Mastering Your Business: Unveiling the Problem-Solving Strategy for Success in 2024

Hello, everyone, welcome back to this week’s episode of the treat your business podcast. My name is Katie, for those of you who are first time listeners, I am super excited to have you here. Thank you, thank you, thank you for choosing to listen to me. If it’s on my podcast release day, it will be a Wednesday morning, you’ll be on your way to work or to the clinic. And for those of you who normally listen, listen in and always talk to me about how much you enjoy the podcast. Huge welcome. So this month, so far, we have been talking about your strategy for 2024, we are approaching the end of the year, this is always on our mind, we want to we all kind of screeching to the finish line, aren’t we we’re on that hamster wheel, we’re going like Billy Oh to get to the end, and we all need a break. And we just have this kind of slight feeling at this time of year where we feel that we are super productive because we get loads of things done because we need to finish on Friday the 22nd. And if only every day was like the day before we go on holiday because we would get so much more done in our business. But it also comes with that feeling of overwhelm of exhaustion of thinking, Do you know what I just need to get to this Friday and the next year is going to be better. Next year, I’m going to do things differently. Next year, I’m going to make more money next year, I’m going to not do this again near Christmas, I’m not going to set myself up for failure, I’m not going to feel like I am out of control, or I don’t know where my next clients are coming from or I don’t really know what my marketing strategy is going to be I don’t know where really where I should be spending my time or my energy. But then what happens is we we arrived back into work on the second of January, and the clinic, and the emails are out of control. And there might be some stuff sickness going around, and we jump back on that hamster wheel. And before we know it, we are sort of heading towards Easter. And we are back doing the same stuff that we promised that we would not do the following year. So this episode, we’ve talked about your 2024 game plan, I’ve talked to you about how you can really set the intentions for next year and how you actually look at goal setting in your business. We talked about your financial strategy last week, and this week, I’m going to talk to you about your sales strategy, I kind of didn’t know whether to call this sales strategy because it doesn’t doesn’t really fit well with me, because we don’t really sell in our clinics. So actually, you know what I’m going to change this, I’m gonna call this the problem solving strategy. Because what we do is we solve people’s problems, and we get paid to do it. Okay, so if sales does not vibe with you, because it makes you feel icky, and it makes you feel like a cheesy car sales salesperson, then we are problem solvers. And the transaction for solving a problem is pounds or dollars, or euros wherever you’re listening from. So we need to start thinking now about this big question. In your business right now. Are you converting 75% or more of your inquiries into clients into patients? If the answer is no, then we have to fix that. Because you can turn on your marketing strategy, which I’m going to talk to you about next week, by the way. But if we don’t, if we have a leaky funnel, then we may as well just be burning cash. So this is why I’ve done it in this order. I’m talking to you this week about sales, and then next week about marketing, because we’ve got to fix this bit first, and then you can turn your marketing and then you can have all the clients in the world. So your sales strategy is are you converting 75% or more of all of your inquiries into the clinic into clients that are going to pay you to work with you. And then of those patients that pay you? What is the percentage of them that are working with you on a pay as you go model where they just literally pay per session, or on a package or a programme or a subscription or a longer term commitment. If you don’t know those figures, if you don’t know those things, then that’s the first thing that you need to go and do is to delve into some of your sales figures, your problem solving figures, as we’re now going to call them. And then what we want to think about within your problem solving strategy is you work with them might be pay as you go. It could be on a package. Ideally, it would be on a longer term commitment, if you want predictability if you want sustainability. And if you want to be a clinic and a business that really gives amazing results for your clients, we have got to move away from pay as you go. If you can solve your patient’s problem in one session, then crack on and charge pay as you go. But I would really, really doubt that we can truly do our best work in one session for a client and therefore to give somebody the best possible outcome that they are wanting because hey, they’re paying us to get their problem solved. We need to be bringing them into a longer term commitment of treatment. And I know there’s loads of limiting beliefs around this and I’m not saying that we’re just selling 10 session packages willy nilly and they don’t fit with our what our client’s needs are and it’s out out of integrity, absolutely not our sales strategy, our problem solving strategy has to be aligned with from from a place of integrity, we have to do it really well. So we need to think about when you have got them converted, they’re going to be paying you either pay as you go up or package for now, how many of those people what do we then do in that funnel? When they finish treatment with you? Do we upsell? Do we cross sell? Do we reengage them? Do they just disappear out of your bucket, and you never see them again, is that thing set up in that funnel to mean that your churn of patients is reducing, and you’re keeping people in your bucket for longer? So the challenge that we often face as clinic owners, as business owners is, yes, it is a very competitive landscape out there. There are lots of clinics and business owners, we think possibly doing the same thing as all of us, they are not because nobody is you, and you are different. And you have a niche, and nobody works like us. So there’s only one of you. So yes, it is a competitive healthcare landscape out there. But and the market is evolving, it has evolved a lot during COVID. and beyond. patient expectations are changing. The way that things are being delivered in the NHS are changing, and therefore what we are being expected to do is changing. So staying ahead of all of this requires us to be innovative, it requires us to think ahead. So I want to really discuss the foundations of of a successful problem solving strategy in 2024. And one of the things that I think it’s really important to discuss is personalization. Your problem solving strategy is about understanding your patient’s needs, and tailoring your services accordingly. You are not everything to everybody and nothing to nobody. Because by now you’re going to be very clear, with all the podcasts that you’ve listened to who you really want to be known as the expert at working with, okay, the business advice in true transparency that I give could definitely be rolled out to lots of different types of businesses. But I am an expert at working with business owners and clinic owners in the health and wellness industry who are overwhelmed and exhausted and have lost their confidence with when it comes to when it comes to running a business. That’s who I work with. So who do you work with? And what are your patient needs your client needs? And how can you tailor your services accordingly, look at what your patients and clients need to get the outcomes and the results that can foster a deeper connection can increase your loyalty. And that positive word of mouth recommendation. This isn’t just about selling a one session, let’s just see how you are today. And let’s just see how you are next week. This is about really owning. For me in my clinic, I we believe that nobody who comes to do Pilates with us will will feel better, move better and live better with anything less than 12 sessions, they’re going to start to feel the difference, don’t get me wrong, they’re going to start to maybe feel like they can put the socks on a bit easier, or the back pains a little bit better. But if they stop before that 12 session, then they’re going to lose all that great work they’ve done. That’s our belief. So we have nothing less than that, then they can work with us. So three set three months kickstart programme, that’s it. So really understanding your patient needs and tailoring your services is going to allow you to improve your predictability of revenue within your business technology in 2024 is non negotiable, my friends, we have to really think about how we can embrace the technology out there to implement user friendly ways that our patients can connect with us that we could stop. We could stop just transacting time for money. When we use technology, it becomes then that we can offer more value, we can give more. But it doesn’t necessarily always mean our time. We can start to use the data to analyse and personalise our patient experiences, we can start to look at the data to decide where are the holes in our sales strategy? Are we not converting all of these inquiries into patients? Well, if not, why not? Let’s fix that. When they then come in, how many sessions are we working with them on if your average is like two or 2.5 or three in your clinic, you’re not going to be making any money. And I know that because I know the cost of getting a client in through the door. I know that all the costs of what you’re having to pay for your premises and your staff costs and so your margins are being squeezed. So, we have to look at this from two angles. We have to look this look at this from a business angle but we also have to look at this from a patient experience angle. I do not want to be that physio clinic owner who has a patient who’s got really horrific back pain. They’ve had it for about 25 years but they’ve just decided to come and see you you know who I’m talking Going about, it’s them. Okay. And they come in. And yes, they might think you can fix them in one session that they probably do. But if because if they did that have that have probably come in sooner than 25 years. However, I don’t want to be the person that goes, Oh, Acacia they come in. She’s not a real person, by the way. And let’s talk about your background that you’ve had for 25 years, and you’ve done nothing about let’s bring you in financial assessment today. And then yeah, what really shows let’s just put you back in NetSuite. Let’s see how you getting on and and then surely gets really busy. And then the kids get sick, and then she rings and cancels her appointment. And because there isn’t a system in the in in place to follow up these people that cancel, we never see surely again. And Paul surely has now had her back problem for 26 years, and then surely meets a friend down the road and Frances other kind of just pull my shoulder really go and see a physio, do you know, anybody and surely goes, Well, I wasn’t seeing them down the road, but actually, I’m not really that much better. So yeah, no, I didn’t really know anybody. Now that looks like it’s our fault. And guess what it is our fault, because our problem solving strategy was a bag of shit, because we didn’t have a plan in place to ensure that that lady had the best possible chance of getting her back pain resolved. The reason why Slimming World exist, Weight Watchers exists PTS exist is because people need accountability. People need the support. And this is why I exist because people can’t do it by themselves. Because if they did, they’d already done it. So we have to get out of our I was gonna say, our NHS brain and into the fact that people are paying us to solve their problem. And our duty is to tell them exactly what we think it is that they need with integrity. We don’t sell them anything that they don’t need. But we do give them the best possible way of getting the outcomes that they’re looking for. I’ve totally going off piste here, guys. But I’m too passionate about this subject. So we’re looking at all the steps in our problem solving funnel in our sales strategy. Where are your gaps? Let’s talk about your pricing model. Okay, we need to start thinking about your price rise in 2024, we need to start thinking about how can we how can we move people into more package deals, subscription plans, loyalty programmes, to incentivize repeat business, to get people well and keep people well, diversifying your services, introducing premium offerings for those who are seeking really specialised care, reviewing your pricing strategy based on on market trends on I was gonna say competitor analysis, but actually scrapped that because I don’t care what anybody else is doing, because nobody is you, and the perceived value of your services to ensure that you are at the top of your game, but you’re still maximising your revenue. So before we turn on that wonderful marketing tap that we’re going to talk about next week, in 2024, I need to make sure that we’re not just burning through cash, I need to make sure that all of those bits in your funnel are plugged, so that the water we’re pouring in at the top is almost the same amount of water, we’re getting out the bottom. Now we’re going to have natural loss, that’s normal in a business, okay, but we don’t want to be losing loads of that water because that is money. That is opportunity that we are literally pouring down the drain. So we’ve got to stay agile, we’ve got to start thinking about how does our sales strategy and our problem solving strategy fit into our 2024 game plan? How can we embrace innovation, leverage technology, prioritise the patient experience, understand what our patients really need, provide premium offerings, stop trying to be cheap, stop trying to undercut everybody to try and get business because it’s not going to work for you, it’s not going to work long term for you. I’ve said before my like, number one thing is to make sure that our industry is believing in themselves enough that they start to price themselves where it should be, and that the population realise that we make such a massive difference to their lives, when we solve their problems, that they are happy to pay for our services, the NHS is not going to get better. And therefore we are in the most wonderful opportunity to do things better, so that we become just the natural place people go to to get their problems solved. Oh, loved that. Love that episode. So hopefully from from listening to this, you are you’re thinking about your funnel, you’re thinking about the holes, you’re thinking about how you can plug them. And you’re gonna go away from here today and start thinking about your pricing strategy and understanding your offerings for clients and how those could maybe start to move and how they could start to maybe change. And of course, we can help you do that. I don’t expect any of you to listen to these episodes and just go in action and do it all because hey, why would you because willpower is not even a thing. It’s less than 5% of your brain. And we can’t just willpower our way to results, we need to get help. We need to get the support the guidance, the accountability, to make all these great things happen. I had a wonderful call with somebody, she’s definitely going to be listening to this. And she said, I have basically coming to all of your free master classes every month on Facebook, I listened to all your podcast episodes, I have really don’t like loads of great stuff. But I basically have a to do list of about 20 pages of all the things that you’re telling me to do. And I’m just not getting them done because I don’t have accountability to make it happen. So she was like, so I need to I need to change that I need to work with you. Because if I, if I’m going to commit the time, why do I need to figure it out for myself and somebody else can just tell me exactly what to do. So whatever it is you need, you need some accountability from somebody either another business owner, from a business coach from a partner from whatever it is, you need structure for your nature to get this sales strategy ironed out, and working for you in 2024. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. I will be back next week with your marketing strategy for 2024. Have a super duper rest of your week. And see you soon