How to Hire Your First Employee for Your Therapy Clinic
===
[00:00:00] When you start your own therapy clinic, you do everything on your own. You clean, you do laundry, you're doing the therapy, you're doing the marketing. You literally are doing everything, but at some point you probably need to hire someone, right? So I'm going to share with you how to hire your first employee for your therapy clinic, and I'll share with you what I did in my therapy clinic to help you.
[00:00:21] My name is Hoang. I'm an occupational therapist, business owner, and author, and I started two companies in the last 10 years, and I'm going to share with you. Some of my wins and my mistakes so that I hope that it can help you grow your therapy business as well Within six months of starting my therapy clinic.
[00:00:41] I've realized I need to hire somebody Otherwise, I'm gonna sit here doing everything and You at some point you have to put a dollar amount to that kind of work and you have to ask yourself Do I want to do that dollar amount work or do I want to do higher [00:01:00] level dollar amount work that? Nobody else can do, but me, right?
[00:01:04] And so that's what can help shape your decision making in terms of when to hire, right? So I think often what I hear and really what I went through myself was I was afraid to hire my first person because one, it was going to cost me money to, I didn't know how to hire. I didn't know how it would find the right.
[00:01:29] Person that I thought would just stay with me for a really long time so I wouldn't lose money. All right, so a lot of my fears. Revolved around money and losing money versus hiring somebody who can actually help me make more money. And I think that I didn't have a change of that type of mindset until much earlier on until I started buying into different business programs and honestly different coaching [00:02:00] programs because when you start your own business, you're by yourself.
[00:02:03] Like you're literally by yourself working alone and no one to talk to. And if you're talking to anyone, they're not necessarily business oriented. And so you're stuck within the same loop of your head. And anyone who wants to talk to you about business probably isn't at your level. And so the conversations are not as helpful, right?
[00:02:23] So when I first started my business, I got other therapy businesses, other therapists who were like, Oh my God, I want to talk to you about business. I'm looking at growing mine. And so they're coming to you picking your brain, but you're like, I got nothing in this brain for you to pick. I'm hoping you and I can collaborate, but.
[00:02:40] That shit wasn't happening. I'm just sharing with you my story because literally within months of me opening a business, I had several different OTs reaching out to me and saying, Oh, you're doing this. And and really at the end of the day, taking a lot of your time talking about it, but because they hadn't done [00:03:00] what you're looking to do, they couldn't really contribute to it.
[00:03:03] So I'm hoping that I, if you're listening to this and you say until the end that, that this. It really helps you with hiring your first employee by far. The first hire that I had decided on was an admin. And I hired an admin first over a therapist. And sometimes people were like hire a therapist because the therapist can do the therapy and make more money for your business.
[00:03:31] But really at the end of the day. In order for a therapist to have a full schedule and for you to do higher level work in your business somebody's got to set the appointment. Someone's got to do the paperwork. Someone's got to call and make sure they're coming. There's a ton of admin stuff.
[00:03:48] If you take. Insurance. There's a lot of insurance work, authorizations and things like that. If you're cash only, there's a ton of follow up, right? Tons of follow up in a cash based business. And so I [00:04:00] think one of the very first employees that's going to help grow your business or grow your.
[00:04:07] Schedule, is an ad, like a front desk, an admin. But I was very afraid that I one wouldn't have enough work for her. And two that there was a lot of. Time and training that I was going to have to give and that was going to be even more of my time But and it's true you do give more your time to train But here's also what happens is when you do train that person they can start to take more things off your plate and And you do, let's face it.
[00:04:40] You have to, as a therapist, you have to make money for yourself, but you have to make money to be able to afford that admin, that there, that, that new person coming in to help you. And what I have to do is I really have to let go of the fear that I didn't have enough work for her, right? I [00:05:00] started my first admin out at part time and honestly, if I could do it again, I'd do full time, really do full time.
[00:05:08] Because you can, the right person coming in can really help you take a lot of stuff off your plate. So the only thing you're doing is therapy and. And even on the marketing front, they can help you. So one, you have to, have to get your mind wrapped around it, around the fear of Oh my God, they're going to come.
[00:05:27] They're going to leave me. It's going to take so much time. Let go of that fear. And think about. All the great things that they could do instead of thinking about all the negative things that they could do, hire the right person. They're going to help to, fill up your schedule, keep your life organized, like your clinic life organized and take things off of your plate.
[00:05:50] So that's number one, the fear number two is, probably in the calculation of money, so you don't have to think about their whole salary. Let's say depending on where you are, there may, they're making like between 15, [00:06:00] 16 an hour, maybe even 20 depending, on the skill level that you're hiring for.
[00:06:05] So if you calculate, instead of calculating their whole year expenses and things like that, you can say, what. Is how much do I need for three months? How much do I need for six months just in terms of their salary alone? And then that way you can make and bank a certain amount of that.
[00:06:25] And then that way you'll be more comfortable hiring the person who's going to then be able to fill your schedule up. Right and help you with all the administrative stuff. I didn't, I didn't take out loans or anything like that in order to hire. I saved that money. I worked. I saved that money.
[00:06:41] I banked it and then I hired. And then once I got one person in, I made. Plenty of mistakes. My first hire. I hired someone that I knew was looking for a part time position because I had a part time position and she was comfortable because I already knew her, but she was not the right person to [00:07:00] help me at all.
[00:07:01] I just knew her. And I was like, okay, you need a job. I need someone. And really that stems from laziness and fear. When a hundred percent on it, I was lazy. I didn't have to write up an ad. I didn't have to do interviews. I already knew her, but I also knew that she wasn't the right person for what I needed, but I did it out of comfort of laziness.
[00:07:23] the real work of hiring someone the right way. And yeah, so it was comfort and it was laziness and it was easy because it was part time. And within I don't know, two, three months, she was already. Onto the next job, from there I hired a full time person. I was like, I'm not going to do that again.
[00:07:42] Some people have family members that can work in their office. Some people have kids, but I really, honestly, I think that your first hire should. You want to put the effort into it because it makes you, it just makes you stronger. It just makes your process better and stronger.[00:08:00] I totally did it the lazy way.
[00:08:02] When I hired my therapist, I hired someone per diem and I actually, I put out a couple of posts. I looked around for a couple of therapists. I didn't have a. Full time schedule for them. But again, I hired out of convenience and and laziness comfort, comfort will make you lazy.
[00:08:23] But yes I hired someone per diem to, to help me out. At a time when they could help me out, I can help them out and, it, it did, it does work, but you just want to question, I feel like if I had just questioned everything I did. Instead of just like going for everything to be easy because.
[00:08:44] And when you start a business, it's small. And so everything feels really hard because you've never done it before. So because everything feels so hard, you start to think about like how do I do this easy? How do I do this a lazy way? How, how do I do it? Cause it makes me feel comfortable.
[00:08:59] [00:09:00] And to a certain extent, you have to fight that. You have to fight that urge. Otherwise you are going to blow your money. I blew my money. Because I hired someone who wasn't staying with me, who wasn't a good fit, and I knew she wasn't a good fit. And she knew she wasn't a good fit. You know how I know?
[00:09:14] Because I would tell her, don't come in with ripped jeans and open toed shoes. You have to wear clothes that, you know what she would do? She'd fucking come in with open toed shoes and ripped jeans. I'm like, she could wipe my ass. She could wipe her ass with my fucking comments, and I it pissed me off.
[00:09:28] But I'm like, oh, again, fucking desperation. Go watch that other video. It's you should never do things out of desperation. But yeah, I thought that I did not have enough for her. I have more than enough work. You will have more than enough work. I made a list of everything I was doing and I, for the second time I hired, which was better, I made a list of everything I was doing.
[00:09:56] I looked for someone who could help me do it. Who could help fill [00:10:00] as many buckets as possible, right? Bigger companies give you different strategies like, Oh, everyone's wearing one hat, in this small business when you're small and you're, you're growing from your bootstraps, like that person's got to help you with a little bit of everything, a little bit of everything.
[00:10:17] And my next hires were, were better. My next hire hired somebody who said all the right things, but then didn't prove it, didn't show it, and then she quit. Without notice within three weeks. My next hire was so much better. She stayed with me for a little bit longer. But she also had she also had her ideas of what she thought I should do.
[00:10:43] And then would give me attitude every single time. I didn't agree with her because I, that wasn't my vision for what I wanted to do. So that didn't work. I think I hired four times before I got the right person. The right person came in, she was bubbly, she [00:11:00] was, she had a great personality. She was just willing to, she was on my team.
[00:11:06] She was on team Huang. She was like, what girl what you need? What do you need? My answer the phone on my ask the questions. I'm going to write things down for you. You want me to do some social media posts for you? Sure. I'll take your pictures. I just gave her direction, but I will tell you attitude wins every single time because you can train for skills.
[00:11:29] She was straight out of high school, just got into college and she wanted a job that was close by her house. But honestly, I just looked for a great personality. Someone who, was, yeah, someone who was on my team. Someone who had that attitude yeah, you want me to do that? I'll do that.
[00:11:47] Nothing was beyond her, her. Like pride or ego, right? I was like, can you help me do the floors? Sure thing! Yeah, my space was like 300 square feet. Do the fucking floors in [00:12:00] two seconds, right? But she would do that. She would help me, like anything I needed she would help me and I think that When you're starting out your therapy clinic and you're looking to hire your first person, your first one you need someone to help you.
[00:12:14] You need to be like, yeah, I see I see your vision. I see your potential. Like you see their potential. They see your potential and they're willing to help you, and I'm honest. It's not like I couldn't be honest. Frickin square foot was 300 square feet. It's what was I lying about?
[00:12:32] What I didn't have was a bigger space. And I was like, within X amount of time, I'm going to grow into the space. Actually, I think I hired her when I was already in the big space. But within that, I was like, within a year, I'm going to move, within a short period of time, I'm going to work, I'm going to grow this company.
[00:12:48] I'm going to move us into a better, bigger, better location, right? Bigger, better location. I was in a dingy class C building. No windows. I opted for a sink because I do wound care. I opted for a sink inside my [00:13:00] clinic and no windows, right? I could either have a window that was a slither like this big or I could have a sink.
[00:13:06] I had one or the other. I couldn't have both. Now I have both, now I have a bathroom inside my office. I got a sink. I got floor to ceiling windows. I got natural lighting. But when I started to have that. But I could paint the picture of what I wanted my clinic to look like, how I saw my business growing, how I saw them growing in my business up to a certain extent, right?
[00:13:30] She was someone who's going into college and she wanted to study something in healthcare. I got you. What do you need from me? I can help you. If you can help me, I can help you. And so that was After the fourth hire, that was my right hire. Once I hired correctly, I was like, yes, that's how I hire. And from that point on, I was able to tweak my process, and now I have a process that I can share.
[00:13:59] I have a [00:14:00] process I can share of like how to hire correctly every each and every single time, each and every single time. Now that doesn't mean you won't have people quit on you, it doesn't mean you won't have somebody who's going to come in, say all the right things to you. And then within three weeks, they're quitting.
[00:14:18] That doesn't mean you won't hire the right person because they showed themselves a certain way and you hired them. And within two weeks, you were like, I need to fire you. That doesn't mean those things don't happen. They happen. But man, can you be faster? Can you be more efficient? So you're not fucking losing all your damn money that you worked so hard to get into your clinic.
[00:14:39] Into your business. And don't, if I was speaking to my younger self from 10 years ago, I'd be like, Girl, you can make more money. But you cannot get your time back. So don't be so scared to hire. You [00:15:00] have the leadership skills that it requires to hire, to lead, to help someone grow so they can help you grow.
[00:15:11] You can make more money so that you can build the kind of business that you. Dream of, but don't want to tell anyone I would tell her that I would tell her that because honestly, when you're first starting out and you're doing your first hire, there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of scarcity mindset that you won't have enough.
[00:15:36] But if I'm talking to my younger self of what I know now, there's always more money. And you can make more, but you can't get your time back. With more money, you can buy more time, right? Believe it or not, you with more money, you can buy more time. You can buy more flexibility. You can buy. [00:16:00] The leadership skills, you can buy the systems and processes with more money gives you the freedoms to make decisions better, faster and believe it or not, you can make more money.
[00:16:17] You can make more money and you'll prove it to yourself time and time again because you cannot fail when you believe in yourself. That's what I would tell her. Don't be scared to hire your first person. Don't be scared to hire your second person. Don't be scared to make all the mistakes. Because at the end of the day, it's the faster you make those mistakes, the faster you will learn from those mistakes, as long as you're open minded about it and the faster you will grow.
[00:16:48] And the faster you will be successful because of all your mistakes. That's what I would tell her. So that's my story for my first hires And I hope that it [00:17:00] helps you if you're thinking about starting out You're like afraid to hire your first person and you're looking to grow but you're so scared to hire your first person I hope that this helps you and if you want to join my OT business corner email list.
[00:17:16] I'm going to include the link right down below. I share even more stories and more tips inside my email list. So thanks for listening and until next time, peace out.
