Develop Your OT Business in 2024 with This One Essential Strategy
===
[00:00:00] There's only one skill that you need to develop as a therapy business owner and you have to be relentless about this. I'm going to share with you right now what it is and it is It's about selling. My name is Wong. I'm an Occupational Therapist and Certified Hand Therapist and over 10 years ago I started my therapy clinic and then 5 years ago I started Hand Therapy Secrets to help other therapists develop their clinical skills and their business skills.
And selling is such a huge, like it feels like a no no. It feels like, oh my god, I don't want to be sleazy, I don't want to have to sell anything, but I promise you, it does not have to be sleazy. It does not have to be. overly stressful, uh, but it is a skill just like anything else that you have to develop if you want to win in this game of business.
If you want to make money, uh, which is why you started a business, right? You don't want to have a business and not have it make any money for you. It is the most frustrating thing. Um, cause you worked so hard. You know that you don't want to have a business that just doesn't [00:01:00] make money for you Um, you want to be able to hire eventually, right if you're just starting on your own I get it.
You're just not sure but let me tell you within a year of having my business I knew I needed to hire and within two years. I was like, holy shit needs to hire a third therapist. And, um, here's the thing. When it comes to selling, it's not just selling to your patients, right? Number one, you're selling to your patients.
Number two, you're selling to any referral source, right? Uh, if you work in the, you know, insurance space,
If you have staff, you're selling yourself to your staff. People have to want to work with you, and they have to want to work with you, uh, in multiple layers. Like, it's not selling to your patients, selling to your referral sources, and then selling to your staff or your potential staff. And this is why this is like the most important skill to develop.
It doesn't come easily. It doesn't come natural to us. [00:02:00] I think that, um, if it was natural, you probably got it from somewhere else, but you didn't get it from fricking OT school for sure. I think OT school knocked that shit out of me because I have skill, um, development, you know, I sold flowers for my parents, um, in the flea market.
And I, you know, sold flowers for them when, when, uh, They had a wholesale business, you know, I would open the flowers and I would display them and I would bring people in I was like, oh look at this. Oh, what are you looking for? You know, just finding out OT school literally beat the shit out of me like, you know when it comes to that because you're just taught like oh Health care isn't that way but health care is a business and I want to encourage you to think about this skill if you don't Have it Get help to develop it because this is the difference of you being in business and making money or, you know, closing and being frustrated and thinking like OTs can't make money and OTs can make money.
There's [00:03:00] plenty of OTs out there making money and don't you want to be one of them? Don't you want to be one of them? I do. I want to be one of them. I want to keep freaking making money and I want to keep building a career where I help other therapists and help them make money and help my patients so that they can go and live a great life and they can make money, right?
If they can't work, they can't make money, right? And so, um, yeah, you, you got to learn this really, really important, um, skill of selling and then get more and more comfortable with it, right? So you're selling to your patients. Um, it's about, you know, uh, talking to them. It's not about selling. Funny enough, selling just has a bad rep, but, but when you're talking to them, When you're talking to potential patients, you want to find out more about them.
Like, really, that's it. You know, I happened to, um, had to be on the phone. Like, I never answer the phone for my business anymore. But, like, these people were sick, and I had to, you know, cover the [00:04:00] phones. And I'm on the phone with this woman. And I'm like, okay, well, you know, I'm She had thumb pain and she was like having more thumb pain.
I was like, okay, you know, if you don't mind me asking you some questions and then you just make sure you have some questions. Like I definitely inside my ot business corner program have a system and a process in place with the questions that you need to ask. But long story short, ask a bunch of questions, learn more about her.
And then I was like, yeah, you know, of course I can help you. Um, and then when she told me what she was calling from, I was like, Oh, that's really far. It was so funny because I was like actually referring her to someone else I knew up in that area. Yeah. Versus trying to convince her to come down to Miami because that's where my clinic's located.
I'm like, I'm really far, you know, it sounds like I'm really far and you just have to be willing to drive to me. But if you're not willing to drive to me, I'm happy to refer you to someone else I know, um, up in that area. And it turned out, I think it was like still equal distance. So I was, you know, but I was like, well, you know, let's have that conversation.
You know, let's have that conversation of, of, um, [00:05:00] uh, you know, how we work as a therapy clinic. Cause we don't, you know, we're an out of network provider, am I okay to tell you more about it? And she's like, Oh yeah, that's fine. Because I don't, I don't even have insurance. Um, and here I am like talking her out of working with me.
And she was like, no, no, no. But I want to, I want to come to you, you know, um, so sometimes we think selling is all about, um, you know, being pushing and being supportive. Sleazy and salesy, but really being, you know, selling is just about finding out if like you're a good match You know, can you can we help you and do you want to work with us?
You know, and that's that's really all selling is but it is a skill and it is a practice And I think it's something that we all have to do like I have to train my front desk I have to train my manager. I have to train my therapist to do that, you know, because Even if they didn't have to pay, you're still selling something.
You're still selling yourself to them so they can come in. Um, so yeah, it's such an important [00:06:00] skill. So that's to your potential patients. You're selling to them to come, to come in the door, but then you're selling yourself to having them come back time and time again, right? Um, this is a cross board something I do for my whole team.
Um, this is what I do to help my manager make sure that she's talking to our referral sources in the best way possible. So you have to sell yourself, you have to actually sell your company. So it's just not me, like I'm not selling Huangtron, I am selling like what my company can provide. Um, and so when you're talking to referral sources.
I mean might be talking to doctors offices. I might be talking to doctors I might be talking to different people in the community that could potentially refer to me And you're not selling like oh my god, you know, I'm an occupational therapist and I can I can Do x, y, and z for you, right? You're, when you're talking to people, you're saying, okay, well, what are you looking for?
Um, and [00:07:00] sometimes you don't even have to ask them, you know, like, let's say, for example, you're going to a doctor's office, you know, that doctor's office, um, I'm going to give you an example, clear example, you know, that doctor's office has their own therapy center. They have their own therapist. That's great.
No problem. I'm not trying to take what your fricking patients. I don't want your patients. You know what I want? Anyone that does not want to come to your clinic, you know, Hey, Dr. so and so I know you have your own therapy clinic, but I also know that you do a lot of hand and arm types of cases. I am in this area of Miami.
I am in Doral. Um, and if you have any patients that for whatever reason cannot come to your clinic and they live in drought or North. Right. If they live in Doral or North and you know, they either live there or work there, I can provide that service. So I'm not going in there and saying, you know, making myself threatening, being like, Oh, you're going to steal all your patients.
You know, I'm going in there being a [00:08:00] resource, being a, like a point of contact. If you need anyone, you know, if you, for whatever reason, can't see those patients, maybe your schedule is so packed. because your ass is taking all the fucking insurance, right? I'm not, right? I have space on my schedule. I always leave space on my schedule for your patients, your post surgical patients.
Like I have flexibility, right? You present yourself in a certain way. They're going to refer to you, right? They're going to refer to you. Let's say, um, you know, that's just one example of the referral source. If I'm talking to, um, Like the front desk or or the checkout person. I can do the same thing Hey, just in case you weren't aware I am in this location and this is what we provide You know Sometimes you have patients that need splints and maybe your your therapist or the people that you refer to Don't make custom fitted splints My clinic does that we [00:09:00] also provide wound care services So if you have these post surgical cases and you don't know where to send them consider my clinic Right?
So you're constantly selling yourself. You're not just selling yourself to these potential patients, but you're selling yourself to these potential, uh, people who could refer to you and, and then as they get to know you, as they get to know how easy it is to work with you, they'll send you referrals, right?
If you do a lot of workers comp, you know, you have to understand the problems that people have and then you make sure that you can fill in that gap. So I'm going to give you an example. I work with a lot of, um, workers comp, um, people right in the workers comp world. Um, and the problem that people in the workers comp world have is that it's just very hard and challenging to get things that they need.
That's a problem. So I make myself my clinic, right? [00:10:00] My office, the way I run my office makes time to get you the things that you need, right? So we say on top of it is a level of service. It is a difference that sets us apart from every other clinic. Every other clinic is trying to be super high volume, and they're trying to just shove shit ton of patients in their schedule.
They take no time to train their staff. I don't do that. I train my staff, right? I train my staff. This is what sets us apart. Um, my staff make sure that notes get out on time. Communication is clear. Um, and as you need it. So we have a turnaround time of what you need. So there should be no difficulty speaking to the therapist based on the need.
So, um, this is how you quote unquote sell. This is a skill that needs to be developed in order for you to be able to charge premium, be able to fill up your [00:11:00] schedule and really at the end of the day, be able to help your, um, clinic, your company turn a profit. So you get paid, you pay your staff, and you have a little bit of money to grow.
You have a little money to develop. You have money to invest in your company. You have money to invest in yourself, right? So if you're not able to invest in yourself and develop your skills, then Then you're gonna constantly be chasing. You're gonna constantly be lagging, right? Um, and no one gets a medal for suffering.
No one gets a medal because you did a shitty job. Like just develop your freaking skills. And this is the number one skill to develop. If you can't get this skill, um, you don't have it and you're not confident about how to go about doing it. Uh, there's easy frameworks that I have and a systems of process that I have in place inside my program to help you develop these skills really fast, [00:12:00] right?
Number one, patients, number two, referral sources, and then you have to sell yourself to your staff people. You have, you know, people come to work for a small clinic. Um, they come to work for a small business for various different reasons. One thing that I've noticed that, um, you know, for me to hire therapists, I've got to sell myself to these therapists because they have, you know, sometimes there are changes in the, in the environment where they don't have a ton of choices, right?
But we are currently, this is, um, this will come out in November or December of 2024. In this current climate, therapists have choices. Therapists, they do. They have choices. We all have choices. Um, sometimes there are more abundant than others, but we always have choices and right now the choices are pretty abundant, right?
[00:13:00] You can almost work anywhere depending on what you're willing to tolerate. You can get that job In a in a factory in a mill where you're seeing four or five patients at a time, right? You can't get those Um, but you'll burn out, you know, so I have to sell myself You To attract a very particular type of therapist.
I want to work. I have high standards. Um, I don't think people work with me because I have low standards. I think people want to work with me, whether it be in my programs and the variety of clinical programs, business programs I have, or patients come into my clinic and they want to work with me because I have high fucking standards.
I want the best. I want to be the best. I want to offer the best, right? So when I am attracting people who want to come and work for me, they are looking to develop some kind of skill. They are looking to, um, have a certain type of experience. Even my front desk, my front desk, um, they [00:14:00] usually come in because they're looking for something.
They're tired of the corporate world. They're tired of, you know, You know the bureaucracy and having no voice and having no impact no great impact They're tired of not developing the kind of skills that they want Somebody that I worked with she worked for me for almost three years she has since left and She's so sweet because she always tells me how much I've impacted her career She's been able to leave me and go and get a numerous number of positions Where she's been able to grow and she's been able to ask for more money, grow her career.
She's actually now in sales, which is amazing for her because she never thought that that was possible for her. But when you're in a position of selling your, um, your salary can increase exponentially. There is no ceiling to it, depending on what sales, what kind of sales you get into. And she started in the front desk position.
And I told her, I was like, you [00:15:00] know, you have the skills of someone who could be a great manager, right? Or you can have the skills of someone who can be a great manager. Salesperson depending on what you're trying to do, right? And you can do both. You can be a sales manager. Um, but sales person works off like of a smaller base and works, works on commission.
Just depends on your percent and what you're looking for. Um, but she has since then been able to grow that, that, um, those skill sets. And it started here in Microsoft. And I was able to attract someone like her. She had great personality. Um, she wanted to learn. She was hungry to learn. She was looking for something that wasn't just like the same thing over and over and over.
And I have someone like that right now who's, you know, she's coming in. She's going to school. She is going into the medical field. And I I think she was attracted to come here because, uh, she has a [00:16:00] little interest in marketing. Um, but she also wants to be exposed to healthcare. And, um, I think she's got, she's got a lot of potential to learn.
And that's what she wants. She didn't want just a job at Starbucks. She didn't just want a job. Um, you know, just working anywhere. She was quite particular and we are particular. I've been able to attract therapists who are looking to develop very particular skills. I'm looking for someone who's hungry.
I'm looking for someone who's done some work. Right. Um, and I tell them what I'm looking for and I have to sell myself on that. If you own a business and one day you want to hire another therapist, you're going to have to work to sell yourself to them as well. We are constantly selling, constantly, constantly selling.
Uh, it's the one skill that we have to get really comfortable with. It's the one skill that [00:17:00] we, uh, we have such capacity to learn and learn fast. And it's just really about reframing a lot of it in your brain, uh, and in your like behavior to a certain extent. Um, so that it's easy for you. So anyway, it's the number one skill.
I think OT school beat this beat it out of me because I was always selling I was always selling to my parents So let me do my crazy shit. I was always, you know forced to sell in there You know from the flea market to the warehouses, you know, my mom was relentless with it I mean We would be tired and she was like, you know You better get back out there and you so see those people walking by you better go sell them something You better go find out what they want But then then healthcare sort of beats it out of you, but let me tell you we need it in everything we do if you're fucking working for someone else you better learn that skill too because You won't you know, you've got to sell [00:18:00] yourself to your employer Right, but if you're watching this video you made it this far This far, it's because you want to get that experience so that you can then start your own business.
Right? Start your own business. Start it. Grow it. Do what you need to do to break that glass ceiling that we have as occupational therapists. You know, make more money, have more time, have more flexibility. I don't know. Those are my reasons. I'm just sharing with you my experience. So if you need more help, all my links are below and I'll talk to you next time.
Thanks for watching this far.
