How to Hire Your First Employee for Your Therapy Clinic (1)
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[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. 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.
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?
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 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 were, revolved around money and losing money versus hiring somebody who can actually help me make more money. Um, and I think that I didn't have a change of that type of mindset until much earlier on, until I started buying into, um, different business programs and [00:02:00] honestly different coaching programs because When you start your own business, you're by yourself.
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?
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, 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 That shit wasn't happening. I'm just sharing with you my story. Cause literally within months of me opening a business, I had several different OTs reaching out to me and saying, you know, Oh, you're doing this. And, um, and really at the end of the day, taking a [00:03:00] lot of your time talking about it, but because they hadn't done what you're looking to do, they couldn't really contribute to it.
Um, so I'm hoping that I, you know, if you're listening to this and you say until the end that, but this. 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, 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, um, work in your business, um, 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. You know, there's a ton of admins up. If you take. there's a lot of insurance work, [00:04:00] authorizations and things like that. If you're cash only, there's a ton of followup, right? Tons of followup, um, in a cash based business.
And so I think one of the very first employees that's going to help grow your, your business or grow your Schedule, right. Um, is an ad, like a front desk, an admin. Um, but I was very afraid that I one wouldn't have enough work for her. And two, um, 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 of 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, um, And you do, I mean, like, let's face it. You have to, as a therapist, you have to make money for yourself, [00:05:00] but you have to make money to be able to afford that admin, that there, that, that new person coming in to help you. Um, and what I had to do is I really had to let go of the fear that I didn't have enough work for her.
Right. Um, I started my first admin out at part time and honestly, honestly, if I could do it again, I would. Do full time, you know, really do full time. Um, because you can, you know, the right person coming in can really help you, um, take a lot of stuff off your plate. So the only thing you're doing is therapy and, you know, marketing and even on the marketing front, they can help you.
Um, so one, you have to, you know, have to get your mind wrapped around it around the fear of like, Oh my God, they're going to come, they're going to leave me. It's going to take so much time. Let go of that fear. Um, Think about all the great things that they could do instead of thinking about all the negative things that they could do.
[00:06:00] Hire the right person. They're gonna help to, you know, fill up your schedule, keep your life organized, you know, like your clinic life organized, and take things off of your plate. So that's number one, the fear. Number two is, you know, Probably in the calculation of money. So you don't have to think about their whole salary.
Like, let's say, um, depending on where you are, there may, you know, they're making like between 15, 16 an hour, maybe even 20, uh, depending, you know, on the skill level that you're hiring for. Right. So if you calculate, instead of calculating their whole year, Expenses and things like that, you can say, you know, 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 you can make and bank a certain amount of that and then that way you'll be more comfortable hiring the person who's going to then [00:07:00] Be able to fill your schedule up right and help you with all the administrative stuff.
Um, I didn't you know, I didn't take out loans or anything like that in order to To hire I saved that money. I worked I saved that money. I banked it and then I hired Um, and then once I got one person in now, I made three Plenty of mistakes. My first hire, I hired someone that I knew, uh, 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 help me at all.
Um, 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 mid, 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.
of doing the real work of hiring [00:08:00] someone the right way. Um, and um, yeah, so it was, it was comfort and it was laziness. And it was easy because it was part time. And, um, within like, I don't know, two, three months, she was already, On to the next job, you know, so, uh, from there I hired a full time person. I was like, I'm not gonna do that again.
Um, some people have family members that can work in their office, some people have kids, but I really, honestly, I think like your first hire should be You want to put the effort into it because it makes you, gosh, it just makes you stronger. It just makes your process better and stronger. Um, I totally did it the lazy way.
When I hired my, my therapist, I hired someone per diem. And I actually, you know, I put out a couple of posts. Um, I looked around for a couple of therapists. I didn't have a full list. Full time schedule [00:09:00] for them. Um, but again, I hired out of convenience and, um, and laziness. Uh, comfort, you know, comfort will make you lazy.
Um, but yes, I, I hired someone per diem to, to sort of help me out. Um, at a time when they could help me out, I can help them out and, you know, it, it did, it does work, but you just want to question, I feel like if I had just questioned everything I did. Um, instead of just like going for everything to be easy, because 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, you start to think about like, how, how do I, how do I do this easy? How do I do this a lazy way? How, you know, how do I do it? Cause it makes me feel comfortable. And to a certain extent, you have to fight that.
You have to fight that urge. Otherwise you are going to blow your [00:10:00] 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? So tell her don't come in with ripped jeans and open toe shoes.
You have to wear closer. You know what she would do? She'd fucking come in with open toe shoes and ripped jeans. I'm like, she could wipe my ass. Uh, you know, she could wipe her ass with my fucking comments, you know? And I, like, it pissed me off, but I'm like, Oh, Again, fucking desperation. Go watch that other video.
It's like, 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, you know, for the second time I hired, which was better, I made a list of everything I was doing.
I looked for someone who could help me do it, you know, who could help fill as many buckets as [00:11:00] possible. Right. So, you know, bigger companies, Um, give you different strategies like, Oh, everyone's wearing one hat, you know, in a small business, when you're small and you're, you know, 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.
And my next hires were, you know, were better. I, my next hire hired somebody who said all the right things, but then didn't prove it, didn't show it. And then she quits. Without notice within three weeks. My next hire was so much better. She stayed with me for a little bit longer. Um, but she also had like, she also had her ideas of what she thought I should do.
Um, 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 [00:12:00] person. The right person came in. She was bubbly. She was, she had a great personality. She was just willing to, she was on my team.
She was on team Huang. She was like, what's your girl? What do 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. Um, I just gave her direction, but I will tell you attitude wins every single time because you can train for skills.
She was, uh, straight out of high school, just got into college and she wanted a job that was close by her house. Um, but honestly, I just looked for great personality. Someone who, you know, was, yeah, someone who was on my team. Someone who had that attitude, like, yeah, you want me to do that? I'll do that.
Nothing was beyond her, you know, her, Like pride or ego, [00:13:00] 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 like two seconds, right? But she would do that. She would help me, you know, like anything I needed she would help me. And I think that when you're when you're starting out your therapy clinic And you're looking to hire your first person, your first one, you, you need someone to help you, you need to be like, yeah, you know, I see, um, I see your vision, I see your potential, like you see their potential, they see your potential and they're willing to help you.
You know, and I, I'm honest, like, it's not like I couldn't be honest. Frickin square foot was 300 square feet. I mean, it was like, what was I, what was I lying about? You know, 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, you know, [00:14:00] within, um, a short period of time, I'm going to work.
I'm going to grow this company. I'm gonna move us into a better, bigger, better location, right? Bigger, better location. I was in a dingy, um, uh, class C building. No windows. I opted for a sink because I do wound care. I opted for a sink inside my clinic and no windows, right? I could either have a window that was a slither like this big or I could have a sink.
I had one or the other. I couldn't have both. Now I have both, you know. Now I have a bathroom inside my office. I got a sink. I got Floor to ceiling windows, you know, I got natural lighting. Um, 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, growing in my business up to a certain extent, right?
She was, uh, someone who's going into college and she wanted to study something in healthcare. I got you. What, what do you need from me? I can help you. If you can help [00:15:00] 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. I have a 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 you it doesn't mean you won't have somebody who's Is gonna come in, say all the right things to you, and then within three weeks they're quitting.
That doesn't mean, um, 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. Right. 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 [00:16:00] to, to get into your clinic, you know, into your business.
And so, um, don't, you know, if I'm speaking to my younger self from ten 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 have the leadership skills that it requires to hire, to lead, to help someone grow so they can help you grow. You can, you can make more money so that you can build the kind of business that you, that you want to do.
Dream of but don't want to tell anyone I would tell her that I would tell her that um 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 [00:17:00] that that you won't have enough but if i'm talking to my younger self of what I know now There's always more money and you you can make more but you can't get your time back.
So With more money you can buy more time. I believe or not you with more money. You can buy more time You can buy more flexibility You can buy The leadership skills, you can buy the systems and processes, uh, with more money, gives you the freedoms to make decisions better, faster, and, and believe it or not, you can make more money.
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. [00:18:00] 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. Um, 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, 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 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.
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 [00:19:00] listening and until next time peace out.
