What Makes Your Sports Physiotherapy Practice Successful?

Introduction

Let me ask you a question; do you work in a successful sports physiotherapy practice? If you said yes, firstly congratulations, I’m glad to hear that! My follow-up question is why is your practice so successful? What are the reasons or factors that make your sports physiotherapy practice a highly successful one? This is something I have been giving a lot of thought recently. I am very interested in the main reasons why some private physiotherapy practices flourish and some fail. Furthermore, it is interesting to learn how people measure ‘success’. Many would suggest it would be income, but others may suggest success is determined by the outcomes they get for their clients. There are no doubt many factors responsible for success vs. failure of a give physiotherapy practice.Whilst, I am certain that many reasons are obvious, some may be less so.

A Less Than Usual Example

As an example, a few weeks ago I attended a sports physiotherapy professional development course. One of the presenters stated he was in the fortunate position of having an MRI in the room next door to his clinic. This meant that for those patients who needed it (think: tricky diagnoses, potential surgical cases etc) scans could be done within the hour. This, he suggested, is a great luxury and has probably contributed greatly to his provided services, client satisfaction/experience and ultimately improved his patient’s outcomes. And to think my patients have got to go down the road…

The Usual Suspects

As I suggested previously there are the usual suspects. The major reasons for sports physiotherapy practice would likely include:

  • Staff: as in any business the staff are exceptionally important to the physiotherapy practice success. Highly trained, experienced, professional, and personable physiotherapy staff are paramount to a practice’s success. Furthermore, the importance of support staff (reception, assistants etc) should never be underestimated.
  • Location: as it is in Real Estate the location of your private practice is crucial. There are a few factors that can determine the ‘perfect location’. These can include local population, demographics, proximity to referring practitioners, and even proximity to other practices. But sticking ‘Dodgy Bros. Practice’ in a highly populated area is not a recipe for success.
  • Business Acumen and Marketing: whatever way you choose to look at it, the physiotherapy private practice is a business. It’s success is determined by the business acumen and marketing ability of the one at the helm. The majority of the time this is the practice principal. Unfortunately, brilliant physiotherapists can be terrible businesspeople. The success of many practices is due to the clever marketing undertaken by the owners/managers.

Some Learnings From More Intelligent People

 “I’ve been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and

they help me to execute the vision I have.” –  Russell Simmons

If you are hankering for more success in your business, then I have a few suggestions from people that are much more intelligent than I am. The following are fantastic resources the give great advice on the magical world of business and marketing, and if implemented correctly they can skyrocket your sports physiotherapy practice success.

  1. Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port
  2. The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself by John Jantsch
  3. The Small Business Big Marketing Podcast  with Timbo and Lukeee.

Now I Need Your Input! 

We have said all along that this blog has been created to improve the clinical practice of sports physiotherapists. The best way to do that is to learn from each other, and I want to know the main reasons why your practice is successful! So please take 2 minutes and leave just 1 strategy/tactic/idea in the comments below so that I and all the readers can implement them to improve the success of our private practices. Thanks in advance! Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon

Comments

  1. The best single thing we did was introduce dynamic analysis for our LL patients. It gave us a unique selling point to our practice, superior diagnostics and better plus profitable outcomes. We believe in investing in technology in delivering better patient focused services.

    I hope this helps!

  2. Definitely related to high quality: staff, assessment, thorough treatment, prevention, interdisciplinary team etc. happy staff all cpd oriented. also being aware of clint sources and feedback.

  3. I’d hesitate to say I was successful, but my business is growing! When I first started Seth Godins blog was brought to my attention and one in particular which said something along the lines of if you spend less time worrying about getting new clients and more time really looking after the clients you have, new clients will take care of themselves. This is what I try to do and it seems to be working. Also you wouldn’t ask a marketing expert to treat your clients, so don’t assume you can market! There is nothing wrong with asking for the right help.

  4. From my experience, the best advertisement comes from your patients. Providing a enjoyable and effective experience goes a long way for any business, especially physiotherapy treatment.

  5. Location and free parking is my key. I have a good city centre spot with ample free parking.
    I also love Ed’s thread regarding looking after your present clients and not worrying too much about looking for new ones
    Good quality staff and a good marketing arm also helps ….

  6. I started a completely self-pay clinic to get out of the insurance systems and the declining reimbursements they provide. This way I can spend a full hour one-on-one with each patient, and focus primarily on manual therapy. With that being the case, my results are generally much better and faster than other clinics in the area where they can only spend 15-30 minutes in-person with each patient. Like others mentioned above, when you get great results for your clients, they send others.

    On a marketing note, I’ve had a lot of success with marketing directly to personal fitness trainers. Their clientele already show that they are willing to pay to keep themselves moving and feeling the best they can. Get in good with fitness trainers, show them what you can do, and they’ll send you patients.

  7. Service. Always deliver superior service while building relationships. People will pay for, and refer to, businesses that offer high value.

    In terms of service follow up with clients via phone/email between appointments, if you have extra time offer a few more minutes of treatment, send clients articles that may be of interest to them; see each person as an individual and not just as a source of income or another customer in the door.