Don't Lose High Value Patients - Do This Instead
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[00:00:00] You're an occupational therapist with your own small business building it up and you're actually losing higher value clients and you don't even know it. My name is Hwang. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. I own my own clinic and I also own Hand Therapy Secrets to help occupational therapists develop their clinical skills and their business skills.
So I'm going to share with you What's currently happening and what I'm seeing. And, um, this is a personal experience, but you're losing your higher value clients and you don't even know it because you're chasing comfort. You're chasing this idea of like you can help everyone. Um, I was at personally at a business conference and I'm surrounded by physical therapists and the physical therapist was telling me like he was looking for occupational therapy for his.
And he is calling around town, right? Calling around town. Occupational therapists are not [00:01:00] calling. Occupational therapists are, they're not calling him back. Occupational therapists have no space on their schedule. The waiting list is out of control. They are so busy that, um, they don't have room for new patients.
They're not able to, you know, um, have the space or hire therapists to see them. They Um, really at the end of the day, you're losing these higher value clients that could be with you. for weeks, months, and potentially even years. And I don't give a shit what area of occupational therapy you provide. I personally provide therapy in the, um, you know, orthopedic space.
Maybe you're an occupational therapist and you work in the neural space. You work in the home space, you work in the pediatric space. It does not matter, but you're losing higher value clients because you're not doing this one thing. You're not doing this one thing and it is building a follow up system.
I [00:02:00] was so embarrassed when they were talking about it. It's like all this These people want the best for their child, right? People want the best for themselves. And you, as an occupational therapist, you're chasing your comfort zone, right? And I'm going to challenge you here because, I mean, I'm not here to be nice.
I'm here to help you grow your business, right? I'm here to help you make money. In your business so you can see what is possible for you. Um, and this idea sometimes is OTs think, Oh, like we can help everybody. You know, and what happens in helping everybody is that we're helping the people we're comfortable helping.
We're help, we're comfortable keeping our prices down and then sitting there and bitching that nobody wants to pay OTs, right? I can tell you right now as a business owner, with my own clinic. If my prices do not go up, I cannot sustain being able to hire a therapist at the value, at the level, at the [00:03:00] price point that they want to be paid.
People want to OTs want to make money, but yet we're not charging enough, right? So your level of comfort is the fact that you are not raising your prices, your, you have absolutely no follow up system to follow up with people. So we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about the follow up system because I think I've already spoken about price.
I can speak about price again. You can leave me a comment below, but you've got to build in a follow up system so that you can keep in contact with people who are calling it interest in your business. Right. Um, It is so important to do that. I actually, um, had a, um, I have a need, right? So I needed a lawyer.
I needed a lawyer to help draw some stuff up. I had seen this, um, lawyer's information. I went on her webpage. I listened to one of her talks before. [00:04:00] And at the time that I heard her, I didn't, I wasn't ready. I didn't need all the stuff that she was talking about. But she stayed, you know, if I stayed in her follow up system, one day I would need her help.
This is that one day, called her up, sent her a message, got on her website, right? The thing is, is that most people, you know, want your services as an occupational therapist. They, it might take them a little while to make a decision. To come to you. They might not be able to book like right away. They might just be shopping around but if you As a therapy clinic owner you have some form or fashion or follow up system You can keep in contact with them and they'll eventually come into your business and you will be um Basically nurturing somebody who's like a higher value client.
What do I mean by higher value? They want to work with you. Number one, [00:05:00] they are coming to you. You are not chasing them. That changes the dynamic of how someone shows up to your clinic. They'll actually show up better. They'll actually do the thing that you're asking them to do so they can get the results that they're telling you that they want.
You're losing these higher value clients because you're constantly, you know, chasing the, the thing that is right now. You're constantly, you know, You know, instead of making the decision to get a CRM software to build out your funnels to create a system and process that then has this follow up system that can help you, right?
Um, if you want to build a follow up system, you need some technology. to your advantage, right? Technology. What I mean by that is CRM system is a customer relationship management system where they, you know, you can have them give you their name and information and you're [00:06:00] able to, um, send them emails every once in a while.
If you're on my email list, I have a customer relationship management system and every week I send you some valuable content. Right. I send you something like this. I send you a video. I might send you my perspective. I might send you some tips about it, but one day you'll watch me and then you'll be like, Oh, I kind of really like what she's saying.
What she says makes sense. So I can send you an email. I can also send you a text message, right? So I'm not working off of my personal phone. I have a business phone. I have a business phone and a program and software that allows me to send people text messages. Now my text messages, Automated but you can do things that are automated.
So you you can send them out every every once in a while. I personally I'm not a big fan of the automated text messages, but they can work [00:07:00] very well. So I have a small. therapy clinic, um, and then, you know, I'm building my online program and I, you know, my personal choice is to go through phone calls, um, go through personal text messages and then do email.
So those are my three follow up systems. I call, I text, and I email, uh, but I have technology to my advantage to help me. Um, and it's such an important, you know, it's such an important element and we cannot, you know, if you're, if you're starting your business and in 2024, you're sitting here, you're learning because you want to start something in 2025 and you're sitting there and you're listening to these, these people have been in business for 20, 30 years, or, um, they're used to something else and they're not moving along with the technology.
I'm going to tell you right now, you're going to fall behind and you're going to sit and you're going to struggle. And there, there are no medals for struggling. There's no medal for struggling. There's no medal for being poor. There's no medal for not [00:08:00] having any profit in your business and feeling like you have to close down and now get a job, right?
There are just some things that you have to understand and change with time. As an occupational therapist, I hear this message all the time. Oh, well, this is the way it used to be. It's not that way anymore. You want to live in the past. Uh, the future will move whether you like it or not. Things are moving and things are changing.
People need your services and you're losing out on high value clients. Value high value clients, meaning that they're willing to pay you more. They're willing to skip the line to get to you because you have something really valuable for them. that they need high value clients or how they show up, how they show up eager to work with you, wanting to work with you, doing the things that are necessary to work with you, right?
It changes the dynamic when you're no longer chasing people, right? It changes the dynamic when you have a Steady flow of patients [00:09:00] versus going up and down, up and down. That's how I started my business. You know, someone who with 20 years of experience told me, Hey, you just gotta go knock on doctor's doors, knock on doctor doors, right?
And then I would get really busy and then, um, as soon as those patients were done, because I was so busy, I wouldn't be knocking on those doors anymore. And then my caseload would plummet. So I was going through feasts and famine, feasts and famine, and it didn't feel nice. It did not feel nice for the first two years.
And then I started to work on building a follow up system so that I can attract, right? Attract higher value clients who come into my clinic, who want to work with me, who are willing to drive, who are willing to show up for their appointments. Um, and they're willing to pay my prices. Right? So, you know, keep that in mind, you're, you're, you're losing these high value clients because you're not willing to do the necessary work to do it.
[00:10:00] to create a follow up system and then actually do the work of following up with people. It is so essential in order to build your business. Um, one of my, one of the members in my business corner program, she doesn't yet have a system. But just from following up with the few people that she has, her leads, she's already sold thousands of dollars, um, and made her money back inside the business corner, um, the, the OT business corner program, right?
That follow up system will make you money time and time again and allow you to believe that you're capable of creating this business. It's that proof of concept you need. Build that business. Build that, um, follow up system, emails, text messages, and phone calls, right? Use technology to make your life easier.
If you need more help, um, links are all below. And if you have any other questions about building your business, leave them [00:11:00] below and I'll make more videos just like this one.
