Naturopathic Doctor Shifts from Overworked Practitioner to Confident Business Owner with Systematic Growth

Leena (00:00) I think the biggest thing is it's it's helped me have more of a systematic approach to how I go about managing my business. My name is Dr. Lina Stripada. I'm based in Richmond Hill, Toronto area, and I'm a naturopathic doctor and an Ayurvedic practitioner. I've been in practice for about 15 years. A lot of the focus was on the patient care, treating people, and doing what we do as naturopathic doctors, and I also integrate Ayurveda into that. So a lot of that was just figuring out my own practice, how do I manage the visits one-on-one. But what was also happening is, realizing that, I'm running actually my own business and my own practice. It's not just about the patient visits. But what do we do outside of that? And then how do we navigate from visit to visit a little bit of that more overall aspect in managing a business, which, a lot of us are practitioners. That's not what we got into this profession for. it was realizing that, OK, I do need some support. what was really helpful for me was to have more of a really structured program which understands we do in our profession as naturopathic doctors, it's not just general marketing info, it's really specific to what we need. And that's what I found was helpful for me and that's why I got into the program. for me, it was a mental shift of realizing that I'm running a practice. I'm actually a business owner. For me, that was a big deal because that wasn't something that I ever thought I would be. But I think that put me in a completely different headspace of saying, okay, I'm a solopreneur, I'm running my own practice. That was the realization of, okay, now I need to step into a different role while I still focus on the patient visits. comfortable treating whatever people come in with. I'm confident on that aspect. But where I wasn't confident is, not just booking people in and sending receipts, but navigating visits. number one to two, how do we speak to them? What language do we use to guide them through this journey? And then the whole marketing thing, I think as practitioners, a lot of us are not interested in being out there and showing our face. But then I also realized that you have to put on a certain hat. because there are so many people that need that help and need that support. I joined the FMP, the Fill My Practice Accelerator program, and I'm still in the early stages of that. And, working through some of those We're often so focused on getting the patients in, finishing the treatment plans, filling the schedule and then just feel like okay I'm done. But I think where it's really helped me is putting scheduled time to manage the practice. Whether that is fine tuning systems, looking at new software, I mean there's so much out there and so much is changing you know. it might be webinars or certain promotional things that I just didn't have the time or the interest to do before, but now I actually feel excited about it. And I think that's the biggest thing that the Clinician Business Labs has, is there's a certain fun factor to it. It doesn't feel like it's something you have to do. It doesn't feel like it's a burden Part of what it felt for me was this is exciting. I want to do this. I'm actually interested in learning now about Instagram and marketing and things that I was never excited about I'm actually happy to set time out in my calendar where I'm not seeing patients but I'm focusing on the business aspects and I look forward to those days which is the fun part. the Signature Care System, which is really a core aspect of the program, is something that I have kind of laid out and fine-tuned. There's a lot of creative ⁓ ideas coming through. And then I was able to put in my signature care system, which is Align and Thrive with Ayurveda and get a logo, do some nice handouts around that and put that together. I think the second big thing was getting more comfortable with technology, program helped me spend some time figuring out. what platforms are out there, what is gonna work for me, and realizing that there are a lot of tools that have everything together, which makes it so much easier for practitioners versus logging into one account and doing the email marketing on a separate thing, and then you've got your website, So I think for me, it was really helpful excited about getting a platform, putting stuff together, and then I can just run with it. whether you're just building up your practice or you're busy with your practice, we often don't spend that time really looking at the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is often where we want to go. with home life, family life. practice life. And sometimes that's the stuff that takes a lot of time out of your day to day, or you're doing it at night, or when the kids go to bed, and it's stuff that then we don't feel excited about, or it drains us out, it burns us out. for me, going through the program, it was really helpful to start looking at my schedule, and saying how much time do I actually want to spend doing this work, how much time do I spend doing this work, and then working around that and that has been really really helpful. So my advice to practitioners is the sooner you organize your systems and you start planning and you have a structure, it makes life in the long run so much easier and usually more aligned to what you want to do.