Member Spotlight for January 2022: Meet Steve & Gill

Meet Steve & Gill Wells

Steve & Gill are Epsom's finest duo, making waves in the healthcare industry.
After years of 2am finishes and being close to burn out...they have discovered that building a practice that can work independently without them does exist!
Their regular camper van adventures away prove they have built a business and an incredible team that no longer relies on them.
Learn how they did it below...

Who: Steve & Gill Wells

What: Epsom Footcare

Where: Epsom, Surrey, UK

When: Qualified as a podiatrist in 2003 and bought a clinic in 2004 from someone who was retired. The practice had already been established for over 30 years in a popular market town in Surrey.

Why: After only 18 months in the NHS I had become unhappy with the work environment and experience. I found the job too isolated and felt that my employer took advantage by expecting long hours without overtime pay.

Winners of 'Practice Of The Year' at The HIVE Practice Awards 2021

The Problem:

Initially the financial commitment was worrying as I needed to retain patients who had been seeing the same practitioner, in many cases for 20 years or more.

I was was not new to working for myself as before my degree I had worked for 12 years as a sports therapist in private practice.

Suddenly, I had to run a much more intricate business.

Previously, I had rented a room at a Sports Centre – now I had to run a 3-room practice whilst treating generally 15-20 patients per day.

I had an associate who worked 3 days per week and 2 receptionists who job shared.

I was generating approximately 60% of the practice revenue so holidays were always kept to a minimum otherwise any time off meant a large drop in revenue.

Constantly exhausted, stressed and under pressure – I had no time for a personal life.

Even after 15 years of owning the clinic I was still treating over 20 patients a day then taking work home to do in the evenings – often until 2am – and at weekends.

Enjoying longer breaks away.

The Solution:

We got married in July of 2018 shortly after Gill left the corporate world and at the same time one of my admin team decided to finally retire. Gill offered to step in for the short term while we found another admin but enjoyed both that role and helping to run the business so much, she decided to become my business partner and practice manager.

I had mentioned The HIVE after meeting some members on a course. We looked further into it and decided to give it a try. Since then, we have never looked back.

The HIVE taught me how to separate running the business from being a clinician. Our coaches helped me understand that I couldn’t grow the business or enjoy my personal life, all the time the business relied on me.

Upon joining The HIVE we simply followed the process, implemented the systems and did the work.

Positive results happened very quickly which motivated us to keep on learning and doing what we were taught.

We moved from an associate driven model to a PAYE model. We recruited, mentored and empowered an incredible team that is highly capable of running the business without us. We now work smarter not harder and have a successful growing business where the income is not dependent on us.

We learnt to value our time and let go of doing everything ourselves – outsourcing many of the tasks we’d always done – finding a cleaner, gardener and awesome bookkeeper.

Adventures in their camper van!

The Outcome:

We finally have a business that works for us – it’s no longer just a job.

Running our business is fulfilling and makes us incredibly proud.

It can still be challenging but in a different and more comfortable way. Being pretty much off the tools allows us to focus on systemising the practice alongside mentoring and developing our team.

 

We now take longer holidays and enjoy a more flexible level of freedom than we ever had before – it’s a fantastic feeling being able to choose when we want to work.

Turnover increased by 27% in first year of becoming Hive members and 62% in the second (Covid year).


Revenue generated by principal now down to 10% and will soon be zero!


Practice nirvana with an increasing multiple 6 figure income, healthy profits, and a growing cash reserve.

It feels good to be free!

The Future

Continue to expand and develop, find larger premises and eventually retire – times scales yet to be determined but we’re certainly now well along the pathway and much further than we would have ever been without the Hive.

Outside the Practice:

Spending quality leisure time together – campervanning, kayaking, hiking, exploring new places – playing guitar and eventually getting back to travelling overseas more often once restrictions allow.

Congratulations to Steve & Gill, you both truly deserve all the success, you have earned it with your hard work and dedication.

You have raised the bar with the quality of your work and service and we are excited to see what 2022 has in store for you both.

Keep up the incredible work!

 

 

To your own success and beyond.

Katie & The HIVE Team

P.S. Do you want to get results like Steve & Gill?

Start your journey here today by watching the video below:

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