Founder and CMO at Madden & Gilbert PT. Head of Education for Breakthrough PT Marketing.
"No One Does That..." Hey Jeff, had a key insight last week during a meeting with Eric Williams, the COO that we work with from USPH and Daryl Gotwalt, our regional director. Mike Gilbert and I were talking with Eric and Daryl. We were discussing specifically net rev per visit and how it's changed over the last four or five years when something Eric said struck me. He mentioned how we initially presented a ten year plan and how rare it was in our industry. In fact, he said, nobody ever does that. It made me realize, as practice owners, we often neglect a long term vision for immediate concerns in our practices, like retaining therapist or competing for can lead them to seek greener pastures where they can earn a few more dollars per hour, like with the local hospital system, et cetera. Back in 2017, Mike and I had created a vision through 2030. That it painted a picture for where we wanted to be 12-13 years down the road, was not an exact how-to plan. We realized quickly there was no way that we could know every single step that we were about to take. It was more of a roadmap than anything else. A roadmap with key points that we wanted to achieve over the next twelve or 13 years. For example, we aim to increase visits annually by 20%. This was inspired by Jim Collins 20 Mile March, the concept that he wrote about, and this kept us focused on what steps needed to be taken next when planning the growth strategy. We didn't know exactly how it would pan out, but knew that if we opened another clinic, which happened to be our third clinic, or that we brought on more therapists, more clinicians, that these actions would help us take another step towards achieving our goals. The benefit of such forward thinking is especially evident when hiring new professionals, entry level DPTs or therapists that are relatively early in their careers. And what we realized is if you can't show them potential career progression within the organization, then we're essentially telling them that they've reached their limit here, that they're going to be capped, that it's essentially a dead end leading them straight into. Essentially what we do is we train them for our competitors, who offer better options and frequently can offer career paths around long term growth. However, by offering training and mentorship along with clear paths towards roles like the clinical director and that we have the clinical director training or even equity ownership positions, bringing them on as a partner over time, based on demonstrated competency levels, we create an environment where staff feel valued and see potential for long term growth within the organization.
