I used to be terrified of numbers. I spent four years learning to be a practitioner but had no idea how to run a business – and absolutely no idea about the importance of knowing my numbers.
Many years later, with lots of uninformed mistakes, I know now that it is imperative to have awareness about the numbers in business.
Setting and Measuring KPIs
Ideally you should set some Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) around your expectations. These might live on a dashboard that shows clearly what the numbers are and lets you know how the practice is running. And then you can ask yourself – what’s going well? Where are we lagging? What kind of things can we improve on? Ideally you should be looking at your numbers generally monthly, often weekly.
There are a huge number of things that we measure in my Practice but here’s what I consider to be the top 9…
- Sales / revenue coming in – daily basis, weekly, monthly, annually – over time I get an understanding of what is good and what is bad
- Net profit – what’s left over after expenses – Most practices we work with are in around 3-10% when really we need to be around 20% of revenue – that’s what you want as net profit.
- Net Cashflow – everything that’s coming in and what goes out across the month? Rent, equipment, expenses, net cashflow for the month – positive buffer month to month.
- Number of patients coming in
- How many NEW patients? – greater than 10% is a good proportion. This is a really important metric that I like to keep an eye on.
- Average £/$ sale
- % rebooking rate – for every patient that comes in – how many make a follow up appointment at that time.
- NPS – Net Promoter Score – most validated metric on customer satisfaction? Ask after a new consult and again after every 5th consult? The question is this – ‘How likely would you be to recommend a friend or colleague to us? ‘
0-6 – they hate us – they are the ones who hate us – and we want to put some time and effort into changing their minds. We call these guys our detractors.
7-8 – on the fence
9-10 – they love us. We consider these guys our promoters – our raving fans.
- Utilisation Rate – Of the available billable hours in a week how many are taking up for billing. Once we get up to about 70-80% of billable hours – we’re in a good spot and I look to hiring someone else so we can maintain that and not put the team under too much pressure.
Metrics or KPIs That We Love
Sales, Net Profit and Cashflow are just the RESULT of doing things well. They’re not the goal or the objective.
The first metric that we love is Rebooking Rate – anything above 80% for rebooking rate – is a great metric. People only rebook if they like us and trust us. This is our most favourite metric and we measure this per practitioner.
The next metric that I love is the NPS. When we look at Allied Health the industry average is around 70% which is very good.
In our practice we sit around 89% and I take a huge amount of pride in that. We are sitting above industry average so we know we are doing something right.
When these numbers are strong – everything else seems to take care of itself.
As I’ve said previously It’s all about getting and retaining patients. In looking at ways to do that – My recommendation to you is to start tracking rebooking rate, NPS – if they’re tracking up – I guarantee you’ll get the results you deserve as a business owner.
Knowing Your Numbers Will Give You Insight Into Where You Are
You need to know where you are, and where you’ve been so you are able to make informed decisions about how to move your business forward. Knowing your numbers helps you decide when to add new products, when to hire more staff, and other important business decisions.
The numbers give you an unbiased view of where your practice is, and where you’ve been. Until you know them, you can’t make informed decisions about how to move your business forward.
Knowing your numbers helps you …
- decide when add new products,
- plan when to hire more staff, and
- understand how well your patients rate your treatment
(and much more!)
