Hello everyone out there! I’m Sarah Trunk, and along with my husband Jereme, I own Balance Within Physical Therapy in Delafield WI.
We help people overcome pain, no matter how chronic or severe, so they can return to enjoying their active life – even if they’ve lost hope or everyone has given up on them.
Last November we joined 4% Club, but have been circling around Planet Paul for a few years now! We recently put our rates up from $180 to $230 – and we have been in business since December 2015, we have been around a while and this was our fifth or sixth increase.
When we started our rates were 3 one-hour one-on-one sessions for $150 just to get people through the door and that was just $50 a session.
Accept that raising rates is the norm And then initially we charged $100 a visit once they got going, up to 120, 150, and 180, and now 230.
We talked our staff through this and when we increased the rates, even $120 to $150 I felt so anxious. It’s a natural reaction, like clockwork I feel anxious for 2/3 months before and a month after but then we have people come in all the time still.
That anxiety is the biggest fear. Accepting it and allowing it to be the norm and recognizing it’s worth it is the biggest part of the journey.
When we look at our finances we know we are doing the right thing.
We are still implementing Cockpit, but we have a good idea of cash flow each month, our own budget, and expenses and we know if we have this many people in this is our cash flow and what we need to meet our goals.
With so much going on outside the clinic, time has been tight and I keep hearing all these stories about business owners getting pulled from their business – that’s happened to me a lot these past two years.
But everything is on the up now and my husband is a PT, I’m more of the CEO and he runs the clinic, but we rely on each other.
I now have the freedom to get out of the clinic and run the business At the end of the day, this is something good and we have had our business for a number of years.
Looking at our financial goals and needs, we have learned the hard way we can do anything, but we can’t do everything.
We have hired our front desk last summer, brought her up to full-time from part-time six months in. I got fully out of the clinic last year to now running the clinic.
We want to grow and get into our own space – what do we want our personal life to look like and what funds do we need to run our business and grow it?
We need to make sure all of the work we are doing behind the scenes, all these years behind the scenes being essentially unpaid, turns into becoming a paid employee and that expense is reflecting that.
Looking at the average price in our area, some PTs charge, at the most cash-pay, $200 an hour and now we are at the higher end of that.
It happens nationally, but not locally and that was a bit of a challenge for our team.
So we looked at it: Our team are the best, very skilled, and giving the highest level of care in the area and they are all in agreement with that – this price point truly reflects that level of service.
We have three practicing PTs and I run the business right now, we have a full-time front desk too.
A world of resources and support to lean on Being part of Paul’s World gives us the support and confidence to do what we are doing and we have developed that confidence as we have gone along.
When we joined Accelerator back in 2017, we really knew for the first time how to sell a cash-pay service as we really struggled with that beforehand.
That was a big deal. Since joining 4% Club, the biggest thing I’ve noticed is the anxiety levels about running our practice have massively dropped.
It’s about not carrying the weight of the world and thinking I have to figure out how to make it better.
Whatever roadblocks I run into or questions I have, then I know there’s a community out there to ask and help.
We were part of Cash Club for a while and we were able to ask questions in the Facebook group which was helpful, but it is a bit different stepping up and getting coaching calls with Simon, the 4% Club calls, being able to dive deeper.
There’s a steep learning curve for everyone and with the most recent rate increase, we felt we weren’t willing to sacrifice the things we need and want and this was the way to do it.
From that viewpoint, it may have felt uncomfortable, but our team understood why and we know the reasons behind it are justified.
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