Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Paige Larson, Founder of North Shore Sports Medicine ULC, located in North Vancouver, BC, CA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

North Shore Sports Medicine (NSSM) is a multidisciplinary preventive and rehabilitative healthcare center with two locations offering a diverse range of treatments and services to our community. Our mission is to create better lives, which we achieve by making the individual's goals our goals. In order to achieve a fully patient-centric clinic, our services include:
• Acupuncture
• Athletic taping
• Dietary counseling with a Dietitian
• Dry needling
• Electrotherapy
• GLA:D™ (Good Life with Osteoarthritis in Denmark) Canada education and exercise program
• Intramuscular Muscular Stimulation (IMS)
• Kinesiology
• Lymph drainage therapy
• Manipulation
• Manual therapy
• Massage therapy
• Naturopathy
• Orthotics
• Osteoporosis treatment and fall prevention
• Physiotherapy
• Pilates
• Prolotherapy
• Rehabilitation gym visits
• Vestibular rehabilitation

Since our founding, we have continually expanded our services and sought new ways to grow our business. Our latest diversification is our Run Club. We have had to expand to include more sessions due to overwhelming demand. We added new services and programs in the past as we investigated new avenues of growth. Given the serious shortage of well-trained physiotherapists in British Columbia, I created and offered a Physiotherapist Fellowship Program for new physiotherapists. Many healthcare businesses could benefit from mentorship by clinicians and business experts from a more established healthcare center. I created and offered a Business Mentoring Program for healthcare businesses. I pride myself on being a positive force for economic growth and promoting healthy lifestyles on the North Shore. Therefore, we also offer pro bono services to those in need to help individuals who cannot normally afford our services return to health and a more active lifestyle. My clinicians, staff, and I provide extensive community support in volunteer physiotherapy and educational services to local, provincial, and national teams, events, and organizations. We treat individuals of all ages at both our clinics, including athletes ranging from professionals, Olympians, and Paralympians to weekend warriors. Although we are primarily a sports medicine clinic, we also treat individuals who enjoy a more sedentary lifestyle but have a condition or injury requiring treatment. Our goal is to be an excellent source of clinical and sports-related health services to our community.

Tell us about yourself

My career and business grew out of two goals: to be active in athletics and to help others achieve their active lifestyle goals. I had to innovate to accomplish both goals, which produced both profits, economic benefit, and excitement for my clinicians, staff, community, and myself. As a child, I loved competing in figure skating, swimming, and cross-country running, among many other sports. My father was a sportswriter, so sports were always important in our family. I realized, given the level of skill of Olympic-level athletes, that I had a much better chance of getting to the Olympics as something other than as an athlete. Therefore, I became a physiotherapist, created my sports-centered business, and achieved my goals of being involved in sports (and getting to the Olympics) while helping others stay active. I have worked with Canadian Paralympic teams, the Vancouver Olympics, Skate Canada, and many other teams and athletes at local, national, and international events. As a physiotherapist, I have traveled all over the world. That restless spirit is reflected in the innovation at the core of my entrepreneurial business. My two clinics would be smaller without innovation, offering just physiotherapy treating an unchanging subset of patients with similar conditions. From the beginning, I wanted a more diverse clinical practice that would enable greater economic growth for my company. Working with only physiotherapists can be limiting. I quickly saw the benefit of bringing together multiple disciplines under one roof to treat patients. This was a novel approach more than 35 years ago when I began practicing as a physiotherapist. I wanted to be the best at what I do and offer the best service from the start. To do that, I had to respond to what I saw as the needs of my patients and the clinical needs of my community. A patient needs many things to recover, and I wanted them all to come from my clinic, not down the street, so I worked (and continue to work) to bring together more and more services to help patients achieve happier, healthier, and more fulfilled lives: to Live Better. As well as wanting to be the best me, I wanted my practitioners to be the best, which led me to develop my Fellowship Program. Over the past seven years, the program has allowed my other veteran clinicians and me to mentor new physiotherapists on a path to success. Our stakeholders have benefited greatly from the program in terms of the refined practicing techniques we teach, business strategies we outline, and education and mentoring in all aspects of what it takes to be highly successful physiotherapists in a multidisciplinary private practice, which has, for the most part, become the norm in today's healthcare environment.
Day-in and day-out, I love working with patients. Their progress and return to their lives happier and more fulfilled keep me loving my business even after these years. They are what makes me come to work each day.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Patients are at the core of our business. If we do not help our patients heal, then nothing else matters. Our success in this area is reflected in the countless referrals from satisfied customers. Our steady financial growth and consistent profits every year since our founding have enabled us to provide our unrivaled level of community service. A key highlight of our community involvement was the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics in my hometown of Vancouver. Based on more than 25 years of experience at that time, proven high standards, and my reputation as an innovative leader in my field, the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) selected me to manage the physiotherapy services for figure skating and the gold-medal-winning Canadian National Wheelchair Curling Team selected me as their therapist.

For 35 years, we have continued to add new, innovative healthcare services to NSSM while operating more as a business than as a physiotherapy clinic—a rarity in the field. This led to me being recognized as the 2010 Business Person of the Year by the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce. Innovation continues with our Physiotherapist Fellowship Program, which helps remedy a shortage of such specialists by enhancing the training of new physiotherapists and establishing relationships with them to select only the finest clinicians for our clinics. Our level of community involvement and collaborative agreements with other businesses — both further innovative aspects of my business strategy — are unsurpassed and keep NSSM foremost in the public mind for those in need of any of our diverse range of services. Our community outreach and service were recognized with the 2014 Profit Magazine Small Business Achievement Social Impact Award. Although this was a national award and an extremely significant achievement, the bigger achievements are with our patients - their joy and appreciation for us. Getting them back to their lives after debilitating injuries and having their lives around after what many thoughts were something that would change their lives for the worse forever. That can bring me to tears since I am so happy for them after all the work we have done together to rehabilitate them and return them to their former life and beyond. That aspect is far and away what I consider our top achievement and the foundation of our business: quality patient care, which I insist upon and set the example for every day. If a patient leaves our clinic no healthier than when they arrived, then we have failed. Our goal is for our patients to leave our care and return to the same or even better lifestyle than they enjoyed when they first entered one of our clinics. After more than 25 years, I am proud that I have created a business from nothing, which has provided emotionally satisfying employment for dozens of clinicians and staff. I have seen my clinicians and employees buy homes, start families, and retire--all supported by their work at my clinics. It is extremely satisfying to provide the foundation for so many fulfilling lives in my community.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

One of the hardest things about being a business owner is accepting that you cannot do it all. As owners, we tend to be driven and think we know it all. It is critical to a business's success that, as owners, we learn early on that we need help. Bringing on people who complement our strengths and fill in for our weaknesses is so important that it will make or break a business. The sooner we learn that as owners, the better. Letting go of more and more as the business grows is the only way that it will continue to grow. Hiring the right people is important, and even hiring help with that can be difficult. We can be stronger for our companies as we see our weaknesses, allowing others to pick up where we need help. Over the years, we see how the company has grown and needs different things provided by different people, many of whom are not ourselves, which can be difficult to accept at times. With acceptance, though, we create a strong team running a strong and successful business.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

The most important advice that I would give someone is to accept that you cannot do it all, and you need to hire to fill in the gaps in your knowledge and strengths. It is critical to let go of things and allow others to have control of areas that are not your expertise. This can be very hard, but your company's success depends on it. The third thing I would say is to walk before you run. Getting large spaces with all the latest equipment, bells, and whistles is not usually the best way to get started. If you cannot carry your overhead, things will not go well. Progressing slowly, methodically, and with a definite plan will bode well in the long run. It may seem like a great idea to have a large storefront with shiny new equipment, but if you cannot cover the leases and payments, it will not be your large storefront for long.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://nssm.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nssportsmed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nssportsmed/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NSSportsMed
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3Q9uX2U

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