Episode 94: 6 Tips To A 6-Figure Year

Hi and welcome to episode 94 of the Untethered podcast. Today we are talking about six tips to six figure growth in 2021.

Quick disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified orofacial myologist, feeding special and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, tethered oral tissue and airway space. I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to get this information out to the masses.

Let's get started. Hey everybody. Hallie Balkan, your host here and we are going to chat today about 16 tips to a six figure year. Now this could be your first six figure year or this could be growing six figures in your business this year. Whatever it may be. I'm going to give you six tips that you're going to want to pay close attention to because while they might seem basic, they are things that I see over and over again as things that they're actually things people struggle with. Right? There are things that my coaching clients struggle with. My one on one coaching clients. There are things that I've seen in other masterminds that I've participated in. You know, see people struggle with these things. There are things that come up in my membership when we talk business. So what I want you all to do is just, you know, open ears, listen to these six tips and think about which ones you can walk away with today that are truly going to help you. And before we jump in here, I do want to give a little shameless plug because right now we do have doors open to applying for the Real Biz mastermind. So that's my business mastermind for any private practice owners that want to grow six figures or seven figures in your practice this year. You can email supporteedthepedes.com to learn more about that. All right, so let's jump in six tips to a six figure year. Number one, find your people. Seriously, find your people. Build a following. Connect with those people. Connect. Okay. Connect with people in your community that could be online, that can be in person. This is obviously going to be highly related to where your business is and what type of business you have, but you know, that's not to Say that if you have a local brick and mortar private practice that you can't be sourcing your patients from online. You definitely can. You can go through social media channels and become that expert in your area that, you know, the moms are now following you on Instagram and all of a sudden, hey, they're showing up in your office for sessions with their kiddos or themselves or, you know, we're, whatever the case may be, right? So find your people, build your following, okay? And connect, connect, connect, connect. Right now, what I do want to say about those of you who are doing it online, a lot of it is done through social media. So much of it is done through social media. And I want to point out that I just keep hearing about these website creators just selling these massive SEO packages. SEO is something, it's still a piece of the puzzle, but it is a small piece of the puzzle. You need so much more in place. SEO. Hiring somebody to do this big SEO package on your website is not going to just magically make patients appear for you. And I share this because this actually was a recent conversation that I had with somebody who's growing their practice and you know, who was being sold a massive SEO, very expensive package. I said, don't do that. Like, if you know certain things that I can tell you, you can go into the backside of your website and just add a few things, tweak a few things here and really, like, that's going to happen, that's going to help attract people to your website. However, that is not the end all be all right. We need several avenues of referrals. So make sure that, you know, I say that, but also make sure that you're not just using one place for referrals. Like, let's say that you have one dentist or one pediatrician referring to you and they close their business. Well, there goes your referral source, right? Or let's say you just get you source patients through Facebook, through your Facebook page, and then Facebook changes the algorithm. Guess what? They might not be seeing your page anymore. And now your business, like, I mean, I don't want to say your business is all over, but you know, that's the very extreme side of things, right? So don't put all your eggs in one basket, okay? Don't rely solely on SEO or solely on a Facebook business page. You don't want to rely on a sales single referral source for your patients, have a diverse stream of patient referral resources or referral sources. So maybe that is a mix of various online social media Channels, ads. You know, I don't do ads for my private practice. But you can if you want to. I do for my online business, but that's a different model. You know, local referral sources or combination of the two, which is probably the healthiest mix. But everybody has to start somewhere, right? So start with one, then add a second one, and then add a third one. And, you know, before you know it, you're going to have a bustling schedule, or you're going to be building that private practice up 6, 7 figures, filling up more schedules on your team, and then maybe you'll go out and venture out into a new one, right? So you can slowly add them. You don't have to do them all today, but just know that you want to have more than one or two. You really want to have a variety, even if that's a small, small variety. That's number one. Number two, please provide premium services. Oh, my goodness, you guys. I know, I just went off on, like, a tangent, you know. Well, I do this a lot where I talk about things like, just because you have certain letters after your name doesn't mean that you are the best in your area. Stop focusing on getting additional certifications and start focusing on getting the right training and the right patients to hone in your skillset so that you can provide a premium service and truly be that specialist, that. That person who is the best at what they do in your area for what it is that you do, whether that's myo or feeding or whatever, you know, strive to truly give your patients the best, right? And, you know, there's also, you want to have several options for how patients or clients can also work with you. So that could be individual therapy. Maybe there's group therapy options. Maybe you do workshops for parents or professionals. Maybe you do consults that aren't really therapy, but they're, you know, more consultative services. Maybe you do that for professionals. You consult with professionals who want to get into the space that you specialize in. There's just so many different ways that you can diversify your income streams, all under the roof of one practice that, you know, this is kind of a twofold thing, right? Provide premium services. So the reason why I include this together is because you don't want to dilute what you're doing. So when you go and you provide these premium services and you provide, you know, a variety of services, make sure they're all relatively connected. So you become known for that one thing, and now you're teaching on that thing, or you're doing a workshop for parents on that thing. You're doing a group therapy or individual therapy on that thing. You know, like we can use myofunctional therapy as an example or occupational therapy or speech therapy or language therapy or whatever, feeding therapy. So the point here is you want to still figure out what is that premium service that I can provide while also diversifying, like the different ways you provide provide services in that specialty. Ok, So I hope that that makes sense. Number three, put blinders on. This was the best thing that I did for myself when I was starting out in private practice. I put my head down like, blinders on, sunglasses on, had no clue how many private practices existed in my area. I'm telling you, if I had known, if I googled it, I probably would have been paralyzed. Because in Bethesda, Maryland, right outside of the D.C. metro area, and I'm licensed in D.C. and Maryland, so I can practice in both. I have a team across D.C. maryland, Virginia and several other states now. And if I had any clue when I was starting out how heavily infiltrated this area already appeared to be, I'm not sure I would have launched my private practice, to be completely honest with you. So being, you know, putting those blinders on, right, and pretending like these things don't actually exist, that's going to be a really healthy way for you. I know it sounds silly, but it is the best way for you to go about starting your thing. Act as though you are the service and you are the practice for the patients that are right for you. Because there are certain patients that will be right for you and there are certain patients that will be right for another practice. And guess what? If you guys specialize in different things, that'll make it very clear cut. If you specialize in the same thing, then people are going to generally pick the practice based on factors and values important to them. And so you will get the people that are right for you and those other practices will get the people that are right for them. There are enough people to go around, even in rural areas. All right, now if you're the only practice, that's a different story, right? Different conversation. I'm really talking about many of you who tell me, oh, it's just so like there's so many practices, it's already. There's so many SLPs or there's so many RDHs already doing MYO or there's so many OTS in this area. You know, I talk to you guys and I hear you, but put your blinders on. Put your Blinders on and focus on what you can provide to your community and find the need. Like what is not what is missing. Maybe something's missing out there that people keep asking for. Is that aligned with what you want to do? And if it is, that's a very easy thing to step into. Okay, so number three is put your blinders on. Number four, stop wasting your time period. Done. End of story. Seriously though, stop doing busy work. Stop getting stuck in the doing. Right. I've talked about be do have from my mentor Jim Fortin in the past and if you go back, I recorded an episode on that way back when, probably in the 70s or so on this podcast, like somewhere like 73, 74, I don't know. But if you go to untetheredpodcast.com, you can put in B do have and that episode will pop up. But seriously, stop wasting your time. Stop doing the busy work. Stop thinking you need to micromanage everything. Stop having your hands in all the things this is going to take your business. You need to figure out what do I what does not need to involve me, what do I need to walk away from and what is not making me money. Like what could I hire somebody else to do that will allow me to step away and make more money in my specialty? Doing what I do best. Alright, that is where we want to work from when we are trying to grow to six or seven figures because you can't control it all. You just can't. Now if you are just starting, that is a different story. Although it depends how fast you want to grow. But if you are just starting, this may not apply as much up front, but keep it in mind for down the road, like even several months down the road. Because a lot of us get into very time wasting types of activities. Sometimes there are things we don't even need to be doing and we just do them because we think we need to and we want to try and stay busy. Other times we do them because they need to get done, but really we are not the best person to be doing them. Okay, so there's that. Number five, stop listening to people that are broke. I cannot tell you how much I have heard this lately. There are people who are advising private practice owners who have never made more than a couple thousand dollars a month in their private practice. I'm sorry, you might have some great tips and everything, but you guys listen to people who have already done what it is you want to do. If you're going to invest your time and your money, you need to be listening to people who have already done what you want to do. And I don't mean just start a private practice and create some intake forms. I'm talking like you're sitting here saying, yeah, I want to make six figures in my private practice this year. I want to grow my private practice. Find the person who's already done that. Like, I've done that. I would never step into coaching other people and taking their money from them to give them advice and help them grow their businesses if I hadn't done it first. Okay. But again, that. That's. That makes sense to me. Why would I charge somebody for something that I've never done? I can't help myself as a specialist or as the mentor or as the, you know, expert in an area that I've never done something in before that seems absurd to me. So please stop listening to people that are broke. Stop listening. And I say this with love, because a lot of people I know will jump into Facebook, and there's a lot of free groups, and you ask the question, and you get not the advice of the expert running that group, because they're not spending their time in their three groups usually. They're usually spending most of their time in their paid groups. You're getting the advice of other private practice owners who most often are exactly where you are or are not that far ahead of you. And so how do you vet that? How do you have any clue other than what they tell you or don't tell you? So stop listening to people who are broke. Like, people might have good ideas, but unless you know about their practice and you know about their track record, I mean, I would just. I would take it with a grain of salt. Okay, and number six, this leads into. Number six, pay for expert strategy. What got you here won't get you there. All right, that's. One of my mentors, James Weddmore says that he. I love that he said that sometime this past year, he was like, what got you here won't get you there. And I was like, well, isn't that the truth? I mean, there's so much to that. Right? There's a lot of content out there. Like, we were just talking about it, and. Sure. Like, a lot of it comes from experts in the field, too. So could you sort through it all and make sense of it? Sure, you could. But most people put their premium content behind closed doors. Most people do not put their premium content out on their podcast or on their YouTube channel or on their free Facebook group or on their social media. Posts some do, but it could take you a lifetime to piece it all together into a system that actually works to get you to six or seven figures or to grow six or seven figures. Okay? So the point being, if that is your goal, right, it comes with an expense, as it should pay the people who have already done it, a small investment that leads. If you were to invest 15,000, $20,000, whatever, okay, and you could make six figures, $100,000 off of that that you wouldn't have made otherwise on your own, would that not be worth it? I mean, I think we can all agree that would be worth it, right? This is how I look at it and this is why I have invested in mentors. I've spent a ton of money investing in my online business, my mentors, you know, to grow something that I wanted to grow this past year. And this was after I'd already grown a six figure, a multi six figure private practice. So, you know, I've done this offline, I've done this online, but I've also looked to mentors and teams. Okay. The private practice stuff comes very naturally to me. But trying to flip this into the online space was different. Creating like my online courses and my membership and all that, that was new to me. So I sought out mentors. And that's why I talk about these people that I've worked with a lot in the past couple years. But even prior to that, I hired mentors in the past that were five figure investments. So, you know, in the past couple years alone, I have done multiple programs and had several mentors that all complemented each other. And that, that was me paying for expert strategy. That was me figuring that, okay, well what got me there is not going to get me where I want to go. So I'm going to need to invest in myself and my business and with the goal that if I invest X, I want this kind of a return on investment. Okay. And that's why in my program that I'm that I was mentioning at the very beginning of this, I want to make sure that I make it very clear that when you make an investment, it's because you want a six figure return on investment. Right? All right? So you can use the free stuff out there if that works for you. But how do you know it works for you? How do you know it's truly a fit for you? Right. When you link up with an expert, it means that you get tailored advice that's actually in alignment with you and your goals and your business. And that's the Beauty of it all. So that's why I personally love masterminds. That's why I've also, I'll give myself another shameless plug. This is why I've created my real business mastermind. You know, business masterminds, what are they? For those of you wondering, they're a group of like minded individuals who can share wins, strategize, provide business and personal support to each other as you go through this and as you achieve your larger business goals together. And look, it gives a huge boost to an entrepreneur. It's an educational resource. In my business mastermind I provide trainings, I provide hot seat calls, which is personal one on one mentoring, coaching. But in the group setting everybody gets to kick off with a 90 minute one on one with me so I can learn about your business and make sure that this mastermind is going to serve you and your business. And it's really, it's just a secure and intimate group of really high achieving professionals and it's just so much fun. I freaking love masterminding and I just love everything that comes with it. Now the other thing I'll say about a mastermind is it's not something that should take your time, it should not take a ton of your time every week. Because a true mastermind should be a resource to you that doesn't stress you out but that pushes, that teaches you and propels you forward. So my goal is not to create this like really lengthy, huge course or these really long trainings by any means. They are meant to be efficient to the point. And I, you know, you need to be coachable too, right? You need to be coachable if you're going to be going into something like this. So I'll plug the real Biz mastermind if you want to apply email supportethepedes.com and Jess will get you an application. But basically this particular mastermind is for private practice owners who are looking for serious growth this year. Right. In 2021. And I'm talking six figure growth. Like I said before, the model of your business is not what was is going to dictate if you're a good fit or not. Right. So as I mentioned, I've been involved in both online and offline models and I still am. And so what's going to dictate if you are a good fit is whether you're coachable, if you're ready for real growth and if you're ready to learn how six to seven figure business owners go out there and market and grow their businesses and work through all the stuff that comes along with that. Because you guys, we might make it look pretty on social media but some days just suck. Right? And how awesome is it to have a team of like minded professionals that can help you move through the suck as much as they can help you celebrate your wins? Really it happens. That's what happens in business. So anyways, I am not going to harp on this for too long. This is going to be a very small group of therapy practice owners and we only have 10 more spots remaining currently. So. So I'll be reviewing applications and setting up a discovery call for anybody who is interested in and who appears to be a good fit for the Mastermind. And we will only be accepting applications now through January 27th. So again if this is you and you are interested, email supportthepeds.com and we will see if it's a good fit because I'm not just going to take you because you want to make the investment. I want to make sure it's a good fit for you and that our goals are aligned and that you're aligned with the others who are already in the group and that we can all come together and achieve our goals together. So you know, and I can help you guys do that along with the group. So it really needs to be a good fit. All right, so this is a very intimate and special kind of setup. This real biz mastermind will be using my real method and I'll tell you more about that when we link up on the discovery call if that's the next step for you. So all right, I hope this is helpful you guys just to review real quick. Our six tips to a six figure year are to find your people, build that following and connect with them. Provide premium services and various diversify like your streams of income within your practice, put your blinders on, stop wasting your time, stop listening to people who are broke and pay for expert strategy. It's as simple as that. So if you guys can put those six tips into play that will really help you move toward a six figure year. Even if you're new, even if you're brand new to this space. But if you're someone who is really looking to grow by six or seven figures this year, reach out because we definitely are interested in chatting with you and you know, we want to see if it's a good fit. All right, hope everyone has a good day. This is Hallie signing off.

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