I’d like to share with you a story of the most remarkable physiotherapy business. The concept is so extraordinary that the only way I can share it, is in the sequence in which it happened.
Let me introduce you to my colleague and friend Natasa Tedman. Natasa is from Montenegro, a small ex-Yugoslavian nation on the Adriatic Sea. Natasa studied physiotherapy in Montenegro and worked there for a couple of years before migrating to Australia.
Natasa began her Australian musculoskeletal physiotherapy career in the private sector. She continued her professional development, doing training in Pilates exercise and studying for a Masters Degree in Women’s Health. And during these busy early-career years Natasa also married Brett and gave birth to a beautiful girl named Mila.
Despite Australia being her new home Natasa’s connection with Montenegro remains strong, and every year she returns to visit her family and friends.
Natasa and Brett have reached a point in their lives where they are ready to start their own business and they asked for my advice. We met for lunch, where they shared their vision of opening a practice, either in their current home of Perth or in Brisbane (Brett’s home town). Natasa would provide the service whilst Brett would provide the administration, management and marketing.
Recognising that private physiotherapy is a well-saturated market in Australia, my first question was, “What would be their point of difference or niche?” Natasa felt that her advanced skills in musculoskeletal physiotherapy, Pilates exercise and Women’s Health would allow her to focus on the problems of the pelvis. Whilst a good idea, in Australia there is already a plethora of those specialized services available. Pelvic health is no longer niche in Australia.
Furthermore, I asked how they would envisage building a business that would require them to be constantly present whilst growing a young family and still wanting to travel regularly to Montenegro.
I had severely ‘rained on their parade’ so it was time to dig a little deeper to try and tease out where Natasa and Brett’s true potential lay.
Whilst there are a multitude of pelvic physiotherapists within Australia it is likely that Natasa is the only one who also speaks fluent Montenegran (which is also very similar to neighbouring Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian). With a little more discussion it became evident that Natasa’s niche lay in the delivery of pelvic health physiotherapy in the Montenegran language.
Unfortunately the Montenegran-speaking population in Australia is quite small and well scattered. But where the Montenegran-speaking population is large, is in Montenegro. And more excitingly, in Montenegro there is not a single pelvic physiotherapist with which to compete. The greatest opportunity for Natasa lay in providing pelvic physiotherapy services to the people of Montenegro.
But as Brett and Natasa were not quite ready to migrate back to Montenegro they would have to find an alternative way to deliver the service. And that way is via the Internet. Natasa’s business model is to provide pelvic physiotherapy information and education to Montenegrans from her home in Australia.
Next Natasa needed to develop a brand. And it probably comes as no surprise that she chose the Montenegran version of ‘Pelvic Physio’, which is ‘Karlica Physio’.
Being a digital service, Natasa secured the exact-match website domain name www.karlica.physio and created Social Media accounts for the business. And then she developed a logo with her combined business name/website address Karlica.Physio built in.
Which brings us to the present. Natasa will begin providing free educational information about pelvic health in Montenegran for her website and use her Social Media accounts to drive traffic to her website. Her existing family, friends and colleagues will help raise awareness of the site and Social Media accounts.
Monetization of her service will occur on two fronts. Natasa will provide telephysio consults to individual patients in Montenegro and provide Women’s Health education to Montenegran physiotherapists through the creation of digital training modules.
More excitingly, the business will facilitate Natasa and Brett travelling regularly to Montenegro to provide personal consultations and practical training to the local physiotherapists.
The future is incredibly exciting for Natasa and Brett who are pioneering a new way to build a successful physiotherapy business whilst improving the delivery of health services to the people of Montenegro. The recipe to their success has been threefold, they: 1) found their niche, 2) branded well and 3) digitized their products.
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