Speech Therapist Business Plan, Marketing Plan, How To Guide, and Funding Directory
The Speech Therapist Business Plan and Business Development toolkit features 18 different documents that you can use for capital raising or general business planning purposes. Our product line also features comprehensive information regarding to how to start a Speech Therapist business. All business planning packages come with easy-to-use instructions so that you can reduce the time needed to create a professional business plan and presentation.
Your Business Planning Package will be available for download after your purchase.
Product Specifications (please see images below):
- Bank/Investor Ready!
- Complete Industry Research
- 3 Year Excel Financial Model
- Business Plan (26 to 30 pages)
- Loan Amortization and ROI Tools
- Three SWOT Analysis Templates
- Easy to Use Instructions
- All Documents Delivered in Word, Excel, and PDF Format
- Meets SBA Requirements
Speech therapy in the United States has become far more commonplace than it was even 20 years ago. The number of universities that now provide speech pathology and speech therapy training to individuals has increased substantially as medical centers and hospitals seek to hire allied health professionals to render the services. In any economic environment, the demand for speech therapy services is substantial. This is primarily due to the fact that this is a necessity – especially for young children – in order to effectively communicate with other people. Additionally, speech therapy is almost always covered by most health insurance plans as well as publicly funded systems including Medicare and Medicaid in most instances. Additionally, many speech therapists also render services to people have had substantial accidents or have had a medical condition that requires them to learn how to speak again.
As such, these professionals are always able to provide their services effectively to the general public. There are numerous positions available for speech therapists in hospital settings, office settings, schools, and that university settings. Many speech pathologists or speech therapist seek to develop their own practice in order to have a substantial degree of autonomy and independence in regard to how they practice.
Startup costs associated with a new speech therapy practice are very low in these businesses can be started for as little as $10,000. The barriers to entry are considered to be very high given the fact that a doctor in speech therapy or speech pathology coupled with a license from the state is typically required in order to render the services to the general public. There is nothing about this business that is going to be subject to automation or any other change in technology. In fact, many recent technologies actually assist speech therapist with better rendering services to their clients.
Given that this is a healthcare focused business, almost all financial institutions are willing to provide the line of credit or business loan needed in order to launch operations. Most financial institutions – especially the amount sought is over $50,000 – will require the speech therapist business plan is developed. This business plan should feature a three-year profit and loss statement, cash analysis, balance sheet, breakeven analysis, and business ratios page. There are currently about 25,000 licensed speech therapist the United States, and each year these businesses aggregate we generate about $4 billion in revenue. The growth of this industry is expected to remain very strong given that many parents now have a greater access to capital, and they want to make sure that their children are able to properly speak and communicate with other people. Included in the business plan should also be a demographic analysis that outlines the population size, population density, median household income, median home value, percentage of children under the age of 18, percentage of people that require speech therapy in any given population size, and related statistics should be included within the plan.
In fact, it is best to actually develop the demographic profile and examination the market first in order to understand how many potential clients there are in any given market. An analysis regarding the number of competitors within the market should also be included so that a speech therapist isn’t looking to establish a new practice where there is a substantial number of practitioners already operating. This is often referred to as market saturation.
A speech therapy practice SWOT analysis is frequently developed as well and assist the entrepreneur with determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that are normally faced by this businesses on a day-to-day basis. As relates the strengths, speech therapists are always able to produce revenues not only from client payments but also from reimbursements from insurance as well as publicly funded health systems. The gross margins generated from the services is very high, and the barriers to entry for this business are very high given the educational and licensing requirements. Typically, competition most markets is considered to be moderate.
For weaknesses, the amount of revenue generated from each client is typically on the lower end of a healthcare business. However, reimbursement rates for speech therapists have risen in recent years given the expanded educational requirements in order to obtain a license from the state.
As it relates to opportunities, many speech therapists are able to aggressively expand their operations by hiring staff therapists that will render services on behalf of the company. Typically, in these scenarios – the speech therapy practice is operating substantially in agency capacity as it relates to providing speech pathology, speech therapy, and linguistic training to individuals.
Beyond any competitive issue, the biggest threat faced by a speech therapy practice is the fact that reimbursement rates can fluctuate depending on the political climate. As such, it is incumbent upon the owner operator warhead speech therapist to keep a very close eye on the reimbursement rates so that cash flow can be properly managed in addition to the underlying operating expenses. Given that most the speech therapists only require a minimal amount of equipment and a small office – the underlying operating costs of a speech therapy practice are typically low.
A financial institution, private investor, the entrepreneur is going to want to see a speech therapy focused marketing plan. For most, these professional practices typically operate heavily from physician referrals. In many instances, a physician referral is required before a insurance company will provide a reimbursement for speech therapy services rendered. As such, it is imperative that the owner operator have a substantial amount of contacts within the regional medical industry in order to ensure that pediatricians, and trauma specialists are able to further young patients and individuals that have suffered injuries to the speech therapy practice. Beyond these referrals, it is very important that the speech therapist also maintain an expansive website that showcases the background of the owner, staff speech therapists or speech pathologists, hours of operation, preliminary pricing information for people that do not have health insurance, and location information.
This website can be listed among all major search engines in order to drive traffic when a person does a specific search for speech therapy in any given market. Most web development firms will assist the owner with integrating search engine optimization into their website to make sure that the web page comes up frequently when a search is done.
Although not required, many speech therapist to maintain a very modest profile on social media platforms. This can assist early on in the business as people frequently asked their community of friends and families for referrals when they require these highly specialized services. As such, maintaining a very simple presence – which only takes a few hours to set up – can be helpful during the early stages of practice development. This requires absolutely no money involved, and the return on investment is pretty good given the very limited amount of time necessary in order to establish a limited presence on popular social networking platforms like FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Of special importance when marketing to the general public is FaceBook as many people will use these profiles when searching for specialized practitioners.
Speech therapy and speech pathology will remain one of the most important aspects of the allied healthcare professions. Parents want to see their children and succeed and they are willing to provide the necessary support for them to speak properly. Additionally, people have had substantial injuries also going to want to quickly get back to normal will use of speech therapy and special speech pathology services. As such, these businesses are in a very strong position to grow and expand over the next 10 to 20 years. There may also be a substantial segment of the Baby Boomer generation that may require the services as they deal with older age issues.