Reflections on Two Years in Business
February marks the Two Year Anniversary of Opening Evolve Performance. With every anniversary we always take some time to reflect. It’s crazy looking back only two years ago and seeing the growth of the clinic and ourselves (Bandit has kind of stayed the same I think). So with this weeks article we wanted to share a little bit more of our story and growth over the last two years.
Our Story
Getting this clinic open wasn’t easy. Especially as someone with literally no assets (and a lot of student loan debt) to their name. We figured we needed about $30,000 to get the clinic open and thought that with a good business plan, budget, and a little bit of charm we would be able to get at least one bank/financer to bite. After 10+ uncomfortable meetings with large and small banks and credit unions and Even local non-profits that help those who don’t qualify for traditional financing couldn’t help us out due to the lack of collateral.
One hundred percent convinced that this model and type of care is necessary and belief that I could make it work somehow if we just got it open, we just said ‘screw it’ and decided to open some credit cards and pull cash off those. So there I was, filling out the application for this super sketchy way to pull cash out of credit cards. I’ve got everything lined up, all I have to do is hit submit, and for whatever reason I decide that I’m going to eat lunch before hitting submit.
I get up, make a sandwich, and as I’m sitting down to eat I get a call from one of the local non-profits we had talked to earlier. They were able to get us half ($14,000) of what we required to open up. Thank God! I carefully ‘X’ed’ out of the application (to be sure I didn’t accidentally hit submit). We used the $14,000 as a nest egg and bought all our equipment on some 0% APR Credit Cards. And here we are today!
Thinking about that story….I don’t really believe in divine intervention - but something happened there with the timing that convinced me even further that this was the right decision.
Reflections on Two Years In Business
1. Get a Coach
It’s OK to admit you don’t know everything. And trying to put on a ‘tough face’ or work harder/longer only makes you more frustrated without moving you much further forward. For the first 1.5 years we resisted getting a coach. ‘Can’t afford it’ or ‘Not enough time’ were the most common excuses. . In October of 2018 we finally dipped our toes in the water and hire our first coach. It is expensive - but it’s worth every penny.
2. Have Fun
One of the main reasons we opened this clinic was to build a community of like minded people and help them overcome pain in a positive and fun environment. We wanted to LOVE coming into work everyday. But throughout the two years we had some days where we found ourselves so caught up in the weeds that we weren’t having fun.
It’s possible to work hard and have fun. Simply reminding ourselves of why we opened the first place keeps us loving what we do and allows us to provide a higher level of care than other clinics.
3. Take Emotion Out Of It
For our entire life we’ve had a tendency to want to be ‘liked’. So when someone cancels their appointment or doesn’t want to work with you we always feel a certain level of ‘sting’. A huge growing lesson has been understanding that not everything is personal - and usually most everything isn’t.
We can control what we say - but we’re not responsible for how someone reacts to it. Being able to say ‘No’ without any emotion attached has been a huge growing lesson. Telling people what the need to hear (vs. what they want to hear) in order to make a full recovery. It’s 100% OK if they don’t like it - and don’t like you.
Plans For The Next Two Years
We opened our doors with the purpose ‘Improving the Human Experience.’ Using manual therapy, movement and strength
Improving the In Clinic Experience
It’s really important to us how our clinic leaves people feeling. In the next year we’ll be looking to to bring more members onto the team to help improve your experience in the clinic. This will allow Dr. Baird to focus on the clinical side (improving your clinical experience and outcomes) while still providing the level of service that lets you know we really do care about you as a person.
Improving the Out of Clinic Experience
We’ll be looking to add more ‘out of clinic’ activities to further build our health, connection and community at Evolve. Your are who you surround yourself with. And in the next year we’ll be looking to bring our community together to have some fun, improve our health and connect with people who value the same things we do.
A HUGE thanks to everyone who helped us get where we are today and we look forward to serving you in the future!
We Help Adults 40+ Build The Strength And COnfidence To Put An End to Pain So They Can Continue to What They Love - Without The Use of Pain Pills, Injections or Surgery.
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