You’re constantly tied down to your practice. You work all the time and can’t ever catch up, much less get ahead. You hear me and other people tell you that you need to automate your practice, but you can barely get the bills paid and keep a staff in place. You’re frustrated A LOT time, and your income is falling way short of what you expected from owning your own business.  
Maybe, you wonder whether it was the right choice to open your own clinic.
Let me tell you, I have been there. (You can hear me talk about those dark days in my practice here.) And it’s tough not to stay stuck. But until you begin the transition to a systems-based practice, that’s exactly where you’ll stay.
The point of systems and automation isn’t to make more work for you. It’s to create less work. The advantages of a systems-based practice are many: better patient experience, more opportunity for growth (more patients, a chance to expand), more money.
But there’s an even more fundamental goal behind EVERY system that’s right for your clinic, a goal that makes all those other benefits possible. That is to make you, the owner, operationally irrelevant.
Being operationally irrelevant means you are not needed on-site for your clinic to function at its best. It means your presence and your input are not required to make every decision, meet every challenge, resolve every dispute and put out every fire.
Systems that help deliver operational irrelevance get you your life back at the same time they make your practice run more effectively and profitably. When you establish a systems-based practice and train your staff to execute those systems, you get to work on your terms: when you want, doing what you want.
Feel like treating a couple days a week (or not at all)? Automation can help you get there. Want to focus on the strategic future of your practice, and leave the day-to-day administration to other capable people? With systems, that’s a goal entirely within your reach. Does the idea of working remotely and taking regular, plentiful time off appeal to you? Systems-driven organization is your ticket to that kind of freedom.
BIG gains from using systems to become operationally irrelevant:
Gives you freedom of time and mind
Ready for a vacation? So many small business owners are locked in perpetual work mode, for years. That relentless pace almost inevitably leads to burnout, and frankly, to misery. Needing to work constantly upends your personal life, taking away time from your family, your interests outside work, and delivering a blow to your mental and physical well being.
Once you’ve built a business that relies on your constant presence, only fundamental re-organization will get you out of that exhausting trap.
Systems take your place as the arbiter of every judgment call, give staff a clear, specific framework for running daily operations without you. That means you are guaranteed time away from your clinic, and time off from even thinking about your business. It also means that you are working, at your clinic or remotely, you can choose the activities that are most attractive and meaningful to you, including the big-picture stuff that delivers the most value for your time.
Sets you on a path to growth
Systems-based practices can scale up operations—without you, the owner, having to put in additional time. Adding to staff? You’ve got systems in place for recruiting, qualifying and onboarding. Increasing your patient load? Systems let you deliver patient care and experience that’s consistent AND personalized. Thinking about expanding to a new location? Replicate what you’re already doing, only bigger.
Growing a PT practice isn’t about complicated calculations. Finding a path to growth is about developing strong fundamentals for your business. Rock-solid, replicable organizational tools help you do that. So do understanding what your patients want (and who your patients really are). Those are some of the fundamentals I cover in my FREE guide, 3 Simple Things That Will Get You More Patients and Make You More Money Right Now.
Creates a cohesive team
You know what doesn’t contribute to team cohesion? Being constantly micromanaged and having a boss who can’t take a step back. That all speaks to a lack of trust—and to a lack of systems that support independent, accountable, mission-driven teams. Without systems (and a culture to back them up) you’re working with a bunch of silo-ed individuals—and they’re each coming to you with questions, issues, problems, instead of talking to each other. Systems that let you take yourself out of the daily equation also enable staff to rely on each other, and work together to solve problems. The result? A happier, more unified, motivated and productive staff.
Increases the value of your practice
Profits go up when automate, thanks to efficiency, increased productivity, reduction in errors, and the opportunity for growth that scalable organization offers. You’ll keep more patients in plans of care, reduce cancellations, increase collections and reimbursements, reduce errors related to billing. The long-term value of your business also increases. A practice that can run smoothly without it’s outgoing owner is a practice that will get the absolute highest valuation. That means when you’re ready, you sell at a premium, and reap maximum rewards for all your hard work.