Raj Suppiah, PT
Do you feel like your practice is stagnating and you need more patients yesterday? Or do you feel like your practice is a runaway train that might crash at any moment?
Neil interviewed our client and friend Raj Suppiah, Co-Founder of Foundation Physiotherapy & Wellness, to learn how Raj has been so successful in controlling his business growth.
Step 1: You Have to Have a Vision
Neil: What has helped your practice to grow over the last three years?
Raj: Great question! I think from a vision approach, you have to ask: where do you want your practice to be? Do you want it to be just a clinic, or do you want it to be a brand? For myself and my co-owner Matt, we decided we wanted to take our practice to the next level.
Neil: So what did that mean for you?
Step 2: Stop Treating Patients 40 Hours a Week
Raj: Well, that meant we could no longer be treating in our practice for the majority of the time. We had to become the leaders and organizers at the top level and create a proper structure. By having specific roles for our employees and having proper organization, we’ve allowed our brand to be more organized.
But you can’t step out of practicing unless you know you want your brand to be at that next level.
Raj: Everyone has a different vision and different goals. If you just want to run a small practice, that’s great, and you don’t have to worry about creating a structure. But if you want to get bigger, then you have to understand that you can’t be purposeful about marketing if you’re spending 40 hours a week treating patients. Trying to do both would be very hard, because you’re going to have to spend at least 10 hours a week on marketing, and then a few hours a week managing the marketing team!
You have to be purposeful in how you want to grow and be organized. That’s really been the thing that has helped us grow. We needed to step back in our roles as treatment providers and step up as leaders. Leaders that can create and measure our systems.
Step 3: Realize You Have to Change Yourself from PT to Leader
Neil: I couldn’t agree more.
You have to change as a person in order to take your business to the next level. And then when you understand you have to change, you ask yourself: what do I have to learn to get there?
Raj: That’s where you might feel a little uncomfortable. You’re a PT, I’m a PT. We didn’t learn sales. So you have to invest in yourself. You may have to scale back on clinical learning and take some time to get resources to learn about the business side of things.
Neil: I know for me, about 16-18 years ago I realized “Gosh, I need to get better at business.” So now I have 16-18 years of business learning. I pretty much have the equivalent of a Master’s in Business, just not the actual title.
Raj: Laughs. Hey, that counts!
Neil: I’m sure you’ve done it too! I’ve spent a lot on my own business training. But you cannot scale your business–you cannot hit your vision– unless you realize you have to change yourself and get better yourself.
Raj: So my parting words would be: invest in yourself if you want to grow and know where you want to go. Know where you’re going, and know where you’re growing.
Raj Suppiah is the Co-Founder of Foundation Physiotherapy & Wellness in Toronto, ON. Raj has been extremely successful in stepping back from treating patients 40 hours a week and investing in his business.
To listen to Raj and Neil’s full conversation and get tips on how to involve your PTs in marketing, check out the PT Marketing Power Hour on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are found!
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