3 Key Ingredients for a Successful Weight Loss Practice

Today I want to talk to you about the 3 key ingredients, as well as some secret sauce, that goes into creating a successful weight loss practice. This is a little bit of a simplified version. But, these are things that are required (mandatory) in order for you to have a practice you can enjoy.

The first ingredient is clarity. What I mean by clarity is what you want your office to look and feel like. It’s clarity around the staff you want inside your practice that’s representing you. It’s clarity around the services you want to provide, and to what clients. You can’t just be the weight loss physician for everybody. You’ll be more successful if you get more specific when it comes to your marketing and the services you provide. You can do this in a sequential order.  For example, you can start with a medical or surgical weight loss program and then add in other aspects to the services you offer.  Having a clear view is really important for you. It’s also really important to communicate that to your staff so they know exactly what the goal is for that overall clarity.

The next key ingredient is action. We all may know what we want, but unless we actually take some action toward attaining that, we are just spinning our wheels. I don’t mean the type of action where you’re just throwing money into a money pit. I mean concentrated action that relates back to the goal you want to accomplish (clarity). For example if you were going to be someone who wanted to focus on cash pay sales, you want to make sure your actions are supporting what it is with someone who is seeking cash pay surgery or cash pay products. If you are someone who is research based and you want to attract people that can fit specifically into your study, you need to make sure you have clarity around that including the people in your office and you are actually attracting the people you want to work with for that study. Often when I talk to practices they’ve gone off on all these different tangents, and they haven’t remained focused on the clarity of what their larger goal is. If it’s simple then it’s going to get done. Clarity around your major goal and actions that lead toward that major goal is critical.

The third key ingredient is patience with your staff and with your goals. Patience is really hard for me. I want everything yesterday. That’s how our society is. Think about all the patients that come to see you and want all their weight gone immediately. It’s one of those things you just have to be patient with. I’ve been fortunate to build practices with my husband or other physicians. Things do tend to move along in a fairly quickly order.  But it’s because we have those right things in place and we’re not just throwing our money at the next shiniest object that comes along. Having that focus is really important.  It takes patience. You’re not going to have a ton of retail sales overnight.  You’re not going to have the group of ideal patients you want to work with overnight. You’re going to have to be patient. That’s what leads to the transformation of a practice you can really enjoy. The secret sauce that goes along with that is really having a passion for whatever is that you’re doing. I just spent some time last week at Obesity Week. It involves a lot of different entities. I could see those people who had passion. I’m talking about people who are really passionate about what they’re doing.  I also saw people who were really burned out, whether it is lack of support or lack of success in their business. Or maybe they’re burned out from having too many patients. I could see a dichotomy as I talked to so many people.

These are the ingredients that will help you build a successful practice and will help you enjoy the practice.  Create that momentum for yourself, your employees and your practice. Combine that true clarity along with actions, and having patience along the way. Then add in that passion for what it is you want to accomplish. Those are the things that are going to help create that success for you.

If I can help you in any way, please reach out to me at [email protected].