Pricing and Selling Therapy Services
===
[00:00:00] Are there a lot of therapy business coaches that are telling you to increase your price and sell at the highest rate? And you're like, Oh, how do I do this? And why would I want to? Well, my name is Wong. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And I own my own therapy clinic in Miami.
And then I started hand therapy secrets to help mentor and provide clinical skills and business skills for other therapists. So pricing and selling. So here's the thing. As simple as it gets. If you have really low prices, you don't have to quote unquote sell as much because your low prices sell for you, right?
But if you do premium pricing, then you're going to have to do a couple of things that are different in terms of selling than, um, You know, like people want therapy services, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to go that extra mile. Um, and I talk about this quite a bit. I have a whole module on this inside my business, uh, OTE [00:01:00] business corner course, but I just want to break it down to you.
So I, you know, used to work at a therapy clinic that literally charged 50 a visit. 50 a visit. But here's the thing is that when it came down to 50 a visit, you have to have volume. So if your prices, all right, if your prices are down, then you have to have the expectation. Let me put this. You have the expectation of really high volume.
So I live in Florida reimbursement rates in the state of Florida from insurance companies. Our complete shit. It's a complete shit show. And so when you really think about it, um, businesses cannot sustain itself, especially small businesses, cannot sustain itself on the 50 visit that these insurance [00:02:00] companies be wanting.
to, um, to take. Now it's not your patient's job to know that their copay of 50 literally is the total amount that the insurance will pay you because the insurance will pay you. They'll send you a check that is like 0. It's the most, um, offensive check. I mean, you just wasted, uh, how many dollars to one send me?
Print it out, put a post it on it, and use a staff person or something to put the shit together, and then you want the audacity for me to accept 50. You're a patient. You're the business owner your patients do not know that and they you it's not your job like That's not selling right? You you don't want to sit there and berate them about their insurances 50 visits, right?
But here you have to you as a business owner You have to fundamentally understand that if you charge or [00:03:00] willing to accept insurance companies that pay you this amount You have to have high volume. So I worked at a therapy clinic. That was I saw three patients an hour. Um, there was other therapists who saw three patients an hour.
And then every once in a while we would have that fourth one come in, right? I mean, like, hello? Most companies are doing this, um, you know, high patient volume to low reimbursement rate. And they can get away with it because all they're looking at is volume. You can make that kind of money. You can, but you have to have like an, uh, an exorbitant amount of volume and that flow of like constant patients always coming in where you pay less and you have a high volume, um, you should expect, it's very natural to expect decreased level of services.
That's just what happens, right? You [00:04:00] cannot provide. I always say this. You cannot provide Ritz Carlton services at Motel 8 prices. You just can't, right? Subconsciously, your patients might know this, but outright, they won't. They want, right? You, yourself, you're a consumer too. So look at all this cheap shit you're buying.
Right. Look at all the cheap shit you're buying and not having to, you know, go through that sales process of anything. Uh, because you're just like, let me look for cheap. And then you're going to be pissed off that your service is not that great. So look at yourself, look at yourself and seeing what you're willing to tolerate.
Now, when it comes to low, you can get a cheap shirt, right? I love, I love old Navy jeans. I always buy that shit on sale. It's old navy jeans, but I like old navy jeans. So I'm okay with that Now when it comes to my bra And my [00:05:00] undergarments i'm a little prima donna, right? That shit need to feel good on my skin and I do not need to be fighting with these people So i'm willing to pay Premium prices For premium prices,
less volume. I might not need to buy as much, buy as often because they're supposed to be good quality stuff, right? But it's also something I value. I don't want to be scratching my ass, fumbling with my bra all the time, right? So I'm willing to pay premium prices at lower volume with the expectation of higher level services.
That's all it comes down to people. What kind of therapy clinic, therapy business do you want to run? Right? So [00:06:00] it's a very easy to sit here and compare. Oh my God. They opened another location. Wow. They have three or four locations. Oh my God. That's so wonderful. Most of those people are playing the low uh, prices so they don't have to sell.
They don't have to sell their services because automatically people are calling it. Yeah. Okay. What, what do you want? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 50. Uh, you need, right. They have a high level of, uh, volume. You're just gonna get people who are going to be more disrupted. They're gonna be people who are more unhappy because just because they're paying less doesn't necessarily mean that they want less services.
It's just they might accept the less services because you cannot see one to one patients getting 50 a visit, right? I'm gonna be honest with you. You just can't. Um, it's not feasible. You will be out of business [00:07:00] in like two seconds. And here's the reason why. Here are some of the, I wrote them down. Here are some of the reasons why you need to consider your pricing strategy and how to sell your services.
And the reason businesses need money, right? Businesses at the end of the day need money. You look at any business outside of small therapy businesses. Bills. You need bills. You will get bills whether you want them or not, and they go up all the time. I mean, my rent has gone up, the, the fees associated with my rent, so they're like, oh yeah, your base rent or whatever, but the ICAM, like whatever has gone up, things like that.
Unexpected bills. Unexpected bills, you know, they come up. Things come up. When we have a hurricane in Miami, I have a huge amount of cancellation rates. Nobody wants to come in because they are having to board up their home, go and buy their groceries. Um, and so do we, right? So unexpected things [00:08:00] come up. I mean, you look at COVID, the businesses that didn't make it through COVID didn't run their business well enough to be able to get through COVID.
I was able to get through COVID because I run my business in a way that keeps money in the bank. Right. Um, I run my personal life keeping money in the bank and yes, I did well the first three months, but then after that for the last every year after COVID, there has been, um, you know, consequences of that pandemic through the last, what, four or five years.
Right. So just cause we made it through, um, by the skin of our teeth, it doesn't mean there wasn't more shit to come afterwards. So unexpected things come up and I, I'm a saver. Like I have personal savings. Um, we went down to the bare minimum when, when it comes, when it's rain or shine, when it's fucking raining, we go down to [00:09:00] the bare minimum and we don't do shit and we save our money because I also needed.
To be able to pay my bills because just because I don't treat like or you know If our business got shut down or something like that, um You know, I still have to pay my rent. Otherwise, I lose her. Otherwise, they're gonna take me to court, right? So you have bills that always go up You have unexpected bills that are going to come whether you want it or not.
And then three, like this is the most important part is that you want to hire, you want to be able to hire people to come onto your team to help you grow your business and you need money for that, right? So you have to, if you're playing this low price, High volume. You better take all that money, but save some of that because you're going to need to hire more people if you plan the premium price game, you're going to have less people.
It's going to cost you more to get those people, right? But then you're still going to need to see your profit margins might be higher, right? [00:10:00] But you're going to save that money because you're going to need to be able to hire top notch people. You're charging premium price. They don't want Poor service.
They don't want, you know, inexperienced therapists that don't want to learn the skills that are required to work in your clinic. Right? And so you have to hire and you have to hire top-notch people and sometimes. Um, you might not pay them a lot at the beginning. This is my model. I don't pay a lot at the beginning.
I'm a small business, but there are other things that I provide that you have to decide to put a dollar amount to and say, okay, that's worth it. And I'm willing to like, think of the long run instead of short term. Right. So a lot of people think of short term. They're like, I want the most amount of money right now.
I don't give a shit about anything else. And then there's people who like, They have their eye on the prize. There's a long term prize that's higher than any short term prize, but at this time they might be willing to take a [00:11:00] little bit less so that their long term prize is even more than they ever dreamed of.
When we're in business, we play that game, or you should play that game. You need to, you know, like I need to play a game, uh, if you want to stay in business long term, but hiring, you need money to hire, right? So that's one of the reasons why you got to save, right? Um, and then you, you want to raise, I want to raise.
I want to raise every so many years. I'm like, okay, I'm working my ass off. I need to raise, I need to be able to structure my business in a certain way that gives me the opportunity for a raise. Right. And then last and not least your staff want to raise, you know, we as a small business, don't give out raises the way, um, you know, corporate America does.
What does corporate America do? Between a raise of 1 to 3 percent and they're always everybody, their mother's getting 1 percent because they don't, they don't make it doable to get 2 to 3%, you know, but your staff want to raise. And so, um, you've got to look at different ways in which you can give them a critical [00:12:00] raise and raises aren't necessarily always tied down to money.
It can be tied to benefits, tied to bonuses, things like that. When you're talking about your pricing strategy and you talk about selling this, when you're doing low volume. You don't have to sell much, but if you're doing a premium, listen, girl, you're going to have to learn this skill because it's all about the skill that then is going to get you patients that are willing to come in and pay for your service.
Let me tell you, my best patients, my best patients have always been my premium. paying patients. They are the nicest. They are the most committed. They show up for their appointments. They call me and text me before if they can't make it. They pay all of their bills. Like I had this one lady, um, she was paying for her son's, um, he had an extensor tendon laceration [00:13:00] and they, um, and don't make assumptions about people.
Don't make assumptions. They, if you look at them, some people might be like, Oh, like, Oh, they can't pay. I was like, no, no, no. Do not make assumptions. Just tell them what we offer, what we can do and what we can do to help them. And, um, they told us, they were like, well, you know, she was working part time. He wasn't working.
She's working minimum wage. She doesn't make that much money. And she was like, I won't make this work. And I was like, what do I need to do to make this work for you? Um, so they were like, So, you know, you're going to need, I was like, most people need 24 visits. I mean, most people need 24 visits. What can you do?
If you can do like 10 to 12, like I will show you everything else that you need to do. The key thing here is people need 24 visits because most people can't do it by themselves. And I was like, but I will tell you what to, I will show you what to do. And then I just need you to do it. And if you can do that.
Like you can do really well with [00:14:00] like fewer visits. How about that? I set the expectation because I have the opportunity to work with them so closely. I can set the expectation and provide that level of service for them. And guess what? She made her payments. And we said that, um, come get all your therapy right now.
We created payment plans for them, right? So come in, get your therapy right now, because you know, with a post surgical case, time is of the essence. And I was like, You know, I need you to come in and do all your therapy right now and you can take time to pay it. Right. And that's a, that's the thing that we provided.
And she was like, this is what I'm going to do to save this. And she paid it. She paid her bill. Let me tell you, every not one person. I had another guy who came in and he actually, he probably need, I think he needed like 24 visits. Um, he could have done with the less, Right, but he wanted to come in. He was like, I want to come in and have therapy done for me.
Um, I [00:15:00] would rather do that because I know myself and I'm not good at doing it on my own and I need my hands. Sure enough, came in, his mom was paying it, all of a sudden his mom couldn't pay the bills anymore and we're like, Yeah, you still owe this much. And he was like, yeah, you know, I'm really sorry. He was, what do I need to do?
Um, I was like, well, you know, you can pay this much. And he's like, I can't pay that much. It took him, we made like, we agreed to a long term payment plan for him. Normally we don't do this, but considering he was so good at the beginning and it was just because some stuff happened, he made sure every month that he made a payment.
Um, as small as it was, he was able to pay. And I think that that goes to show you like, we took it, you know, when you sell, don't think like, Oh, I'm, I'm like, uh, hardcore, you know, um, uh, used car salesman person, right? I'm not, I'm just like, Hey, what do you need? This is [00:16:00] what you need. This is what I have to offer.
Tell me more about this. And I can go into more, um, about our selling, like our, you know, just like our customer service, essentially what it is. It's our level of customer service that we provide for the people who call us. And, um, then they make a decision on working with us. That's pretty much a selling, selling, you know, we have great conversations and we help them make a decision.
And then they make a decision and they're willing to, you know, You know, pay for the services that they want because they're not able to get anywhere else. So from a business standpoint, you as a business owner, there's no right or wrong, there's no right or wrong. But I can tell you right now, the people who I work with that sell at premium prices, they're happier in their business.
There's different problems, right? There's different problems. Um, and a lot of it is marketing. A lot of it is, um, you know, you have to spend to market, [00:17:00] right? Um, in the volume game, it becomes a lot about, um, you know, they, they make money cause automatic. So they spend less and actually spend less in marketing, but they'll spend more in hiring.
What do you want to spend your money? What do you want to spend your money? Um, so in the volume game, they have to hire therapists who are willing to treat three to four patients at a time. Now, most of the time therapists are treating like four patients in Florida. It's not uncommon for, for, um, therapists treat four patients at a time, you know, not just in small businesses, but in big businesses, because that's how they get a return on their investment, right?
When they pay you your salary. That's an investment. Um, and then, you know, you have to be able to deliver on, on that. So I, I hear a lot of, you know, chatter like, Oh, it's so unfair. It's not about fairness. It's about business. And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can decide, you know, which game you want to play [00:18:00] in terms of a business standpoint.
So, um, so yeah, you, I'm talking to you as a business owner, you've got to make those decisions. Um, but the people who play at the low price volume, um, you know, They, they hate their life in a different way. They're just like, if I could do this all over again, I don't think I would do it this way. You can freaking change a dude.
You can freaking change. It's just a couple of different skills. Um, because. The profit margins are different. The work style is different. And, um, I want to play this game all day. I'd rather provide top notch service, um, low volume, but give it, give all, give my all to you versus like just churning shit out and not being proud of my work.
Um, so as a small business, you decide what you want, but if you want to play that premium game, you're going to need to learn how to sell. Alright, that's the shit of it. Um, and you can do it and [00:19:00] we are not taught as therapists, especially as OTs Especially as CHGs. Um You are not taught this you will need to come and learn this shit like period That I am going to end my soap talk if you have any questions on that But all means leave me a comment below and I'd love to create more videos like this for you for next time See you later
