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Using your expertise to your advantage

Using your expertise to your advantage

Nadine Milgate is an accredited occupational therapist. She is an inspirational example, of how Mum’s can successfully start a business using their professional skills and experience within a particularly field or discipline.  Nadine started her business Riverina Rehab Connect in 2003.  Her business, Riverina Rehab Connect provides quality occupational therapy assessment, treatment and consultancy services to individuals and businesses. Nadine’s current clientele include children and adults.

She specialises in the following areas;

1.    Adult rehabilitation. Assessment and treatment of adults who have suffered a physical trauma and as result have reduced capacity in performing daily tasks at home, work or in the community,
2.    Paediatric occupational therapy. Assessment and treatment of children who may be having difficulties at school or who have reduced independence in performing their daily tasks, and
3.    Injury and risk management. Providing training and consultancy services eg. workplace and ergonomic assessments, risk assessments, businesses. Assisting to businesses to create and implement effective workplace injury prevention systems.

Nadine is similar to many business owners, she always knew she wanted to own her own business, specialising in her field of expertise. Nadine admits like many business Mums she didn’t anticipate starting her business so soon after having children. Like many Mums Nadine was motivated to start her business so she could have the best of both worlds and better manage family and working life. Nadine successfully staged her entry into the business world. “Haste” is a common mistake many people make in pursuit of becoming a business owners. Propelled by excitement some people rush to start their own business and make fatal mistakes. Nadine took the sensible approach and started out as a sub contractor to larger businesses. This gave Nadine an introduction into the world of owning and operating her own business.  In 2003 Nadine took a big step and launched her own business Riverina Rehab Connect.  

Nadine took a very smart approach to starting her business she researched the target market and identified a need within local businesses of her area. Based on her nine years of experience in rehabilitation and occupational therapy she surmised businesses were traditionally focusing their efforts on the wrong area of occupational health and safety (OH&S).  Rather than focusing on a proactive approach to OH&S, where businesses concentrated a majority of their efforts on rehabilitating people back to work, Nadine set about designing a product focused on prevention. Nadine developed and introduced a product called “The pre-claim work place assessment”. Nadine offered to assess businesses with workers who were complaining of a work place injury such as wrist strain and or who had documented injuries in an injury logbook. She offered to address these injuries by putting in place corrective measures proactively ensuring the potential accident doesn’t turn into a workers compensation claim.  Rather than provide the remedy after the fact, Nadine turned the tables and identified the real starting point of her customers needs.  To succeed in business this is the most important lesson.  You must find ways to truly satisfy your customers needs, not necessarily follow what is already on the market, sometimes it is as straight forward as Nadine has demonstrated.  Assessing where the real point of need arises.

Nadine says to build her own clientele she decided to do a combination of cold canvass and make contact with previously known colleagues.  With her passion for preventative and proactive approach to OH&S, Nadine was able to secure a large contract with a local business. As Nadine’s business started to grow, she moved into other areas where she identified customers needs were not fulfilled.  In Nadine’s rural town, there were no private occupational therapists specialising in paediatrics.  To access such services members of her community would travel many hours, placing a greater burden on the family. Nadine clearly identified a need in this area of occupational therapy and now gets enormous satisfaction through assisting those families who may not have received a service otherwise. It is very important to identify a genuine need exists when you go into business.  Just like Nadine, when you are able to successfully satisfy an indisputable need word of mouth soon spreads, lessoning the need to spend money on advertising and marketing activities. Nadine advocates strongly that developing relationships with key stakeholders makes good business sense. Nadine says she pays particular attention to responding to the needs of all her clients and referring agents, to ensure they get a service which is tailor made to all their needs.

In business it can be difficult to stay focused, particularly when there are many opportunities presented to expand and grow your business.  You need to understand which opportunities to say yes to and those you should discard. Nadine acknowledges some of the greatest challenges in owning her own business is saying “no”.  Like many entrepreneurs, Nadine has a broad interest she is excited by new ideas and initiatives she says she finds it is not as easy to say no to new referrals and opportunities. She often wonders what the consequences are to saying no, what potential opportunities are forgone. Nadine does offer this bit of advice she say’s it is important to weigh up every opportunity with balancing family life and your other personal commitments. Nadine is very strategic about her marketing efforts, ensuring that she does  not approach potentially new markets if she is unable to service their needs to the highest of standards.

Nadine finds she is able to a balance the role of a business owner and a Mum by structuring her week.  She has allocated a dedicated two and half days to her business and she works evenings as required.  Nadine advises, business Mums should allocate a day off.  It is important not to feel as though the business is consuming your entire week and taking over your life, especially if your office is located at home.

Home-based business owners often feel a great sense of isolation, especially if they have come from an office environment.  Nadine admits one of the adjustments she has had to make is from an office environment where you could easily catch up with  colleagues to chat or discuss work related matters.  To overcome the sense of isolation Nadine suggests business owners subscribe to other forums, particularly those in their profession or seek mentoring from respected colleagues.  Some business owners can find it difficult to get the time to attend networking functions given their other commitments, on line forums, are a great alternative.

When looking into what you could do from home, don’t try to over complicate things, trying to find the next best thing.  Sometimes it is just as simple as tapping into the skills and or expertise you may have developed in your professional career.