Marketing 101

“The Dictionary Is The Only Place Where Success Comes Before Work.”

–Vince Lombardi

I recently ran across this quote - a great quote by one of the most famous football coaches of all time. I was thinking about how this applied to the general subject of marketing that I’ve been addressing, when not talking about the financial crisis backstory, in many of the recent blogs.

So, how might this apply to marketing a health care practice? Everybody wants to know how to capture their share of the market for their area and wants that magic bullet that is going to get new patients or clients who have the means to purchase the treatment plans you recommend without batting an eye. And to have them lining up outside their office door.

Well, this month’s Hot Tips is about an attitude or viewpoint that must be there to make marketing even happen, let alone work. I recall a doctor once told me that as long as he practiced good medicine patients would come to him with out having to do anything. I don’t hear much from him any more. I wonder what happened to him? Why? Because even if he was the greatest doctor in the world, without proper marketing – even if it is only "word of mouth”, very few people will know to go to him. In fact we’ve seen doctors in the exact same socio-economic areas of a city – one being a truly great clinician and the other being an average clinician, have completely different practices. And it was the average clinician who was out producing the brilliant clinician by well over two times. Why? Because he marketed himself and the other one didn’t at all.

Just last month this same average clinician told me that he had his best month ever. His production and his collections for the month beat all previous records! And this happened while the economy is going down the drain. What did he do differently than others? Simple…he is promoting his business using any reasonable, cost effective method he can.

While other practices are sitting on the sidelines concerned with what their colleagues might say about a practice that is aggressively promoting for new patients, or feeling that the economy is too lousy to spend any money to market their practice, he is actively marketing both internally and externally.

A simple, low cost activity produced him several quality new patients. He set up a booth at local fair and paid his staff to hand out gift bags with his practice name on it and a practice brochure in the bag. He simply decided that, in order to capture his share of the market, he would let people know where to find him and what he could do for them. Just six years ago, when he was still getting his practice off the ground, he was really concerned that the doctors in his area were going to look down on him if he promoted his practice. Once he realized that both the quantity and quality of health care that he delivered had a great deal to do with him achieving his purposes as a health care provider, he decided that he had to be proactive in marketing and promotion for new patients. He saw that if he didn’t do this, he would simply be at effect of whether he was able to deliver both the quantity and quality of health care that he felt he was capable of delivering. With that in mind he quickly learned good, cost effective marketing techniques and now he is flourishing in a very small town in tough economic times while others doctors around him are complaining about a lack of productivity and blaming it on the economy.

Some doctors say, “Well, I didn’t get into medicine just for the money…” I think that is true of most every doctor. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore making your practice as prosperous as possible because “you didn’t get into it for the money.” When your practice is suffering along with the economy and you have to lay off staff, or cut back on bonuses or vacations and not be able to buy the equipment you need, your noble purpose can only take you so far. You do have to know more than just your doctoring skills. And marketing is just one of at least a dozen practice management skills that have nothing to do with whether or not you are the finest clinician in your city or state. Without some level of effective marketing, you will not and cannot grow your practice, no matter how good of a doctor you are.

You are a doctor. It is therefore a safe “given” that you want to help others by practicing your medical expertise. But, to state the obvious, you need new patients coming in the door to service in order to achieve that. And to do that, you need to do something. Get out of your practice and let people know you exist. Join the Lion’s Club or Rotary Club or Chamber of Commerce and get yourself really known in your community. Donate your time and services to those who need it and get that known by others. Sponsor a Little League team, start a canned food drive, do something to let your community know that you are alive and in practice to help them. Make yourself known to the public at large that you are part of the community and you are there to help. Use any media at all to help you do this. All of these are very inexpensive ways to promote your practice externally. Additionally, you should have an excellent internal referral program that all by itself could produce enough new patients or clients for you to thrive on.

Given the economic climate of the day, now is the time to truly be pro-active with the marketing and promotion of your practice. Doctors cannot sit on their past laurels and expect an adequate volume of patients to walk in the door as they might have been able to do some years ago. It takes action to make it happen but it doesn’t have to be costly to do. We know a myriad of ways to make all this happen. If you wish to know more, just contact us at: info@silkinmanagementgroup.com and we’d be happy to help, or visit our Discussion Form on the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

Silkin Management Group Home Page
Visit our Facebook Page
Silkin Management Group Press Room
Solutions Magazine