When to hire a therapist
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[00:00:00] When's the best time to hire? Uh, especially for a therapy position. Like you started your business to make more money and to have more flexibility. Now you've got money, but you have no flexibility. You can barely take any time off. Well, my name is Hoang. I'm an OTCG. And when I started my business, That happened to me.
I started making money and I was like, glued to my clinic, glued to my clinic. And within a specialty, I was like, how do I find another therapist? Other therapy clinics were being like, well, it's just harder than Purdue and this and that other. And, um, It just didn't work for me. So anyway, I wanted to share with you What I thought when is the best time to hire a therapist?
So again, my name is Huang I'm an otch and i've been in business for over a decade I started my brick and mortar business and then within five years that I started my online business and so Welcome. If you're here for [00:01:00] the first time, if you're returning, thanks for watching. This is why I make these videos.
And if you want more information and tips like that, get on my email list. I'm going to include the links below for you. And, um, if you're interested in some more personalized help, then the links are also below. I have an OT business corner program for you, um, that has more details about hiring and the training process around that.
Um, but if you're looking for a more, Personalized attention. There's also a link for a one on one consult, uh, consultation. So this is one of the reasons why I'm bringing up this topic because I had a one on one consultation with a business owner who's been in business for over 20 years. And, um, it's like, Um, even though he's hired before, he's still, you know, having trouble hiring right now.
And that's because, you know, there's a lot of things that change in the market and just knowing [00:02:00] when to hire a therapist is really, really key. So I'm going to share with you some of the takes just cause it's fresh in my mind. But, um, you want to start to hire a therapist. As soon as you start to see that you can consistently Fill your schedule.
So for me, that was a year into it. I was able to consistently fill my schedule. Actually within six months I could already see that I was gonna need help. So part of being a business owner is having the ability to, um. have the ability to be able to forecast or be able to anticipate problems. Right? So about six months into me starting my business, I was like, Oh my God, I'm so busy.
I could barely take time off. Um, and I had this opportunity at this opportunity to go on literally a free [00:03:00] vacation, um, to Europe and I couldn't take it. I had to turn it down because I had no one working for me, much less a therapist. So if I closed my doors, that meant that I had no income coming in.
Cause when you're a business owner, you. You know, eat what you kill, right? It's kind of the analogy. Um, so you eat what you harvest basically. Um, unlike an employee, they take time off, they still get paid, you know? Um, so I If I shut my business doors down, I didn't make money for that time period. But here's the thing is that you also don't make money later because you are turning away anyone new.
I work in, you know, a very medical space, meaning, you know, as a certified hand therapist, I have room care cases and I, [00:04:00] I. personally did not want to not treat my wound care cases for a week because it's detrimental to them. You know, if you were in a more non medical space, being off for a week might not be as detrimental, but when you're closed for a certain period amount of time, anyone knew.
Get skipped over. And so that hurts your business later on, like a month or two later on when you don't have those new patients, right, you don't have those new referrals. And so you in order to capture all that and want to be able to build a more sustainable business, not just for the money, but for your flexibility for you to be able to take time off.
I mean, I had a I had a young family and I wanted to be able to take time off and do vacations and stuff like that with them. And I found that I just couldn't do it. And when I, you know, the first time I hired, when I was on vacation, I was on the [00:05:00] phone with the therapist, coaching her, mentoring her the whole freaking time, which is then not a vacation for me.
Right? So what is the best time to hire a therapist? The best time to hire a therapist is before you really get busy. Right? So I'm going to put it in percentages just in case if you feel like you're 80 percent full, right, if you feel like your schedule is 80 percent full, start putting the ads out because it takes a little bit of time to get the right people coming in.
Right. As we speak right now, um, this is March of 2024 and the marketplace in terms of a therapist looking for jobs has really slowed down for a lot of areas, right? Especially in the PT realm. So PTs [00:06:00] are having a really hard time. They're struggling to find physical therapists that, that want to work. And I would say even in the OT space, there's a hard, uh, you know, it's hard to find there's OTs.
There's people looking, but when you're a small business owner, you're looking for the right therapist. You're not looking for any therapist. You're looking for someone who values what you value, want to do what you offer. Right? And that's the biggest thing I've had therapists come to my clinic because they know me or because they've seen me in the community and they come and they're like, Hey, you know, I know how to treat hands.
Um, but I only want to, you know, work from seven to two with an hour lunch. Like, you know, I've got young kids. I don't want to be working full time. I only want these [00:07:00] hours. And I'm like, to me, I'm like, thank you. But no, thank you. Right, not a disrespect to them, but those aren't my clinical hours. I need someone from 7 to 4.
Those are the times my 7 o'clock at my clinic is consistently full. For the over 10 years that I've run, I would say 90 percent of the time my 7 a. m. is booked, packed even, right? Because in my location, for my people, apparently, they want the 7 o'clock appointments. And if someone is coming in, they're like, well, I would love to work with you, Hwang, but they only want to work when they want to work.
It doesn't work for me. So now I have to come at seven until you decide and then I have to, you know, I have family too. Like I didn't [00:08:00] build my business. to you. I built my business to cater to me and my lifestyle. And I'm sharing that with you because you as a business owner need to realize that you're building a business for you and you need to find the therapist that will fit your needs, not the other way around.
And the best time to do that is when you're not Desperate. So in this one on one consultation, you know, this therapy owner, he's getting desperate. He's like, I am, you know, I am short staffed and I'm having to fill in all the time. So then what happens is, you know, the real reason why he's coming to me is I'm helping him build his online, um, program and he has no time for that.
So he's not taking any of the necessary steps. That's another story. But I'm like, [00:09:00] dude, you need to hire. And sometimes you need to hire an occupational therapist. Dude, I've been telling this guy for months now. I'm like, you know, if you want to constantly pay me for me to tell you the same thing, I will.
Um, so, you know, there's a resistance you have to explore and there's a resistance. Why are you resistant to it? Um, so I'm like, you can hire an OT. You can, you already have a caseload for this OT because how many upper extremity cases, how, you know, the, the hiring of an OT and a PT, it's literally the same, you know, we're not that different.
What you're looking for is someone who has the same values wants to work and do the same things that you have that you're bringing in to your clinic, you're working with very active people, you're [00:10:00] working with active students, find an OT. I mean, that's the best OTs cannot wait to get their hands on someone who wants to be active with a very particular activity, right?
Hello, you know, we should we know how to dissect it. A problem based on the activity. That's that's activity analysis 101, right? You find an OT that knows how to do that. Um, it knows how to evaluate. It knows how to treat. You're, you're good. You're golden. There's so many OTs out there looking for the opportunity to work with you.
And I would say that as an OT, you might be able to explore hiring a Um, a PT, if you're in PEDS, you know, speech and OT work really well together, you might be looking to be, you know, um, you know, that's a whole nother story. Hold on. Let me, that, that takes me digression into like a whole nother topic of expansion of services, but, but, you know, when you're [00:11:00] hiring a therapist, like you don't want to be in a position where you're so desperate that you're not making the right decision.
Right. So, cool. That's what I would encourage. And this is the conversation that I had with, um, with this. business owner of hiring. It's like you, there has to be as a business owner, here's another, you know, here's another, um, thing that I, I brought up, I mean, outside of hiring, you know, at the 80 percent where, so you're not desperate, start those ads early, keep them going.
Put them into a lot of different places, but at the end of the day, like when you have a problem, you can't sit there and bitch about like, Oh, I can't find anyone. Oh, you know, no, there's always a solution. And that has to be ingrained in your brain as a business owner, that there's always a solution. And sometimes it's hard [00:12:00] to see the solution when you're so deep in the problem that you have no room to breathe.
Right. And that's why seeking outside counsel is so important. And he's like, why didn't I think of that? It's okay. There's a saying, you know, when you're inside the jar, you can't read the outside label and it's because you're so close to the, uh, to the problem. And that's why it's important to get. You know, independent outside perspective, um, like this business doesn't affect my business.
What he's doing doesn't affect me. So I can give really great sound perspective and that he can take action on because I mean, how many more months of this are we going to tolerate? You know, so that's what I wanted to share with you today when it comes to hiring, you know, [00:13:00] really think about anticipating that problem before it happens and then also making sure that there's a solution to every problem.
There's a solution to every single problem. I had a lot of problems when I, you know, first was hiring and finding that therapist and I have solutions to it. I've done it. I'm doing it. I'm still doing it. Um, and even myself, I seek outside counsel, you know, so, uh, sometimes. You know, it's worth the saving the time and saving the money of, you know, money lost, right?
Money spent, uh, on ads that are not attracting the right people. Like, so you really need to think about that when you're, you know, truly a business owner. And you want that, you, you want that ability to make more to help your business grow. You, um, want more flexibility in your [00:14:00] life, you know, no matter where you are, whatever, uh, phase you are in your life, you can be much younger and have no kids and want the flexibility to travel, uh, or you have a family already.
You want the flexibility to do things with your kids. You know, whatever it is, you are in business because you want to make more money and you want more flexibility. There's something you want in this business and um, you're going to be able to achieve it, but sometimes it requires you being able to be brave and to be able to hire other people to come into your business and be able to help you.
Right. So that was top of mind for me, uh, after having some of my, uh, one on one consultations. And so my next one, I'm going to share with you, when should you fire your therapist? Because that was my other consultation. So Bye. Uh, click the links below. If you enjoyed tips and advice like this, I send out emails, um, weekly email on [00:15:00] Wednesday for people in my OT business corner, as well as some links below.
If you want to get more in depth with the training that I provide, the business coaching program that I provide. And also if you just need a one off one on one consultation, all the links are below for you. All right. Thanks. Peace out until next time.
