The Private Practice Success Podcast

What Makes Your Practice Different?

• Gerda Muller • Episode 41

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In episode 41, Gerda challenges you to dig deep and truly answer one of the most important questions for any private practice owner: What makes your practice different? 

With more allied health businesses entering the market than ever before - and competition for clients and talent at an all-time high - having a clear point of differentiation isn’t just a nice to have, it’s essential for survival and growth.

In this Episode, you will learn (among others):

  • Why the allied health marketplace is more competitive than ever and what that means for your practice.
  • The most common (and overused) answers practice owners give when asked what makes them different and why you need to dig deeper.
  • Practical ways to identify, articulate, and communicate your true point of difference so you can attract more clients, retain your team, and thrive in any market.

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Private practice owners struggling to fill their diaries or attract new clients.
  • Allied health professionals who want to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
  • Anyone ready to move beyond the basics of good client care and build a brand that truly resonates.

Tune in for a motivating reality check and walk away with fresh inspiration to help you define what makes your practice uniquely valuable.

Want more info on The Ultimate Admin Course?

Email Gerda at gerdam@private-practice-success.com and she’ll send you all the details. 

Want Gerda's Help with your Business?

Gerda helps allied health group practice owners go from overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid to fully empowered and financially thriving. If this is you, then make today the day you reach out. Complete this super short Triage Form here bit.ly/triageformpps and Gerda will personally reach out to you. 

Here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about :)

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

 Well, hello there fabulous private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 41. 

Today I've got a really important question for you, and that is the following: What makes your practice different? I want you to really reflect on that question. What makes your practice different? What is your point of differentiation?

If right now you are sitting at the practice and you are looking at your practice diary and there's open appointments in your calendar - if you are still a solo practice owner or maybe you are looking at all the calendars of your team, whether you've got 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 - it doesn't matter how many clinicians at your practice - and you are seeing gaping holes and you know that you no longer have a wait list and the phone isn't ringing as it used to, or the referrals aren't coming through as it used to, then this episode is most certainly for you. 

Now, that being said, your point of differentiation actually goes beyond client attraction and generation. The same principles that I'm going to talk to you about today also apply to recruitment, okay? Because if you want to be successful when it comes to recruitment, you also need to be able to stand out. You need to know what makes your practice different.  But for the purpose of today, we are going to really focus on the client side of it. Again, if you are struggling with filling your books, keep listening.

I am sure if the two of us were to sit down at a coffee shop or maybe in a bar over a cocktail, and we were discussing why there has been such a shift in demand for our services over the last couple of years, we will probably each come up with a number of similar reasons and even a number of different opinions of why this is so, and obviously I've got my opinions on this topic. But in preparation for this podcast, I thought, hang on - I am a data-driven decision maker - so let's have a look at some of the data.

Consider Supply VS Demand

Now, there aren't that many out there, but this is what I came across, so I looked at this from a supply perspective. When we think in general terms, if all of a sudden we are not able to fill our diaries, is it because the supply of providers has increased? Because supply and demand is the first thing we need to look at.

It would be admissible for us not to look at that and this is what I found. So I looked at Allied Health businesses registered within Australia in 2020 versus 2025. And it was really interesting and I'm going to assume that you are going to guess that yes, it has increased significantly. So, in that five-year period - and I'm just going to use round numbers here - there have been 9,000 new Allied Health businesses established in Australia during that five-year period. 

What that means is that from 2020 to 2025, right now, every day of every one of those five years, 4.9 - let's just round it up to five - new Allied Health businesses are being registered in Australia. Let that sink in for a second, okay. Every day, five new businesses are coming into the Allied Health market. 

I also have these numbers broken down into psychology, physio, OT, speech, social work, and then the rest was the other Allied Health. If you are part of a discipline not mentioned specifically, please know, it's not because you're not important, It's just that I looked at the disciplines that I usually work with within my programs and as part of my business consulting. Yes, I also work with other disciplines, but, there's quite a lot of Allied Health disciplines, and we only have so much time in this podcast. So I really looked at those main 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ones that I normally work with, and it was really interesting to see.

Overall, when we talk percentages, there was a 21% increase in Allied Health registered businesses - from 42,000 to 51,000 - over the course of the five years. 

The discipline that had the most growth was speech pathology, they grew with 39%. Then occupational therapy and social work grew by 32%. Physiotherapy grew by 22%, and psychology grew by 21%. The other Allied Health disciplines, which includes dietetics, podiatry, exercise, physiology, audiology, and all of those ones, increased by 13%. So most certainly supply within the market has increased.

I do suspect that that will have a big impact therefore, under demand that you are seeing at your practice. Which also means that if you've been dropping the marketing and branding ball as part of your business functions, you are going to know about it. As a business, it is really important for us to be aware of what is happening in the industry. Yes, I am pretty sure that over the last five years, a lot of businesses have also closed - let's just acknowledge that.

But the amount of businesses that have opened outweighs those that have closed, And a big part of that was 2020 - COVID, right? A lot of people went into solo private practice, particularly wanting to start working via telehealth. And again, there's a lot of variables that are going into these numbers, but we need to acknowledge that this is happening.

Market Place Competition 

And let's also address the elephant in the room, because what am I actually talking about here? Might I be talking about competition? Yes. If there are five new businesses going into the market every day of the year - that is like Saturday, Sunday, 365 days in the year, five near businesses opening - that is more competition in the marketplace.

I know what we do. We are nice people, and we tell ourselves there's more than enough clients for everybody. There's no competition in Allied Health. How many times have you heard somebody say that? How many times have you said that to yourself in your own head? It's like, I don't need to worry about competition. There are more than enough clients for all of us. And yet for a very, very long time that was very, very true. And I will also say that there are still not enough services for people in Australia, right? Well, there's not enough services for people worldwide, but I'm talking to an Australian audience here, and my business is in Australia. My business consulting clients are in Australia. 

But unless you are able to clearly differentiate yourself, you will become a victim of the increase in supply. You can't just sit on your laurels and do nothing. I'm not saying get all stressed out about all the competition that is now in the market. That is definitely not what I'm saying here. But I'm also going to admit to you that I've had my moments of fear when it comes to competition, and I'll tell you a bit of my experience with competition. This was probably, and I'm just guessing here, I'm not good with time and dates, but it was around about eight years ago or so. 

Quite some time ago when I had this really beautiful practice that I loved - It had four rooms. I loved the location. In my view, it was the perfect practice. And then one day I was just scrolling on LinkedIn and there was a practice owner that I was connected with on LinkedIn, making an announcement that they are moving into my building, and they were going to be unit one, and we were unit four -  like in the same building. 

The way that they posted that announcement was so confident, They had an eight room practice, I had a four-room practice. They were talking about how they're going to be this amazing practice, all this access to the community because they've got eight rooms. They're going to be operating like 24/7 - never close - that's what it felt like. They didn't say 24/7, but it was like seven days a week. All these extended opening hours. And my first thought was - I'm fucked. Apologies, it’s meant to be a clean podcast. But that is what I thought at that moment. My landlord didn't even inform me that a similar business is going to be moving in, and my first thought was - they're going to totally obliterate my business. 

I was thinking, how can I ever compete with that type of practice, that size, the stuff that they're going to be offering? And of course, I read that LinkedIn post over the weekend, which is so annoying because it really derailed my entire weekend. I was totally preoccupied with what this means. What's the impact's going to be? I went down that downward spiral. I was thinking, How rude, why can't they just move in across the street or just a block away? Why in my actual building? 

I remember that I obviously brought this up with my then clinical supervisor, who was also a group practice owner, and I was like yapping on about it and whinging and whining saying that I would never do that to another practice owner. I would never, ever move into the same building as a fellow psychology practice. I just couldn't do it. And she reminded me, as she always did, that Gerda, people's values are different. Gerda people's beliefs are different, and they might think nothing of it. I was making it a really big deal, taking it really personally. 

So I worked through all of that - which I highly recommend working through - but you always need to acknowledge it first. But you know what? At the end of the day, that practice moving into my building was the best thing that could have happened. And I'll tell you why. 

Because every day that I drove into the parking area, I saw their name. I saw their team walk in. I saw clients walking in. And every day it was a reminder to me that I cannot drop the ball. That I need to be proactive in my marketing. That I need to be proactive in my customer service. That I need to be proactive in my third-party marketing. That I had to be proactive in talent retention at how I was looking after my team. 

It meant that I always had a fire in my belly because I was reminded that yes, there is competition. That yes, it would be very easy for my clients to instead go there. For my team to go, “Hmm, I wonder what they have on offer - is the grass maybe greener?”  And you know, that would not have happened if they were a block away.

Because I saw it every day I was reminded that it is my job, and my responsibility to consistently be raising the bar of my own business - to be raising how we do our customer service, our marketing, how we treat people at the front desk - all of these things. And as I said earlier, I am incredibly grateful. And you know what? They did not obliterate my business. We were not worse off. 

In actual fact, we increased our revenue. We increased our talent retention. We increased the number of clients in the diary. We increased our profit because - they moved in because it kept me focused. So competition is actually a good thing. It is not bad. And we often reframe competition as “There's enough clients for everybody,” but that is just an anxiety management response. Like, I'm just placating my own anxiety and fear by saying “There's enough clients.” What about rather using that to ignite that fire in your belly to go, yeah -  There's a lot of clients out there and there's not enough services. 

But you know of the clients out there, I need to know who's my market that's going to pay to come and see my clinicians - because we are private business. Generally, clients pay. Yes, there's funded services, but in private practice a lot of clients need to pay out of pocket, right? Who is that market? And it's my job to know what makes my practice different so that I can continue to speak to that market so that I can continue to fill the diary, which allows me to pay my team and keep the doors open, whilst having an impact in the lives of those clients that come through our doors - whether that's physical doors or virtual doors - on a daily basis.   So competition is a good thing, but you need to have a healthy relationship with competition. You need to reframe it in a resourceful way where it actually helps you within your business.  

To be clear, the way that I look at competition is not about going, “Oh, I don't like that person,” or, “I don't like their business because they moved into my building,” or whatever. When you react negatively to competition like I did, it is a fear response. What happens is that your business survival instinct gets triggered. So it is your trigger and it is your response - which also means that it is your, AKA, my responsibility to work through that. 

And take it from me, you only need to work through this once. It might not be easy that first time. I had my pity party. You need to allow yourself to have it, but you also need to pick yourself up and work through it. And take it from me again -  you only need to work through this once and you will never again be triggered by competition. Okay - maybe not, never again Let's put it this way: you might still get triggered, but it won't take you down the spiral.

You will notice it and go, Hello, Hello - that feeling of competitive fear. And then you'll note it and you'll move on and refocus and get on with the rest of your day. But you have to allow yourself to go through it that first time. It's only by allowing that, that you can learn how to resourcefully deal with competition, so that it no longer derails  your weekend, your day, or even an hour from your workday.

What Makes Your Practice Different?

So I want to take you back to the question that I started off with: What makes your practice different? Because unless you know that, you can't be competitive in the current marketplace. It just is what it is. So, I hope by now you have a bit of an idea of what makes your practice different. 

I'm going to tell you what people normally tell me, what makes their practice different. I have personally asked this question to hundreds of practice owners over the years, which also means that I've gotten hundreds of responses to this question over the years. Whenever you work with me within the Private Practice Success Academy or within my Founder's Club, one of the first things we do together is I send you a diagnostic questionnaire. I really diagnose the state of your allied health business ,and one of the sections within this document is about your uniqueness. One of the questions in that section is: What makes your practice different? What is your point of differentiation? 

Now, remember what you thought the answer is for your practice to that question. Maybe it's similar to what 90% of people tell me. I say 90%, which means 90% of people tell me exactly the same thing. It generally has to do with the concept of being really good at looking after the clients. People use different words to really say the same thing. They might say that we are very client-centred. We are very client driven. We are really good at engaging clients. We are really good at building relationships. We are really good at building rapport. 

90% of people will talk about how good they are at the client work - and particularly building that relationship, making the client feel safe and comfortable engaged. And I read that and I always think to myself: Okay. That's amazing. But so what? Because as a fellow Allied Health professional, I'm going - that should be a given. That should not be your point of difference.

If you are working in Allied Health - as a clinician or you are a solo practice owner or group practice owner - being good at that should be a freaking given. If that is not a given, you will struggle. That is like the baseline. That's not a very high bar to jump through. But I also know that as Allied Health professionals, that is an important part to jump over. I get how important being able to do that is. I also get that a lot of new grads particularly struggle with those micro skills, allowing them to do that. And again, depending on your discipline, some disciplines are really good and better at it than others. It just is what it is unfortunately.

And again, I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of disciplines and with a lot of clinicians one-on-one over the years - but it should be a given. So that is not good enough to be competitive in the current marketplace, and I don't judge people when they tell me that. I just go, Alright, that tells us that we've got work to do in this section. We've got work to do. Yes, we need to make sure that this remains there because that is the bedrock of our profession - being able to do that - but now we need to build upon that. And not only do we need to build something that differentiates us, we also need to get really good at communicating what that is.

Because you can be great at stuff, you can have the best point of differentiation, but unless you know how to communicate it, it means nothing. There's a lot of things that you need to get right in order to remain successful in the world of Allied Health business where more and more people are going into private practice for themselves.

So the question that I have for you ultimately today is: Have you just been sitting back hoping that being good with client engagement and building relationships is going to get you over the line? Because if so, you will be struggling. You need to get really clear on your point of differentiation. I know you're not going to like this word, but when we are providing an allied health service, we are really making an offer to a client. So an offer is a business term, right? It's like, “You've got this problem, this is the solution I have” - so we are offering that solution to them. 

It is our responsibility to know: How do I frame that offer? What is the language around it? How do I tell people what my differentiation is? Because you need to remember as an AHPRA regulated Discipline - like most disciplines -  are pro registered, not all, but if you are registered with AHPRA, (like we are my practice and myself as a psychologist), we can't say certain things when we make that offer. For example, you can't say that you are better than somebody else. You also can't guarantee outcomes and results. You also can't share client testimonials, for example. But there's a lot of things that you can do when you're framing that offer.

In terms of: how do you make it as easy as possible for people to look at what your business has to offer - when they might also be looking at other practices - and going, “This is the right one for me.” For you as the business owner, you need to know, as a whole of practice: what is that for your practice, and how are you going to address unspoken objections - the risks involved for clients to give you their money?

So at the end of the day, you need to know how to put your service offering through the AHPRA lens, through the ethical code of conduct lens, so that you can comfortably - but with a very clear point of difference - communicate to clients as well as third party referrers why your service is different and why people should come to you. 

And there's quite a lot that goes into putting the words around how you make that offer. But once you've gone through this process, it becomes really easy. And I know it's easy because I've done it at my own group, private practice. I also recently sat down and I extracted everything I know about this topic into a presentation that I'll be running in August for my PPS Academy called: Service Offer Mastery - How to Fill Your Calendar in Any Market. 

Now, if you are not in my Academy, you might go, “Well, that's not helpful to me, Gerda.” But what I want to invite you to do is to start answering the question that I posed to you right at the start, and that is: What makes my practice different? 

Get out a book. Get out of your favourite pen. Start journaling on that. Really journal and journal and journal. And when you think there's nothing more, get more out and really go - What is that? You could even run a team meeting and ask your team from their experience, what do they think makes your business different? I bet my bottom dollar, most of them are going to talk about the relationship and how client-focused they are. But you know what?  Everybody else is saying that. 

Have you ever done one of those Where's Wally books with your kids? I know I did that with my kids - and was like, you are looking for Wally and going, “I can't find him!”. It's because everybody and everything looks the same. And that is what happens when everybody has the same point of difference - well, it's not a point of difference. 

So if you are just saying on your website, on your social media copy, at your meet and greets, at your networking events, on your brochures or wherever else you're doing your marketing, the exact same thing as everybody else, you're just playing Where's Wally - and you're losing, okay? You don't want to do that.

I do hope that this has given you a lot of food for thought, because this is really important from a business perspective. So thank you very much for tuning in, and as always, remember that I am here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about. 🙂   

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Gerda Muller

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