This episode of Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah is called "Is an Office Right for Your Lactation Practice?" There are several options to move into an office setting as an IBCLC, from setting up in a physician's office to sharing an office space to building your own home office. Of course, there are pros and cons to each office setting. It would be wise to evaluate on a quarterly basis to see which option is best for you or if an office setting is even the best fit for your business. "So I think there's a lot of possibilities. It would be something, if you were going to look into having your own office, maybe finding your own space to take over to really sit down and do an official business plan and sit down maybe with your accountant or hire an accountant if you don't have one or get a business coach to really run the numbers and see what are the possibilities here?" In this episode, we will cover: -Office setting 1: Working in a physician office -Office setting 2: Shared office setting -Office setting 3: Home office -Annie’s Tech Tip: Shared computers should have separate logins and passwords -Leah’s Marketing Tip: Reflect quarterly on the priorities of your business If you like what you heard today, please check out our Lactation Business Coaching Deeper Dive Memberships: https://learn.anniefrisbie.com/lactationbusinesscoaching You can email us questions and comments at hello@lactationbusinesscoaching.com.
This episode of Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah is called "Is an Office Right for Your Lactation Practice?" There are several options to move into an office setting as an IBCLC, from setting up in a physician's office to sharing an office space to building your own home office.
Of course, there are pros and cons to each office setting. It would be wise to evaluate on a quarterly basis to see which option is best for you or if an office setting is even the best fit for your business.
"So I think there's a lot of possibilities. It would be something, if you were going to look into having your own office, maybe finding your own space to take over to really sit down and do an official business plan and sit down maybe with your accountant or hire an accountant if you don't have one or get a business coach to really run the numbers and see what are the possibilities here?"
In this episode, we will cover:
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About Us
Leah Jolly is a private practice IBCLC with Bay Area Breastfeeding in Houston, Texas.
Annie Frisbie is a private practice IBCLC serving Queens and Brooklyn in New York City and the creator of the Lactation Consultant Private Practice Toolkit.
Many thanks to Stephanie Granade for her production assistance, and to Silas Wade for creating our theme music.
Annie: I'm Annie.
Leah: And I'm Leah.
Annie: And this is Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah where we talk about the smart way to create a compassionate and professional private practice.
Leah: Let's dive in. Well, hello Annie.
Annie: Hey Leah. How's it going?
Leah: It's going great. I'm really excited about our topic today because it has something to do with how I run my business. So it's all about having an office. Is it right for you? Is it not? What are the considerations? And I'm excited to get to chat with you about that today.
Annie: I can't wait to talk about this. Having an office is like a fantasy dream of mine, but there are so many considerations to think about when getting an office or working in an office. So we're going to go into all of them today. But first, Leah, what is our motivation?
Leah: So one thing I think is really important as you go through when you're making considerations, like should I be in an office, do I want to be in an office is to actually reflect, I think quarterly on your business. What are you wanting? Are there things you want to change? Are there goals, new goals you want to set? We're thinking about the office but now you've gotten a quarter into this year and you're like, maybe an office isn't a good fit. I thought I was going to have more backup income, but the starting off of my business has made marketing the higher cost priority. So I'm going to push back my goal on getting an office, or I'm going to push up my goal on getting an office because I've done this first quarter and I am so sick of driving that I am never going to drive again. So that's going to push up on my list. But I think we don't think about the direction of our business. We kind of just roll with the tides and maybe roll with the tides of what's hip and cool on social media. Sometimes I feel like I'll get sucked into something that somebody else is doing on social media and I'll be like, Oh my God, that sounds really cool. I want to do that. And then I'll start down this path but I'm like, is that really right for my business? Maybe not. Maybe it's really great for that company that I saw the LC talking about in one of the Facebook groups. But I think it's important for us to take this moment. You might just set a timer, not a timer but a reminder in your phone maybe the week before your new quarter starts, and just kind of have a moment of reflection. Where's my business at? What am I looking to do? What are my goals for the next quarter? Am I going to stay the course on the things that I said I was gonna do last quarter, or I'm making shifts because that makes sense for business? And I think this is just smart business. And when you don't have any employees or anybody else telling you what to do, you the CEO have to kind of make these meetings with yourself. So make a meeting with yourself.
Annie: I like that - meeting with yourself! It's really easy for me to get kind of bogged down in the minutia of just getting through each day and sometimes not realizing that if I make a larger change, it solves a lot of the smaller problems that are eating up so much of my time, and building in that time to reflect is really the place to do it. So is this working? And sometimes you're like, Oh my gosh, this actually is totally not working and I don't have to do it anymore.
Leah: Right. I totally agree.
Annie: So one thing that's been on my to-do list for quite some time is to figure out how to get in an office space. I love home visits and I don't see myself giving them up completely. I mean, I say that, but I dunno, I hear really nice things about having an office, but there's a lot of barriers for me where I am in New York City. I mean availability of a space and the cost of rent is one thing. But I know that's not the only way to get an office space. So what we're going to do in this episode is go through three different types of office settings that you could be considering working in or creating for yourself and what the pros and cons of each of them are. So the first is one that I know Leah you are intimately familiar with, and that is working in a physician office. So tell us about your situation, what your group practice does with the physician offices that you work in.
Leah: Yeah, so we are in a pediatric office. It's a big pediatrician office because there's nine pediatricians there and five FNPs, so it's a really busy practice. We're there five days a week and we are contracted so we are not employees, direct employees to the company. We are all contracted and then they handle all the billing and all the facility's upkeep. So it's really an ideal situation because I don't have a lot of overhead. They give us all our supplies. There's just a few things that we bring in just cause it's a little bit easier for us to get our hands on them, and most everything else. They supply the gloves and the cleaning stuff and obviously they're keeping up the daily maintenance of the building. So they have a cleaning crew that comes through our rooms. We have a kind of a lactation ward, they call it, where we've got three treatment rooms and then we have two waiting spaces. So it's really an ideal situation in that we don't have a lot of overhead. I mean, I think the only con is ... it's not even a con, it's just a consideration ... is that you're going to be working with these providers directly.
So you're always going to need to be in communication with them and work in the way that they want you to work. I mean, you will be a little bit limited by that, especially if you have .... I mean, our practice does not so much this cause they're just amazing and they're like, do whatever lactation says. They're the ones that know about that. So they don't usually make big, sweeping changes and we do a lot of working together so I love that, like in real time too, because we have an internal messaging system. So in real time I can be sitting in a room and be like, okay, this baby is at 16%. This is what I'm going to do. I have this concern. We've actually had some emergent cases, breathing concerns and the pediatricians run right over and they take a look and it's so amazing. I love that part of it. It is like you always have a backup squad right there. And the funniest thing on top of that, we've had to have an ambulance called twice, which is just insane to think about, but we just see such a high volume, it's inevitable it's going to happen, and the fire department and ambulances are literally next door so if you call an ambulance, literally somebody in your room within 30 seconds to a minute.
Annie: That's reassuring.
Leah: Yeah, isn't that crazy? I know. It's really funny. They don't even turn on their sirens. We share a parking lot with them.
Annie: That's hilarious.
Leah: Isn't it weird? I know and it's recently built. So it's kind of funny. It's a new thing. So anyway, the only con would be if you were in a practice that maybe isn't as breastfeeding-friendly, or is kind of very set in their ways, you just have to make some other considerations.
Annie: It sounds like you really need to trust the practice that you're working with and feel like you've got a good vibe with them, and that's going to start with the kind of contract you set up with them right at the very beginning when you're negotiating what your relationship will be with them, that financial one, and there's a couple of different ways that you can do that. You could be an independent contractor and in the US you've got different laws in each state for what is possible with independent contractors versus being a payroll employee. So that's going to be what your relationship is with them, how you're getting paid, what you're getting paid. Are you getting paid a percentage of revenue that you bring into the practice, or are you getting paid a flat fee for each visit? Are you on a weekly salary that has specific hours associated with it regardless of the volume? And then you might want to, when approaching a pediatrician practice, so you've got a pediatrician that you really vibe with and you want to go to them and talk with them about why they should hire you in the US having an understanding of incident-to-billing, which is a way for them to bill for your services under the physician when you're on the same premises as them, where they can bill different kinds of insurance codes for your work, make more money, which then means they can pay you. So not thinking about it like, okay, here's what a lactation consult is worth, and then saying, Oh no, if I go into an office, I'm then going to have to pay a percentage of what that going office rate is.
You need to take a bigger picture look and come to them and say, this is a chance for your practice to increase awareness of services, to diversify your offerings to your patients, add value to what they're already getting, compete with the other pediatric practices in the area and say, well, we've got lactation over here at this pediatrics office, and to help them see it as a business decision, not just wouldn't it be great or it's going to be so good for the babies to have lactation? Of course it is, but it's also got to be something that they can see being profitable for them from a business perspective. So someone who is not really seeing the potential of having lactation in their office from a business standpoint is also somebody who's probably not going to take you seriously clinically as well.
Leah: Definitely. And I think the other thing to think about when you're approaching different practices is one, just really get to know how they practice. That's really important, but also when you're presenting kind of pitching to them what you can provide. I think one of the things that my peds are always so appreciative of is their time. That we take away all those thousand feeding questions, all the concerns they have about is their baby getting enough? Are they doing this right? Are they doing that right? When do they start bottles? When did they start this? They pass all that off to us, which frees up them to really get their job done. So they, we'll talk about how beneficial it has been, reducing the actual visit times for new-born visits. So that's another consideration when you're thinking about proposing to a pediatric office.
Annie: So that's not the only kind of relationship you can have with a physician or another kind of healthcare provider. You can also set up a shared office space setting, where you don't have a formal business relationship with the other, with the pediatrician or the OB or the midwife chiropractor, but where you're just maybe renting space inside their office, but you're operating independently but there might be a mutually beneficial referral situation going on. Or maybe it's a business like a yoga studio or a WHO code-compliant retail space, or a wellness professional, maybe they are a massage therapist whose hours are afternoons and evenings and they want to have someone occupy the space in the morning. Those are great potential because in that setting, you've got the freedom to work the way you want to work. You're still on your own. You're not having to adopt anyone systems or policies or procedures.
The con would be you're sharing in the overhead. So you're going to be paying rent. You might be paying a portion of utilities. You may be contributing to the cleaning staff services and that's going to eat into your total revenue, but that can be a really great kind of way in. I know there are a lot of you out there that are working this way, that are doing one day a week at a massage therapist's office or a chiropractic office or at a pediatric clinic, and I think that could be a great way to try out whether being in an office is right for you.
Leah: Yeah, I really like this concept. It's actually something that we're looking into because I can't really get a whole office space for the private practice side of my business, but I would love to have a space that if a family really wanted an office visit, they could have something a little bit closer into the main part of Houston. So I think this is a great model and it really is, like you said, a nice kind of stepping stone. You might then take it to like, Oh, well now I want to have my whole own space or if you're in an office that you could then take it to the next level of having some kind of agreement with billing and that kind of thing. It would give them a taste of what it's like to have you in the office. So I think it's a great in-between.
Annie: And I think just from a purely financial standpoint, if you're going to evaluate whether you can afford to have an office to rent an office space from someone else, take a look at what that monthly rent is and the expenses related to it and say, okay, how many consults is that? How many consults do I have to have a month just to break even? And to really think about whether your practice can sustain that, and also to think about how you might want to use that office space so you are only in there one day a week.
For example, some people will do... I'll see someone. The initial visit is in the home and then all the follow-ups are in the office. So I'll come to your house the first time, but after that you need to come to my office, or you might say once your baby is eight weeks old or 12 weeks old, you have to come to the office. I won't come to your home anymore. So there's a lot of ways that you can put limits on how you use your office and then just start to maximize what is possible, how to sell people on those office visits.
Leah: I think that's kind of the biggest thing, cause if you've been primarily home visiting, that's how you're known. And they're like, no, I want you to come to my house and you don't have as big of a push for the need for an office, but you want to make that push there. So I think that's a great way to get your office filled on the days that you are there so you can make your overhead. And then the last thing is to be bold and go out there and get your whole own office space that's all you. I think this is like probably a lot of our dreams to have a nice big office space where we could decorate it just the way we want it, make it so warm and friendly and have all of our touches that we know new parents would want to have, and then to be able to maybe have class space and additional space to pull in other people as well. But with that, all those dreams coming true becomes a really big overhead. So I think that's probably what scares a lot of us in taking on a complete office space on our own is that the overheads are pretty big.
Annie: Oh yeah. Unless you have space in your home for a home office and if you're looking into something like that, you do need to make sure you are allowed to do that. Look into your zoning laws. If you need to make accommodations for the American Disabilities Act, you need to take all those things really seriously. You can't just say come in my back door. You need to make sure you're doing it legally, correctly. But if you have that space and you're able to set that up, I mean, gosh, living the dream.
Leah: A home office, yes.
Annie: I mean, my father ran his business out of the basement of our home for years, and it would be funny cause we would be up there in the house and downstairs would be his people that work for him, his receptionist and his assistant and his business colleagues, and we could hear them and were like, did they hear us? And then they would be gone. It would be quiet. And he loved it. He loved just being able to go down there whenever he wanted to. I mean the downside to that is if your office is in your home, your office is in your home. That can sometimes make it even harder to set those boundaries on work-life and all of that.
But at the same time, I mean he would have me and my brother when we would come home for break from college stuffing envelopes for him and filing and things like that. So that wasn't so bad for him either. We were very inexpensive to work for. So I think there's a lot of possibilities. It would be something if you were going to look into having your own office, maybe finding your own space to take over, to really sit down and do an official business plan and sit down maybe with your accountant (or hire an accountant if you don't have one), or get a business coach to really run the numbers and see what are the possibilities here? Beause I think we all, I would say, I don't know, I'm going to hazard a guess that a majority of lactation consultants have some vision that their community is going to have this amazing center for postpartum care in your neighbourhood, where it's you and all the great people are just there, making things better for families and babies and parents. And I'm like, what if we had this great space and we could do classes and we could have postpartum mom/baby yoga and all of that, cranio-sacral therapy and all that stuff that costs money. But you know there might be a market for that in your community that doesn't exist and maybe you are the one to build that. But I'm also going to say if you are not the ones that build it, that's also okay.
Leah: That doesn't need to be the end goal for every lactation consultants, even though we all dream that it would be so amazing to have. I think, you know, kind of going back to my motivation tip of the top of the episode, just being really honest with yourself about what do you want for your business, what fits for you and, and then looking, if you're thinking office, it's like, okay, which one of these models fits in for me? And really pursuing that if having an office space is important to you
Annie: And what you feel like is most accessible for you in the near term and most sustainable for the long-term.
Leah: Absolutely. It's such an important thing to consider. So as we wrap up the episode today, I know you have a tech tip for us, Annie. What you got?
Annie: I do. So if you have at home a computer that you're using for work, but maybe you also have other people who live in your home with you who are using the computer as well. In my house, they would be small people who like to play Roadblocks and Minecraft. So my tech tip for you today is if you're sharing your computer, everyone who uses that computer should have a separate login and a password, and don't ever let anyone login through your access. Computers are... their operating systems are very sophisticated these days and they can have different profiles and you can even have a guest profile set up if you have a need for someone visiting you to use your computer. They don't even have to login. They can just use your guest access. So take the time, set up those logins, teach your children how to use a password. It's never too young to teach good password hygiene and make it so that there's no way they're going to get into your client files and bust your privacy.
Leah: Absolutely. That is such a good reminder. And I think a lot of times we think, ah, it's just a kid. What are they gonna do? What can they mess up? And before you know it, they're so tech savvy they could get into a lot of trouble for sure. So yeah, I think that's a super important tip. Well, it has been fun talking to you today, Annie. I just want to put a reminder out there for our deeper dive calls. We'd love to have you on there. You can go to patreon.com/Lactation Business Coaching to take a look at the topics and you can join for the $20 sponsorship, then you will be on those calls with us and getting the recordings so we look forward to seeing you there.
Annie: Can't wait. All right, it's been great talking to you, Leah.
Leah: Bye.
Annie: Bye. Want to continue the conversation? Join our community and connect with other private practice lactation consultants just like you. We offer support and exclusive member-only content designed to help you create a compassionate and professional private practice. We're all in this together at patreon.com/ Lactation Business Coaching. And if you enjoyed today's episode, leave us a review and share it with a friend. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.