Prices, Production, Profitability.

The anxiety in the landscape around prices, production and profitability continues.

This morning, as I return to my desk after a much-needed weekend break, I find no less than 6 requests from clients and prospective clients to absorb and analyse their numbers and offer suggestions to restore healthy cash flow.

That will take a big chunk of my time over the next day or so.

On Wednesday I'll be in Salford, presenting the latest of the Practice Plan Regional Workshops on financial analysis for the non-financial Owner and Manager and I'm informed that it will our biggest audience of the tour.

Wages - up.

Overheads - up.

Variable expenses - up.

Clinician pay - upward pressure.

All of which will erode your profit margin and cash flow - unless you do something about it.

Spoiler alert:

1. Put your fee per item and plan prices up - on average my clients are implementing +25% rises (and that's an average - I have some clients at +33% and one at +40% - and patients are not leaving);

2. Train, coach and mentor your fee-earners to increase their average daily production.

I sharing with my clients the methodology and language around both of these objectives.

Put simply, it is time for the patients to pay more for what they already enjoy and time for you to train your team to ethically sell them more things that they want.