WHAT’S THE PLAN?

To say 2020 hasn’t gone the way anyone expected would be a huge understatement, but don’t let that put you off making a solid business plan for 2021, says Alan Adams

It would be really easy to think there is no point in having a business plan going into next year, given how unpredictable 2020 has been. We all thought the economy had plenty to deal with given the ongoing Brexit negotiations, and then coronavirus came and completely changed the course of many people’s year (and potentially, their entire lifetime).

But to me, the lesson here is not that we should abandon business plans altogether, it’s that we should be flexible in our approaches so that we can deal as best as possible with whatever life throws at us. Of course, there are some events you simply can’t foresee, but there are many that you can; every clinic has insurance to look after an issue with the building or its contents, and a business plan is essentially your insurance to enable you to reach your goals.

WHY DO I NEED A PLAN?

Even if you have a rough idea of where you’re going, you still need to define exactly what your dream destination is and what those steps are along the way. Otherwise, you are essentially getting in your car and heading off on a road trip without checking a map, working out how long the journey will take, or ensuring there are plenty of places to stop for petrol en route. You might eventually get there, but it is likely to take longer than you anticipated, and the journey will be much more stressful.

That end destination – in this case, success – is different for all of us. You might be looking to retire early knowing your business will continue turning over a good profit, you might want to buy a holiday home or reduce your working hours. And that’s why you need a detailed business plan; to not only dictate that end destination but also to determine the route you will take, keep you on target, and allow you to recognise which areas of the clinic might need more of a focus.

You can also use the time while you are developing your business plan to think about how you might react if something unexpected happens – is your communications strategy up to scratch so you can let customers know what is happening? And are you keeping an eye on your KPIs so you will have an early warning if the clinic’s financial performance dips?

IS IT AN EFFECTIVE PLAN?

Like anything in life, there’s no point doing something badly – and that’s why you need to ensure your business plan is effective by investing time and effort into the process. I originally developed my DEPTH model because so many of the clients I was working with had plans which were doomed to fail, so I wanted to share with them five steps that are all equally important when working through the process. One of the clinics who used DEPTH to develop their business plan actually tripled its turnover, despite the pandemic. The first step is destination, which goes back to the idea of where you want to end up on your road trip; these are lifestyle goals such as how many days a week you would eventually like to work and how many holidays you want to take a year.

Then it’s time for exploration – finding out exactly where you currently are as a business and then exploring all of the options there are available which will enable progress. This might be streamlining processes to provide cost efficiencies, looking at all of the aspects which impact the success of your clinic such as marketing, admin, HR, pricing and positioning. You know what you are trying to achieve and what the options are, so now it’s time to make the plan. This needs to be detailed, as there is no point simply jotting down a couple of sentences on a scrap piece of paper. But equally, a 50-page document won’t be easy to refer back to, and – as we have seen this year – trying to be too prescriptive could set you up for failure when an unexpected event happens. Around three or four pages will provide a good amount of detail while keeping the process of plotting your progress manageable.

You now have a plan, and you will need tactics to get your business towards your ideal destination. It’s easy to get distracted by the day-to-day running of the clinic, but you need to focus on these tactics because they are so important. You not only need to know which tactics you are going to use, but you need to invest time into really understanding them – for example, using social media is a key method for clinics to interact with would-be patients these days.

For this, you need to have a level of understanding about when to post, what type of content will attract more engagement and what hashtags are and how to use them; if you don’t, then using social media is going to take a lot of time and won’t generate a lot of results. This is why you might hear some business owners saying, “Social media doesn’t work for us” (or similar assertions about different aspects of their clinic) – by and large, it’s not because their clinic is so different that these proven tactics don’t work for them. Instead it’s because they haven’t invested the time and effort into learning how to implement them effectively.

Of course, there’s also PR, marketing, recruitment, IT systems and many other aspects of the business to think about, so this is where it’s worth thinking about whether you could and should call in any experts to help you. The amount you invest in an outside agency or coach to help you with the tactics you don’t know much about is normally worth it when you compare the cost against what you stand to gain in terms of attracting and retaining clients.

“While having a business plan isn’t an automatic guarantee that your clinic will sail through whatever happens, it does put you in a better place to deal with the ups and downs”

Lastly, you want to think about health, which is essentially plotting your progress Monitor your key KPIs and regularly step out of the dayto-day running of the clinic to ensure you’re still on the right road and heading towards that ideal destination.

HOW DOES THIS HELP IF A CRISIS HITS?

As I’ve said, there are some things in life – and in business – which you simply can’t predict. While having a DEPTH business plan in place isn’t an automatic guarantee that your clinic will sail through whatever happens, it does put you in a better place to deal with the ups and downs. For example, if you’ve called in an expert to manage your social media, you have someone on hand to keep communications going and ensure clients are in the know whatever happens, and this year has shown how cruical that has been to businesses.

If you have improved your systems using the right tactics, and you have built time into your schedule to allow you to keep an eye on the clinic’s health, then you already have that allocated time to step out and deal with the crisis without panicking about the day-to-day running of the clinic in the meantime. Things should be happening like clockwork with or without you.

And to return to the road trip analogy, you will always hit traffic and roadworks on the journey but having an effective business plan means you’ve essentially factored it into your day and will still arrive on time. You will already know of some alternative routes you can take if option A is blocked off.