With the right strategic approach, you can stop overwhelm and increase your revenue.
What’s worse than the feeling of being overwhelmed? You know how it is: that nagging vibe that never seems to go anywhere, that has you wondering if you are any good at what you are doing, if you should learn more to be more, if you are even making a difference, and how the heck to be more profitable while not drowning in more work.
Being overwhelmed is a feeling of not doing and not being enough, compounded with a lack of planning and direction.
It’s Natural To Feel Overwhelmed
Don’t beat yourself up over these feelings. They happen to every single person. Being a practitioner is quite frankly two fold – one is having the expertise and experience to change your patients’ health status and the other, well you are actually running a business and that comes with a lot of extra things you need to know and consider.
That person who looks like they have all of their shit together? They are overwhelmed, or have been, and were forced to look at why and fix it. Believe me, I have been there many times, but I recognize it quickly and hash out what I need to do to get over it. I don’t know if you are anything like me (an over-deliverer of all things, who leads from the heart first, and tends to say yes too often) but it can come in waves more often than I’d like!
A Decisive, Strategic Plan To Handle Your Overwhelming Workload
So what can you do to fix it? I’m going to walk you through how you can stop feeling overwhelmed in not just your business but your life, by using a simple strategy that works.
1. Get Clear On Your Income Goals
First things first. Let’s talk about your future plans, your Big Lofty Dreams. and let’s put those down on paper. #1.
Write down what your monthly needs are with regards to the mortgage for the house you want (maybe not be the house you have right now – remember this is your ideal lifestyle you are carving out). The cost of the organic groceries you want to be easily able to afford, the cost of the car you want, the trips you want to be able to go on, the budget you want to have for spending every month. The cost for sending kids to school, camps, extra-curricular activities, boarding school (OK, I just threw that one in there for those problem children cramping your style – kidding, of course!).
After you’ve listed out what you need to make each month in order to afford your ideal lifestyle, add about 30-40% in income tax on the total. Now that is your monthly take-home goal. Simple, right?
Now take a look at your current monthly take-home income. What is the gap? Do you need another 5-10k a month or more?
2. Analyze Your Revenue Streams
Now you understand what you’d like to make. (And let’s be clear that if your partner makes half and pays half, take that number out of the equation, so that you know what YOU need to make.)
So now let’s look at what you do to make money.
Do you have one revenue stream? In other words, do you see patients and charge for your time, or do you also do lab tests, dispensary/medicinary, patient visits, sell consumable goods or products, and offer patient-care programs and online courses? Where does your money come from? Make a clear list.
For this exercise, take a look at the past year and take an average of all these income streams and write that down.
How do you do that?
- Total up your dispensary profit for the last 12 months, then divide by 12
- Total up each revenue stream for the past 12 months, then divide by 12
- Use that number as the average for that revenue stream
Now we know where the money is coming from.
3. Prioritize Your Areas Of Focus
Having a clear picture of where your money comes from is an eye-opening experience for some, and for others, it’s not big news.
But when you compare how far you are from reaching your monthly goal, you will need to look at these revenue streams and decide where you need to put your energy and focus in order to achieve the goals that you want. And of course, you want to do it without losing your mind trying to do everything.
If you make most of your money from services like seeing patients one-on-one, then it’s time to take a hard look at that and decide, “can I create a group program, or can I increase the annual money each patient spends with me by creating a comprehensive program?”
If you make half of your money from dispensary sales, ask yourself, “how can I leverage current customers to buy more, making it easier for them to access products, and creating a subscription-based scenario for them to more easily access what they need?” (What are their barriers to buying everything through you? Convenience, price, awareness of the quality, education about the value of the recommendation? ) What can you do to ensure everything they want for their supplementation is easily accessible through you?
Now you see it as a revenue stream that you can leverage to achieve 20-30% more revenue (or even more!) for your business, putting you that much closer to your monthly goal.
4. Start Saying No, And Maximize Your Profit
Let’s summarize. We’ve dialled into what you want for your lifestyle, what you currently offer that makes you money, what the average of all your services are, and what the gap is between what you do now and what you need to do to reach your bigger goal.
Now that the financial goal is obvious, those feelings of being overwhelmed can easily be reduced by understanding which lines of revenue you need to focus on in order to reduce that gap and reach your goal. (In fact, you may see that some revenue streams are taxing, offer low profit, or just don’t light you up. Consider cancelling those now. It’s OK to say no to things that suck your time and energy so you can double down on what works for you).
So if you’ve determined that adding a group coaching program or creating a one-on-one program that allows your ideal patient to access more of you and your services so they can reach their health goals, then double down on that. Carve out time for the tasks you need to do to make that happen. Pick the most profitable revenue streams, but also the things you like doing best and write them down as the actions that will help you reach your goal.
Do each of them need to grow by 30-40% in order for you to reach that ideal lifestyle goal?
Knowing the percentage of growth that your selected revenue streams need to grow by allows you to clearly outline where your business-related activities need to be focused. Now carve out some time, dial in deeper to those offers, and figure out what you can do to grow them more.
Laser Focus On The Right Goals Is The Key To Stop Overwhelm
Remember that a confused mind doesn’t move forward and that feeling of overwhelm is a cortisol killer, so break everything down so you can get crystal clear on what you want and what you need to do to get there. Soon, you will see that being overwhelmed is no longer your status quo. Instead, being laser focused and hungry to make changes will become the new norm.
Reach out on IG at @youridealpatents and tell me how you did with this exercise. Or if you need help and are ready to dive deeper into your practice and how to set it up for success, book a free call and let’s chat!