3 Ways To Start Your Own Practice Even When You Think You Can’t
I don’t want to spend ALL of my time with my kids.
I just don’t!
I love them like nothing else, and yet…. I love working, too.
I like the art of chiropractic.
I like interacting with (and being thanked by) adults most days of the week.
I like the sense of contributing to the health of my community.
So I’ve never really felt aligned with being a full-time mom.
(that’s not a judgment, just what’s true for me, and my hope is that every woman have the autonomy to decide what’s true for her)
What I HAVE always wanted, however–since becoming both a mom and a chiropractor roughly ten years ago–was the freedom to work when I wanted to work and be home when I wanted to be home.
In fact, time freedom was one of the biggest reasons that I chose to become a chiropractor!
Being a chiropractor and owning my own practice would allow me to choose my own schedule.
And while for the first several years that I practiced I actually found myself struggling–REALLY struggling–to find the balance between life and practice…
I just knew that being an associate would mean I’d have to work the hours that someone else chose for me.
And I definitely didn’t want THAT.
If you find yourself in a situation right now where you’re working in a job that leaves you with no time for your family…
Or, you’ve taken some time off of practice to raise your babies….
Or, you’re a student and wondering how you could ever afford to start your own practice when you’re graduating with $200,000 in student loan debt…
What you’ll read here can give you a perspective on starting your practice you’ll not find anywhere else.
And if you learn how to start your own practice–
even if you think you can’t because you don’t have a rich family member, collateral, or $100,000 saved–
this could save you years working in a job you hate and/or missing out on your kids growing up.
Keep reading to learn 3 creative ways to start a new practice even when you think you CAN’T start a practice.
Before we dive into that, should we clarify the “usual” way that chiropractors start new practices?
I can’t speak to any statistics on this, but what seems usual (and is perhaps traditionally the most glorified way of starting up) is to
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find some commercial real estate in a strip mall
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put your firstborn up for collateral on a business loan
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spend roughly $50,000-$100,000 on the build out
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hire a CA (and pay that person more than you pay yourself)
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do a whole bunch of spinal screenings that you don’t really want to do (learn more about how to avoid ever doing another spinal screening here)
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and then…. hope and pray for patients.
One of the biggest problems with this way of starting a practice–
something which most people in chiropractic won’t tell you–
Is that there is HUGE risk in taking on tens of thousands of dollars of business debt (on top of your student loan debt, no less).
If you’re starting a practice from scratch by having borrowed a lot of money, you’re starting off in debt. Obviously.
But the bigger problem with this is that you’ve not tested your business model.
You don’t know if there’s a need for chiropractic care in your area,
And that people are willing to pay for it.
And with so much debt, you’re risking needing people more than they need YOU.
Worse, you might be starting a practice by going in debt to do it…. and not have a clue what to do for marketing.
That’s not a healthy place to grow a business from.
But don’t worry. When you start your practice in one of the creative ways that you’re about to learn about, you’ll be reducing your risk in entrepreneurship by a lot.
3 Creative Ways To Start A Practice – Even When You Think You Can’t
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Offer Housecalls – you’re probably familiar with the notion that a housecall practice is an option. In fact, there’s even a great Housecall Practice program out there by Dr. Jen Faber. But what you may not know is that if your dream is to have a traditional brick-and-mortar business, you can still start your practice with housecalls. Think about it: if you can’t afford a one-, two-, or three-thousand dollar lease for commercial real estate, offering housecalls is a way around that obstacle. www.housecallpractice.com
When I was thinking about starting my second practice in a town that I knew my husband and I were going to be moving our family to in a year, I started getting asked by moms in the area if I could help them before I had a space that was even ready for them. After turning 5 or 6 women away, it dawned on me that instead of saying no, I could say yes. I simply let the next person who reached out to me know that yes I could help her and because I didn’t have an office space in the new town yet, I was offering housecalls. Moms of course loved it because they didn’t have to pack up their littles or worry about their kids throwing a nurf ball in a doctor’s office. After just 3 weeks of seeing housecalls 1-2 days a week, I was ready for the next step for my practice. Which was to give it a home.
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Get A Room – again, this idea is not earth-shattering. But, you need to know how simple starting your own practice can be! You’ve probably heard about or known chiropractors who rented space from other chiropractors. But that’s not your only option. In some areas, you can rent a room from other types of practitioners who own practices such as midwives, acupuncturists, naturopaths and more.
When I was ready to give my newborn practice a home–because I had enough revenue coming into the practice that I could afford to pay rent (and because I quickly found the housecall life was not for me–dragging my heavy table around was less than idea for me), I reached out to a naturopath in the area who owned a holistic wellness center via email. Maybe just maybe she had space available in her clinic??? Would you believe when her office staff emailed me back they said they’d been looking for a chiropractor to join their center for over a year. We planned a time to meet, got along well, and she offered me a room in her clinic for just $300 a month. SOLD! And suddenly, my practice had a legit location with a waiting room and front desk. Plus, no more dragging my table around!
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Set Up Shop In Your Home – now, before you dismiss this idea because you think you’re house is too ugly or too messy or too rural or too whatever, you need to know that I’ve seen this work for hundreds of women DCs. And it’s worked for me, too. I can’t think of a way to keep your practice’s operating expenses any lower, which means more of your practice’s revenue gets to go toward your take-home pay (aka, supports your family’s needs).
After just a few months of renting a room in the holistic wellness center, I had grown and needed to move to a different space. While there was plenty of growth in my practice, that wasn’t the type of growth that had me thinking about moving my practice to a home office. It was actually the growth of my belly. We found out in May 2019 that I was pregnant with our fourth child. Surprise!
With the unpredictableness of pregnancy, birth and well, the whole first year or so of any new baby’s life, I decided to shift my practice into a home office. We will already in the middle of building a new home anyway, so the timing worked just fine. And I knew, based on how my previous postpartum recoveries had gone, that I wanted to take off a minimum of at least 12 weeks for maternity leave. Because my expenses in my home office were ultra low, I did that without any major stress.
A home office isn’t an option in every situation. You should first know that you’re gonna have to set boundaries like a mutha (with both your family and your patients) to make a home office work and retain what’s left of your sanity. If you’re not up for very clear and direct communication, this isn’t a smart option for you. Additionally, you’ll need to investigate the legal parameters of running a business in your home and get permission from the applicable governing entities–which isn’t tons of fun but legally and ethically necessary.
There are some things about my story, and about your creative options in starting your own practice, that I feel are really important for you to know about.
Things that made all of this work seamlessly for me that, if you don’t have in place or they simply aren’t a part of your journey–might leave you wondering what the heck you’re doing wrong.
I’ll share those 3 things with you in next week’s post, so be sure you’re on our newsletter list to get updated when that post is ready for you!