The Opportunity Cost of DIY in Our Private Practice
Counseling private practice owners tend to kill themselves going the DIY (Do It Yourself) route for every possible thing in order to save a few bucks. They tell themselves that they can’t afford marketing, or spending money to really have a sound business strategy to propel their business forward to the next level. They spend hours upon hours researching and reading conflicting posts on FaceBook about what they should or should not do for their business. Trust me, we have been there.
While doing this we rarely consider the opportunity cost of DIY. We just see the cheapest route is to do it ourselves. Opportunity cost is defined in business terms as the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. On a personal level, in our private practice we were playing the DIY route for almost everything because we never wanted to spend the money on our business.
When it comes to DIY, opportunity cost can hit hard. That time we pour into doing anything else in our business that is not billable is money lost.
Whether it is moving our business from part time to full time practice, changing from solo to group practice, moving off of insurance to self pay billing, or implementing some new technology, there is a steep learning curve that will require time and research to navigate.
The goal should be to cut that opportunity cost down as much as possible.
Let’s play that out…
What if I made an investment to get some help navigating that change? Well, that would save me tons of time. That would allow me to cut through the muck and get moving in a direction that will accomplish my goals. That may even help me to stay on track and not get half way down the road and realize I will never finish implementing this change I want to get going.
We always look at the cost of something and immediately think it's too much to spend. We rarely look at the cost of something and think how expensive it will be not to spend the money to get where we want to be.
Sounds weird right? One would think if I didn’t spend the money then I didn’t lose out. On the other hand, what if you were able to move your business from one place to another in the most efficient way possible and then be on track to reap the benefits of that change as quickly as possible? In our experience, my wife wanted to spend money on a business coach for our small solo practice. I was totally against it because it was really freaking expensive. I distinctly remember her saying I don’t think we can afford not to do this! We worked it out and did it, we spent quite a bit of money for years on a business coach, it changed everything. It really took our business to the next level. Making that investment doubled our business in a year, and then doubled it again the following year, every year has seen growth after that. We moved from a small solo practice that took insurance to a group practice with a team of eight that pays a salary with a full benefits package to our team.
Opportunity cost makes the equation change a bit. Now we are missing out on what we could be making because we are dragging our feet and bogging down our time in DIY land. Now the expense of not getting the help you need starts to really add up.
Opportunity cost is leaving money you could be making on the table because you want to save money getting to where you need to be in your business. The time and effort to get from here to there is compounding while you continue to struggle along.