Making income goals for your practice is a must, just make sure they are limited and realistic especially if your just starting out. Nitin Chhoda explains why setting your goals with realistic income is important in order to meet the expectations of your practice.

physical therapy marketing goalsIn addition to hiring a qualified physical therapy marketing staff and organizing your practice to be efficient and effective, you should already have a plan on how you’ll pay your bills before you even sign the lease.

That means coming up with at least an estimated physical therapy marketing budget based on a few known quantities, such as expenses like rent and an estimate of how many referrals you can expect from alliances with other medical practices. There seems to be a tendency among practice owners to fluff up numbers or at least be very optimistic when budgeting.

Limiting Expectations

Don’t make your own success harder than it has to be; budget according to real numbers and realistic expectations. If your goals are attainable, you can reach them and make even bigger goals. But if you start with goals that are almost impossible to reach, you’ll find yourself barely treading water.

Every practice owner has to be at least a bit of an optimist. Now is a great time to start a business with a great physical therapy marketing plan, especially with incentives from the government to hire people and to take out loans.

In fact, the physical therapy marketing plan is likely to pick up in the coming decade like never before. The baby boomers are aging, and that means the largest elderly generation the United States has ever experienced.

The Good News

This is good news for physical therapists, but it means that things like physical therapy marketing are going to become even more important than ever before. There may be many potential patients, but there are also a lot of other physical therapy practices that are expecting an increase in business.

Physical therapy marketing is a necessity these days, so don’t forget to budget for a great physical therapy marketing plan and implementation strategy.

Just don’t expect everything to work out perfectly at first. Starting any business takes a lot of work and a huge financial risk. The only way to mitigate that risk is by keeping your expectations low and reflecting low expectations in your budget.

If you know how much it will cost to pay for your physical therapy marketing each month, find out how to make at least that much with the minimum amount of effort and time.

Take Your Time

Another easy-to-adopt mistake is to rush into a fast-paced and busy physical therapy marketing environment. Remember that every member of the staff is essentially new and they are all learning to work together.physical therapy marketing limits

Everyone needs to start with enough time to do their jobs right, so they can form good habits rather than bad ones.

A rushed and over-worked staff member will make mistakes and work inefficiently. That includes the owner and manager.

Plan for a slow ramp up, expect limitations at the beginning, and set realistic income goals and targets. You should always err on the side of pessimistic, if only because it’s better to overshoot your physical therapy marketing goals than to not reach them at all.