Running a private practice isn’t always easy; between treating patients, coordinating staff members, ordering supplies, sending out invoices, and more, many owners feel overwhelmed and overworked. According to The Alternative Board, over 80 percent of small business owners work more than 40 hours a week, and nearly one-fifth put in over 60 hours on a regular basis. Many practice owners are passionate about what they do, but even so, practically living at the office has its downsides. Constant work can lead to burnout and take time away from the other important things in life, like friends, family, and hobbies.
Fortunately, the Measurable Solutions team can help you simultaneously reduce stress and expand your business by teaching you important principles and helping you apply them to achieve real, tangible results. We provide a variety of services, from management courses at our training facilities to online classes to on-site consultations. In the following blog, we explain three surprisingly simple ways practice owners can reduce their stress and become better leaders.
1. Set Your Business Up for Success
Renowned ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu once said: “When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happens naturally.” Clearly establishing the products and goals of your company, and setting up organized systems to achieve them, can allow your business to run like a well-oiled machine without you having to micromanage every aspect of it. While implementing detailed programs might seem like just one more impossible task on your plate, investing the time and effort to design and enact them now could be a worthwhile investment in the long-term. Measurable Solutions’ training programs can help you learn to identify your products and create procedures to provide them so you can operate more efficiently and feel more at ease.
2. Build a Better Team
No man—and no practice owner—is an island. Surrounding yourself with qualified, enthusiastic people can help you get more done so you don’t end up eternally swamped with backlogged tasks and looming to-dos. If you find yourself compensating for your team members’ slacking, work to correct their behavior and, if this proves impossible, cut your losses. Your staff should help uplift your practice and make coming to work easier, not serve as yet another source of stress in your hectic day-to-day. Having high standards for hiring can help you put together your ideal team so you can feel more confident in your practice’s current and continued prosperity.
3. Don’t Fear Delegation
One of the most common mistakes practice owners make is failing to share the burden of work. As the leader of your company, you shouldn’t still be sending out invoices, filling out paperwork, and answering every phone call. We get it: your business is your baby, and you want to make sure everything is done perfectly. However, you need to delegate in order to both survive (putting in 60+ hours a week simply isn’t great for your wellbeing) and succeed. After you’ve put together an awesome staff, take the time to teach them the strategies you’ve devised. Once you’ve filled and trained key positions in your practice, you should be able to rest a little easier and focus on guiding your business’s operations rather than stressing over every little thing.
The Measurable Solutions team can help you learn how to delegate and lead your operations more effectively. Take our client Jim Bowe, owner of Arrow Rehab, for example. After training with our company, he noticed a dramatic shift in his stress and work/life balance: “My business has changed to the point that now I have staff members who can run the business when I’m not there…My freedom to enjoy other hobbies and interests is exponentially higher.” Perhaps even more impressive is that Mr. Bowe is able to enjoy his new freedom while having tripled his business’s gross income, thanks to Measurable Solutions’ support.
