What I Struggled With at 2 years into Running My Hand Therapy Clinic
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[00:00:00] Two years into running my hand therapy clinic, I started to hit. roadblocks. I started struggling quite a bit in my business and I started to think about is running a business really for me? So if you're just starting out and you're already like, Holy crap, what do I do? Or if you're two years into the business, hopefully this video can give you some insight and guide you in terms of what you can do.
[00:00:27] My name is Hoang. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And I opened my hand therapy clinic over 10 years ago. And then I created hand therapy secrets about four years four years ago. So six years, essentially into having a clinic business, I decided to go online and create a separate business.
[00:00:50] Because I didn't have enough to do. So at two years I started to struggle with what I thought was a marketing problem, [00:01:00] but I also could see into the future of holy crap, how am I supposed to hire people as I wanted to grow my business? When I first started my own business, I had all the clinical skills you could imagine.
[00:01:14] Like I was a certified hand therapist already. I've been working with lots and lots of post surgical and non surgical cases of the hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder, right? I thought I was a shit. Everyone told me I was a shit and people are like, you can open a business and everyone's going to cut your, you're going to have.
[00:01:32] Patients lying through the door, right? And what sometimes people don't understand is that even to whether you're a hybrid business, like our cash business, you're out of network business, you're an in work in network business, you can give shit away for free. People still don't want it. And so when you're a business, you have to think about like how do you attract more people into your business to share what [00:02:00] you do?
[00:02:00] And then you have to, you have to sell them on the idea that you can help them. And then there's all these other aspects like that. You don't want to do everything. So when you first start, you wear all the hats. It's like I cleaned my own office. I did my own laundry. I was treating, I was answering the phones.
[00:02:19] I was doing the marketing. I was. the website and sometimes we come into it thinking we have to do everything on our own, because if you're an OT like me, a lot of times people are just, they tell you just, you learn on your own to a certain extent. But clinical skills is one thing you can take a class or another business skills is a whole nother thing.
[00:02:39] And you can totally take classes as well. I just didn't even know where to start. I was trying to look online and I was being told about all the free resources. No one even ever told me about paid services, but I'm not sure I would have been in that mindset to say, oh, I'm worth the investment.
[00:02:59] So I was [00:03:00] looking up. Free small business stuff, but if you're like the solopreneur and you're not trying to get government contracts, you're not trying to get a business loan or anything like that. Some of that information is a little bit over your head or it's not really as relevant.
[00:03:14] And so what I thought I was struggling with at two years was the continued marketing. Because I could fill my schedule up, but I couldn't keep my schedule filled because my schedule would be light. So then I'd go out running, knocking on doctor's doors, Hey, send me your patients, blah, blah, blah. And then my schedule would fill up and then I would be so busy that I couldn't do any marketing.
[00:03:37] And then I, my patients would come in waves and I would slow down. I was like, Oh shit, I got to go market again. So I really thought that I had a marketing problem and I did have a marketing problem. But I had a. Much bigger problem, which is thinking ahead being able to hire some of the first people that came into my business to work because I started hiring someone [00:04:00] six months into my business.
[00:04:01] Six months into my business. I started to get pretty busy and I didn't have the wherewithal to answer all the phone calls and the hire people. And the requests and this and that. And so I started to hire people. Unfortunately, I was hiring a lot of the wrong people, but I started to struggle at that time.
[00:04:22] And I thought that maybe having a business wasn't for me. Cause having a business was about flexibility and having a business was about being able to pick my kids up and do certain activities with them. But I didn't have the kind of clinic that gave me that kind of flexibility because in hand therapy and the kind of hand therapy I was providing, like post surgical cases, I had to, do wound care.
[00:04:47] I had to be able to capture people when they, before work and after work, because not everyone was available in the middle of the day and I would say if you're a pediatric office, you might have a lot of the same types of issues [00:05:00] because kids go to school and so parents need to bring their kids after school.
[00:05:05] So it creates like a conundrum if you have a family, but I was really struggling at that time and believe it or not, one of the best books that really helped me to open my mind to investing in. Coaching, investing in buying programs and stuff. It's actually called the e myth. The e myth talked about like when you come out of, you're so good at your craft that you're told, Oh yeah, go open your business.
[00:05:31] But you open your business and you have absolutely no skills. And that's pretty much like what I did. I'm like reading this book. You should go get it. I think I did another video on like the e myth, but you should totally read it because it talks about like how you think that. Your skills is enough to make the business whole and thriving.
[00:05:51] And then when you start to hire people you start to abdicate, like you expect them to know how to do things when in actuality they [00:06:00] don't. And I remember like very distinctly like my parents had their own business. And I just remember, that's exactly what my mom did. She would hire, but she didn't really know how to hire.
[00:06:12] And so she would hire people and then they would never stay or she would never hand over the responsibilities because she would be like I do it. I can do it. I'll do it better. I do it faster. And. Many decades later, she's running her business as if it's the first year of business.
[00:06:30] And that was a big eyeopening thing for me. Like I didn't want to run a business where I felt like I was doing the same thing every year and feeling like I was stuck in my business. One of the reasons why, you have to determine for yourself, what's the reason why you went into business for yourself anyway.
[00:06:47] A lot of times it's about a certain amount of freedom and flexibility, right? I want to work the way I want to work on a work when I want to work and stuff like that. You want to, provide a certain level of service that maybe you, when you were working for someone else, you didn't [00:07:00] have the opportunity to do, but then also the financial freedoms that come with it, so there's flexibilities.
[00:07:04] It's pretty much, there's two freedoms that most people in business are looking for is time freedom and financial freedoms. And And one of the things that's what I was struggling with quite a bit, I was making the money, but I didn't have any time freedom. So once I started to, make a little bit of money, I said, Oh, I need to do something different than I've been doing before.
[00:07:26] And that was when I found the E Myth. And then from there. And this is over 10 years ago. So I think that the amount of information that's available for you as an occupational therapist, opening your own business, learning skills is a lot more abundant. But the problem with abundance is that sometimes you have so many options, you have no choices.
[00:07:48] The abundance of option is like from zero to. A hundred thousand, but because there's so much information, you're not able to hone in and get real specific and actually make a choice. [00:08:00] But one thing that I've learned since then was the importance of investing in myself for business skills. I was able to invest in myself from a clinical standpoint, but clinical skills, if there's four legs to a business, clinical skills only gives you one leg, which is operations.
[00:08:21] You essentially are the operator. So you provide that service and you can be really good at that service. But what happens then is it gets stuck with you, right? So if I wasn't marketing my business, who would know that I existed? So many people would come and they're like, Oh my God, your service is amazing.
[00:08:40] I don't know why I didn't find out about you before. And I was like, I don't know why you didn't find about me before either. Clearly I was not very good at marketing myself. So more and more people could hear, but marketing is about getting more eyeballs on your business. And when I realized that I [00:09:00] started to invest in myself, I got, I started to buy programs.
[00:09:03] I started going into a coaching program. So one of the first, and that's where I think that the shift, your mindset around the investment of these skills needs to shift. As an occupational therapist, I only invested in I only invested in live courses at that time because there was not a lot. Over 10 years ago, 10 years ago, there was not a lot of online courses.
[00:09:32] There, I don't even remember if I ever saw one before then, I only invested in live courses. And how much are live courses? 400, 500, 600, 700 nowadays, but back then it was like 300, 400, right? And so what happens is you are stuck in that loop of I only need. I only need so many CUs every two years to renew my license.
[00:09:57] So you're stuck in that like mentality [00:10:00] of I only need to do the minimum, but what happens when you go into business is that you have to do the maximum, right? The minimum doesn't cut it. You have to do the maximum. So if you're only taking, one class every two years or two classes every two years in clinical skills, when you go into business, you don't have any.
[00:10:21] So you need to start thinking about what classes or what courses or what coaching programs do I need to invest in order to develop my skills fast, right? So that was a huge mindset shift that I had to go through two years into it. And to be honest, if I could have gone into it faster. It was saved me a lot of money and a lot of heartache, right?
[00:10:46] Because I lost a lot of money because by the time I was two years into it, I'd already been hiring. I had already been firing, so I had already lost money off people that I was essentially paying. But couldn't do the job. So [00:11:00] I was, I had invested in certain aspects of marketing because I knew I needed a website and I knew I need a nice website, but I really didn't know how websites worked.
[00:11:10] I didn't know how SEO worked. And When you go into business, you have to start learning about those things, not because you can do it all, but because you have to have a certain amount of understanding about it so that when you go and you hire a company to do it, you know what they're supposed to deliver to you.
[00:11:26] But also, you know how to look for certain things so that. You can gauge, are they doing a good job for me? I spent 5, 000 on my website back then. It was so much money. They made my website look so pretty. And then that was it. I got nothing else out. I didn't have any SEO. I didn't have any support.
[00:11:50] I didn't, and I. Didn't know the questions to ask, right? I didn't know the questions to ask but I knew at two years I was struggling. I [00:12:00] was like I either spend the money I've earned to invest into myself right to invest into myself to learn more about businesses or I'm going to feel like my business sucks and I'm gonna shut it down and go find a job because It's hard at the beginning.
[00:12:18] It's really hard at the beginning because you're doing everything on your own and The mindset of an employee the mindset of what you coming into has to slowly start to shift So I had to stop thinking. Oh, I'm only gonna take one class or two classes for clinical skills I needed to take business classes.
[00:12:33] I needed to take how to write classes. I needed to take how to hold my messaging, right? I needed to learn how to create a website that actually worked. And the companies to hire so that I can get the flow of people coming in. So I think that if you look at yourself starting out or two years into it, where are you currently struggling?
[00:12:57] Where are you currently struggling? [00:13:00] Is it to attract the people? Is it because you lack the skills to sell and persuade people, right? To learn how to sell your services at a premium product is really key if you want a thriving business. You also have to learn how to sell even if it's a low end product.
[00:13:20] Even low end products need to be sold. Think about every time you're at the mall and someone's trying to give you free stuff. It's free. Why aren't you taking it? It's free. Why aren't you taking it? It's because even free needs to be sold. Even free needs to be matched up with the person who actually needs that product or services.
[00:13:42] And that's a really big thing to learn. Learning how to hire the right people, fire the wrong people is essential to whatever money you make. that you actually keep and the people that you hire become assets for you in your [00:14:00] business so that you can continue to bring in more revenue and create a business that's profitable.
[00:14:06] So that was really eye opening for me at two years and I hope that. If you're just starting out that you consider those things because it is not easy in the beginning you do everything yourself, but the biggest things come down to the decisions that you make about. About what you need and how are you going to invest in yourself to learn the things that you need to make the best decisions that will help your business thrive.
[00:14:42] So my first one, I probably spent like 5, 000, my first. Business course and I had to fly my whole family out of town to go to it and it was worth every single penny and at first I was like, I don't know, am I going to be able to make that money [00:15:00] back? And you don't make the money back hoping and wishing and praying that you make the money back.
[00:15:05] You make the money back by going into that class, going into that program, paying attention, taking notes, and then fricking executing on what they teach you. And then executing on it again and again, right? That's how you make that money back. But anytime you invest in yourself, it's totally worth it as long as you take some action.
[00:15:27] You don't even have to take a lot of action to get I didn't take all the action. I didn't take all the action at the beginning, but I slowly but surely started kept taking action. And then that's how I was able to help my business grow to a certain extent and then start a hand therapy secrets. And now hand therapy secrets is growing and thriving, and I'm going to continue to share what I know, share what I struggle with.
[00:15:52] So that it will be less and less painful for you. And you'll have to make different and better decisions. If this video has helped you, if you're [00:16:00] an occupational therapist and you're starting out and you're struggling, definitely get on my email list. I'm going to include the link below and I share even more in my emails.
[00:16:09] So hopefully I will, hear from you. If you get my email list and you have a. Follow up question about this particular topic. Definitely hit reply and send me your comments and questions. And maybe I'll make another video for you like this. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in until next time.
[00:16:29] Peace out.
