"You can get past the dead end. You can break through the ceiling. I did and so have countless others."
In this episode, Justin sits down with Tawana to talk through the realities of stepping into private practice and building something from the ground up.
Their conversation covers everything from choosing the right services and keeping startup costs manageable, to building confidence early on and avoiding the trap of overcomplicating the process. Justin and Tawana also dive into the bigger picture of what practice ownership can create long term, including more flexibility, independence, and control over your future.
If you’ve been thinking about starting your own practice but keep waiting for the “perfect time,” this episode is a reminder that momentum starts with taking the first step
Justin Allan Montgomery (00:00.249)
All right, we are recording. Everyone today we’ll be talking to Tawana who is a family nurse practitioner. Currently she is working full time as a hospitalist while operating her part time wellness practice that she started about three years ago. She’s using any help with growing patient volume, marketing and dealing with the complexities of being a solopreneur. Hey Tawana, how are you?
Tawana (00:21.262)
I’m doing well, how are you doing?
Justin Allan Montgomery (00:25.303)
I’m good. Thanks for helping on here. So, just tell us about yourself. How long you’ve a nurse practitioner for and, you know, kind of how you’ve gotten to where you, know, where you are.
Tawana (00:35.564)
So I’ve been a nurse practitioner since 2013, so approximately 13 years, all in the inpatient setting, large hospital in the Midwest. I currently work as a hospitalist in a pretty busy surgical practice, and then I, on the side, run my wellness clinic about 10 hours a week.
Justin Allan Montgomery (00:59.563)
Okay. So you started this wellness practice about three years ago. What kind of services do you offer?
Tawana (01:10.932)
I initially started with just offering weight loss. So that was like at the height of the GOP’s starting and becoming more mainstream for the US. And so I offered those initially. I dabbled in aesthetics and then just found out that really wasn’t my passion from a service perspective. So now I’ve slimmed down to just offering
weight loss, peptides, and testosterone therapy for men.
Justin Allan Montgomery (01:45.497)
Okay, so pretty simple. How are you doing? Like, are you busy? Are you making some money? Like, how is it going?
Tawana (01:57.518)
I would say I’m not as busy as I would like to be. It’s been kind of an up and down, peaks and valleys in terms of getting patients and retaining them. I feel like weight loss patients, come and go. They’re always seeking someone cheaper. And right now, the competition across the United States is just so steep.
with the larger box companies offering GOPs as well. So I have about 200 patients right now. I don’t want much more than that. I’d say I cap at 300 patients. That way I wouldn’t be overworked and I don’t want to be competing on price. So I wanna offer great services with value and not having to cheapen.
my services and my expertise just to gain more patience.
Justin Allan Montgomery (02:58.041)
So you’re probably doing, what, making an extra $10,000 a month or something?
Tawana (03:04.845)
So my best year with me working 10 hours a week, I grossed 167, which was great. I’m in a larger suburb in the Midwest, so that’s contributing to it a lot as well because that area is a wealthier community. But I’d rather have, you know, stay between two and 250 patients or even less.
and then just offer like more concierge services.
Justin Allan Montgomery (03:38.905)
Okay, so you’re making a decent little side income then, basically is what this is. Yeah.
Tawana (03:43.223)
correct. Well, I don’t see it. mean, that’s gross. And you know, like your overhead eats into that quite a bit too.
Justin Allan Montgomery (03:52.995)
Well, I mean, out of the 160,000.
Tawana (03:53.365)
It’s not like I’m home 167.
Justin Allan Montgomery (03:57.049)
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, that’s your gross. I’m assuming it’s about 50 % of that’s yours.
Tawana (04:03.117)
would say 30 % and that’s because you know despite like listening to your podcast and trying to do my best to stay within you know the elite MP model I’ve made a lot of mistakes on my own before finding all these resources and the overhead was pretty high initially I was renting like a really small space for like $1,200 a month plus before
GOP’s became so mainstream, they were pretty expensive, right? So you had to mark them up quite a bit to get a good profit margin.
Justin Allan Montgomery (04:42.125)
Yeah, okay. So what’s your goal here with this practice? What are you looking to do? Like, you looking to, I mean, I guess what’s your revenue goal with this thing and what are you looking to accomplish long term?
Tawana (04:57.397)
Ideally, if I could replace my W-2 salary and be able to transition to working full-time for myself, that would be the ultimate goal. I’m still ways away from that goal. Right now, I’m just enjoying the process, like meeting lots of great patients, providing the services, and trying to get my name out more in the community to help facilitate.
that growth and that goal, hopefully within the next five years or so.
Justin Allan Montgomery (05:33.561)
Well, I I think you’re probably do it in less than five years if you really, you know, really wanted to. Um, as a hospital issue, probably make pretty good money. So replacing that is going to be, you know, a little challenging for, for a little while, but I you can get there and do it. Um, you know, I’m, I’m assuming your practice right now then is probably making like, let’s just say profit wise, you’re probably making what? Maybe $5,000 a month.
Tawana (06:03.287)
Yeah, that’s pretty accurate.
Justin Allan Montgomery (06:06.201)
Yeah. Okay, so you’re making about $5,000 a month. So you don’t have a whole lot more to go to be able to replace your salary. I would imagine probably another what? If you could bump that up to maybe 12 or $15,000 a month, you should be able to leave your job.
Tawana (06:29.221)
in the without saying what my exact salary is you know it I would just say that it’s more my salary is more than what I’ve grossed in my biggest year in my practice my my private practice but I’ve also worked like nine times more right because I’m only working 10 hours a week or so in my wellness clinic
Justin Allan Montgomery (06:51.008)
Right, mean exactly. So you actually make a lot more money through your wellness practice than you do your full-time job ultimately because of the amount of time you’re putting in. Yeah. right. So if you could work 20 hours a week, 25 hours a week and make between $12,000 and $15,000 a month profit net, would that be good enough for you to leave your job?
Tawana (07:01.079)
correct.
Tawana (07:17.549)
Absolutely, yeah. If I could net, you know, $12,000 to $15,000 working 20 hours a week, that’s a dream job. So I’d do that in a heart.
Justin Allan Montgomery (07:26.829)
Well, yeah, okay. Well, I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s realistic. It’s not a dream. I mean, it’s it’s very realistic. You can you can do that. I mean, there’s plenty of MPs that do that. I mean, hell, I was I was doing that work in probably less than 10 hours a week, to be honest with you, you know, so so anyways, though, it’s it’s definitely doable.
So I guess first things first, we gotta get your patient volume up, obviously. mean, you know, if you wanna be making 12 or $15,000 a month profit, then what you need to be doing, I mean, if you think about it this way, okay, if you had 150 patients, okay, each one of them were paying you $100 a month.
Profit, okay. So let’s say that let’s say you’re treating them for HRT weight loss, whatever it is that you’re doing and you charge $170 a month and your profit is $100 if you had 150 patients paying you that Boom, you’re hitting $15,000 a month in profit. So it’s not unrealistic. It’s very attainable and managing a hundred patients 150 patients is
Tawana (08:16.621)
Mm-hmm.
Justin Allan Montgomery (08:43.545)
It’s not difficult thing to do, right? So, so anyways, though, it’s very, very realistic. I think we just need to hone in on what it is that you need to offer to be able to, to be able to get there. So let’s first talk about your services first, and then we’ll talk about patient volume and increasing it. so your services are mostly testosterone replacement therapy, weight loss and peptides. So out of those three services, which one is, I guess, the busiest?
Tawana (09:13.741)
The bread and butter is weight loss. I mean, it’s universally an easy sell for both men and women. So that’s what brought people in. That’s what’s keeping people there. My testosterone patients are also very loyal. So, you know, they’re easy. We have touch points like every three months or so. And although it just texts me, I have the Spruce app so we can communicate that way. You know, it’s a HIPAA compliant communication.
tool. So they’re great patients, but yeah, I’d say weight loss is the majority of my patients.
Justin Allan Montgomery (09:52.921)
Well, like you mentioned earlier in this episode, when you’re introducing yourself, the weight loss is not sustainable. It’s just, it’s really not. You need to look at weight loss as just more of an accessory service to another base service, right? And so, know, men’s health is a piece of cake. I mean, it is the easiest thing in the world.
Tawana (10:00.118)
It’s not.
Justin Allan Montgomery (10:16.665)
Obviously try to grow that if you can. Try to get the men that you have to start referring friends and family and that sort of thing. Start giving referral bonuses and you know, like if you can refer a patient to me, paying patient, I’ll give you 10 % off the next month. That sort of a thing. Just create kind of a referral program that actually can work pretty well. And it’s basically, doesn’t cost you anything really.
Tawana (10:42.466)
time.
Justin Allan Montgomery (10:46.521)
So I would say try to double down on that if you can. Women’s HRT is very high in demand and there’s not as many people doing it compared to like men’s health. Okay, so a lot of women are looking for like a men’s health clinic but for women.
Tawana (10:52.577)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (11:13.771)
So it’s mostly HRT. Like that’s what they’re looking for. Okay. So I feel like for you and for a of people listening to this, like it is an excellent service and I’m selling some practices right now because I do some brokering on the side where I’ve sell people’s practices for them. And the majority of people that I presented these clinics to, the majority of them, okay, the private equity firms that buy these businesses, okay.
Tawana (11:17.709)
Mm-hmm.
Tawana (11:30.357)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (11:43.223)
The majority of them are looking for women’s health practices that do HRT predominantly because yeah, because they see the growth in it. Okay. So that’s kind of like some insider information from some people, very, very, very smart people. Okay. So they see the growth in it. And so I feel like that what you should do is you should really focus in on that. You want to get away from weight loss. Okay. Continue to offer.
Tawana (11:48.957)
Okay.
Tawana (12:10.859)
Yeah, I agree.
Justin Allan Montgomery (12:13.003)
Yeah, yeah, continue to offer it. That’s fine. But don’t rely on it. I think for you and anyone listening to this, I think you are a fool if you are relying on weight loss. It is such a volatile thing right now. Prices keep getting cheaper. It is literally a race to the bottom.
and it’s, I just, don’t think, I don’t think it’s worth it anymore. I’d say just, it’s a complimentary service. That’s what it is. Give it to your HRT patients. That’s what we do at my men’s health clinic. I don’t do just weight loss. I don’t advertise it. I don’t do anything like that. I don’t have a single just weight loss patient. I don’t. They’re all testosterone replacement therapy patients who I also treat with weight loss. You know, and I also treat them with a GLP-1 or whatever.
Tawana (12:40.397)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (13:00.185)
That’s what you want to do. It’s just a complimentary service, but it is not a main focus. So my advice to you is focus on the HRT. Test-alchol replacement therapy in men and HRT in women, that should be your bread and butter. Okay? The peptides, that’s an accessory service. It’s not a main service, it’s an accessory service. Okay? Making a lot of money off peptides alone is very, very difficult. So, yeah.
Tawana (13:25.229)
It is difficult. They’re so expensive, number one. You have to mark them up to where they’re too expensive for the patients to almost be able to afford them. So that’s not easy.
Justin Allan Montgomery (13:34.403)
Yep, exactly.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly right. It’s right. mean a bottle of a good peptide is gonna cost you I was just for a simple math in 100 bucks from a compounding pharmacy You have to charge 200 to make it really worth it and $200 for a vial of BPC or Testimolar or Somerland or something like that, you know, that’s expensive for a lot of people and so It’s just it’s not it’s not worth it. So instead it is a complimentary
Tawana (13:56.077)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (14:06.043)
service to the HRT. So if the vial costs you $100, you charge your HRT patients $150. You make $50, but the bread and butter is the HRT. That’s a nice little side income. That’s nice extra money. Same thing with the SEMA Glutide or Triseptide or Retatrutide or whatever.
Tawana (14:20.973)
Thank
Justin Allan Montgomery (14:26.167)
You mark it up a little bit to make some money off of it and it’s a convenience factor because patients are saying, hey, I’m paying this person $150, $200 a month for HRT, but also at the same time, I may be able to get peptides and GLP-1s pretty cheap, pretty affordable, you know what I mean? And that just builds patient loyalty and patient satisfaction. So I think that’s probably what’s gonna be the pivot for you if you really wanna grow this thing.
Tawana (14:56.491)
I do. Yeah, I agree with you know, getting away from having weight loss as a primary service. And you’re right, it is a race to the bottom. Every day you hear a new ad for some ridiculous amount of money, like $20 story dollars. It’s just everyone’s offering it hairdressers, chiropractors, there’s no medical expertise there anymore. So I, I agree that getting away from that and moving towards no just hormone.
therapy would be in my best interest.
Justin Allan Montgomery (15:28.473)
Yep, that’s what I would do. So what you need to do, what I would do if I was you, I would rebrand your practice to focus on HRT, okay? Whatever the name, you don’t have to tell us name of your businesses, but whatever the name of your business is, call it HRT and wellness practice or something like that, okay? Or HRT, concierge, HRT care.
Tawana (15:38.998)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (15:54.265)
Something like that. Okay, cuz that’s what it is, you know Most of these HRT practices HRT practices that I advocate for It is a concierge model. It is like DPC, but it’s for HRT. Like it is a concierge model. They pay you monthly
and includes everything, right? So it is concierge care for HRT. So focus on that model, focus on the HRT. Everything else is an accessory service, okay? The patients that you have now, obviously, keep them going, you know what I mean? So let me ask you real quick, where are you getting the majority of your new patients from right now?
Tawana (16:26.125)
Okay.
Tawana (16:36.809)
They’re from word of mouth. So the referrals from current patients. I’ve tried Google ads, Instagram ads, Facebook ads, and I was not successful, you know, in turning those ads into like converting patient appointments. But I also am not an ad expert. So I probably wasn’t doing a great job of it. But yeah, the majority of my patients are from word of mouth.
Justin Allan Montgomery (17:04.641)
Advertising on social media for it to work. You had to spend a lot of money. Okay, it’s for a small practice like yours. I mean waste my time. Some Google ads, some Google search ads, probably not a bad idea if you have competition in the area. Okay, but people who are looking for this stuff, they’re looking for it.
You know, I say this on almost every single podcast. They are looking for this service. So make it, make it easy for them to find you. Okay. That’s your Google business list. That’s your Google business listing. You get on there and you change the name of your Google business listing, the name of your business or whatever it is, hyphen, colon, HRT, concierge care, whatever it is, hormone replacement therapy for men and women.
Tawana (17:37.184)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (17:54.551)
Make it crystal clear, okay? And get as many reviews as you possibly can on there, all right?
The word of mouth will continue. Okay. You, you’ve established a solid patient base. Okay. So word of mouth will continue. So you will not lose that by doing a little bit of some rebranding. You’re not going to lose what, what you have here. Okay. It’s just going to be some rebranding. Your patients probably won’t even notice. All right.
So you will continue to have that good solid base of word of mouth right now, but your goal is to just build that base up so the word of mouth gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And within a year, maybe you’re hitting that $15,000 a month and it’s mostly going to be HRT instead of the weight loss. So if I was you, I would just, you know, you’re not in a super rush here.
and I would just rebrand, rebrand your website, rebrand your Google business listing and focus more on the HRT, get some training in women’s HRT if you need to or whatever, okay? And begin doing it. It’s pretty easy too, it’s not really that hard. So you just do that and then weight loss peptides on the side, okay? Maybe you can throw in some vitamin, throw in some vitamin injections too, maybe some supplements or something. And then,
Tawana (18:52.013)
No.
Justin Allan Montgomery (19:20.331)
Just leave it at that and just see what happens. See what grows. You know what I mean? And just give it some time and see what happens. That’s what I would do.
Tawana (19:29.929)
Okay, two questions. So I did rebrand my business name and it is like Jane Doe Wellness and Hormones. Is that okay or should I just specifically say HRT and Wellness?
Justin Allan Montgomery (19:51.043)
Yeah, I would put hormone replacement therapy.
Tawana (19:54.655)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (19:56.609)
I would list hormone replacement therapy and then put the abbreviation HRT like in the descriptions or whatever Yeah, but I like hormone replacement therapy and wellness and then in the little Google description
Tawana (19:59.956)
in the title.
Tawana (20:08.567)
for the descriptions, but then I can just, sorry, couldn’t hear you. So for the description,
Justin Allan Montgomery (20:14.583)
Yeah, so.
Tawana (20:17.901)
You go ahead.
Justin Allan Montgomery (20:20.345)
Alright, so yeah, in the description, would put HRT, the abbreviations in there, hormone replacement therapy, parentheses, HRT, and then explain what it is that your clinic does. But for the actual name of the Google business listing, I would probably, I would actually write out hormone replacement therapy. That’s what I would do.
Tawana (20:38.317)
Okay, thank you. And then you mentioned like throwing in some vitamins. So one of my goals was to try to go 100 % telehealth. What are your thoughts on 100 % telehealth practices? If it’s viable or do you recommend maintaining at least, you know, a smaller office for brick and mortar at the same time?
Justin Allan Montgomery (21:09.209)
I think you need to maintain an office. Telemed only is very difficult. You have to spend a lot of money marketing your practice for people to see it. Unless you have an established patient base where word of mouth can happen, you have some connections within some communities or something. The problem with telemed only is patient acquisition.
Tawana (21:11.68)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (21:38.455)
You know, I mean, you already have an established base, but it’s really not big enough for you to really expand from here. You know, once you get to a few hundred patients, three to 500 patients or something like that, and you wanted to go telemed only, chances are you probably could because that’s a large enough base for word of mouth to really, to really snowball, but you’re not there yet. And most practices that I know that
Tawana (21:48.833)
now.
Justin Allan Montgomery (22:07.897)
do a million dollars plus a year. Actually all of them that I’ve talked with, they all have an office. I don’t know of anyone that’s just 100 % telemed. They have an office. Maybe they don’t use it much, but they still have an office. They still have a physical presence somewhere. Okay. How much do you pay in rent?
Tawana (22:16.609)
Okay.
Tawana (22:32.589)
So I was paying 1200 a month for I think like 110 square feet. So I’m moving. I’m in the process of moving into a new location now and it’s going to be 660 a month. A little bit more. I think like 130 square feet. But yeah, not a lot of space.
Justin Allan Montgomery (22:57.123)
But that’s fine though, because most of your patients are telemed, right?
Tawana (23:02.529)
Well, I’m trying to convert them all to telemed. So I think it would be great. The only reason I mentioned that it’s a small like surface areas, because if I wanted to bring on devices like for men’s health, do you offer GainsWave or do you offer any shockwave therapy? No? Okay. I see your face. Not profitable enough.
Justin Allan Montgomery (23:31.843)
Well, wait second, I have heard from some people that they do make some decent money with those. They do. So I I have heard that from people, but the price of the device is, it is an expensive investment and you’re just not too sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re not too sure if it’s gonna work out well or not. Now there are gonna be people who are looking for that.
Tawana (23:36.929)
Okay.
Tawana (23:46.037)
expensive.
Justin Allan Montgomery (23:54.625)
you know, in your area. I people have heard about Shockwave, Gainsway, whatever, and they’re looking for that service. So mean, if you do offer it, you know, I mean, people would probably find you for it, but are you ready to drop 30 grand or more on a device?
Tawana (24:11.596)
There are actually 80 and the answer is no. That’s like the starting and like I don’t think so right now.
Justin Allan Montgomery (24:15.715)
Yeah.
Yeah, for a new one. think you could find some used ones out there a hell of a lot cheaper, but yeah, I would not. would focus on the easy money, focus on the HRT, focus on the weight, focus on the stuff that is just a subscription-based prescription.
and then you talk to them every three to six months. That’s the easy money. That’s what generates a consistent income for you. That’s scalable. A gains wave is not scalable. So yeah, so that’s my opinion. I’d say keep your office, okay? When the patients call or make an appointment, you can tell them.
Tawana (24:41.282)
Okay.
Tawana (24:52.077)
down.
Tawana (24:58.977)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (25:04.025)
You can come to the office or it can be a telemedicine visit. It’s up to you. I’m fine with either one. So I think you would find that a lot of people are cool to telemed visit. A lot of people are fine with that. Yeah. A lot of them are okay with that. I’d say probably easily 50 % plus are going to be completely fine with that.
Tawana (25:17.186)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (25:27.417)
Visit you and that sort of a thing but you know offering vitamin injections If it’s telemet that’s fine you just teach them how to give them just tell teach them how to give them You know their their own injection you can order small bottles of vitamins
Tawana (25:42.05)
yeah. Yeah.
Tawana (25:49.487)
And then office locations. think you mentioned this in one of your earliest podcasts or one of your earliest blogs, I should say, a blog post. You mentioned when you’re looking for new office location, try to be in the nicest neighborhood, but a smaller space versus a poorer, not poorer, but not as affluent.
a fluent or wealthy area, but a big space. What are your thoughts? Has your mindset shifted on that or is it still about the same?
Justin Allan Montgomery (26:27.555)
Well, I mean, think that, I mean, your location does matter. Especially if, especially if you really want to have a lot of foot traffic.
If you have a lot of foot traffic, know, people driving by and stopping in, if you want people to actually physically be there a lot of the times, then yeah, the location’s gonna matter. It’s probably better to be in a nicer part of town, you know, a more influential part of town for sure, because that’s where your cash patients are gonna be. But…
If you’re planning on seeing a lot of your patients telemed, then it doesn’t really matter that much. you know, if let’s just say you stick to about a hundred to 150 square foot office, you’re talking about, you’re talking about a one room office, basically a small office, right? And so, yeah, yeah. So the price difference. So let’s just say that you go somewhere that is a very, very nice part of town. Okay.
Tawana (27:22.284)
Yeah, that’s mom.
Justin Allan Montgomery (27:35.479)
The only way people are gonna find you in that area is by searching on Google. They’re not gonna see your sign out, because you’re in a small office in a building, Yeah, and the price of that office is $1,500 a month for a small one room nothing, right? And then you go to more of the middle class part of town, you know, still nice.
Tawana (27:43.608)
correct.
Tawana (27:53.902)
Mm-hmm.
Justin Allan Montgomery (27:58.425)
you know, but it’s not influential. It’s not, you know, very high net worth individuals and the rent is $600 a month. You know, is it going to affect the amount of patients you’re going to get? I doubt it. I doubt it. I mean, people who are going to live in the nicer part of town, they’re going to search for stuff in that area probably. You know what I mean? But, um, yeah, I mean, it’s just the price difference. If it’s, if the price difference hurts,
Tawana (28:15.179)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (28:28.183)
your pocketbook, then go with the cheaper option in a poorer part of town. But if it doesn’t really affect your pocketbook much, I would definitely spend the extra money in being the nicer part of town, even if it is just a one room office or something.
Tawana (28:46.134)
Okay, that’s what I was thinking too.
Justin Allan Montgomery (28:52.889)
So any questions in terms of I guess patient acquisition or marketing?
Tawana (29:02.412)
Now, what, so before you became extremely successful, like as a new, I’m not new, but I’m still, know, I would say I’m pretty much of a novice business owner. What marketing like streams or marketing resources were, you know, inexpensive, but very good for return. Like,
converting patients essentially, like getting patients in the door, retaining patients.
Justin Allan Montgomery (29:35.033)
The most effective marketing strategies for a practice. I mean, the way you market depends on the business, An online business like the elite nurse practitioner, I’m gonna advertise that a hell of a lot during that, I’m gonna advertise a practice, right? But for a practice…
Tawana (29:48.376)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (29:58.733)
The most effective marketing strategy is literally just making yourself easily found. And this doesn’t cost really any money, okay?
It just requires some time. So, you’re Google business listing and getting lots of reviews, okay? You need to incentivize every single patient to give you a review, okay? So you do invest a little bit of money into that. Give them 10 % off, give them a free B12 injection, whatever, okay? It still costs you some money to give them, you know, give away these free things. But do that and get the reviews. That will pay for itself.
Tawana (30:16.099)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (30:39.353)
I tenfold, okay? And then work on some SEO stuff on your website, okay? Lots of just content on your website. Articles that you write about a variety of different topics that are relevant to what it is that you do. HRT, weight loss, peptides, et cetera. The more articles and stuff you have on your website, the better you establish your authority and it’s just easier for people to find you on, you know, on Google or whatever. So.
Tawana (30:52.929)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (31:08.249)
you know, that doesn’t really cost you any money. I wouldn’t hire an SEO expert. It’s waste of time. Like, just publish some stuff yourself on your website. It’s not hard. So that right there is the most effective form of marketing for a practice, and it doesn’t really cost you much. Then if you want to, you can spend some time getting into some online communities and actually…
Tawana (31:12.982)
Uh-oh.
Justin Allan Montgomery (31:33.951)
engaging in those communities. So you can find a Facebook group in your area for mothers interested in wellness or runners or whatever. Like wherever your patients, potential patients could be is where you need to be engaging in a community. Okay. So you find these online communities and you get in there and you comment.
Tawana (31:50.721)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (32:00.797)
on people’s posts. Don’t go in there and advertise your practice. Don’t do that. You will get banned and people, yeah, don’t just go in there and be like, check it out and just, you know, don’t do that. You’re just engaging in the community. You’re just answering people’s questions. When someone asks a question, you know, hey, does anyone know of a good provider that does HRT here in like a women’s fitness group or something in your area?
Tawana (32:03.95)
Yeah. Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (32:26.211)
Well, if you see that post, that’s when you can drop your link. Yes, I do. Or someone posts a question about some sort of health topic or something. Respond. Just answer the question. Don’t push your practice. But you want to kind of give them little…
Tawana (32:35.502)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (32:41.625)
You wanna drop some breadcrumbs though. So it’s just like, with my patients, this is what I do, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or this is how I explain it to my patients. When I treat a patient, this is how I do it. So you answer the question by dropping a breadcrumb. You don’t answer the question. You answer the question and then be like, hey, why don’t you come check out my clinic? Here’s a link. No, no, no.
Tawana (32:50.24)
Okay.
Tawana (33:06.638)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (33:08.279)
No, no, don’t do that. You just drop little breadcrumbs. you see patients? Wait for them to reply. you see patients? okay, cool. Are you taking any patients? You know what mean? Are you taking new patients? Something like that. You do that, and then you respond. Actually, I am, and you just drop the link. You make it look like you’re not trying to sell. Okay, you make it look like you’re just trying to engage, and you drop little breadcrumbs. You drop little seeds all over the place, okay?
Tawana (33:28.494)
Justin Allan Montgomery (33:36.791)
And then someone’s scrolling through that and they see they read that thread then they just send you a message. Hey, you know, this is my situation. Can you see me as new patient? You would be amazed at how well that strategy works. You’d be amazed and it’s free. It just takes your time. That’s it. You know what mean? So instead of sitting there rotting your brain scrolling through your feed, instead of doing that,
Tawana (33:51.808)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (34:05.593)
Why don’t you go ahead and get in these communities and engage and actually participate and drop breadcrumbs and drop seeds before you know it, you start getting a lot of patients. I don’t remember what episode it was, but it was an episode five or 10 episodes ago or something like that where the NP, that’s how she was getting her patients and she got almost all of her patients through this Facebook group and she’s doing very well. Okay. So those…
Tawana (34:05.748)
Excuse me.
Justin Allan Montgomery (34:34.361)
Things right there I just told you about are the most effective means of marketing. Okay? You should be able, you should be getting 70 to 80 % of your patients doing those things right there. Okay? The other, like the other like 30%, 40 % or whatever. Yeah, you can do some Google search ads. You can drop a billboard. You can put some…
You can put some ads up in, you know, some places where your patients might be. You know, I’ve had some pay, you know, we used to advertise my men’s health clinic in, you know, in like some bars and restaurants and gyms and things like that. Those ads worked. They worked. But they still were never as powerful enough as, like they were never as powerful as my Google business listing with 150 plus reviews on it. They just weren’t. And honestly, we’ve stopped. I don’t…
We don’t advertise by Men’s Health Clinic anymore. We just don’t. We spend zero dollars on marketing now. There’s no point. It’s all word of mouth. We’re established, you know? Yeah.
Tawana (35:39.072)
Yeah, that’s great.
What about automation? With me just being a single provider, I don’t have a receptionist, I feel like I miss quite a few phone calls. I’m not always available to answer the phone. then with me using Spruce app, it sends anyone who calls the business an automated text response, just saying like, you know, to leave a message, we’ll get back to you. But what are your thoughts on like,
Justin Allan Montgomery (35:44.237)
What?
Tawana (36:11.968)
implementing automations or like virtual assistants as the first line of an office assistant.
Justin Allan Montgomery (36:21.899)
If you are missing out on business because you’re missing phone calls, then that’s problem. Like if they don’t leave a message, you can try to call them back and they don’t answer or whatever, you’re losing, you are losing business. You just are. And so, you’re giving away income basically because you just don’t have someone to answer your phone.
Tawana (36:27.778)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (36:47.093)
So hiring a virtual assistant to answer the phone for you is a worthwhile thing. I mean, you can always just have a message that says, sorry for missing your call. This is a small concierge practice where we care about patients. not usually, we’re not always available by phone, but we are generally available by text. Please just text this number, your text, text this number, your question, or go to this link in that text reminder to book an appointment online.
You can do that too. I that’s an easy automation to do to try to, you know, try to hook someone in. But at the end of the day, most people before they book an appointment usually like to talk to someone. yeah, it’s a worthwhile expense.
Tawana (37:24.93)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (37:32.121)
Yeah. Any other questions?
Tawana (37:39.597)
Just any other advice you would have for myself or someone in a very similar situation in terms of, you know, I’m still working full time. I’m trying to grow this practice, not really committing a ton of hours on a weekly basis. I have, you know, went back and forth, like, should I leave my full-time job and just like go all in and…
see if I could get to my goal quicker. But there’s that fear factor, right? When you have a steady income that you can depend on each and every month, and you just decide to jump in, all in, and leave your W-2 to focus on your own business, what words would you have for myself or someone else?
Justin Allan Montgomery (38:28.761)
I would say that first off, wouldn’t say just leaving your, I would not advise just to leave your job, especially if you need that income to live, then definitely don’t leave your job. If you don’t have very many bills, you have low debt, you got a six month emergency fund saved up, you got some cash in the bank.
then yeah, you can take the risk, leave your job, and feel comfortable doing it and go all in on your business. But if that’s not the case, which isn’t, then that’s the case for most people, maintain your job. Get your practice to the point where it’s generating enough income to, know, enough profit to basically pay for your living expenses, know, frugally.
You know, you’re probably not quite there yet. So what you need to do is you need to focus. I don’t think you need to spend more time on your practice necessarily right now to make more money. I don’t think that’s the case. think that you, with 10 hours a week, you should be able to get this thing up to $10,000 a month if you do it the right way.
Tawana (39:34.817)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (39:44.311)
And the right way is subscription-based pricing, recurrent income, selling packages to patients, providing services that don’t require as much one-on-one.
Justin Allan Montgomery (40:04.953)
You don’t spend a lot of time with it. So you need to focus on those sorts of and be able to get to a point where, okay, I’m putting 10 hours a week into this. Okay, now the 10 hours that I’m spending on this business, I see seven new patients a week. So seven hours of my time is for new patients.
Tawana (40:26.871)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (40:29.837)
and I have three hours for follow ups. Now I don’t have any other time to do anything else, right? That’s where you’re starting to get to the point where you’re like, I’m plateauing because I just simply do not have the time to see new patients. I don’t have the time to work on the business. When you get to that point, that’s the point where you say, okay, I need to drop to part time.
so can focus more on my business, so can give my business more hours, all right? You don’t have to quit, but drop part-time, you know, or PRN or something, work one day a week. That way you can spend more time on your practice. As a solopreneur, you are 100 % responsible for every dollar generated in this business. And the way you generate money is by seeing patience.
Tawana (40:58.19)
Perfect.
Justin Allan Montgomery (41:24.661)
And so if you are limited to only 10 hours a week, then you can only see patients for 10 hours. So if patients are calling and you simply just don’t have the time to fit them in, they’re pro- they- if you’re booking out a week, hey, we can see you next week. We can see you in two weeks. That’s probably gonna be fine. But when you’re booking out greater than two weeks, people are probably gonna go somewhere else. Now you’re throwing away business, okay?
Tawana (41:53.88)
down.
Justin Allan Montgomery (41:54.297)
So yeah, so you are responsible for generating every dollar in this business, therefore, if you wanna make more money, you gotta put more time into it. So my advice is that once this business hits enough where you can comfortably live off the money it’s generating, so let’s just say, I’m just throwing some soup out there, I don’t know if these numbers are applicable to you or not, but let’s just say this business is generating $10,000 a month profit, okay?
And let’s say that you can live comfortably off of $7,000 a month. So I wouldn’t quit your job when the business is making $7,000 a month. I wouldn’t do that. But when it hits 10, then you have 7,000 you can take out to live off of, and then have another 3,000 to invest in the business to keep it growing, to keep it growing. know what I mean? Hiring a receptionist, hiring a VA,
Tawana (42:30.574)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (42:52.825)
buying more supplies, maybe spending a couple bucks on some marketing, know, maybe paying for six months in advance of rent, maybe moving to a bigger office, you know, investing in the business. So you wanna make sure there’s still a little bit left over, okay? So in an ideal world, in an ideal world, I would say probably if you can live off of 60 to 70 % of the profit,
Tawana (43:09.186)
Bye.
Justin Allan Montgomery (43:20.087)
then it’s probably time to where you can cut back on the job or potentially just quit it, okay? Because you’ll live off 60, 70 % of the profit and then the other amount of money needs to stay in the business so you can invest in the business. So that’d be my advice for you.
Tawana (43:36.065)
Okay. And then for the HRT portion of the practice, do you recommend drawing labs in-house or like I right now use access, you know, one of your preferred lab partners, Access Medical Labs, or do you recommend sending them out like to lab core requests to have their blood drawn?
Justin Allan Montgomery (44:01.047)
Yeah, so if you’re gonna charge cash, Access is probably the way to go. Good solid rates, it’s a good service. The turnaround time on the labs is usually 24 hours, 48 tops. It’s a great lab. I’ve been using Access personally for eight years. Drawing in house though, you’re spending your time doing piddly stuff.
Tawana (44:27.49)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (44:28.857)
give them the order. So if you go through Access and you charge cash for the labs, give them an order. You can go to LabCorp. So I think with Access, they can go to LabCorp and pay an extra whatever it is for the lab draw fee there and then LabCorp sends it to Access. Okay? So you do that. Or if you want to…
charge cash but you don’t want to go through access and sending it off and that kind of thing. Usually you can use the prices that you know that access gives you and you usually can negotiate with a lab local like Quest Diagnostics or whatever and you can talk to an account representative and they can usually give you some similar pricing. It’s probably going to be a little bit more beating accesses prices is pretty difficult but
Tawana (45:06.423)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (45:16.757)
It might be a little bit more. So you could just send them to a Quest. You know, if you’ve negotiated cash rates with Quest, you could do that as well. Or if they want to use their insurance, just give them an order and tell them to go wherever they want. So that’s what I would do. Drawing in house, honestly, it’s a waste of your time as a solopreneur. You’re not making money doing that.
Tawana (45:24.013)
Okay.
Tawana (45:38.415)
Okay. And then do you recommend having in the membership packages, do you recommend having the lab draw the like one to three months worth of medication and the follow up visits all in one charge or some people are separating, they’re having a charge for their labs and a charge for the medications and then they put them on the recurring membership plans. Like what do you think is
like the better model.
Justin Allan Montgomery (46:10.453)
Everything should be included in the price. Labs are…
Tawana (46:13.421)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (46:20.793)
They’re not, it’s not mandatory to put the labs into it, okay? It’s a very optional, yeah, it’s optional. So if you wanna include the labs into it, just be aware that including the price into it might out price some people. You don’t make money on the labs. You make some, but you don’t make a lot, okay?
Tawana (46:25.166)
Thank you.
Tawana (46:42.776)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (46:45.497)
So including labs into your membership automatically increases the price and that increase in price, $30, $40, $50 extra a month will out price some people. You make money on the visit, the HRT, the general membership fee. That’s where you make the money. And so if you include the lab work, you could be out pricing people. Okay. So in my opinion,
Tawana (47:01.238)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (47:14.627)
Don’t include it. It’s just the visit, the medication, the supplies, whatever. It’s an all-inclusive concierge care thing. If you want labs, this is what we charge for lab work. You can pay this, or if you wanna use your insurance, here’s an order, and the lab deals with it. And you just tell them, hey, listen, I’m not gonna guarantee you your labs, your insurance company’s gonna pay for those labs. So if you get a big bill, that’s on you.
Because you could do this blood work right now for 200 bucks cash if you want and that’s it. Or you can go to Quest or LabCorp or whatever the hospital and do your blood work. If you get a bill for a thousand dollars, I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you.
Tawana (47:43.224)
Thank
Tawana (47:51.263)
Right, right. I guess my last question would be like the foundation of my business. I learned from the elite MP model. I’ve taken several of your courses. I love your courses. Right now people are charging tens of thousands of dollars to be your business mentor. And you know, just with, you know, the concerns that we’ve discussed today.
and me trying to grow my business and in addition to the advice that you’ve given me, what other course would you recommend that I take just to help me with some of these goals? I don’t have like $30,000 to pay someone for a mentorship.
Justin Allan Montgomery (48:37.931)
I don’t think you need to buy another course nor mentor to be honest with you. I don’t. I just told you what to do in this episode. This will be out in a week or two. Listen to it again. mean, listen, most business mentors in my opinion are full of shit.
Tawana (48:43.95)
Thank you.
Tawana (48:50.017)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (49:00.739)
Like, you know, I’ve heard some stories from some people that their business mentor was great. I’ve heard more stories from people that their business mentor wasn’t worth two shits. It was a waste of money. Okay. I don’t do business mentoring because I don’t feel right charging someone $10,000 for, to me, seems like common sense stuff. I could teach you in an hour.
Tawana (49:11.223)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (49:28.279)
what a business mentor is going to teach you over probably a month. Because, you know, we’re gonna skip the bullshit and get down to it. So, you do not need one. Just follow the advice I just told you in this episode. That’s all you need to focus on. There’s nothing else for you to focus on. Focusing on anything else right now is a waste of your time. Just focus on what we talked about. That’s all you gotta do.
Tawana (49:38.528)
Mm-hmm.
Tawana (49:42.625)
Okay.
Tawana (49:46.315)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (49:55.213)
You can get this thing at 10 or $15,000 a month within a year, easy. If you just do what we just talked about. I don’t think, I think a business mentor is worth it when you are into, when you are in a phase of high growth and scaling and you don’t know where to go because you just don’t know what to do next.
Tawana (50:14.817)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (50:18.745)
then a business mentor is worth it. That’s the kind of business mentoring that I would actually, I mean I do do a little bit of that. I help people sell their business. I help people scale their business to a point where they can sell it and then I help them sell their business, okay? You are nowhere near that yet, okay? You’re just not. But when you get…
Tawana (50:38.849)
What now?
Justin Allan Montgomery (50:42.265)
$500,000 a year, $750,000 a year net, million dollars a year net, and you’re just kinda like, I don’t know where to go next. Yeah, a business mentor’s probably gonna help you out as long as they have the experience of scaling and growing a million dollar business. But you’re not there yet. So don’t even worry about it. Just focus on what we talked about.
Tawana (50:57.046)
Okay. Okay. Thank you, Justin.
Justin Allan Montgomery (51:02.115)
You’re welcome. All right, so any questions for me? I was like the end of the episode with you asking me a question or if you have a personal curiosity or something.
Tawana (51:11.49)
It’s a mystery where your practice is located and you don’t have to say like the name of it, but which state are you in?
Justin Allan Montgomery (51:23.097)
I’m in the Southwest, I’ll just leave it at that.
Tawana (51:24.91)
Okay. That’s very proper.
Justin Allan Montgomery (51:28.801)
Yeah, the business. The business is in the southwest. I don’t like just saying exactly where it is or whatever, you know, it’s in the southwest. Yeah, I live in Colorado. I do not live in the same state my practices in. OK, so. Yeah, like my practice, it runs itself. It I don’t. I’m not really involved with it anymore, to be honest with you, so.
Tawana (51:34.186)
Okay. Yeah, no, I respect that.
Tawana (51:41.56)
Don’t worry.
Okay, no, okay.
Tawana (51:55.253)
Okay.
Justin Allan Montgomery (51:56.769)
Yeah, it’s not even really my practice anymore to be honest with you. It just it’s just there. It just does its thing. Like I am at a point in my life where I’m focusing on a lot of other things right now instead of my practice. So, so yeah, I prefer, I like helping people with their business versus actually owning a practice anymore. I’d rather help someone else. Yeah. So,
Tawana (52:15.522)
Nice show.
It shows because you’ve helped thousands of us to open a business and then to grow it. So I can tell it’s one of your passions. That was my question. I’m like, where does Justin practice? But yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (52:31.617)
Yeah, I live in Colorado and this is where I’m at in life. I’ve lived in Colorado now for almost it’ll be two years here in a few months. I don’t even have a Colorado license. That’s how much I care.
Tawana (52:48.686)
it’s a beautiful state I live there for 12 beautiful years and I’m in the Midwest now so I do miss it but yeah I see the attractiveness there yeah I appreciate everything
Justin Allan Montgomery (52:56.973)
Yeah, yeah. It’s nice. I like living here.
Yeah, winter kind of sucks sometimes, you know, but it’s dry. It’s a dry winter usually. I mean, there might be snow on the ground, but it’s it’s like dry powder. It’s not humid, you know, like I mean, I grew up in the southeast and when it was cold outside during the winter, you know, like, let’s just say the high was 30 or 31 and it wasn’t snowing, but you could still feel like the humidity, like it was
Tawana (53:25.656)
Yeah.
Justin Allan Montgomery (53:32.983)
wet cold and it was cold. Yeah, bone chilling cold, but here it can be 12 degrees outside and there’s like 0 % humidity and honestly doesn’t feel that bad. I go outside. I let the dogs out some mornings and the temperature is 27. I’m wearing boxers and I just walk out on the porch and just let them out and I’m like, that’s cold. It’s not that bad though. Yeah, so.
Tawana (53:35.192)
Yeah, well, chilling board.
Tawana (53:51.738)
no.
Tawana (54:00.546)
Yeah, but it’s still nice. 300 days of sunshine a year. You can’t beat that.
Justin Allan Montgomery (54:06.775)
Right, yeah, it is sunny a lot. so cool. If you want to do a follow up, me know, okay?
Tawana (54:13.1)
Okay, thank you Justin. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.
Justin Allan Montgomery (54:15.129)
All you’re welcome. All right, bye.
Tawana (54:18.927)
Bye bye.
