? Go away. That is a perspective that I have to have. Internally, right? That is the mindset that I have to have. In order to share what I'm doing differently. So that's number five. Number five is working on [00:17:00] changing your mindset and habits.
[00:17:01] Of working as an employee versus working as an entrepreneur, working as A business owner, you have to learn to accept the nose and to learn to accept that not everyone's going to like you and not everyone's going to want to do business with you that not everyone's going to buy. I'm also not, I'm not trying to try to sell to everybody either.
[00:17:22] Not everyone's for me. That's a mindset. That's a mindset shift. And one of the reasons why I say it's a mindset shift is, often in our therapy world, in our occupational therapy world we just want to help everyone. We're like we're in healthcare because we help people. Let's let's dial that down.
[00:17:41] Because if. If we are helping everyone, we're also helping no one because we are just so busy trying to be liked that we actually truly aren't able to help. Someone with their particular issue. So it is, it's really such a huge mindset shift that I don't [00:18:00] think every, that I certainly didn't know this going into business.
[00:18:04] Because I was that way. I was like, I want to help everybody with a hand and arm problem. I love it so much. Let me help you, but not everyone is as committed as you are. I would ask you, do you, who do you want to work with? I want to work with people who are committed to actually getting results because then I'm less frustrated and they're less frustrated.
[00:18:26] And, when they come in feeling like, they're coming intentionally for a reason that my staff do really better with, with people like that versus like really just nasty people. I don't tolerate people yelling. And Being condescending and mean to my staff. Like I just don't, we don't have, we don't have a place for that.
[00:18:43] Like it's, life is hard enough without you being, coming into my clinic and being an asshole. Like I just don't like. Go to that chain clinic that doesn't give a shit, right? Just go there because that's not how I want to run my business. I can't have my therapist, fearing that [00:19:00] next patient because that she can't be really good for all the patients before and all the patients afterwards because she fears.
[00:19:09] This asshole that's coming into my clinic. I don't tolerate it. But this is the clinic. This is the kind of business I've created. But that's the thing that I do differently, right? That's the thing that I do differently so that I can compete against these chain therapy clinics. People are willing to come, people are willing to drive, people are willing to pay, people are willing to work with us because I have set up my therapy clinic differently.
[00:19:36] And I would encourage you if you're an occupational therapist and you're starting your business and you want to start a hand therapy clinic or any other kind of OT business, like you are going to compete against these bigger chain therapy clinics and to set yourself up start writing, start sharing videos, [00:20:00] start sharing your perspective, start sharing what you do differently.
[00:20:06] And then work on changing your mindset and habits to think like an entrepreneur and to work like an entrepreneur or a small business owner and not as an employee, right? So those are the five things that I do personally for my own therapy clinic to compete against these chain therapy clinics.
[00:20:30] And I hope that can utilize some of this advice and see that it's possible for you to create something really great, really of quality. Really something you can be proud of. And then be able to just flourish in your career, not only as a therapist, but as a small business owner, right?
[00:20:52] As a small business owner, it's possible for you to do it. I've done it. And I'm really honestly here to share with you what has worked and [00:21:00] what hasn't worked for me. So that you can essentially create. Something that you can be extremely proud of and be able to thrive. One of the mantras that we use in, that I use in business is it's really to just keep going, to stay alive in business, like you just need to, you need to just, it's not just do, enough, but, just to stay in business long enough to, just be able to help the next person, be able to help the next person. I hope this video has helped you if you like it.
[00:21:36] If this has been valuable for you, please hit the subscribe button. You can even share it with other people, other OT businesses that you know could use this type of information. And if you have any comments or questions, definitely feel free to leave them below so that I can create more videos like this and answer more of your questions.[00:22:00]
[00:22:00] All right, thank you so much for tuning in. And I'll see you next time. Thanks.
