Huyen:
Welcome to OMD TV, the place to be to grow and scale your practice. I am Huyen Truong and this is my co-host Steven Tait
Today we’re talking about the number 1 ability that you need to master to grow your private practice… and it isn’t what you think!
This ability that you need is going to help explode your practice.
Let me ask you…what do you think is the number 1 ability that you need to thrive in the healthcare industry?
Steve
You are probably thinking …well “it is definitely treating patients”.
Be good at what you do, people will talk about you and refer patients to your business.
And that is a great answer, and true in many ways. But let me ask you another question… can you rely on people’s word of mouth referrals to plan and grow your business?
It’s unpredictable right? Do you where your next patient referral is coming from? It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, or maybe even next month?
How can you plan on that?
Huyen
Even if your main source of patients are from referring doctors, you still need a referral marketing plan to maintain and grow your new patients.
What you really need is the ability to generate new patients for your practice.
Think about it…if you don’t have patients coming through the door, you don’t have anyone to treat.
So, the number 1 ability you need is the ability to market.
Steve
If you look at some of the most successful business owners in this world like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, do you notice what they are all good at? That is the ability to market their businesses.
Now marketing is all about having a better conversation with your prospects. It could be via a small ebook, your emails, your videos, blog posts or your social media posts.
But if you can’t be competent or exceptionally well at inspiring these better conversations, you won’t be able to attract people to come in for treatments.
And if you don’t have the ability to attract patients to your practice when you need them, what is the impact on your business?
Huyen
You can’t really plan, you can’t hire…who to hire and when to hire?
You won’t be able to make any solid financial decisions when you don’t know how much money you will have; week to week. One week you could have a flood of patients coming through the door, the other week your book is just empty.
You can’t make plans based on traffic like that. And if you don’t know how to market, you won’t be able to guarantee a reliable consistent traffic that will allow for better business planning.
Steve
Have you listened to Brian Tracy – a legendary leadership and personal developer coach? He has some incredibly valuable books and YouTube videos online.
If you haven’t listened to Brian Tracy, please do.
He said this one thing that changed everything for me… “You are not in the business you think you are in, you are in the marketing business.”
Huyen
When I first listened to that, I was thinking like … oh my goodness… I was doing a lot of SEO myself and I thought I was in SEO business. When really, the SEO was just my service, I was in the business of marketing my skills as an SEO strategist, convincing people that I can help get their company to rank better on Google.
One of the most important abilities of clinic owners is to able to market and sell their services, products, and solutions to their patients or referring partners.
I really want to emphasize this for you guys… you are in the marketing business.
It doesn’t mean that clinical skills are not important. You still need to have great clinical skills so that when patients come in, they have a good experience with your clinic and they rave about you.
But you need to have the ability to attract new patients.
Not just wait around and rely on word of mouth or referrals (which I do love by the way).
Steve
The market has shifted, and you need to learn how to market online through Google and social media if you want to be successful with your clinic.
Let me tell you this story…
I know 2 GPs who have a different mindset when it comes to marketing.
A year ago, one GP doctor had this vision of an online GP practice, and wanted to start offering online video consultations for patients. But he didn’t really believe in digital marketing and the power it could have for that type of service offering. And when the Coronavirus pandemic hit, he hadn’t leveraged that technology and he had to with patient cancellations and revenue heading south.
In the meantime, I know another GP who pivoted immediately during the first week when the lockdown situation hit, and we helped him quickly set up a new website and Google and Facebook ad campaigns for these new online services. And everything was up and running in a week, generating new patients immediately. His daily number of bookings has been growing steadily, and now he is even recruiting new doctors to join the team.
Do you see the difference between a business and a marketing driven practice owner, and a business that doesn’t have that same philosophy?
Huyen
You need to be exceptionally good clinically. But if you are not good at marketing, then someone else out there that is more aggressive with their marketing, regardless of their skillset, is going to get the lion share of the market.
Marketing is the number 1 ability that you need to have. And while there are many platforms you can try for your marketing initiatives, some clients of ours find success in dinner with docs events, some find more success with Google ads; you cannot deny the most successful practice has this marketing ability.
Steve
Are you noticing other clinics offering similar services and products to yours, that produce average results compared to your clinic? But they are doing very well with their marketing and sales, and prospective patients are just drawn to them?
We all know that a McDonald’s burger isn’t the tastiest one in the world, but they sell the most burgers in the world. So, how do they do that? They’ve mastered that number 1 ability, marketing.
Huyen
In medical school however, no one taught you how to market and sell your skills.
And in some cases, these schools could have given you the impression that marketing and promoting your product and services goes against professional healthcare ethics.
You might be extremely proud of the services that you offer; but the reality is that nothing happens, and no money is earned, until something is booked (or sold). Sales doesn’t have to be pushy or sleazy, it is in fact that old school tactic that just doesn’t work anymore.
Sales today is all about effective communication; to convince prospects to take a desired action on a service or product that you offer, which provides value to your prospects.
Steve
Whether you want to convince your prospects to believe in your skills and experience and follow your treatment course, or you are trying to persuade your referral partners that you are the best person to refer new patients to when it comes to dealing with particular cases, or even in the team environment when you need to sell your ideas to get your team to buy in to your strategies; having sales skills is vitally important.
If you can’t effectively communicate your value proposition, or more importantly get people to commit, take action and to use your services or follow your treatment plan; nothing else really matters.
Regardless of how good your skills, services or team are. If you can’t communicate and sell your services, all of your efforts could be wasted.
You need to understand that having an effective marketing and sales technique is a serious matter that you need to commit to and go all in to master. Having a marketing and sales’ mindset is such an important aspect that drives your business.
In many ways, the success of your practice will be determined by it.
Huyen
But I’d love to hear from you, and so my question for you is… how do you want to market your clinic? Please list the top 3 things you want to try in the comment section below, and also tell us what will be the immediate actions that you’re gonna take to make this happen this week?
As Brian Tracy said “Activity is the key to success. Thoughts will never amount to anything unless you take action to make it a reality. “
Thanks for watching, and remember if you want to change the future for your clinic and yourselves, take action and take action NOW!
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