Business May be Open, But It’s not The same since COVID [Ep. #155]

We are going to talk about the realities that you might be facing now that the doors are open, but the pandemic is far from over, and the most important thing is you need to know that you are not alone. Stay Tuned!

Hey Everyone! Andrea Maxim here with the Profitable Practice Podcast, thank you Guys so much for continuing to download this podcast, listen in, let me know your feedback it really means a lot to me. And I just finished doing a half day intensive with our Maximized Practitioners Students every January and July we have four-hour training session and any member gets to do that for free and I wanted to talk about one of the big conversations that we had which  was; what things look like now, now that we’re reopened and our expectation I think was our schedules would fill up people would just waiting for us at the door just to see us, for a lot of practitioners that is the case depending on your model and who it is that you are treating, and then for a lot of us, that isn’t the case. And we definitely have that spectrum across the board with our students as to how busy they are if opening was even worth it for them or if it’s shutting their doors temporarily or shutting it down fully. And so depending on where you are at and I would love to get feedback insight into how things have been since it’s reopening. I would be fully honest and say we’re still down 30% in our revenue easily every month since we’ve opened so we’ve been open now for a month and a half, so last month we’re down 30%, this month we’re a little bit better but we’re certainly not meeting the numbers that we we’re this time last year nor is my schedule fully book. And I’m not afraid to say that, I’ve always been a huge advocate of increasing the value of every patient visit, not necessarily filling up the schedule, that’s where lab test up sales, supplement up sales come into play, plus our nurture sequence on the back really helps to up sale our services, we have our online course we just launched, the maximized method program that we are now up selling to patients. So we don’t necessarily need to have our schedule fully book to be making good revenue, however there was I think this expectation that as soon as we reopen, people would be clamouring to see us and that just isn’t the case. And I don’t know if it is because of the ambiguity of what is safe and what isn’t safe yet, if it’s about this fear of a second wave happening. I mean patients and clients are still tremendously in and dated with data and COVID numbers daily and all the fears stuff. And yet at the same token we’re getting these confusing discussions around well or now we’re moving into phase 3 where everything is open, and it’s encourage that you wear a mask but not mandatory, but it might become mandatory we just don’t know when. 

So with all of this crazy information that’s going on out there it’s no wonder that patients are equally as confused and/or they just don’t understand why they should be leaving their home and spending their money with us, when they’ve kind of gotten used to being at home and not spending their money for the past couple of months. So here is the advice that I kind of talked about with the students on the half-day intensive and I’m going to relay the same information to you; at any given time you are where you are and that is just where you are. Now, with the way that things have changed I think it’s also incredibly important for everyone to be reassessing ‘Should I be maintaining this standard perhaps antiquated model of running my business, where it’s only in office, it’s all based off of time that there isn’t any else that I can leverage’ and if that is that is the case, expect that everything will be slow and not as secure as you want them to be. Or is this my wakeup call and say you know it is time for me to be merging my practice online, and yes of course just by saying that, the technology fears start to come into play all of the worries about all the work it’s going to be to create basically your business online to, or what are the steps that you need to take, how do I promote it, how much is this going to cost, I think instead of worrying about the whats and the hows and the fears, I think it’s time for you to step up and say what can I start leveraging, what can I create that allows me to make money that doesn’t involve somebody coming into my practice. This is a big conversation that you need to be having, and if you want to have it with me, I would love to have you on a 30-minute game plan call, we’ll have that link in the show notes where you and I will kind of break this down together and talk about what it looks like and what the steps are, because you know you tell me what you need and I can probably give you six different ways that you can do it, some are free, some cost some money, some cost a lot more money, so it’s not so simple as well what do I do, what are the steps it’s going to be a lot more about how do I want it to look, what are the steps I feel comfortable with  and of course what’s my budget. So book into that 30-minute game plan call with me and we can break this down. 

But I firmly believe that there is a massive opportunity to merge online and offline, it’s not about abandoning offline, because I’m sure that looks really popular and it looks really enticing and we had that interview with Lori Kennedy where we were talking about that, that is what her 10k program is all about versus my program is about merging the online and offline but still keeping your brick and mortar going just doing it for 2020, not for like 1920. And it’s not about abandoning what you’re used to it’s not about just starting a brand new model because if you go online it’s just like starting your business from scratch all over again, it’s not as glamorous as it may seem where you just open up your laptop throw a post on Social Media then you make ten thousand dollars a day, it just doesn’t work that way. But it is important for you to be showing up to your business and figuring out how you can start, as I said expanding the value of every patient, maybe it isn’t about the bookings but it’s just about the revenues, well how can you make every single patient visit a lot more profitable than just you spending your time with that person. Is there a product that you could create? And I work with the massage therapist, who created basically like they’re not meditation cards but they were cards to help explain their feeling that day or where do we need to go, almost like a Tarot card that they would just pick from the deck and that would also be an added piece to the treatment, so don’t really know what to say maybe like a divinity card. But anyway she started selling those to all of her clients, twenty five dollars for a pack, probably cost her 5 dollars maybe 7 dollars to make it, and If you implement that, well that’s a free money that you’re making for the same amount of time. It was during the shutdown that our team really went into creation mode, and we created the maximized health method program, this was an online program that I have been wanting to create for the better part of two years and COVID really kicked my butt and said ‘you better make this happen’ and now is the time and that is exactly what we did and we have sold it for two weeks and we’ve made 25,000 dollars off of that, and again that’s free money, and we have this program that’s available now on-going that would just make money completely on its own. 

So there are so many ways and opportunities that you have that you just may not be able to see right now, if you are in an anxiety frozen state because things are just not working out the way you thought they would when we reopened , then we also need to take a moment, allow the silence to come, and start to regroup, reach out to your people, reach out to me, I’m a great resource for you and we can hash all of this out, if you are in like guns blazes go mode, you are creating up a storm, you are pivoting, amazing! And I applaud you for doing that, it’s just isn’t easy for everybody, just always remember that what got you here, will not get you there, that is quote that if any of you followed James Wedmore, he got it from, I forget who the original author of that quote is, but it is something for you to always remember. Whatever you did to build your business to this point, whatever happened, whatever experiences that you had, they are not a dictator of your future, positive and negative, so whatever you did to build your business up to this shutdown, you may still have to make a change to build it up again. It’s just going to take you a bit of time to reanalyze where it is that you need to be putting your time, what is it that you’re doing that you no longer serve your business and what is it that we can implement that would really start to give you a bit of control back, and give you a bit of leverage back into making money while you sleep, that’s the whole goal. To wake up and see sales happening, so if you need that support, if you’re struggling to figure out what to do during this moment, if things are not working out the way that you thought that they would, I want you to reach out to me please book that 30-minute game plan call, you’re not alone in this, our clinics aren’t really fully booked right now, but I’m not feeling the pressure because we found so many other ways to be making revenue and using online tools like online courses, webinars, social media, you know we are busting our butts constantly to be in front of our audience, well you can’t just give up on that, but I’m still very very comfortable with my brick and mortar to. So don’t abandon what you’ve built but let’s just make it a whole lot better, so book in that 30-minute game plan call with me the link is in the show notes, and I’m going to leave it there, just going to let this simmer, going to let you continue to think about this and I strongly encourage you to reach out to me @AndreaMaximND and tell me your thoughts, tell me where you’re going, where your struggles, where your blockers. Raise your hand, ask for help don’t continue to do this alone, I look forward to see in my DM’s and my calendar for your 30-minute game plan call, this is Andrea Maxim and I’m out!