You are the level of your business. What do I mean by that?
Having been involved in ownership or management of gyms, chiropractic clinics, and dental offices in particular, it has become clear to me that each of these has a “capacity.” Capacity works by placing a ceiling on the amount of people you can see or manage in a given day, week, or month.
Once you hit that number, roadblocks or “choke-points” inherent in the structure, function, and flow of your business halt any more growth. These choke-points are also called “capacity blocks.” This is seen when a business invests time and dollars into marketing, funneling in a number of new customers in a particular month much greater than the norm. Yet, within a short period of time, despite the influx of more people, overall production ends up the same. In fact, because of the additional stress on the system, sometimes the numbers even end up lower as parts and people breakdown.
Regardless of how you measure your success, you are the number you are at or stuck at.
- If you are a salon that serves 17 people per day and you can’t get past 17 people per day, you know why? You’re a 17-people-a-day salon.
- If you keep netting $8,000 a month no matter what you try in your business, you know why? You are an $8,000-a-month business.
- If you are a dentist and, regardless of the new technology you add, increased marketing budget, or employee training, you see 50 patients per week, you know why? You’re a 50-patients-per-week dentist–that’s why.
- If you’re a chiropractor that sees 150/week and makes $19,000/month no matter what you seem to do or buy, it’s because that’s your system’s capacity.
On the other hand, others have raised the roof. Their capacity is 100s of people per day and scalable to an unlimited number—millions of dollars per month, or thousands of clients per week. Virtually every entrepreneurial endeavor has some capacity, but if that ceiling is lower than you desire, then you likely need to address structure, function, and flow – from a new perspective.
1. Perspective
The new perspective; I can observe doctors and their systems from having adjusted 2000/week. When 1 clinic became a choke point to generating more services, we opened 4 more and then 100 more. It makes it easy to provide solutions to breakthrough any glass ceiling. Trying to grow from a stuck point using your own perspective creates a steel ceiling.
2. Structure
Nick Saban said, “Don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you can’t get it wrong.”
Structure is the combination of process and execution. If the processes aren’t effective and scalable, you don’t have the right people, or the training has been inadequate, then the bones of the operation are faulty and unstable.
Every business and all of the units within should have a playbook that outlines the steps and scripts. The best companies and teams in the world with the highest employee satisfaction have a very specific manual–a playbook. It allows for people and divisions to train like they are preparing for the Super Bowl. This includes live training on how to manage real-life challenges, objections, and situations that occur regularly so you are ready.
Without structure, you cannot manage. If you are making a product like a professional tennis racket and it’s being produced in an assembly line, it is easy to manage your success and correct your failure. If at the end of the line, the racket is missing strings, troubleshooting is easy. You know to go to stage four of the assembly, where the strings are strung, and correct the malfunction. If you do not have a playbook with steps or processes designed to take a product or customer from point A to point G, how can you determine where you need work?
3. Flow
You can have all of the tools of a professional kitchen, and fail to be a successful restaurant because the elite level cookware is in the basement, the cutlery is in the bathroom, the commercial stainless-steel appliances are in the attic, and your best in class oven is in the dining room.
I have seen or worked in clinics and other businesses that have all of the skills and tools, but a terrifying flow. A clinic with a 300/week potential has a capacity ceiling at 150 and can barely profit all due to the way the process is set up and managed.
We have been positioned to be the stewards of the public health and with the people we hire, care, and provide for. It’s worth getting it right and practicing until we can’t get it wrong.
Have fun saving the world
Dr. Ben
