Episode 44: Medical Entrepreneurs: Mastering the Business of Functional Medicine
Medical Entrepreneurs should be running their functional medicine practices like a business. Dr. James Neilson-Watt explains common mistakes and how to overcome them with insights about:
- What the pandemic looks like for functional medicine practitioners in New Zealand
- How to run your functional medicine practice as a business
- The common mistakes medical entrepreneurs make and how to overcome them
- The key to freedom and long-term sustainability as a practice owner
- Foundations, structures, and systems that Dr. Neilson-Watt put in place so he could extract himself from the day-to-day of his practice
- How to delegate and automate parts of your practice so you can free up time for revenue-generating activities
- What to look for in candidates for a patient acquisition/onboarding role
- How to identify and remedy faults in your sales process
Run Your Practice Like a Business
Dr. James Neilson-Watt is the author of “The Million Dollar Practice” and host of the “Healthcare Business Secrets” podcast. He originally sat down with us for Episode #39 where we talked about the art of client attraction, conversion, and retention for medical entrepreneurs. If you did not get a chance to listen to our discussion, you can find it here. This week, Dr. Neilson-Watt joins us for another episode of The FM Shift to share tips for mastering the business of functional medicine.
Freedom and Long-term Sustainability for Medical Entrepreneurs
As health professionals, most of us initially thought to ourselves, “I’m going to get out of school, I’m going to help some people, then I’m going to start my own practice.” But there is a huge gap of knowledge between medical entrepreneurs and functional medicine providers that just so happen to have a practice. They don’t teach business in med school, and this leads to a lot of trial by error that detracts from the benefits that drew us to entrepreneurship in the first place. If you run your practice like a practice, it will eventually turn into a job. If you want long-term sustainability and freedom that enables you to live your life, You have to run your practice like a business.
Delegate, Automate, and Focus
There is a major difference between owning a business and running a business, which is why Dr. James Neilson-Watt put systems in place to extract himself from the day-to-day. If medical entrepreneurs are answering their own phones and doing bookings, there’s a problem. Delegation is key to freeing up a practitioner’s time for revenue-generating activities. Dr. Neilson-Watt also automated a lot of his marketing and lead gen processes, and he switched to a pre-recorded training regimen for appropriate positions. If you can take yourself out of activities that other team members can do, you will free up your time to focus solely on the growth of your practice.
About Dr. James Neilson-Watt
James started his career like most new grads…stuck in a dead-end clinic and hustling to pay the bills…
But with a relentless drive to succeed, he purchased a run-down clinic and tripled it in 3 months, and within 2 years had generated over a million dollars in revenue.
Fast forward to today, he now runs Practice Mastery a premium done-with-you training program for practice owners who are serious about creating long-term success.
He helps them build hyper-successful healthcare practices & generate the revenue, impact & lifestyle they deserve.
How to Connect with Dr. James Neilson-Watt:
- Website: https://www.practicemasterymethod.com/buy
- Website: https://www.jamesneilsonwatt.com/about
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesneilsonwatt/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesneilsonwatt
- Twitter: @drjamesnw
