Things you should be doing now in your foot health business.

In a previous blog post, I talked about the things you can do personally to help you navigate these times of grief and uncertainty.

What I also wanted to do in a blog post was examine the more practical business elements that you could be working on if you have a foot health business.  In fact, this stuff is pretty useful for any business that serves people.

Whether it's saving a bit of money, or looking for different opportunities, or whether it's maybe a completely different way of working - these things can help you to move the needle in the direction it needs to go, and may just reduce the pinch that we’re all feeling.

So let’s get stuck in.

Getting on top of your money.  

Make sure you are clear on your business and personal finances.  How much do you have?  Where is it?  What’s it tied up in?  

Many of you will have an accountant and if you’ve not called them yet, then now is the time to do so.  There is potential for government grants and loans, with assistance available for you to keep your business solvent.  

There may also be some savings to be made within the business finances too.  Looking at expenditure on all aspects from staffing and consumables, through to rent and subscriptions.

Can you take a rent or mortgage holiday?  Can you pause payments on leased or rented equipment?  Can you have credit terms extended.

But having that discussion with your accountant you can get an objective assessment of where you are and advice on how to proceed   Most accountants will be happy to do this with you, because at the end of the day they want you survive because you’re one of their clients.

Service.  

What I mean in this context is service to your patients and clients.

A lot of clinics have now stopped seeing routine patients and are focused on the emergency ones only, which does reduce the number of contacts down massively.  But you can keep in touch with them in different ways.

One of the obvious ones is via the use of both phone calls and video calls.  

There’s not doubt that as healthcare professions we care.  We care about the outcomes for our patients, we care about it when we feel we are letting them down.

Imagine how your patients will feel knowing that you are taking the time to keep in touch with them, check up on their problems and support them during this time.  You can answer questions, offer guidance and support.

This^^ is service and it has a real currency in terms of know, like and trust.  When isolated and social distancing it’s very easy to neglect these connections - many will, but you will stand out by serving your patients and clients.

Telemedicine.

This kind of fits in with the previous point, but actually produces a revenue stream for your business.

Telemedicine is providing a virtual, online consultation service.  It’s not hands on (obviously) but you can still provide an assessment, diagnosis and treatment plan.

We had a video discussion on telemedicine over in my Facebook group —> https://www.facebook.com/groups/FullyBookedFootClinic/

One of the things ,that we tend to forget is that there is value in our knowledge, skills and experience.  Clients are not just paying for time in our physical company.  While that is the traditional model, our value also clearly sits in the virtual space and we should not be scared of using this approach.

Online sales.

Clients are at home, which means that they will be either treating themselves or getting family to help them in the home.  They still have a requirement for foot care and support.

What products do you have at your disposal that could be useful to them?  Creams, medicaments and tools that they can use to maintain the health of their feet.

These items (and many more) could be retailed by your business.  It’s a great income stream and you get to support them in their self care.  Imagine combining this with a telemedicine session to show them how to use the products.

Pre-selling treatments.

Any foot care business needs now is cash flow.  Money in the bank now to help over the next few days, weeks and months. 

One of the great things you can do is take preorders for appointments.  This could be in the form of vouchers or prepayment for future appointments.

If you are due to see a patient in eight weeks time (hoping we are in a more “normal” space) they could pre-pay for that appointment.  That gives you cash flow now and means that your business has a greater chance of surviving over the next few weeks.

There are a lot of patients who value the service that you provide. And in valuing the service that you provide, they will pay in advance for treatment.

Now this may be something that you’ve not experienced, and that’s probably because you haven’t asked.

Working on the business, not in the business.

One of the biggest complaints that we all have is that we don't have enough time.

And what that really means is that the thing we say we want to do is not a priority to us.

Well, the current situation has gifted us an absolute tonne of time. It's given us back some space and the opportunity to work on different priorities.

This means that all of those jobs, all of those things you want to add, to change, to tweak, to introduce in order for your practice to be more efficient, to grow, to develop or to make you happier can now be considered.

You now have the opportunity to sit and work on any of those things.

You now have the time to look at your: 

Systems and processes.  

Equipment and training. 

Marketing and social media.

Finance and accounting.

Outsourcing and restructuring.

Time is precious.  How can you use it to make your business better?

Marketing.

Sorry, I know some people hate this bit, but now it is essential to get your marketing sorted.  

There’s a tendency to go into hiding when we are in crisis and your marketing stops.  I can tell you now, you’ve not been marketing enough until this point, now is the time to market more.

You may not feel like it, but there's a lot of people out there at the moment who are still wanting to hear from you.  Wanting to be updated on what you are doing to give them the best knowledge and experience.

Now is the time where you should be turning up your marketing message by producing content for social media.  Content that educates, entertains and guides people in these times.  

It helps with know, like and trust and while it may not pay off now specifically, it will in spades when you can welcome patients back to your clinic.

If you are introducing that telemedicine service, you need to market it. 

If you are providing online sales, you need to market it.

Now is not the time to go quiet now is the time to speak openly and honestly about where you are, how you doing and how you can help people.  

Your marketing needs to be a consistent machine. You need to be producing content talking about what you do, who you help and the benefits that you provide to people.  

If you stop marketing now, it’s much harder to get started.  Think about a car - it uses more energy to go from a standing start to get up to speed, than it does to maintain your speed. 

If you think about your marketing in the same way - keep it ticking along, keep producing content, keep talking about the things that you do - you will find it much easier to maintain.

Now, these are a few suggestions that I believe are important for your business at the moment.  

Yes, there are many more, but often having too many can confuse and muddy the waters.  By focusing clearly on these, the effect can be far greater.

You've got a gift of time, but there are many of you that won't be able to see that at the moment.

There's an opportunity here to change things which maybe have been niggling at you for a while things.  Things which have been stopping you from pushing your business forward.

That's an opportunity to grasp with both hands.

I appreciate that some of you may not be ready to hear this today.

You're all at different stages of grieving.  You’re all at different stages of worry. You may even be all at different stages of optimism.

Even if this message doesn't serve you today, and it's something which you cannot process, come back to this when you are ready, and start to go through these steps to see which ones will help you and ultimately make your business even better.

Take care and stay safe.