Business Planning: Journal of Hearing

As a first-time audiologist, owning a business was a steep learning curve.

My focus was only on the patient, and business issues like profit and loss were not part of the picture. So when the NexGen Hearing Group offered me the opportunity to hold a clinic, I was excited but a little nervous: I was suddenly expected to cover terms like profit margin, earned income, net income, and fixed liabilities. My normal daily routine.

Despite the shocks, our clinic grew 61% in our first year, which was impressive, and we continue to outperform year after year. There are many factors that have contributed to our success story, but one in particular stands out: the Business planning I learned from the NexGen Hearing Group Management Team. Below are some tips for clinic owners wondering how to get started with your own business plan.

SWOT analysis

As you approach the end of your fiscal year, you should look ahead to what the next year will bring and how you can build on your successes. The best way to do this is through a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a way to break down your business and reveal your internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. Doing a SWOT analysis with your team is important, because you always need to work collaboratively to achieve your goals – and fresh perspectives are what ultimately make your business successful.

SWOT It is an abbreviation:

• Strengths: The personal qualities of your clinic that make you stand out from the crowd
• Weaknesses: Your clinic’s weaknesses and areas where you know you can improve
• Opportunities: Possible ways for growth and success
• Threats: What risks are hindering your clinic’s growth?

Simply put, strengths are where they are mastered. It is important to understand what makes your clinic successful and unique. I, and many others, believe that what the patient buys is the clinic and support staff, so you, think about what that does for you! Are your years of experience, education or training with a celebrity? Whatever it is, identify it and promote it. Tell your patients, and they will tell you.

Next, identify your weaknesses. These may be things you don’t do or don’t want to do, or things your competitors are already doing. These internal weaknesses are beyond your control.

Next, look at the possibilities. These are the external factors that help your business grow. This could be a marketing opportunity or introducing a new product to your area.

And finally, evaluate your threats. These are external factors that inhibit your clinics, but can be reduced with regularity. Good examples are your competition or a certain epidemic that we are all familiar with.

For more information on how to perform a SWOT analysis, I recommend visiting the BDC website (Bank of Canadian Entrepreneurs).

Referral sources

The next step is to assess where your patients are coming from. There are typically two key reports to access this data:

• New Client Referral Source: Ask yourself if your patients are coming from sign or word of mouth? Are primary care physicians or ENTs referred? Are they from your newspaper ads? From here, rank your top five referral sources for getting patients through the door.
• Selling through a referral source: For clinics that have been in business for many years, this is usually your customer database or word of mouth; If not, this is a great opportunity. The top referral sources for new patients don’t always match what you see in your sales report, and this is an interesting distinction to explore with your team.

These reports are a great way to identify where to focus your marketing efforts.

It’s important to accurately track referral source data to see how you’re capturing your audience. Often this is confirmed when a customer care representative asking for a new booking how the new patient heard about you. Have your customer care representative assign the correct transaction referral code to your patient management system. It is important to ask the individual during the appointment to ensure that the correct referral code has been assigned. In some cases, people may have multiple referral sources and you need to determine the best code to use.

KPIs

Before diving into your goal planning, the last step is to review your key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs help you accurately measure how successful you are in reaching a target. I tend to use:

• Conversion ratio
• Average selling price
• Refund for credit amount
• Cost of goods sold
• Total income.

Typically, the numbers that support these KPIs are generated by your office management system. However, if this is not an option, your accountant should be able to assist in providing the necessary data.

Strategic business development goals

Using your KPIs, my recommendation is to establish three to four key strategic business development areas for the next year. More than three to four will overstretch your resources and prevent you from achieving your goals. If you’re tracking less than that, the opposite may be true.

There are many ways to set goals: you can follow in the footsteps of John Doerr, who recommends objectives and key outcomes, or use the well-known SMART objectives. In any case, the main reasons are that the goals should be specific, time-bound and measurable.

To select your goals, I recommend reviewing a SWOT analysis with your KPIs and referral sources to identify trends in your practice. An example of my 2022 goals is to increase community outreach by 15% by March 2023. This goal is important to our clinic because community service is in my top three referral sources and top five sales sources.

With each goal, outline a plan for how you will achieve your goal. For me, this means answering the following questions.

• Steps: What steps do I need to take to move from where I am now to my goal?
• Obstacles: What could prevent me from growing and completing my plan, and how can I minimize those risks?
• To solve obstacles; How are you going to overcome the obstacles you have identified?
• Success Criteria: How do I know if I’m successful? Which KPIs should I use?
• Budget: How much can I spend on this initiative?
• Completion dateWhen do I want to achieve this goal?

Valid document

Create a working document, as shown on page 30, that allows you to select a focus area from your goals for each quarter. Break down each focus area into practical steps and delegate those involved in this process; Set a deadline and budget for each item. At each step, you should be able to document your progress throughout the year and review your results as you enter the next fiscal quarter.

Final thoughts

To ensure you stay on track for the year, set aside time in your schedule to review your business goals each month. There can be a tendency to focus on filling clinic time with income-generating opportunities, but if you don’t allow time to complete these important administrative tasks, you will lose time and all the wonderful goals you set for yourself in the beginning. They have become the wishful thinking of the year.

And there, you have a happy business plan!