“Where will all this take me? This is a question I often get asked by budding medical entrepreneurs.
My answer is – how long is a piece of string? In other words, where do you want this to take you? And how far do you want to go?
When they appear uncertain at my response, I explain the following:
When you start on your entrepreneurial journey, you can do so in any number of directions, and the first challenge is to pick a single direction, or niche. This is often the most challenging part of the whole equation, because it all seems so distant and daunting .
Once you commit to a single niche, however, the distance you cover from there will be largely determined by your enthusiasm and application. But don’t underestimate yourself……because, once you get interested in something, pretty magical things can happen.
I know, because it happened to me, just like this:
- You pick a niche that you are interested in and enthusiastic about.
- When you practice medicine in a field you enjoy, you start to get good at it. Really good at it.
- Patients aren’t used to doctors who are really good and enthusiastic about their craft. They start to talk.
- They won’t only talk. In this day and age, they will Facebook, they will tweet, and they will email their friends.
- You’ll start to get busy. Your niche will start to creep across the working week and you will become busy and popular. Remember that even in a competitive field, medicine is not that competitive. There may not be that many good enthusiastic doctors, in your field, in your area.
- You will succeed. Quicker than you ever thought you could.
Once things take hold, your business can develop very quickly. You’ll find that you will:
- Have a niche that takes up a good part of the working week.
- You may find that you get so busy that you can take up this niche full-time within your existing practice or partnership.
- You could set up your own rooms, perhaps shared with another non competing health professional. Or you may practice full-time in your own dedicated premises.
- You will then be approached by doctors wanting to work with you and you’ll then start employing doctors.
- You may then consider opening satellite clinics staffed by employee doctors.
- Finally at any of these latter stages, you may be approached by a corporate entity wishing to buy out your business.
So, to answer your question – how far can this take me? The answer is – it’s really up to you. It’s probably much further than you now think it could.
Good luck, and get started on your journey!
