Unique Chiropractic Business Plan

Every business needs a business plan, and Chiropractic practices are no exception. Even though you primarily view yourself as a health care practitioner, if you own all or part of your practice you are also an entrepreneur. While a chiropractic business plan includes many of the same components of any standard plan, there are elements in a Chiropractor's business plan that are unique to the profession. You will also need a solid business plan to obtain financing to start or expand your practice.

Keep in mind that every business plan is unique, just as your chiropractic practice differs in some way from every competitor. While you want to include all the pertinent and specific information relating to your practice, you do not want a fill-in-the-blanks, cookie-cutter approach. When a lender reads your chiropractic business plan, they should not only read a well-organized, well-argued document that doesn't leave them asking a lot of questions, but should also be able to take away the vision you have for your chiropractic business.

The plan needs to:

Be concise yet detailed enough to provide the user with all the information they need to understand what you intend to do and how you intend to do it.

Guide you in the operation of the practice and help you set realistic and achievable goals and benchmarks.

Be coherently organized.

The business plan concept is not based on multiple choice or right and wrong answers. It is as individual as you are. The point of the business plan is to think through all of the essential elements, create a plan and then execute it.

The plan should not be static. This is not something you write once and forget about. Ideally, you should revisit your plan annually and revise it to reflect the reality of your practice.

When writing a business plan especially for a startup, you will be making assumptions. Hopefully, they will be well-reasoned and researched, but the assumptions are still educated guesses as to what will happen.

Reviewing and updating the business plan will help you adjust to your circumstances and effectively manage the financial health of your practice.

Online Business Plan Tools and Templates

You need to carefully weigh which tools to use or you may choose to build your business plan from scratch. As with most business decisions, there are pros and cons to each approach.

Ease of Use - Business planning templates are easy. They ask you to plug in certain information and then generate documents for you to use in your business plan.

Professional Appearance - Templates are capable of generating well-designed documents which present a professional image of you and your practice.

Cost - Many of the tools, templates and software available are for sale and the cost ranges from $ 20 - $ 150. There are many more available through sources like SCORE (opens in a new window) and the Small Business Administration (opens in a new window) which are free of charge. Weigh the cost and benefits of paying for software.

Cookie Cutter Product - Be cautious of writing a business plan that looks like it is an off-the-shelf product. Your practice is unique and your business plan should be too. If you are using a template, be sure to research everything you include in the plan. You will be expected to defend your document when talking with lenders.

Executive Summary

Your business plan should begin with an Executive Summary that provides a recap of the entire business plan. Although it is the first component of your business plan, it is typically written last. The goal is to allow the reader to quickly grasp the plan's concepts and ideas. Once the reader understands what the plan is about, he or she can determine if there is interest in reading further to find out more about the details of how the business will be put together and how it will operate.

Key concepts in the Executive Summary include:

A brief explanation of chiropractic

How you intend to practice

Why there is a demand in the market place for what you plan to do