May 7, 2024 • 19 mins
In this episode of Animals and Aquatics, Gina reflects on the mistakes made in their occupational therapy practice. Joined by her husband, they share insights into common pitfalls such as spreading themselves too thin, failing to set clear boundaries, and reinventing systems unnecessarily. They discuss the importance of prioritizing tasks, simplifying processes, and choosing a memorable business name. Tune in for valuable lessons from their journey in occupational therapy business.
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Microphone (3- Logitech (00:00):
Welcome to this week's podcast.
(00:01):
I don't know about you, but I'vebeen seeing so many reels.
And videos on the mistakes thatpeople have made in their
businesses.
I don't know if it's a currenttrend right now, but I thought,
Hmm.
What are the mistakes that we'vemade in our business.
And would that be helpful foryou to hear.
So let's get started.
(00:38):
Hi, welcome to animals andaquatics I'm Gina your host.
Today, we're going to talk alittle bit about some of the
mistakes that we've made and ifyou don't know us yet, We are a
husband and wife, occupationaltherapy team.
I'm an occupational therapistand my husband is a certified
occupational therapy assistantand we've worked together
providing unique occupationaltherapy services, incorporating
(01:01):
hippotherapy aquatic OT, andnature-based services.
And we absolutely love what wedo.
We run our own private practice.
And it gives us a lot offlexibility to really
incorporate occupational therapythe way we believe it should be.
We have created the animals andaquatics podcast to help other
(01:21):
OT providers who want to workeither in the animal space.
So that could be with farmanimals or with dogs or even
small animals or in the aquaticspace.
And we wanted to make sure thatpeople had the resources that we
had been searching for as westarted to make this journey.
So.
We're glad that you're here withus and I'm happy to share that
(01:45):
right now.
My business barn raising courseis open for enrollment for the
summer program.
I absolutely love working withoccupational therapist, from
students to people who have beenin the industry for many years.
And I like to help them gettheir business started, grow
their business or addhippotherapy, to an existing
(02:06):
practice.
Business barn raising has beenreally perfect for answering all
those business questions thatpeople have.
You get all the forms andtemplates that I'm already using
in our business here, as well asweekly accountability.
So if this is something you'reinterested in, please reach out
and I can help get you started.
So what are the five mistakesthat we want to share with you
(02:29):
that have really.
Definitely held us back indifferent ways.
And have been part of thelearning curve in other ways.
And there's always mistakes thatare going to be made and they're
a great way to learn.
Some of them have been harderthan others and some of them
were probably still making.
So let's get started with thesemistakes.
(02:51):
The first one.
That we have struggled with andoccasionally still struggle
with, but we're definitely doingbetter.
Is trying to do.
All the things and it can bereally excited when you're
starting your own practice andyou suddenly have this
opportunity to really do thingsthat excite you, that might be
(03:11):
beneficial to your community andyou can see.
Different areas of need withinyour community.
And you're like, ah, as anoccupational therapist, I can
offer that I can do that.
I could run a feeding group.
I could run a adaptive sportsgroup.
I could run a journalingnature-based journaling group.
Right.
And they all sound superexciting and lots of fun.
(03:34):
And especially when we werefirst really getting started and
bringing all of our ideas to thetable, we found that it seemed
like we wanted to start a newgroup or activity.
Every three months and it reallywould take away our focus from
doing one thing and doing itreally well.
Getting solid systems in place.
And.
(03:55):
Really getting known for what itis that we were going to do an
offer in our community.
And we kind of have our threepillars with animals, aquatics
in nature.
And sometimes we still want togo a little bit off the rails
with a new idea or trying todecide how much focus to put in
(04:16):
any one of those areas.
Certainly any one of those areascould be its own niche practice
by itself.
And there are certainly manypeople who do just practice
incorporating aquatics oranimals, or just in the nature
based area.
And we like having some varietyin what we do and where we're
(04:37):
at.
And it allows us to see ourclients in different settings,
which is really nice.
But it also can, again, lend todistraction.
It can be harder to marketbecause we have to decide.
Which area are we maybe fullwith clients?
And where's an area we want toattract more clients to, or
(04:57):
where is one of our facilitieshave opening and time for us
that we could add more.
Clients, and that works with ourschedule and maybe is there
another area where we haveclients, but we don't have that
facility availability.
So trying to focus on the thingsthat we do best.
And making sure we're stayingfocused on those things and not
(05:18):
doing all the things.
Now.
This kind of a little bit tiesinto the second area that has a
mistake that we've made is notsetting good enough guardrails.
I like to call them guardrailsbecause they really, again, help
keep you on the road to success.
And.
We've been talking about this inthat when you're running your
(05:40):
own business or privatepractice.
It's so much of a representationof you.
And, you know, it's just you andyour face and it's your
business.
And we want to make it obviouslythe best business that it can
be.
And that leads to being verygiving, giving of our time,
(06:00):
giving of our expertise.
Very supportive to our clientsand families.
And of course, those are allimportant things, but it's also
important to set guardrails.
On our time on our expertise.
On our travel arrangements onour locations.
In so many of the different waysthat we have practice, that we
(06:22):
continue to practice.
Making sure that we have thoseguardrails in place.
And of course, being in aprofession like occupational
therapy, you're very empatheticand you understand deeply what
your clients are going throughwith the families that you work
with are going through.
And that can, again, lead tosometimes not having those
(06:44):
guardrails in place that reallykeep you on the road keep you
focused, keep you moving towardssuccess.
And that's something that wecontinually kind of revisit,
especially if we notice that wefeel like we're getting
sidetracked a little bit orpulled off a little bit, and
that's an area that is anongoing area of development.
(07:07):
But definitely has been amistake of not setting up those
guardrails early on and beingreally clear with families
through that intake process of.
How we work.
What's important to us whenwe're available, when we're not
available.
And I'm going to tie that intothe next mistake that we have
(07:28):
made, which is reinventing thewheel for our systems for intake
and onboarding.
It seems like we will use oneintake and onboarding system for
a year, and then we want totweak it to make it better,
which is a great thing.
You certainly want to be able tomake your systems better as you
grow.
But it seems like instead oftweaking the system, we're
(07:50):
really reinventing the system alot.
And that takes a lot of energy.
It takes a lot of effort.
It doesn't lead to a smoothintake process for families
often.
And one of our mottoes for abusiness really is keep it
simple.
Because we're parents of threeyoung.
Young children.
And like, we need to keep thingssimple for ourselves right now.
(08:13):
If we're gonna run our businessand have it be successful.
We need to keep things simpleand.
We want the intake process to besimple.
One of the really importantthings on with onboarding
clients is to make it feelintuitive for them to make them
feel like they're smart and theyunderstand the process.
So they don't get hung up indoing the paperwork in
(08:35):
completing the process ingetting lost in your email inbox
or messenger inbox.
And for us, it does feel likewe'll have a bit of a flow and
then.
We want to tweak or changesomething.
And instead of making thosesmall adjustments, we really go
back to the beginning.
And, you know, create a newspreadsheet in the way that
(08:57):
we're going to track people orcreate a new email sequence that
people are going to get.
So I think that's one area thatwe could save some time and we
could get a consistent systemthat we all know how it works
and just keep making it betterrather than changing it.
Now another area that I wouldsay has been a mistake for us.
(09:21):
His priorities and.
This is again, you know, is onewhere we spend time putting out
little fires sometimes beforedoing things that would generate
income for us, or even thingsthat are important to our
family.
And one of the benefits of beingin private practice.
(09:42):
Is that it gives us the freedomand flexibility to be home with
our children, to put familyfirst.
And whether that's a client'sfamily or own family, that's an
important part of our businessand our business model.
And so if we're stuck puttingout little fires, whether that's
just.
(10:02):
Email com like answering emailsor.
Looking for paperwork to see ifit's been completed or updating
things in our system.
Those are things that can take alot of time and definitely could
be outsourced when we get tothat point.
It would be nice to be able tooutsource them to a virtual
(10:24):
assistant or administrativeassistant so they could work on
some of those things.
And help us really keep ourpriorities on things that
generate income and things thatare important to our family.
So as I was working with afieldwork student and I was
explaining.
Some of the pressures of privatepractice and some of the areas
(10:46):
that we really love.
And I was saying that I wasgoing to miss going on a field
trip with my daughter.
And she looked at me and shegoes, But isn't it.
Your business?
Couldn't you just like cancel orreschedule?
And it was such an obviousstatement.
That.
Yes, it is my business.
I could reschedule.
I could.
(11:08):
Cancel.
And.
You know, to her, it was, it wasreally obvious.
And to me, Again, it felt likesuch an imperative that I had to
be there at that time.
Kind of no matter what.
Then realizing, like I was goingto miss out on one of the key
perks of having my own business,because I wasn't exactly sure
(11:31):
for that day where my prioritieswere, where they, with my family
going on the field trip witheverybody.
Or were they showing up inservice to my clients?
So laying out our priorities andputting that, down, I think
would have helped us.
And it was definitely a mistakeas we've gotten started and is
an ongoing process becausepriorities change.
(11:55):
The different seasons requiredifferent things.
Certainly having, you know, ababy was a different season than
now having a toddler and apreschooler and a first grader.
And knowing how to organize allof that.
And I've always said, like, Idon't like the term.
Work life balance.
(12:16):
I like the term work-lifepriorities because sometimes
work is a priority andsometimes.
Life or family or the thingsthat happen, Outside of work are
a priority.
And really when you're runningyour own business, a lot of it
runs together.
Because your work is whatsupports your life.
(12:37):
As a a job does too, but thereare much more clear cut
boundaries, often around a job.
Then there are around your ownbusiness when you're responsible
for all the things.
And.
It's one of those things that isreally important to talk about.
And come up with like what yourstructure is, what your ideas
are for how you're going tomanage changing seasons, both
(13:00):
the actual outdoor seasons, aswell as seasons within your
family.
And how do you get thosepriorities?
And check in with them every sooften.
So that way.
You can make sure that you arereaping the benefits of having
your own private practice.
Now the one that I've saved forlast for number five is.
(13:24):
A little bit of a touchy one, Isuppose, because it's our name,
our business name.
It's.
The name that I came up with along time ago and it was really
meaningful to me.
So our business name is Eponatherapy services and Epona is
(13:44):
the Celtic goddess of horses andhealing.
So if you know anything aboutour business, that totally makes
sense, except that none of herclients know what Epona is.
They don't know how to spell it.
They don't know how to say it.
They won't remember it when theyneed to go look it up.
And.
It's kind of a sunk cost prisonat this point, because.
(14:06):
If people know us at all,they're going to know us that
way, or they just know us asGina and Ryan.
And so.
Although we have wanted tochange our business same and we
have come up with several otherviable, well, several other
names.
That we thought were viable.
We found out that there was anaquatic swim school nearby with
(14:29):
one of the names that we hadcome up with as an idea.
And we had actually registeredthat name as a DBA with the
state.
And it didn't come up.
Anything for that name andtherapy?
But we didn't realize that itcame up with that name and swim.
Or swim school.
So that was one.
Name iteration that we wentthrough then.
(14:52):
Maybe a year later, we came upwith another name iteration.
We were really excited about it.
We did some preliminary brandingaround it and we hadn't like
told anybody.
And.
We had one discussion withsomeone who was not in our local
community.
A professional from far away.
And we have no idea.
(15:14):
How this works, but somewhere inthe universe, That once we spoke
it, it came into being and.
When we did the next round ofGoogle search to see what that
name like, making sure nothingcame up with it or nothing that
we had already seen.
Cause you're not going to find aname that's like completely.
(15:35):
Not taken in any way, shape orform, unless you're kind of.
Gobbly looking somethingtogether.
And then you're going to runinto the same challenges that we
had is people aren't going toknow what it is.
They're not going to rememberit.
They're not gonna know how tosay it.
So after we had.
Talked about our next futurename this second time around.
(15:56):
Probably.
Maybe two months after we hadkind of come up with the name,
we Googled it again.
And sure enough, there was now.
Google listing.
And a Facebook page that hadbeen started like five days
before.
Like five days ago, but had beenlike, after we had talked about
(16:17):
using that particular name andI'm not sharing any of these
names, cause it doesn't reallymatter.
To the mistake part, but nowwe're kind of like now what do
we do?
Like the two names so far thatwe have come up with.
We've struck out with, we stillhave our name.
And we continue to do businesswith our name.
(16:38):
We continue, you know, peopleknow us, we put out marketing,
like our community partners haveour name and our information.
So then it's like, well, you do,we.
Should we just keep it like.
I don't know.
So it definitely, it didn't feellike a mistake at the time.
That was a long time ago.
This is a 2007.
But it's definitely feels like amistake now, because again,
(17:03):
Nobody knows.
What it is, how to say it, howto spell it or how to find us.
So.
If you search.
You know, for us in our townname, like Gina and Ryan and the
town that we live in.
I don't know.
Maybe you'd find us.
Maybe if they searchhippotherapy, in our area, we're
going to come up, but we're maynot be the first on the Google
search.
So that's another area that Iwould say was a mistake for us.
(17:28):
So to regroup and go throughwhat those five mistakes are
that I wanted to share with youtoday are one of our mistakes
was doing all the things wedefinitely took a while to get
focused.
Then I would say, not settinggood enough guard rails was an
early on mistake and somethingthat we periodically have to go
(17:51):
back and review to make surethat we're staying on track.
Then reinventing the wheel andour systems intake and
onboarding.
Is a mistake that takes us time.
And does not help us to keepthings simple.
Our priorities and making surethat we're revisiting them
through different seasons oflife, as well as different
(18:14):
seasonal seasonings is importantbecause.
If you work in a nature basedpractice and you work somewhere
that has a climate that has fourseasons outside.
You do have to look at thosepriorities.
As you go throughout the year.
And the last one that I talkedabout was our name.
And thinking about.
(18:34):
Something that is easy to sayand easy to remember.
In your name?
Would definitely be some adviceI would give.
So I want to thank you forjoining us today on animals at
aquatics.
And I hope this was helpful toyou.
And maybe you'll see one of myreels with the mistakes that
(18:55):
I've made, because they seem tobe very popular now.
And I thought, well, if I'mlearning from other people's
mistakes, And maybe just onetidbit that they give me.
Can help me avoid a mistake.
As I grow in my business, as Igrow in my practice.
Then maybe if I can share someof the mistakes that we have
made that can help you grow inyour business and your practice.
(19:19):
If you haven't already, pleasego ahead and subscribe to the
podcast, share it with a friend.
And if you would do us a bigfavor, go ahead and leave us a
review.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to this week's podcast.
(00:01):
I don't know about you, but I'vebeen seeing so many reels.
And videos on the mistakes thatpeople have made in their
businesses.
I don't know if it's a currenttrend right now, but I thought,
Hmm.
What are the mistakes that we'vemade in our business.
And would that be helpful foryou to hear.
So let's get started.
(00:38):
Hi, welcome to animals andaquatics I'm Gina your host.
Today, we're going to talk alittle bit about some of the
mistakes that we've made and ifyou don't know us yet, We are a
husband and wife, occupationaltherapy team.
I'm an occupational therapistand my husband is a certified
occupational therapy assistantand we've worked together
providing unique occupationaltherapy services, incorporating
(01:01):
hippotherapy aquatic OT, andnature-based services.
And we absolutely love what wedo.
We run our own private practice.
And it gives us a lot offlexibility to really
incorporate occupational therapythe way we believe it should be.
We have created the animals andaquatics podcast to help other
(01:21):
OT providers who want to workeither in the animal space.
So that could be with farmanimals or with dogs or even
small animals or in the aquaticspace.
And we wanted to make sure thatpeople had the resources that we
had been searching for as westarted to make this journey.
So.
We're glad that you're here withus and I'm happy to share that
(01:45):
right now.
My business barn raising courseis open for enrollment for the
summer program.
I absolutely love working withoccupational therapist, from
students to people who have beenin the industry for many years.
And I like to help them gettheir business started, grow
their business or addhippotherapy, to an existing
(02:06):
practice.
Business barn raising has beenreally perfect for answering all
those business questions thatpeople have.
You get all the forms andtemplates that I'm already using
in our business here, as well asweekly accountability.
So if this is something you'reinterested in, please reach out
and I can help get you started.
So what are the five mistakesthat we want to share with you
(02:29):
that have really.
Definitely held us back indifferent ways.
And have been part of thelearning curve in other ways.
And there's always mistakes thatare going to be made and they're
a great way to learn.
Some of them have been harderthan others and some of them
were probably still making.
So let's get started with thesemistakes.
(02:51):
The first one.
That we have struggled with andoccasionally still struggle
with, but we're definitely doingbetter.
Is trying to do.
All the things and it can bereally excited when you're
starting your own practice andyou suddenly have this
opportunity to really do thingsthat excite you, that might be
(03:11):
beneficial to your community andyou can see.
Different areas of need withinyour community.
And you're like, ah, as anoccupational therapist, I can
offer that I can do that.
I could run a feeding group.
I could run a adaptive sportsgroup.
I could run a journalingnature-based journaling group.
Right.
And they all sound superexciting and lots of fun.
(03:34):
And especially when we werefirst really getting started and
bringing all of our ideas to thetable, we found that it seemed
like we wanted to start a newgroup or activity.
Every three months and it reallywould take away our focus from
doing one thing and doing itreally well.
Getting solid systems in place.
And.
(03:55):
Really getting known for what itis that we were going to do an
offer in our community.
And we kind of have our threepillars with animals, aquatics
in nature.
And sometimes we still want togo a little bit off the rails
with a new idea or trying todecide how much focus to put in
(04:16):
any one of those areas.
Certainly any one of those areascould be its own niche practice
by itself.
And there are certainly manypeople who do just practice
incorporating aquatics oranimals, or just in the nature
based area.
And we like having some varietyin what we do and where we're
(04:37):
at.
And it allows us to see ourclients in different settings,
which is really nice.
But it also can, again, lend todistraction.
It can be harder to marketbecause we have to decide.
Which area are we maybe fullwith clients?
And where's an area we want toattract more clients to, or
(04:57):
where is one of our facilitieshave opening and time for us
that we could add more.
Clients, and that works with ourschedule and maybe is there
another area where we haveclients, but we don't have that
facility availability.
So trying to focus on the thingsthat we do best.
And making sure we're stayingfocused on those things and not
(05:18):
doing all the things.
Now.
This kind of a little bit tiesinto the second area that has a
mistake that we've made is notsetting good enough guardrails.
I like to call them guardrailsbecause they really, again, help
keep you on the road to success.
And.
We've been talking about this inthat when you're running your
(05:40):
own business or privatepractice.
It's so much of a representationof you.
And, you know, it's just you andyour face and it's your
business.
And we want to make it obviouslythe best business that it can
be.
And that leads to being verygiving, giving of our time,
(06:00):
giving of our expertise.
Very supportive to our clientsand families.
And of course, those are allimportant things, but it's also
important to set guardrails.
On our time on our expertise.
On our travel arrangements onour locations.
In so many of the different waysthat we have practice, that we
(06:22):
continue to practice.
Making sure that we have thoseguardrails in place.
And of course, being in aprofession like occupational
therapy, you're very empatheticand you understand deeply what
your clients are going throughwith the families that you work
with are going through.
And that can, again, lead tosometimes not having those
(06:44):
guardrails in place that reallykeep you on the road keep you
focused, keep you moving towardssuccess.
And that's something that wecontinually kind of revisit,
especially if we notice that wefeel like we're getting
sidetracked a little bit orpulled off a little bit, and
that's an area that is anongoing area of development.
(07:07):
But definitely has been amistake of not setting up those
guardrails early on and beingreally clear with families
through that intake process of.
How we work.
What's important to us whenwe're available, when we're not
available.
And I'm going to tie that intothe next mistake that we have
(07:28):
made, which is reinventing thewheel for our systems for intake
and onboarding.
It seems like we will use oneintake and onboarding system for
a year, and then we want totweak it to make it better,
which is a great thing.
You certainly want to be able tomake your systems better as you
grow.
But it seems like instead oftweaking the system, we're
(07:50):
really reinventing the system alot.
And that takes a lot of energy.
It takes a lot of effort.
It doesn't lead to a smoothintake process for families
often.
And one of our mottoes for abusiness really is keep it
simple.
Because we're parents of threeyoung.
Young children.
And like, we need to keep thingssimple for ourselves right now.
(08:13):
If we're gonna run our businessand have it be successful.
We need to keep things simpleand.
We want the intake process to besimple.
One of the really importantthings on with onboarding
clients is to make it feelintuitive for them to make them
feel like they're smart and theyunderstand the process.
So they don't get hung up indoing the paperwork in
(08:35):
completing the process ingetting lost in your email inbox
or messenger inbox.
And for us, it does feel likewe'll have a bit of a flow and
then.
We want to tweak or changesomething.
And instead of making thosesmall adjustments, we really go
back to the beginning.
And, you know, create a newspreadsheet in the way that
(08:57):
we're going to track people orcreate a new email sequence that
people are going to get.
So I think that's one area thatwe could save some time and we
could get a consistent systemthat we all know how it works
and just keep making it betterrather than changing it.
Now another area that I wouldsay has been a mistake for us.
(09:21):
His priorities and.
This is again, you know, is onewhere we spend time putting out
little fires sometimes beforedoing things that would generate
income for us, or even thingsthat are important to our
family.
And one of the benefits of beingin private practice.
(09:42):
Is that it gives us the freedomand flexibility to be home with
our children, to put familyfirst.
And whether that's a client'sfamily or own family, that's an
important part of our businessand our business model.
And so if we're stuck puttingout little fires, whether that's
just.
(10:02):
Email com like answering emailsor.
Looking for paperwork to see ifit's been completed or updating
things in our system.
Those are things that can take alot of time and definitely could
be outsourced when we get tothat point.
It would be nice to be able tooutsource them to a virtual
(10:24):
assistant or administrativeassistant so they could work on
some of those things.
And help us really keep ourpriorities on things that
generate income and things thatare important to our family.
So as I was working with afieldwork student and I was
explaining.
Some of the pressures of privatepractice and some of the areas
(10:46):
that we really love.
And I was saying that I wasgoing to miss going on a field
trip with my daughter.
And she looked at me and shegoes, But isn't it.
Your business?
Couldn't you just like cancel orreschedule?
And it was such an obviousstatement.
That.
Yes, it is my business.
I could reschedule.
I could.
(11:08):
Cancel.
And.
You know, to her, it was, it wasreally obvious.
And to me, Again, it felt likesuch an imperative that I had to
be there at that time.
Kind of no matter what.
Then realizing, like I was goingto miss out on one of the key
perks of having my own business,because I wasn't exactly sure
(11:31):
for that day where my prioritieswere, where they, with my family
going on the field trip witheverybody.
Or were they showing up inservice to my clients?
So laying out our priorities andputting that, down, I think
would have helped us.
And it was definitely a mistakeas we've gotten started and is
an ongoing process becausepriorities change.
(11:55):
The different seasons requiredifferent things.
Certainly having, you know, ababy was a different season than
now having a toddler and apreschooler and a first grader.
And knowing how to organize allof that.
And I've always said, like, Idon't like the term.
Work life balance.
(12:16):
I like the term work-lifepriorities because sometimes
work is a priority andsometimes.
Life or family or the thingsthat happen, Outside of work are
a priority.
And really when you're runningyour own business, a lot of it
runs together.
Because your work is whatsupports your life.
(12:37):
As a a job does too, but thereare much more clear cut
boundaries, often around a job.
Then there are around your ownbusiness when you're responsible
for all the things.
And.
It's one of those things that isreally important to talk about.
And come up with like what yourstructure is, what your ideas
are for how you're going tomanage changing seasons, both
(13:00):
the actual outdoor seasons, aswell as seasons within your
family.
And how do you get thosepriorities?
And check in with them every sooften.
So that way.
You can make sure that you arereaping the benefits of having
your own private practice.
Now the one that I've saved forlast for number five is.
(13:24):
A little bit of a touchy one, Isuppose, because it's our name,
our business name.
It's.
The name that I came up with along time ago and it was really
meaningful to me.
So our business name is Eponatherapy services and Epona is
(13:44):
the Celtic goddess of horses andhealing.
So if you know anything aboutour business, that totally makes
sense, except that none of herclients know what Epona is.
They don't know how to spell it.
They don't know how to say it.
They won't remember it when theyneed to go look it up.
And.
It's kind of a sunk cost prisonat this point, because.
(14:06):
If people know us at all,they're going to know us that
way, or they just know us asGina and Ryan.
And so.
Although we have wanted tochange our business same and we
have come up with several otherviable, well, several other
names.
That we thought were viable.
We found out that there was anaquatic swim school nearby with
(14:29):
one of the names that we hadcome up with as an idea.
And we had actually registeredthat name as a DBA with the
state.
And it didn't come up.
Anything for that name andtherapy?
But we didn't realize that itcame up with that name and swim.
Or swim school.
So that was one.
Name iteration that we wentthrough then.
(14:52):
Maybe a year later, we came upwith another name iteration.
We were really excited about it.
We did some preliminary brandingaround it and we hadn't like
told anybody.
And.
We had one discussion withsomeone who was not in our local
community.
A professional from far away.
And we have no idea.
(15:14):
How this works, but somewhere inthe universe, That once we spoke
it, it came into being and.
When we did the next round ofGoogle search to see what that
name like, making sure nothingcame up with it or nothing that
we had already seen.
Cause you're not going to find aname that's like completely.
(15:35):
Not taken in any way, shape orform, unless you're kind of.
Gobbly looking somethingtogether.
And then you're going to runinto the same challenges that we
had is people aren't going toknow what it is.
They're not going to rememberit.
They're not gonna know how tosay it.
So after we had.
Talked about our next futurename this second time around.
(15:56):
Probably.
Maybe two months after we hadkind of come up with the name,
we Googled it again.
And sure enough, there was now.
Google listing.
And a Facebook page that hadbeen started like five days
before.
Like five days ago, but had beenlike, after we had talked about
(16:17):
using that particular name andI'm not sharing any of these
names, cause it doesn't reallymatter.
To the mistake part, but nowwe're kind of like now what do
we do?
Like the two names so far thatwe have come up with.
We've struck out with, we stillhave our name.
And we continue to do businesswith our name.
(16:38):
We continue, you know, peopleknow us, we put out marketing,
like our community partners haveour name and our information.
So then it's like, well, you do,we.
Should we just keep it like.
I don't know.
So it definitely, it didn't feellike a mistake at the time.
That was a long time ago.
This is a 2007.
But it's definitely feels like amistake now, because again,
(17:03):
Nobody knows.
What it is, how to say it, howto spell it or how to find us.
So.
If you search.
You know, for us in our townname, like Gina and Ryan and the
town that we live in.
I don't know.
Maybe you'd find us.
Maybe if they searchhippotherapy, in our area, we're
going to come up, but we're maynot be the first on the Google
search.
So that's another area that Iwould say was a mistake for us.
(17:28):
So to regroup and go throughwhat those five mistakes are
that I wanted to share with youtoday are one of our mistakes
was doing all the things wedefinitely took a while to get
focused.
Then I would say, not settinggood enough guard rails was an
early on mistake and somethingthat we periodically have to go
(17:51):
back and review to make surethat we're staying on track.
Then reinventing the wheel andour systems intake and
onboarding.
Is a mistake that takes us time.
And does not help us to keepthings simple.
Our priorities and making surethat we're revisiting them
through different seasons oflife, as well as different
(18:14):
seasonal seasonings is importantbecause.
If you work in a nature basedpractice and you work somewhere
that has a climate that has fourseasons outside.
You do have to look at thosepriorities.
As you go throughout the year.
And the last one that I talkedabout was our name.
And thinking about.
(18:34):
Something that is easy to sayand easy to remember.
In your name?
Would definitely be some adviceI would give.
So I want to thank you forjoining us today on animals at
aquatics.
And I hope this was helpful toyou.
And maybe you'll see one of myreels with the mistakes that
(18:55):
I've made, because they seem tobe very popular now.
And I thought, well, if I'mlearning from other people's
mistakes, And maybe just onetidbit that they give me.
Can help me avoid a mistake.
As I grow in my business, as Igrow in my practice.
Then maybe if I can share someof the mistakes that we have
made that can help you grow inyour business and your practice.
(19:19):
If you haven't already, pleasego ahead and subscribe to the
podcast, share it with a friend.
And if you would do us a bigfavor, go ahead and leave us a
review.
Thanks for listening.
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